CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BRINE FILLED AULAY’S MOUTH. He choked on it, sputtering it out of his mouth. Water was lapping around his body, getting in under his clothes, in his mouth and nose. He pushed up, his hands sinking into dark wet sand. He spit salt water from his mouth, and when he moved, he felt sand in every crease of his skin, rubbing against him.
Diah, but his head ached. A jib had come undone as the ship foundered and had hit him square in the side of the head.
He rolled onto his rump, gasping for air, and looked around him. The tide was coming in, pooling where he’d been lying. The bodies of men were scattered across the sand like so much seaweed, all of them utterly spent from a harrowing twenty-four hours. There was the giant, sitting up, his legs crossed beneath him, his face tilted up to a perfectly brilliant blue sky.
Aulay slowly came to his feet, unsteady at first, but finding his balance.
There was Mathais, on his back, gulping like a fish for air. The actor and MacLean, and the rest of the Livingstones, all accounted for. Iain the Red was leaning over his brother, who was retching. Beaty, shaking the water from his hat, which he’d somehow managed to keep on his head. Billy Botly with his arm in a splint, who looked no worse for the ordeal. Geordie Willis and even Jack Mackenzie with his injured leg, leaning up against a rock, speaking quietly.
And there was Lottie, lying on her side, her back to the water.
Aulay turned to face the sea. A different sort of pain squeezed at his heart. There was nothing there, no sign of his ship. The sea, calm now, looked as empty as one of his paintings. A few crates and whisky casks were being carried along by the tide onto shore, but his ship was gone, sunk a quarter of a mile off the coast.
He climbed onto a rock and stared blankly at the sea, unable to fully grasp his loss. As the last of them had rowed away, he’d watched it go down, disappearing into tumultuous waves. The man he’d become, his entire adult life, had been forged on that ship and now it was all gone. His paintings, his books, his French wine, gone. The small knife he’d won from a French pirate, the instruments of sailing, all gone. The cargo he’d carried, the sails, the rigging, the guns...gone.
That ship was everything he was, and he would never be the same again. He’d never sail again—how could he? The Mackenzies had scarcely afforded to sail this time, and now they’d have to make recompense to William Tremayne for his lost cargo. It would likely ruin them.
What Aulay dreaded most was his father’s disappointment. Arran Mackenzie had steered the clan through the best and worst of times in the Highlands, and they had weathered it all, better than most. Aulay did not want to be the one to destroy what his father had worked tirelessly to build, in the twilight of his father’s life. He’d seen gut-wrenching worry on his father’s face too often in the last decade, and could not forget how skeptical he’d been of Aulay’s plans to rebuild their trade. But when Aulay had set sail, his father had smiled more brightly than anyone. He’d seemed younger somehow, his features filled with hope and the excitement of a new beginning.
Arran had believed in his son.
The sea turns over on itself. Aye, Aulay’s own personal sea had turned over on him and washed him away. He was adrift.
And he was furious.
Fury was boiling in him as he stood on that rocky shore. It was a cauldron, near to the point of spilling over in hot, molten waves.
“What now, Captain?” Beaty asked, having come to his feet.
Aulay hadn’t noticed Beaty at his side. He glanced over his shoulder—all of his crew was on their feet, watching him warily, as if they expected him to swim out to where his ship had gone down and stay with it after all.
“Break up the casks and crates as they come in, aye? Hide the boats. We’ll walk over the hills to Balhaire. Let there be no sign of where we came ashore. Whoever followed us was quite determined, and I’d no’ be surprised if they return to search for us now that the storm has cleared.”
The effort to hide the evidence of their survival was particularly grueling under a hot sun and with no proper tools. Nothing was salvageable—the salted beef was ruined and thrown into the sea. The bales of wool absorbed so much water they sank on their own.
Two of his men had managed to flee the sinking ship with long guns, and these they strapped on their shoulders in the event a Livingstone or two thought to run. All camaraderie between the two clans had been lost when the Mackenzies lost their ship and their livelihood. Yet in spite of their vigilance, two Livingstones managed to slip away. None of the Mackenzies had the patience to go after them, and no more of the Livingstones had the strength to run.
When the detritus from the ship had been cleared from the beach and hidden away, the group began their trek over the hills. Aulay guessed they were twenty miles from Balhaire, perhaps a little farther. They were exhausted and hungry, and because of a few injuries, progress was slow. Aulay noticed that Lottie was also limping, but she was walking, and declined Beaty’s offer of a staff. She kept up to the pace of the men, save for a stumble here or there.
He kept his distance from her. He could not bear to look at her just now. Over the last several days, he had come to admire her, to even love her. But he could not ignore the fact that his ship, his life, was now completely lost to him because of her. The truth beat a steady drum with the ache in his head, throbbing with each step he took. How could he have thought any different? How could he have bedded the enemy?
They had walked for hours when they came to a small stream where Aulay and his brothers once fished as lads. It was a place to rest and drink.
On the bank of the stream, Beaty removed his hat, wiped his sleeve across his brow, and glanced sidelong at Aulay. “Have you an idea, then, where we are, Captain?”
How odd that he was captain no more. He pointed at the hill rising up across the stream. “Balhaire is on the other side.”
“An deamhan thu ag ràdh,” Beaty said, and shook his head. “I’ve never known a man who had a sense of direction as keen as yours.” He bent down to drink, and Aulay wandered downstream a bit, to a rock that jutted into the stream. Beaty was right. As children, they’d explored the land around them, but even then, Aulay was the one they relied on to see them safely home. He always knew where he was because he always knew where the sea was.
He sat on the rock and tried to comb his hair with his fingers.
“Aulay.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed, then slowly turned his head to look at Lottie. She was utterly bedraggled and still, quite beautiful to him. It was that beauty that had sucked him in, had sent him into a tailspin that had ended with something that felt as close to death as he’d ever come. His heart began to beat with his outrage, and he turned his attention to the stream.
“I am so verra sorry, Aulay. For your loss. For everything. My heart is filled with so much regret.”
He said nothing. Bonny words from a bonny lass. He wished he could despise her, but that was impossible. He loved her, no matter the devastation she’d caused. But he hated her, too. He was so furious that he was blinded by it, couldn’t look at her without feeling his rage ratchet uncontrollably. He flinched when her hand touched his and he involuntarily yanked it away, and ignored the sharp intake of her breath at the slight, the slow release.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, her voice low. “Have I offended you? I meant only to convey my sincere gratitude. I think you are the best man I have ever known.” She smiled sheepishly.
He suddenly wondered why she would say that now? Was it her attempt to smooth things over with him? Because she cared for him? Or because she cared for her own wee neck? “Go,” he said, his voice belying the fury in his veins. “I donna want your damn flattery.”
“Aulay!” she exclaimed. “Will you no’ speak to me?”
“Speak to you?” he echoed, and made himself look at her. “Do you want me to speak to you, Lottie?” he asked, and the dam inside him broke. Raw fury, like so much sewage, began to spill through him. “Aye, I will speak to you,” he said, and rose to his feet, towering over her. “I will tell you that I utterly rue the day I changed course to help you. You have ruined me,” he said, thumping his chest. “Have you no’ taken enough from me? Have you no’ done enough damage to my men and yours?” His voice was rising, and he was quite unable to stop himself from shouting. His thoughts were roiling, and he felt almost outside of himself, as if the demon of his wrath had inhabited his body. Everything he had ever been, ever would be had been destroyed by her.
“Would you now have me soothe your tender feelings and tell you that it’s all quite all right, that as long as you have your way it doesna matter that I and my men have lost our livelihood? That these men canna feed their families now? That your men canna pay their rents? Do you want me to find words that magically change the truth?”
“Diah, no! I—”
“If you want me to speak, madam, that is what I will say! And I will add that I wish I’d never laid eyes on you! I wish I’d never heard your name. God forgive me, but I wish I’d sailed the other way when I saw your bloody rotten ship, for if I had, I would have spared us all the disaster you have brought down on all our heads! Alas, I did no’, but you may rest assured, I will do everything in my power to see that you are made to account for it.”
“There is no call for that!” Mr. MacLean suddenly appeared and put his hands on Lottie’s shoulders. She looked stunned. And broken.
Aulay realized that everyone had heard his diatribe and sprang from the rock, pushing past Lottie and MacLean. He called to his men in Gaelic to gather round, and warned them that when they reached Balhaire, they should not invite discussion about the Livingstones, and to have a care what they said about what had happened. “We’ll not have anyone believing we had any part in the illegal trade of the Livingstones. The less we say, the less involved we are, and the less anyone will believe any accusations to the contrary.”
“But we have them in our custody,” Iain the Red pointed out. “Will we pretend we are ignorant?”
“They pirated our fecking ship, and we have that right to keep them in our custody,” Aulay said curtly. “But donna mention the whisky, lads—men can be quite irrational when it comes to women, money or lost whisky.”
“Will we accuse them of piracy?” asked Billy Botly.
Aulay looked around at his men and their haggard faces. He thought of how they must face their families now. “We will indeed,” he said darkly, and whirled around, shouting in English, “Walk on!” and signaling for the party to carry on.
They were, all of them, completely spent when they at last reached the high street that ran through the village that surrounded Balhaire. They were stumbling along, mostly silent, too weary to speak and concentrating on putting one foot before the other.
A lass was the first to spot them, and with a shout of delight, she ran ahead of them up the road, calling for her mother with the news the ship had come home.
Moments later, the bell began to ring, signaling the return of a ship that was no more. People spilled into the street to call out their welcomes, some running toward them, eager to greet their loved ones. More than one slowed their steps when they saw the ragged crew, staring in shock and confusion.
Aulay’s men were a wee bit emotional as would be expected, having survived the sinking of a ship. They began to fall out from the group, some of them to their knees with relief, others rushing to kiss their wives and scoop their children up in their arms.
Aulay halted in the middle of the high street with the Livingstones as the reunions played out around them. He was sickened by these happy homecomings, knowing that these families would expect their men to have returned to them with money in their pockets and trinkets for their children. They were expecting the means to put shoes on their children’s feet or a winter’s crop in their plots of land.
He needed a dram or two of whisky. He signaled the rest of them to carry on, up to the castle at the top of the hill. The Livingstones, too exhausted to do anything else, followed dully behind him. Aulay had lost half his men to reunions with their loved ones, but Beaty and Iain the Red, steadfast and loyal to him, brought up the rear.
Just as they reached the gates to Balhaire, a rider came barreling around the corner from the road that led into the glens, moving too fast, too recklessly. Aulay’s heart lifted. He knew only one person who rode like that—his younger sister, Catriona.
She reined up sharply with a cry of delight when she saw him, threw herself off the horse, and strode forward, her face a wreath of smiles...until she drew close enough to see him. “Mi Diah, what has happened?” she exclaimed. “You look a fright, Aulay, you do! Have you taken ill?”
“I’m quite well,” he said. “’Tis a long tale, lass, one I’ll tell you with the rest of the family, aye?”
She cocked her head to one side and eyed him shrewdly, then put her arms around him.
“Cat, lass, I’m filthy—”
“I donna care.” But she suddenly leaned to one side. “Dè an diabhal, who is that?”
Aulay didn’t bother to look behind him. “Prisoners.”
She gasped. “Prisoners!” she whispered loudly, and tried to get another look at them. Aulay put his arm around her shoulders and began to move her along toward the castle gates. He knew very well that if he removed his arm, she would put herself in front of the group and begin to ask questions.
She blinked her blue eyes with surprise. “I canna guess what you’re about, Aulay Mackenzie, but I canna wait to hear it.” She grinned, slipped her arm around his waist, and together they walked through the gates and into the bailey.
A groom was instantly on hand, and Catriona sent him to fetch her horse. The thick-planked double oak entrance doors to the old castle fortress opened and Frang, the family butler, stepped out onto the landing and bowed. “Fàilte dhachaigh, Captain. Welcome home.”
“Thank you,” Aulay said wearily, thinking of how close he’d come to never laying eyes on Balhaire again. “My father?”
“The laird and the lady wait for you in the great hall, aye?” Frang said. But he was looking past Aulay, to the group behind him.
Aulay reluctantly glanced over his shoulder. The Livingstones had crowded together and were looking around them in awe. The youngest, Mathais, who, he had to admit, had proven to be a good hand on deck, seemed particularly taken, and was pointing up at the turrets. Lottie stood next to the giant, her head bowed.
“Have you a plaid the lass might put around her shoulders?” Aulay asked Frang.
“The lass?” Catriona dipped under his arm to peer at the group. “Diah, I had no’ noticed that one of them was a lass.”
“Aye, Captain,” Frang said and disappeared inside. He returned in a few moments and wordlessly handed the plaid to Lottie. She seemed confused, but wrapped it around her shoulders as the party was shown into the cramped foyer. Aulay signaled them to follow him down a close corridor lit by a few tallow candles that made the air pungent.
The wind, a constant at Balhaire, groaned and rattled the old fireplace flues, but the gloomy corridor gave way to the great hall, where things were considerably brighter with its enormous windows that overlooked the sea in the distance. Great iron chandeliers hung above their heads, blazing with candles. Thick carpets muted the sound of many people and dogs and added some warmth to the room. At one end of the hall was a raised dais, a long table and upholstered chairs where Aulay’s family took their meals. At the other end, a massive hearth. It was always lit, for even in summer these old stone walls trapped the cold.
Two dogs, napping before the warmth of the fire, came to their feet and loped forward with tails wagging to greet Aulay. But they quickly lost interest in him and moved on to sniff the rest of the group. The giant was delighted by them and went down on one knee to nuzzle the mutts.
“Aulay, mo chridhe!” his mother cried. She was seated next to his father at the dais, and she came swiftly down the steps, hurrying to meet him halfway in his progress toward them. Margot Mackenzie was an elegant, silver-haired beauty. She held out her arms to embrace him, and Aulay put his up hand. “Donna Màither, aye? I’m filthy.”
“I will greet my son as I see fit,” she said, and put her arms around him as Catriona had, hugging him tightly, enveloping him in the sweet scent of her perfume. But she abruptly withdrew, her nose wrinkled. “Oh dear,” she said. “Have you come from a public house?”
He shook his head. “No, madam, but what you smell is whisky, aye.”
“Aulay! How do you fare, my son?”
The Laird of Balhaire, Arran Mackenzie, did not come down from the dais due to a leg that pained him terribly, but he eagerly leaned forward across the massive dining table. “Are you well?”
No. He was broken in half. “Well enough, Athair, I am. There is much news to tell, but first, might we have some ale and something to eat?” Aulay asked. “It’s been a long journey.”
“Yes, of course!” his mother said. “Frang, darling, will you? There is stew, I think, and Barabel made the most delicious bread this morning.”
Frang signaled a serving boy to fetch ale, and went out to instruct their kitchen.
“Please,” his mother said graciously to the Livingstones. She had no idea who they were, but she’d never lost the decorum she’d been taught as a girl on an English estate. Anyone under her roof would be treated well, no matter what they’d done—a theory Aulay would soon test—and she invited them to sit.
“They’re no’ guests,” Aulay said as she returned to his side and walked with him and Catriona to the dais. “They are in our custody.”
“Custody?” his father repeated.
“Aye, Aulay, tell us!” Catriona said excitedly, and took a seat next to her father, leaning across to balance on the arms of his chair so she’d not miss a word.
Aulay had hoped for at least a glass of ale, but he knew his family, and they’d not leave it until he’d told them everything. He shoved a hand through his hair, made stiff by the saltwater and the sun. “My lord, I—”
“’Tis my fault.”
Aulay started at the clear, strong sound of Lottie’s voice. She’d walked up to the dais without his notice, and stood holding the plaid tightly around her shoulders, her hair spilling over her shoulders. “My fault,” she said again.
Aulay groaned with exasperation. “For God’s sake, woman, if you donna mind—”
“I do,” she said insistently and set her gaze on Aulay’s father. “Everything that has happened, all of it, ’tis my doing. ’Twas I who stole his ship, and ’twas I they pursued from Aalborg.”
“What? Aalborg?” Aulay’s father repeated, his woolly eyebrows cascading down in confusion as he swung his gaze to his son. “What, then... Denmark?”
“’Tis my fault the ship sunk.”
“What?” Catriona all but shrieked.
“For God’s sake, allow me to speak!” Aulay said sharply, and Duff stood up, putting his hand on Lottie’s arm and drawing her back.
But she shook his hand from her arm. “I want to help, to explain,” she said to Aulay.
“You’ve helped enough, aye?” he snarled.
“’Tis my doing! At least allow me to explain why!”
“It doesna matter why!” he said loudly. “You will kindly allow me to tell my family what has happened ere you begin your long and winding tale,” he snapped.
She glared at him. He glared back. “Verra well,” she said pertly. “But you canna stop me from saying that the Mackenzies have been naugh’ but decent and kind and I have ruined that goodwill,” she added, directing that to his family.
His family was, for the first time in his memory, collectively dumbstruck. They stared at Aulay then at Lottie, their eyes wide with astonishment.
“You said sunk,” Catriona said carefully, breaking their silence. “What do you mean? Precisely, if you please.”
“I mean that it sank to the bottom of the sea,” Lottie said with great precision.
Aulay cursed under his breath. “That is enough! I am still the captain and you are still my prisoner!”
“Oh dear God,” Aulay’s mother said. She put a hand to her throat and slid into a chair next to Catriona looking as if she might faint. “Is it truly gone, Aulay?”
He swallowed down his bitterness. “Aye, Màither.”
“But...but what happened?” Catriona demanded frantically. “How?”
“Well, we were desperate,” Lottie said, chiming in again. “I saw no other way, on my word I did no’, but to take his ship as ours was sinking.”
“Yours. Oh. Oh!” Catriona said, and laughed with relief as she put one hand on her father’s arm, the other on her mother’s arm. “I beg your pardon, then, I thought you meant to say that the Reulag Balhaire sank.”
“That one too,” Lottie said meekly.
“No,” Catriona said, her gaze shifting to Aulay. “It canna be. Say it’s no’ so, Aulay.”
“I canna say it, Cat, because it is so,” he sadly admitted.
“I’ve seen two ships sink in as many weeks,” Lottie continued, clearly unable to contain herself, “and for that, I present myself to you to be punished as you see fit, milord. These men,” she said, gesturing behind her, “had naugh’ to do with it. Only me.”
“Well, that is no’ true,” Duff said haughtily. “I had a wee bit to do with it as we all did! You’d no’ have managed to steal the Mackenzie ship without my performance—”
“Silence!” Aulay shouted, throwing up his arms and startling everyone. He was extremely unwilling to listen to the Livingstones debate who had the bigger part in destroying his ship.
The hall grew quiet. All heads turned to him. He looked at Lottie and pointed to one of the many tables below the dais. “Go. Sit. No’ another word from any of you, aye? No’ a bloody word, or I’ll hang you in the bailey myself. Do you understand, then?”
Lottie bit down on her lower lip as if trying desperately to keep words from slipping off her tongue. She nodded curtly, tightened the plaid around her shoulders and returned to the table, Duff behind her. The sound of chairs scraping on the floor filled the room as the Livingstones took seats.
Aulay glanced up at his father. He’d remained silent, but his impenetrable gaze was locked on his son. Aulay could guess what his father was feeling. Disappointment. Rage. Incredulity. With a weary sigh of defeat, Aulay climbed the dais and leaned over his father to hug him.
“My heart is glad to have you home,” his father said. “An eventful voyage by the sound of it.”
“Aye, quite,” Aulay agreed, and took a seat beside him. A lad appeared with a pitcher of ale and some cups. Aulay helped himself, filling a cup, draining it thirstily. He filled it again.
“It’s true, then, darling?” his mother asked carefully. “The ship is truly sunk?”
Aulay nodded numbly, unable to say the words aloud, and burning alive with shame. He slowly, wearily, told his family what had happened these last many days. How the voyage had started off well, with good wind and clear skies and high spirits. They’d seen it as an omen. He told them how they’d seen one ship sailing away with fire on its deck, another ship listing.
“You saw a royal ship, prowling for illegal trade,” his father confirmed. “I’ve heard it is to be scuttled.”
So it had been a royal ship after all.
“Aye, and then what?” Catriona asked.
Aulay told them how the Reulag Balhaire had changed course to investigate the listing ship, discovering it was smaller and ill-suited for open sea. How the crew had appeared so hapless that it was clear they would all drown. “We invited them on board,” he said. He did not mention how he’d been struck dumb by the sight of Lottie, how her beauty had put him back on his heels. Or that he’d been wholly unprepared for an attack, because he’d been too bloody arrogant to suspect them of any trickery.
He told them they’d been ambushed and his men corralled, and he himself shackled and bound. His mother shot a dark look to the Livingstones, but his father remained impassive, listening closely. Aulay explained that in spite of their chief’s mortal wound, they had set course for Aalborg, where they believed they could sell illegal spirits.
“Why Aalborg?” his mother asked.
“Their laird, Duncan Campbell, suspected them of illegal distilling, and they believed their whisky could no’ be sold in Scotland because of it.” He shrugged. “They are Danes by lineage and have relations there.”
“Well?” Catriona asked. “Did they sell the whisky there?”
“No,” Aulay said, and related what happened in Aalborg, as well as the death of the old man.
“Oh dear,” his mother said, and cast another long look at the Livingstones. “A wretched ordeal for them.”
“Aye, but what of Aulay?” Catriona asked. “They bound him like a dog.”
“For which I cannot forgive them,” his mother said. “But look at them. They are young, these Livingstones. They must have been devastated by the death of their father.”
Catriona leaned forward and whispered, “What is wrong with the big one?”
“A bad birth,” Aulay said.
“What happened then?” Aulay’s father asked.
Aulay told them the rest of his wretched tale. The flight from Aalborg and the decision to return to Scotland. The chase down the Scottish coast into the fog.
“Who?” his father asked.
“I donna know. There was no flag, no markings.”
His father leaned forward. “And the ship? How was it lost?”
Aulay had sailed this coast more times than he could count, but that fog, damn it, had rolled in so quickly, and so thick, that he’d lost his way. He admitted this to his father. He said that had he been at sea, he would have held course, but that he’d been sailing too close to the shore to avoid the other ship, and when the storm blew up, he couldn’t keep her from the rocks.
When he’d finished, his family fell silent. Catriona slowly leaned back in her chair, resting her head against it, staring at the ceiling. His mother reached across her husband for Aulay’s hand and squeezed it.
His father didn’t speak, but stared down at the Livingstones, his jaw working in a clench.
Would he ever have his father’s forgiveness? Aulay wanted desperately to ask for it, to hear his father say that he was forgiven for what he’d done, forgiven for ruining them. But his father did not offer forgiveness. When at last he turned his gaze from the Livingstones, he rapped his knuckles absently on the table. “We’ll discuss what is to be done with Rabbie on the morrow, aye?” he said.
Aye, of course—he’d hear from one of his better sons.
“We’ll hear what the Livingstones have to say for themselves,” he added, and gestured at the lot of them, eating stew as if they’d just crawled out of the desert after forty days and nights. His father looked at Aulay pointedly. “We canna allow this crime to go unanswered, can we, then?”
Aulay’s heart squeezed. It had been so full of fury, but now it felt as if there was nothing left. Not fury, not hope, not acceptance. Nothing. “No. Of course no’.”
“Will you send for a justice of the peace, then, Pappa?” Catriona asked.
“We’ll decide on the morrow,” the laird said. “I want to think on it and have Rabbie’s opinion as well.”
“They’ve been through quite a lot,” Aulay’s mother said, gazing at them below the dais.
“They’re no’ strays, Margot,” his father said curtly. “And they’ve caused us an insurmountable loss, as you must see, aye?”
“I do. But it’s been so very hard for so many in these hills, Arran. People have been forced to do things they would never do.”
“Aye, and we are included in that number, are we no’?” he asked, looking at his wife. She pursed her lips. “Margot, leannan...we’ve lost our best hope to return an income to us with the loss of the ship. We canna let it lie.”
“I understand,” she said. But she didn’t sound as if she did. “Is there enough room for them in the gatehouse?”
“Aye,” his father said. “Aulay, put them under guard.”
“Aye, my lord,” he said as Frang appeared to place a platter of food before him. But he’d lost his appetite. Perhaps because Lottie was in his line of sight, scarcely touching her own food. Aulay felt a little sick—sick at all that he’d lost, sick at what he feared he might lose yet.