CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE LIVINGSTONES FELL apart at the death of their chief and their grief put a pall over Aulay’s deck. They stood about with expressions that were a mix of confusion and torment, talking in low voices and glancing furtively over their shoulders as if they expected death to sneak up and take them, too.
Some of them were positively bereft. The actor openly sobbed as he spoke to Iain the Red about the old man.
Aulay made his way to the quarterdeck, unchecked, unchallenged. There was no pretense of captives or captors any longer.
The door to his cabin was open. He could see a small group of Livingstones gathered there, all of them in tears, all of them with a hand clamped on the shoulder of the next, or an arm thrown loosely around the next person’s waist, their heads bowed.
Lottie was somewhere among them.
Aulay would never forget the sound she made when she realized what had happened. It wasn’t loud, it was quite soft. But it was anguish, pure anguish—the sound of a heart breaking. She’d said not a word, but had climbed up the rope ladder like a monkey and disappeared before Aulay and Norval could set the ropes to raise the boat and climb the ladder themselves. Before anyone could say aloud that the old man had died.
Norval trailed behind Aulay now, as if he wasn’t certain if he ought to guard Aulay or help him. Aulay caught Iain the Red’s eye and gestured for him to join him on the quarterdeck. When Iain reached him, Aulay said, “Prepare to make sail.”
“Pardon?” Norval said, looking between Iain and Aulay. Iain brushed past him to begin work. “On whose command?”
“On mine,” Aulay said. “Tell who you must, lad, but heed me—if anyone needs persuasion that we must make sail at once, tell them that your mistress’s scheme to sell your spirits has failed, and now, we’ve a group of thieves on our arse. We’ll be lucky to catch a good wind and outrun them, but we must be quick.”
“What is this about? What is he doing here?”
A man Aulay recognized joined them. MacLean was his name.
“He says we have thieves in pursuit,” Norval said.
“Thieves? Why?”
“Och, for the whisky, man,” Aulay said impatiently. “Did any of you truly believe you might casually sell it without question? Without an agent, without any knowledge but what someone had said in passing? I’d wager that now there’s no’ a man on shore who doesna know what is on this ship and that it is ripe for the picking.”
“This is a trick!” MacLean said hotly.
“A trick?” Aulay repeated angrily. “You think that I would trick my own men out of the pay your mistress promised them? Do you think with a gun pointed at my back that I would somehow manage to unload the whisky from my ship? No, sir—the trick was done to you long ago by a Dane. The Copenhagen Company doesna exist. But what does exist is a den of cutthroat thieves who wish to turn your whisky into their gain. I need every man on deck to set the sails and prepare the guns.”
MacLean blinked with surprise. But then he looked at Norval and said, “Do as he says. We all heard the man say they were looking for Scots on shore.”
Aulay jerked around to MacLean. “What man?”
“The man who came for the physician Duff brought on board. It was too late, it was, as Bernt was gone...but the rower asked if we were Scotsmen and said they were looking for Scots.”
“Have you seen anyone else?” Aulay asked.
The man shook his head.
“Gather your men. Tell them we sail and I am captain and to surrender their arms, aye?”
MacLean hesitated.
“Think!” Aulay snapped. “They are stunned by their loss, you canna sell your whisky, and you need us to sail this ship out of harm’s way, aye? We can move ahead with speed, or we can tarry and engage in another fight, but this time, I assure you, we will win.”
MacLean considered that a moment, then sighed with defeat. “Aye.”
“Where is Beaty?” Aulay asked.
“I’ll take you to him,” MacLean said, and gestured for Aulay to follow him.
* * *
IT WAS A ridiculously easy feat to overtake the Livingstones. Their fight, so brilliantly displayed when they’d first boarded the ship, had gone out of them with the loss of their chief. More than one merely handed a gun to a Mackenzie and put up his hands. Those in the captain’s cabin didn’t seem to realize what was happening on deck, and none of them ventured out to have a look.
Beaty was in the forward cabin, seated at a table, cards spread before him, his beefy hands on his knees. He was playing a wagering game with Billy. Jack Mackenzie, who had been injured in the initial attack, tried to gain his feet when he saw Aulay, but the wound was to his leg and he fell back into his chair.
“Cap’n!” Beaty said jovially. “I’d greet you properly, that I would, but I’m bound to this bloody chair.”
“I see,” Aulay said, and signaled MacLean to free him.
“The old man has passed,” Aulay said as MacLean undid the chains. “The Livingstones have surrendered.”
“What is this? Where are they?”
The booming voice of the actor could be heard just outside, and a moment later, he burst into the smaller cabin, crashing against the doorframe and throwing his body into the room as if he thought he was entering a fight. But seeing none, he drew up short and looked around him, confused.
“Have you no’ heard?” MacLean asked. “There was trouble at port,” MacLean said. “We must make a play for open waters.”
“What trouble?” Duff demanded, his gaze swinging back to Aulay. “There was no trouble. We fetched a doctor quick as a hare, we did. I gave them the name of a buyer—”
“A thief,” Aulay said. “Men are looking for the whisky and they mean to take it.”
“Diah, you donna say,” Beaty said.
“I donna believe you,” Duff responded heatedly. “I spoke to the lad in the customs office myself, aye? He gave me a name.”
“He gave you a thieves’ den,” Aulay snapped. “If you find my account lacking, you might inquire of your mistress.”
The actor gasped. “I would no’ dare impose on her now,” he said with great indignation, as if Aulay had suggested bedding her.
He didn’t need this actor to tell him what sort of state she was in. He had been in close company with her and her father for three days and knew how much she loved him. But death was part of life—people passed, and sails still needed setting, skies still needed watching, tides still came and ebbed. Time would not accommodate them to properly mourn the old man.
“Have we the necessary provisions to reach Amsterdam?” Aulay asked Beaty.
Beaty shook his head as MacLean freed him from the shackle. “No’ with so many men aboard, aye? We’re already low on water.”
“Scotland?”
Beaty thought about it. “If we head north, and catch a good wind, then aye. But any trouble at sea, and we’ll find ourselves in a mare’s nest, we will.”
“Scotland, then,” Aulay said without hesitation.
“What of the pay?” Beaty demanded.
“There is no pay,” Aulay said impatiently.
“No pay!” Beaty echoed and stood, shaking out his legs. “And what are we to do with this sorry lot?” he asked, gesturing at the two Livingstones.
What, indeed. “We need them at present,” Aulay said. “We’ll need every able man, until we are certain no one follows.” He and Beaty could discuss how to present them to authorities later. Right now, he needed their cooperation.
“You can keep the whisky,” the actor offered. “Set us free in Scotland and keep the whisky.”
Aulay snorted. “I donna want your bloody whisky—it is as useless to me as it is to you.”
The actor winced. “Och, we’re done, Robert,” he said to MacLean. “We’re done.” He shifted his gaze to Aulay. “Unload the casks, then.”
“By all that is holy, Duff, what is the matter with you, then?” MacLean exclaimed. “You canna throw overboard all that we’ve worked for!”
“Aye, and all that hard work has brought us naugh’ but trouble, has it? First, with our laird, now with this captain and some Danish ruffians. Bernt was wrong,” he said, and put his hand on the other man’s arm. “Bernt was wrong and now he’s bloody well dead.”
MacLean closed his eyes a moment, then opened them with a sigh. “Aye,” he said. “Get rid of it, then. Most of it, that is—save a cask for the lads. We’ll need a few drams after the events of this wretched day.”
Aulay didn’t care to debate the fate of the whisky in that moment. “Make haste, lads, we weigh anchor within the hour.” He had very little hope that they would somehow emerge from this debacle unscathed, but he had not time to contemplate it. He had a ship to put to sail. And he had to convince Lottie that her father would be buried at sea.