CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THERE WAS NO wind to speak of as they made their way from Aalborg into Kattegat Bay, and progress was slow. The tiny pinprick of light behind them was also moving slowly, and had made no gains on the Reulag Balhaire for several hours.
Not one of the men who peered through the spyglass—Beaty, Gilroy, Iain the Red and MacLean—could be certain that a ship was actually shadowing them, or was merely headed for the sea. But the steady path of that ship and the timing of its appearance made it suspect in Aulay’s mind. He didn’t want to lose sight of it.
The sooner they had the burial done, the sooner they could turn their attention to outmaneuvering that ship.
He understood from MacLean that Lottie and her healer had washed her father’s body. But with no winding sheets to wrap the body, and no mort cloth to cover him, they had used the coverlet and linens from Aulay’s bunk.
“No coins for his eyes,” MacLean lamented.
“At least we’ve got suitable weights,” Beaty muttered as MacLean moved away. He and Aulay had agreed there was no reason to distress the Livingstones any further by explaining the body had to be weighted so that it would not go trundling off across the waves, bobbing along behind them in their wake. It was better this way—with the cloak of darkness, they’d not know what happened to their father’s corpse, which seemed to be the kindest thing the Mackenzies could do for them.
The actor, Duff, and MacLean took on the task of fashioning a funeral bier from the spines of a whisky cask. The bier would hold the body as Aulay read the scriptures that would commend the old man’s soul to God.
When all the preparations had been made, Aulay hung a lantern at the starboard railing in the same spot the Livingstones had come on board a few days ago...or had it been weeks? It seemed a lifetime ago in many ways. He sent MacLean to assemble the family and begin the procession, and signaled to Iain the Red’s brother, Malcolm, to play the funeral dirge on his pipes.
The Livingstone clan—those who weren’t so far in their cups to impede their ability to walk—gathered solemnly, leaning against one another, staring morosely at their feet or the sky. Another set of them appeared carrying the bier between them, with the old man’s body laid carefully on top. The bier was followed by Lottie and her brothers, walking three abreast, hands held.
Lottie had washed her face and braided her hair, and had dressed in Aulay’s clothes once more. Her skin had an unearthly paleness to it that made her look wraith-like. Grief had a way of reducing a person to a shadow—Lottie seemed frail, nothing like the spirited young woman who had taken his ship.
When the men had placed the bier on the ship’s railing, Aulay signaled Malcolm to cease the pipes. He opened the Bible his mother had given him on the occasion of his first voyage as captain. He recited the passages from rote, really, not hearing or registering the words. It was never an easy thing to give a body to the sea, no matter the circumstance. His mind wandered as he read. Was this the sum of the old man’s life? To have squandered it in the chase of some ill-begotten scheme, only to be slipped into the dark waters of the sea?
He listened to the desperate sounds of the youngest Livingstone, trying so very hard not to weep. He listened to the keening of the giant. He glanced at all of the old man’s children once or twice and despaired for Lottie. She stared straight ahead over the top of her father’s body, her empty gaze fixed into the night’s middle distance, her expression grim.
Aulay ended with Isaiah, “‘So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.’”
Judging by the lack of comfort on any Livingstone’s face, Aulay wondered if any of them truly believed God had them in hand. All signs pointed to the opposite.
He turned to Lottie. “Is there anything more you’d like to add, then?”
She shook her head. Aulay nodded at his first mate. Malcolm began to play the pipes, and the Mackenzies lifted the bier and tilted it so that the body slid off and into the sea. The splash startled them all, and the giant began to sway, his moaning so loud that it arced over the small pipes. The Mackenzie men shifted uncomfortably, none of them understanding how to cope with a damaged giant.
Lottie linked her arm through the giant’s and rested her head against his shoulder, whispering to him. After a moment or two of gulping his sobs, he stopped wailing and turned to Duff, who put an arm around his shoulders and led him away.
MacLean, unsteady on his feet, held up a flagon. “To the chief,” he said. “Slàinte mhath.” He took a good long swig, then passed the flagon to the next man as he dragged his sleeve across his mouth. And so it went, the whisky passed around, every man offering up a toast before drinking deeply from the flagon. But when it came to Lottie, she refused it, turned away from all of them, and disappeared into the dark.
Aulay was the last to receive the flagon. He drank, then gave the order the Livingstones were to be corralled. “Put them in the hold with a guard and a cask of their whisky,” he instructed. The last thing he needed were drunkards careening around his deck. The more important question of what to do with the Livingstones in Scotland still loomed.
“What, why?” one of them complained as he swayed into his neighbor.
“You kept our captain tied like a roasted pig. If he says you’re to go down into the hold, then down you’ll go,” Beaty said gruffly.
There was some arguing about it, but the Livingstones were too drunk to fight and allowed themselves to be escorted, particularly with the promise of whisky.
With the Livingstone clan below deck, the Mackenzies began the arduous task of emptying and sinking whisky casks. They had made it halfway through those stacked on the deck when Beaty interrupted Aulay. “The ship, she’s gaining on us, she is.”
Aulay squinted into the darkness. He couldn’t even make out the pinprick of light any longer. “You’re certain, are you?” he asked as Beaty handed him the spyglass.
“Aye. She’s tacked a wee bit east and north and caught a good wind, she has.”
Aulay lifted the spyglass and spotted the hazy light in the distance. The ship had definitely gained ground. “Leave the whisky,” he said. “Tack north, then east.”
“Aye,” Beaty said. “You ought to get some sleep, Cap’n, if you donna mind me saying. We’ll need you when the sun rises. I’ll fetch you if we need you before then.”
Aulay reluctantly agreed. He’d reached the limits of his exhaustion, but he knew that what was ahead for the rest of the night was an arduous task, and come morning, he’d be fortunate if his men could keep to their feet. He would be no use to them if he were as exhausted as they would be.
He made his way to his quarters and entered without any thought other than a pressing desire to sleep. The interior was dark, the smell fetid. How long before the stench of death would be gone? Someone had closed the portholes and pulled the heavy linen drapes over them, as was the custom when a person died. They said it kept the ghost from escaping. In this case, the old man’s ghost had nowhere to go and could not escape, so Aulay pushed back the drapery and opened the window. A bit of night light and the salty smell of the sea filtered in, enabling him to see better. He made his way to the next porthole, nearly stumbling over Lottie when he did. He had not seen her lying on the bare bunk, curled onto her side, her back to the door.
He pushed her feet aside and sat on the end of his bunk. “Have you eaten, then?”
“No,” she said meekly. “I canna possibly.”
“Aye, you can, if you donna wish to follow your father into the sea.”
She gasped and rolled over, sitting up. “How dare you say such a wretched thing?”
“Lying here without food or drink? What else am I to think?” He noticed some salted beef and a biscuit on the table beside his bunk that someone had brought her from the hold. How he would ever pay for the cargo they’d lost, he couldn’t say. He’d think on that later—for now, he was exhausted and had a few days at sea ahead of him. And while he felt exceedingly sympathetic for the lass who had just lost her father, he had very little patience for anything that did not move them forward and away from the events of these last few days. What choice did any of them have?
Lottie pushed her legs over the edge of the bunk, bracing her hands on either side of them. He picked up the biscuit and held it out to her.
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m no’ hungry.”
“Eat.”
She snatched it with exasperation.
Aulay went to the sideboard and rummaged around there until he found a candle. The light flared when he lit it. He looked at Lottie again. Her hair, unbound, fell long around her, almost to her waist, and framed her bonny face. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, as if she’d long been ill.
“Eat,” he said again.
“It tastes like wood. Everything tastes like wood. I feel like wood.” She took a small bite of the biscuit and made a face.
“It will have to do, lass. We’ve no’ time to fish, and it looks as if we have a ship in pursuit of us.”
She looked up with eyes wide with alarm. “The Danes?”
“I donna know,” he said. “And I donna intend to let them get close enough to see who they are.”
Her lashes fluttered and she glanced down at her biscuit.
She looked so forlorn that Aulay was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to take her into his arms, to hold her, to lie to her and promise that all would be well. Why am I so enticed by this lass? She had likely ruined him and yet, he couldn’t help but want her.
Sometimes, a man just knows.
He’d had the same ridiculous thought early at the start of their acquaintance, when she’d stepped on board his ship and had conquered him with her beauty and the spark in her eye.
“Can we escape them?” she asked.
“If we remain vigilant, aye. We had a good start on them, we did.”
Lottie closed her eyes a moment, gave a slight shake of her head. “So much has happened.”
Aulay put the candle aside, picked up the beef, and handed it to her.
She took a bite. “Do you think you must account for your life straightaway when you die, or is there a wee bit of time for grace?”
“I donna know,” he said, taking a seat beside her.
“Will you know the purpose of it all? Of this life? Will you know if it was worth the hardship?”
The lass was clearly tormented. She was so young, at least fifteen years younger than Aulay, and perhaps had never contemplated these questions before. Did anyone ever really know their purpose on this earth?
“Perhaps you ought no’ to think of these things if they upset you, aye?”
“When I was a wee lass, only eight years, my father took me with him to Port Appin, and there we met a Scot with four ponies on a string, aye? I was quite taken with them, that I was, and particularly a black one. He had a wee star just between his eyes,” she said, gesturing absently to her forehead. “My father said, ‘Do you want the pony, Lottie?’” She laughed ruefully. “What lass of eight would say no, I ask you? So he turned to the man and said, we should like a pony, and he offered him a price. The man said, ‘Why these are Percheron ponies,’” she said, mimicking the man. “Spanish war horses, they are, the finest on a field of battle. My father didna question it, no’ for a moment. He said, ‘For my lass, only the finest pony. Percheron, you say? Spanish you say?’” She shook her head. “We returned home with that pony.”
Aulay didn’t see the point of her story. “He was kind to you, then,” he said.
“That night, my father and my mother had an awful row about it. I heard them through the walls, shouting at one another about my pony. I thought my mother meant to send the pony away, but I’d already named him Stjerne. He’s my horse to this day.” She glanced at Aulay. “But he’s no’ a war horse. He’s a Fell pony. An unremarkable Fell pony with a star between his eyes.” She leaned forward. “Was that his purpose, then, my father? To make his children happy, no matter the cost? My mother adored my father, but he was so bloody impetuous, so careless with his purse, that they argued often. His carelessness hurt us all, it did. But this? This?” she said, gesturing around them. “This was all my doing, Aulay. He was careless, but I committed the greater sin, did I no’? I was arrogant. I thought I knew how to save us from his very bad idea of distilling whisky without license, and it cost my father his life. I could have set it all to rights and married Mr. MacColl, but I would no’ hear of it.”
Aulay blinked—he hadn’t realized there had been a marriage offer in the mix.
“I thought him too old, and I was selfish—I didna want to be his wife, I didna want to live in his house. In the end, I behaved in the same way my father behaved all my life—without regard for the consequence.” She shook her head and turned her gaze away. “The worst of it is that I didna have the chance to apologize.” She put the rest of the biscuit and salted beef aside, and with a weary sigh, lay down on her side. “What is my purpose, then, I ask you?”
“Donna weep,” he said.
“I’ll no’ weep. I’ve wept all that I can, I have.”
“Lottie...your father was a man, capable of deciding his own actions. You may have suggested this scheme, and no one could fault you for seeking a solution. But he took your idea. He knew the risks. He knew verra well what he did.”
Her response was another sigh.
“Come, take the air, then,” he said.
She shook her head.
He hooked his hand under her arm, drawing her up to a sitting position again. “You need air, and your men need a leader.”
She snorted at that. “I’m no’ a leader.”
“Aye, you are. They are the captives now, and they are restless. They need you.”
“Have Duff lead them, or Mr. MacLean. Anyone but me.”
“I didna know your father well, but I know he thought you better than all of them put together, aye? He would have wanted you to carry on, Lottie, and you must. Your brothers are wandering the deck like the dead. Your clan is drunk and belligerent. I’ve lost enough time and money as it is.” He caught her face with his hand and made her look at him. “Now is the time to be the man your father was no’. His purpose, whatever it might have been, is no’ yours. Your purpose might be much greater.”
She blinked. She smiled softly. “How can you be so kind to me, after all the misery I’ve caused you?”
It wasn’t kindness, it was expediency. He was nearly certain of it. “I need you if I am to see us all safely home to Scotland.”
“Aye, and what is to become of us then?”
It was a quandary of the highest order, and one Aulay hadn’t yet sorted out. He would think of it when they were safely at Balhaire. “We’ll decide when we reach Scotland, aye?”
She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and closed them tightly. “Promise me, Aulay—promise me you’ll give me the blame. Only me.”
She was asking him to hand her over to authorities and no one else. If he had any doubt of it, she added, “I’m responsible for all of it. Let the others go free and I will gladly surrender, on my honor I will.”
Something hitched with a sharp pain in Aulay’s chest. He didn’t want that. He wanted justice, but he couldn’t bear to think of giving Lottie to the authorities. He stroked her cheek. “We’ll speak of it when we near Scotland—”
“No.” She pulled his hand from her face and grasped his head between her hands. “I beg you, make me this promise now, Aulay. Give me your word!”
Good God, this woman was remarkable. Who among them could make that sort of sacrifice? He peeled her right hand from his face and kissed her knuckles. He slipped a hand around the nape of her neck, and pulled her closer. Of all the women, of all the ones who might have snatched his heart, might have allowed him to see beyond the sea, it would be this one, this beautiful, doomed woman. He quite admired her in the moment, but blooming beside his admiration was grief. He knew very well what would happen to her if he agreed to it—she would likely hang; at the very least, she would be remanded to prison.
Tears glistened in her eyes. “Promise me,” she whispered, and touched her mouth to his.
That tender kiss aroused him more than any torrid kiss ever could. Her fingers fluttered around his ear, her arm went round his neck. She moved her mouth on his, teased him lightly with her tongue, and Aulay’s body, starved for a woman’s touch, instantly ached for more. He took the reins of that kiss and moved to her neck. Lottie dropped her head back with a gasp of pleasure, and everything in Aulay ignited with white-hot, desperate anticipation. He smoldered, his body slowly turning to ash. He cupped her face and held it tenderly, but at the same time, he pressed her down onto the bunk. Lottie arched into him and pushed her thigh between his legs, pressing against an erection that was suddenly and powerfully present.
He paused to gaze down at her. Her pale blue eyes had gone dark with hunger he understood. What was he doing? Would he bed his prisoner? Diah, how deep this extraordinary esteem pulled between them.
She was looking up at him with an expression he did not understand. “What?” he whispered breathlessly as he caressed her head, her cheek.
Lottie put her hands on his chest and slid them up, to his shoulders, sank her fingers into his hair and answered, “Everything.”
Aulay groaned. He kissed her cheek, her mouth. And then he reached for the hem of her shirt and untied it, slipping his hand onto her bare skin, over her ribs, to her breasts. He dipped down to press his mouth to the skin of her décolletage, kissing the swell of her breasts. Lottie sighed with pleasure, thrust her hands into his hair, and Aulay went spiraling into sensual havoc.
He pushed the shirt up and took her breast into his mouth at the same time his hands slipped into the waist of the trews and between her legs.
Lottie reached for the ties of the trews and pulled them free, pushing them down her hips, and Aulay abandoned himself. He was moving by instinct and sensation, his hands and mouth finding every place on her body that made her gasp with pleasure. He freed himself from his trousers almost desperately; his need to hold her and have her overtook every other thought. It was a need he’d never felt so sharply, had never experienced so deeply in his marrow. He hiked her leg up and pressed the tip of his cock against her on a moan of pleasure, sliding deeper, and then with torturous patience, completely into her, all the way to the hilt, before slowly sliding out again.
He began to move in her, his mouth on her mouth, on her neck, his hands on her breasts. Lottie’s hands slid over him, her fingers digging into his flesh, urging him to move deeper into her. Wave after wave of sensual gratification rolled over him, spinning him like a top toward a release that was building to a ferocious crescendo. Lottie clung to him with one leg wrapped around his waist, her mouth on his skin. He was completely lost, more at sea than he’d ever been in his life, lost and clinging to the only thing that could save him—this woman, this astonishing woman. He could feel his deliverance mounting as she spread her arms and arched her neck, her eyes closed, letting him carry her along in his vortex of pleasure, washing this wretched week away from them. Nothing existed beyond the two of them, beyond her scent and the feel of her body around his.
When the vortex sucked them under, Aulay collapsed on her. For several moments they both sought their breath. But when they had it, Lottie cupped his face in her hands and kissed him gently. Reverently.
But the sound of one of the crew shouting up to another on the mast managed to slip into his consciousness, and Aulay remembered who and where he was. He suddenly broke the kiss and stood up, taking a step backward. Lottie caught herself on the bunk, breathing hard, her gaze fixed on him and filled with need.
How could he have done it? How could he have taken her like this, after all that she’d done, knowing that he would hand her over to authorities in a few days? “Clean yourself up,” he said, his voice surprisingly hoarse. “Get some rest.”
She didn’t move. She remained braced against that bare bunk, watching him like a cat. Wanting him. He could plainly see her desire, could feel it mirrored in him, and God help him, it ran just as deep in him.
Righting his clothes, Aulay walked out of that cabin before he did something mad. His sorrow at what was to come was already closing in on him, squeezing him from all sides. Sorrow for her. For him. For what might have been before he’d had a chance to have it.