CHAPTER TWELVE
THEY DOCKED THE BOAT, then climbed the ladder to the quay. The giant went first, startling a few sailors who happened to be going by, followed by Lottie, then Aulay, and the actor last.
Aalborg looked to be a thriving port, with all the good and bad that went with it. The quay and the road that ran alongside the edge of it were thick with souls—dockhands and sailors, dogs, and young lads who swarmed those who looked as if they had money, begging for coin. The scent of salt, fish and ash was pungent, the gulls loud. Carters passed them with carts full of fish, trailed by gulls looking for food. Old women hawked their wares, young women hawking their much different wares by hanging out the windows of bawdy houses, calling out to sailors who happened by.
The warehouses built along the road were squat buildings. Some of them housed official offices of the Danish crown. Others housed shipping companies.
Aulay should not have been surprised at how sure-footed Lottie was, because this was not a small Scottish island. And yet she strode along confidently, her arms swinging at her sides and a flagon over her shoulder. She strode past a man lying face down in the gutter either dead or drunk; past sailors staggering down the street after what Aulay assumed was a long night of ale and women, their arms around each other’s shoulders, singing in clashing keys and laughing uproariously. She even marched past two harlots who smiled wantonly and called to her in Danish, challenging her.
Lottie paid them no heed. She was made of iron.
Her brother, on the other hand, was so startled by all that he saw that he kept bumping into Aulay, kept muttering under his breath.
They did not walk along without notice—it was impossible to ignore the young giant with his snowy hair and extraordinary height and breadth.
At a corner where an alley met the main street, Lottie stopped, planted her hands on hips and looked around them. “How do we find Anders Iversen and a physician?”
The actor shrugged. The giant was distracted by a pair of women smiling at him from a window overhead. Lottie looked to Aulay.
“You’re asking me?” he asked.
“Who else can help us?”
“I will ignore the irony of your request for my help and suggest you might ask at a duty and toll office, aye?”
“A splendid idea!” the actor proclaimed. He and Lottie looked around, studying the various buildings. “There,” he said, pointing to a building that was a wee bit larger than others. “Toldforvaltning,” he said, reading the sign. “If I were to guess, and guess I shall, as I learned only a wee bit of Danish at me mother’s knee, I’d wager it’s a customs house or something like it.”
“Good,” Lottie said, and put her hand on his back. “Go and inquire after Anders. If they donna know him, then inquire after the Copenhagen Company. And a physician! If naught else, a physician, aye?” She gave him a push.
“Me, is it?” the actor asked uncertainly. He straightened his neckcloth before striking out, striding across the street and very nearly colliding with a cart laden with fish in his haste.
“What are we to do?” the giant asked. He was rocking back and forth on his heels, his arm connecting with Aulay’s back every time he surged forward, as if he had no sense of how large he was, how his body filled the space around him.
“We are to wait,” she said.
The giant rocked, knocking into Aulay again, so Aulay moved aside and put his back against the wall to wait.
Lottie chewed nervously on her bottom lip, her gaze fixed on the offices across the way. She was not thinking of him at all, and it occurred to Aulay that he could slip away. He could slip away, return to the ship, invent some excuse about the Livingstones still on shore, and take control. He could set sail, now, and hope that he might make up for lost time.
He considered it.
And then Aulay imagined something else entirely. Her finger, tracing a path down the side of his thigh. There was no mistaking what that was, no pretending she had innocently or accidentally touched him. He imagined tracing a line down her bare back. Perhaps a bit more slowly. A bit longer. Perhaps following that path with his lips. He was thinking of her naked body when he ought to be thinking of escape.
Aulay frowned. He didn’t like the thoughts stirring in his head. It was infuriating to him that he’d been seduced by his captor. He tried, unconvincingly, to justify not walking away because he meant to see her to justice. To abandon her in Aalborg would mean she would not be punished for her unspeakable crime against him. He tried to convince himself that he didn’t walk away because it would be cruel to leave her and the giant to fend for themselves, with no notion of the world between them. As much as he wanted justice—and he did want justice—he was not a cruel man.
Aulay tried desperately to convince himself of anything but the truth, which was that he no longer knew what sort of man he was. Only a few days ago, he would have sworn to anyone he could not be taken by a lass, and yet here he was. Or that he could possibly harbor feelings of admiration—and yet he did. The last few days had changed him in ways he didn’t like and didn’t understand.
She suddenly jerked around, as if she’d just remembered her prisoner. Aulay smiled with amusement at her fluster. Her brows fell with displeasure. Just over her shoulder, he saw the actor emerge from the customs house, walking briskly toward them, almost running, and he pushed away from the wall.
“What news?” Lottie asked as the actor reached them.
“Well,” he said, pausing to catch his breath, “the gentleman I spoke to said there are only two physicians known to him and neither of them mad enough to board a foreigner’s ship.”
“What?” Lottie cried.
“He has directed us to the Hospital of the Holy Ghost, he has, where Samaritans may be found. Somewhere there,” he indicated, waving vaguely in the direction of the town sprawling behind them. “Quite a large place, he said. Canna miss it.”
“No, no, no—we must find a physician!” Lottie said frantically.
“We’ll inquire at the hospital, lass. I donna know what a duty agent should know of it, really.”
“What else?” she asked.
“Och, ’tis no’ good news,” he said. “The gentleman claimed no familiarity with Anders Iversen—”
“But his father—” Lottie was quick to interject. “Did you tell him Anders Iversen was the bookkeeper of the Copenhagen Company, and his father exchequer?”
“Aye, I did,” the actor said. “I explained to him that Mr. Iversen, whose company we verra much enjoyed last summer, had found occupation as their bookkeeper with the help of his father, who is exchequer and ought to be well known in this port. But he said...” He paused, took off his hat and wiped his forehead.
“He said what?” Lottie demanded.
“Well he laughed, he did, and said the name of the exchequer is Mr. Pedersen and had been for nigh on thirty years, and he’d never heard of Anders Iversen, no’ in this town, nor had he heard of any company hailing from Copenhagen and to move aside, as he had more pressing issues than my ignorance.”
Lottie gasped. The actor returned his hat to his head.
Aulay suppressed a groan of frustration. He was not surprised, given what he knew about the Livingstones. What in hell would he do with all that whisky on his deck? Toss it into the sea?
“That canna be, Duff,” Lottie said, her voice shaking. “Anders would no’ have lied—”
“Apparently, he did, lass, for he told me the same,” the actor said. “But donna fret, aye? I would no’ leave without a wee bit of information and merely explained to the man that we’ve fine Scotch whisky to sell, and he looked a wee bit pleased with it, he did, and said I ought to speak to Mr. Ingoff Holm. He said if there was good whisky to be sold, he’d be the man for it.”
Lottie didn’t respond—she stared at the ground, her brow furrowed.
The actor dipped his head to see her face and said carefully, “Lottie?”
“I beg your pardon,” she said. “What is the man’s name?”
“Ingoff Holm,” the actor repeated. “You may find him in a private room at the Kajen Inn.” He pointed at the inn at the very end of the road.
Lottie flicked a gaze over her brother, who was trying to coax a seagull to him.
“I’d no’ seek this man, were I you,” Aulay offered.
“Why no’?”
How did one explain a sailor’s intuition? “It doesna seem right,” he said with a shrug.
She nodded, then abruptly took Duff’s elbow and pulled him aside. Aulay watched as the two of them carried on an animated conversation until Lottie turned about, and announced, “We’ve no time to waste.” She hesitated, then said, “We’ve decided, Drustan, that you will carry on with Duff. You’re to go to the hospital and find help for our father.” She smiled.
Maybe the giant wasn’t as addled as Aulay had thought, because he was not fooled by that smile. “No, Lottie! I remain with you!”
“No’ this time, Dru,” she said firmly, and withdrew a watch from her pocket, and pressed it carefully into the actor’s palm. She turned to her brother again. “Duff needs you. A physician might need a wee bit of persuasion to row out to our ship, aye? If Duff tells you to pick someone up, you must do it.”
Aulay recoiled. “You’re no’ suggesting he force a man against his—”
“I am suggesting he help Duff,” Lottie said curtly.
“But I should no’ like to leave you with him,” the actor said, and jerked his chin in the direction of Aulay, as if he was the cause of the debacle in which they’d put themselves. “I know you believe you can do all, Lottie, and Diah, you have, we’d be at a great loss without you, we would. But you’re a wee thing, and he might try and...and well, strangle you, aye? He might attempt to throw you in the ocean and leave you there to drown!”
“No!” the giant said angrily, and turned with fury toward Aulay.
Aulay straightened up with mild alarm.
“Duff doesna mean that, Dru—”
“I certainly do mean it—”
“Duff!” She gestured to her brother, who was growing more agitated. “Think! If the captain returns to the ship without me, a battle will be waged, will it no’? He canna have his ship back without me. The man is no fool—he’ll no’ risk damage to his ship or the loss of his own crew.”
The actor looked at Aulay, assessing him. “If you dare lay as much as a finger on her—”
“I beg your pardon,” Aulay said evenly, “but you seem to have confused who has laid hands on whom.”
“Duff...we’ve no time to debate it,” Lottie said urgently.
The giant began to flap his hands and mewl.
Lottie caught her brother’s face in her hands and forced him to look at her. “Calm yourself, Dru,” she said. “You know that Duff will care for you as Mats does, aye? I need you to be strong. Fader needs your help.”
At the mention of the old man, the giant seemed to rethink his anguish. “Fader needs me help,” he repeated. “Fader needs me help.”
“I’ll see you verra soon,” she said, and shifted her gaze to the actor. “Go,” she said softly.
“Aye, come then, lad,” the actor said, and put his hand on the giant’s shoulder. He eyed Aulay darkly as they moved on in the direction of the town, the giant lumbering after him.
Lottie watched them go, her arms wrapped tightly around her, the lines of concern evident around her eyes. When the two of them had turned into an alley and she could no longer see them, she glanced warily at Aulay.
He shook his head. “You’re a rare one, Lottie Livingstone. But bloody well foolish. If this man conducts his business in an inn—”
“I’ve no choice,” she snapped, and turned about, facing the squat building the actor had indicated was the Kajen Inn. “I’m no’ afraid, if that’s what you think. No sir, I’m livid. I will abide many things, but dishonesty is no’ one of them!”
“Pardon?”
“Mr. Iversen is no’ in the post he claimed. Nor does the trading company of which he was so inordinately proud seem to exist. And I have chased across the North Sea because I believed him!” She glanced at him sidelong. “Donna fear, Captain—I’ve my pistol.”
“I donna fear, Lottie. And what you have is a wee dueling pistol that would no’ stop a man who means to do you harm.”
Her eyes glittered with ire. She took a breath that lifted her shoulders and released it, and said, “Captain Mackenzie, I have a matter of hours—hours—to save our clan and my father. I mean to go to that inn and speak to Mr. Ingoff Holm, because I’ve no other option, and now I’ve promised no’ one, but two crews payment. You may come with me, or you may return to the ship, I donna care.”
Well, then. She was lovely when her anger was aroused. A fine wisp of her snowy white hair had come down from the hat, and quite unable to stop himself, he tucked it behind her ear, trailed his finger along the bottom of her lobe and down her neck before he dropped his hand. “Aye, a rare one, you are,” he muttered.
“Will you come with me?”
God help him, but the sea in him was beginning to turn. The things he could see, the things he could count on, knew like the back of his hand, were disappearing, and parts of him that were new, raw and unused, were coming to light. Of course he was going with her. He gestured to the street before them. “After you, then.”
“You do know that if you say a single word to hinder me, I’ll shoot you, and I’ll no’ miss.”
Aulay arched a brow.
“I donna care what happens to me, but if you ruin this chance for us, all is lost for the Livingstones. I canna allow that to happen.”
One side of his mouth curved into a smile. “Aye, lass, you’ve made that abundantly clear.” She was mad to think she could stop him, or anyone for that matter. But he said agreeably, “I consider myself warned,” tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow and led her to the inn.