CHAPTER SIX
“MY DAUGHTER, she’s made of strong mettle, that one. Never known a woman like her. No’ even her mother, God rest her soul.”
She was a fool, and Aulay was on the verge of suggesting the old man was demented, but the door flung open and men began to stream into the room, led by the giant—the same one that had knocked the life from Aulay—who had to duck his head to enter. Two others followed him. They walked past Aulay without so much as a glance.
He wanted some explanation about who these people were, why they were crammed into his cabin, and what the bloody hell was wrong with the big one. He reminded Aulay of a bairn in a man’s body. He was rocking back and forth on his heels and moaning as he stared down at the man on the bed. The younger one stood with his back to the wall, his legs braced apart, his jaw set, as if he was determined not to show the least bit of emotion. Aulay recognized himself in the younger one—he’d been that lad many years ago. He had two warrior brothers who had commanded their father’s attention and respect with their physical prowess. He had two sisters who’d been the jewels of his father’s eye. And he, third of five, had gone unnoticed unless he was behind the wheel of a ship. It was strange to think of it now, but at that age, Aulay had struggled to find the attention and praise in his family or clan. He was the quiet one, the studious one, the lad who pursued painting. It was hard to be noticed by the others, and he’d felt entirely inconsequential in the world except when he was at sea.
The third man in his cabin, of middling age, was a physician or healer of some sort. He examined the old man’s wound.
The old man wanted a report of all that had gone on since they’d come aboard. The lad attempted to report, but the giant kept speaking over him, expressing his vociferous and sincere desire to go home. But when the physician removed the bandaging from the old man, the giant began a keening cry that startled Aulay...and no one else.
Moments later, the lass returned. The giant called her name, and she went to him, putting her arms around him, holding him close like a mother would hold a child.
“Drustan lad, calm yourself,” the injured man said, and groped for the giant’s hand as the healer finished removing the bandages from his torso. “It’s no’ but a bad gash, aye?”
Lottie leaned over the physician. Whatever she saw caused her to gasp aloud.
“Aye, what is it, then?” her father asked.
“What? Nothing!” she said, fooling no one.
“Now, now, donna the lot of you fret,” the old man said. “A wound always looks worse than it is. Is that no’ so, Morven.”
“That is no’ so,” the physician said.
“You know verra well what I mean,” said the old man. “Look at your long faces! I’ll be right as rain!” he said irritably. “Why, I scarcely feel a thing, thanks be to the captain’s fine brandy.”
Aulay suppressed a groan. That was expensive French brandy, the last of what he and his brother Cailean had smuggled into Balhaire a few years ago.
“Have you any more of it?” the healer asked.
“Aye, there’s a good lad, Mats, hand him the bottle.”
“I’ll need fresh water as well,” the physician said, and Lottie went at once to the sideboard to fetch it, returning with the ewer.
The physician poured water directly into the brandy bottle—so much that there would be no salvaging the brandy. He shook the bottle to mix the contents, then put his hand on the injured man’s leg. “Steady yourself, Bernt,” he said, and poured the diluted brandy onto the wound.
The old man howled with pain, which startled the giant, and he, in turn, shrieked like a banshee. When he did, the youngest of them threw his hands over his ears. “By all that is holy, Drustan, donna do that!” he shouted. “It hurts me bloody ears!”
“I’ve made a sleeping broth,” the physician said, nonplussed by all the shouting and screeching. “It ought to keep you from this world for a few hours, Bernt. You need to sleep, aye?”
“What if he dies?” the giant asked tearfully.
“I willna die,” the old man said sternly. “A small wound canna kill a Livingstone, lad.”
“We’ll need a clean bandage,” the physician said. All of them looked at Lottie.
“Aye,” she said, and without the slightest compunction, went to the cupboard beneath the sideboard and removed one of Aulay’s shirts.
“I beg your pardon—wait,” Aulay said, but of course she paid him no heed, and handed the shirt to the physician. He tore the shirt into strips, then employed the two younger men to help him bind the old man’s abdominal wound.
When the bandaging was done, the physician picked up a bowl. “This is the sleeping draught.” He held it up like a vicar would hold a cup of wine at communion.
“Aye, let’s have it, then,” said her father. “I’ve got an awful pain, that I do.”
Lottie lifted his head and the physician helped him drink from the bowl.
“All right, then, lads,” her father said with a sigh when he’d finished. “You heard Morven—I’m to sleep now. Do as Lottie says, aye? But go now, let your old father rest. I’ll be good as new when we reach Aalborg.”
“I donna like to be here,” the giant said to no one in particular. “I want to go home to Lismore.”
“We’ll be there soon enough, lad,” the physician said, but Aulay saw the man exchange a look with Lottie. He doubted his own words.
Lottie kissed first the giant, then the younger one. “Mind you do as Duff or Mr. MacLean tells you,” she said to them. “If they donna need you, find a place to sleep. We’ve a long voyage ahead of us and I’ll have you rested, aye?”
“But what of you, Lot?” the youngest one asked.
“I’ll stay here, with Fader.”
The young man glanced at Aulay and frowned. “What of him?”
All heads turned toward him. “We’ve no other place to put him,” Lottie said with a shrug.
“I donna like to be here,” the giant said again.
“Aye, I know,” she said soothingly, and rubbed his arm. “None of us do.”
“I do,” the younger one said as he bumped into a chair on his way out. “This is a bigger ship than Gilroy’s, and it’s much faster. I should like to be captain of this ship one day.”
“That post has been taken,” Aulay reminded the lad as he reached the door.
The young man shot him a wide-eyed look and disappeared out the door.
“Keep an eye on your brother!” Lottie called after them as the giant followed.
“I always keep an eye,” Aulay heard the younger one say in a tone that suggested he believed he was very much put upon.
“He ought to sleep like the bloody dead for a few hours,” the physician said as he went out. He paused to look at Lottie. “You look like death, lass.”
“Thank you,” she said, and pushed wet hair from her face.
“Is there no place you might sleep, then?”
“I’ll sleep here,” she said.
The physician looked at Aulay.
“He’ll no’ disturb me,” she said before the physician could remark. “He can do no harm, bound up as he is.”
“Well,” the physician said, then shrugged and went out. “God nat,” he said, wishing her a good night, and went out.
“God nat,” she answered, and closed the door behind him.
Her expression instantly crumbled into exhaustion. She sighed wearily and turned her back to the door. She unbuttoned his greatcoat, shook it off, and returned it to its peg. She stood in her stays and chemise and a petticoat that was soiled at the hem and soaking wet.
She looked even smaller than before, her shoulders stooped, as if the events of the day had worn her down. The lass reached for her gown, laying her hand on it in several places, but apparently found it too damp. She walked to the bed and picked up a blanket that lay at the foot, and threw it around her shoulders. She paused to lean over her father and stroke his brow. “Aye, he’s sleeping well now,” she said wearily. “I would that the same could be true for me.” Aulay had the impression she was speaking to herself. She moved away from the bunk and wandered to the far wall, studying the two seascapes that hung there. She touched one with her forefinger, tracing over the ridges in the paint. “The sea is so blue in this one,” she said wistfully. “I should like to see water so blue one day.”
That was unlikely, given the fate that awaited her.
“Where is it?” she asked.
Aulay looked at the painting. His talents did not adequately capture how blue the water was at Cadiz. “Spain,” he said. “The Mediterranean Sea.”
“Mediterranean,” she murmured, as if testing the word. She dropped her hand. “I must take advantage of your hospitality again, Captain.”
“Hospitality? You confuse captivity with hospitality. What now?”
She opened the cupboard below the sideboard and dipped down.
“If it’s more brandy you want, you’ll no’ find it,” he said with an edge of irritation.
But it wasn’t brandy she was after. She removed one of his shirts. And then a pair of trews. “I’m sorry for it,” she said ruefully. “But I’m chilled to the bone and I desperately need dry clothes.”
She took the blanket from her shoulders and draped it over her chair, then kicked off her wet boots. One slid along the cabin floor and reached the door. She put her pistol on the table, then put one foot in a leg of the trews and then the other; she struggled to pull them up beneath her petticoat without revealing any part of herself to him. When she had them secure, she removed the petticoat.
Aulay couldn’t help but ogle her. The trews were too big for her smaller frame, and yet he could still see her figure, could still visually trace the shape of her legs into a heart-shaped bottom. He could still feel the rumblings of physical desire for this wee thief.
She glanced at him and frowned. “What, then?” she asked impatiently.
“A wee bit too big,” he said. “But a better fit than I would have expected.” He took in the full length of her. “Much better,” he said. “You ought to make a habit of trews.”
Lottie blushed. She picked up his shirt and unfurled it.
Aulay was beginning to enjoy this unexpected event. “This will be a wee bit trickier to don, aye?”
She looked around the cabin, presumably for a place to hide.
Aulay slid down the wall onto his haunches. “We donna stand on modesty on this ship,” he said. He balanced his bound hands on his knees in anticipation of her disrobing. “Aye, but this is a bright spot in an otherwise bloody awful day.”
“Will you turn your back?”
“No.”
“I believed you a gentleman, Captain.”
He shrugged. “’Tis my cabin. My clothes. If it’s privacy you want, you should have pirated another ship.”
The lass frowned darkly. She put the shirt aside and began to work on the laces of her stays, but seemed to struggle with them. “My fingers are numb,” she muttered as two spots of pink appeared on her cheeks.
“Come closer and I’ll lend a hand,” Aulay suggested. “I’m a bit of an expert with laces.”
Her cheeks colored even more, and she yanked harder on the lace she was working, managing to pull it free. She hesitantly removed the stays and draped them over a chair. Now she wore nothing but the thin chemise, through which Aulay could see the arousing shadow of her breasts, the darker shadow of erect nipples. “You’re certain, are you, that I canna be of assistance?” he asked wolfishly.
She turned her back to him and quickly pulled the chemise over her head and tossed it aside.
Aulay devoured her bare back with his gaze, studying every facet. The small knots of her spine. The curve of her waist into her hip. The gentle slope of her shoulders and the way her hair, bound up in a loose knot, brushed against her skin. She put her arm over her breasts and turned slightly to pick up his shirt, but he could still see the underside of her breast, her softly rounded abdomen. His blood was warming, inflamed by the sight of her enticing figure. It made him cross with himself—he ought not to admire her, his enemy, and yet, how could he not? She was beautiful—her shape, her creamy skin, her silken hair, all of it. She was terribly, undeniably, infuriatingly arousing.
She picked up the shirt and put her back to him again. She was taking her time, deliberately moving lazily now, obviously aware of the effect she had on him. He watched her stretch her arms up and into his shirt, then let it slide down her arms and over her head. She turned around. “How is that, then?” she asked as she rolled the hem and knotted it at her waist.
“Bloody well bold,” he said.
“Aye, and what’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing at all.” His gaze slid to the opening of the shirt, the vee of which dipped well into her cleavage. His shirt was almost as thin as her chemise—he could still see the shape of her breasts and imagined them filling his hands, his fingers curling into firm, plump flesh.
“I will thank you no’ to look at me in that way,” she said, and picked up the blanket, throwing it around her shoulders again before sitting in a chair.
“What way is that?”
She lifted one leg and rolled up the trews to her ankles. “As if you’ve never seen a woman before,” she said, and rolled up the second leg before peeking up at him. “In spite of all the stays you’ve unlaced.”
Touché. Aulay couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve no’ seen a woman as comely as you,” he admitted. “What do you expect of me? You take my ship, my brandy, my clothes. You disrobe no’ three feet from me, and expect me to close my eyes?” He shook his head. “I’m no’ a dead man. No’ yet.”
A smiled shadowed her lips.
“Were I you, I’d wear precisely that on your next bit of piracy. Perhaps men will drop their swords on command.”
She stood up and walked to his sideboard. “You weren’t even wearing a sword,” she said. “I wonder how the day might have gone had you been armed.” She glanced over her shoulder and arched a brow.
He didn’t need the reminder. He’d not worn a sword because it hadn’t occurred to him to arm himself against what looked like a congregation of pilgrims without any notion of how to survive at sea.
She picked up his razor, put it down and picked up his soap. “And besides, there will be no more piracy for me,” she scoffed. “I’m to hang. Remember?” She picked up his comb and returned to the table with it.
“Oh, I remember,” he said, and watched her pull her hair down from its knot. Thick tresses tumbled over her shoulders. Even when wet, her hair seemed to glisten.
She began to comb it, starting at the bottom and working up. She mesmerized Aulay. He’d seen his sisters at their toilette, but he’d never really watched a woman comb her hair. Not like this, not in a manner that seemed so highly erotic.
When she’d worked the tangles out of it, she braided her hair, using one long tress to bind the end. She returned his comb to the sideboard, then looked Aulay over. “You should rest now, aye?”
He chuckled. “Sleep is no’ possible, lass. No’ while my ship is in your hands. No’ while you make generous use of my closet. I’d no’ want to miss another disrobing.”
She sighed wearily. “It is impossible to convey how much I should like to put this ship into your hands and remove it from mine,” she said. “And return your clothes and anything else we’ve made use of.” She walked to the foot of the bunk where her father lay, and crawled onto the small space at the foot of it. “I’d return your bloody ship and your clothes here and now if I didna have such desperate need for them.” She curled up beneath the blanket. Her braid lay like a silk ribbon across the dark brown of the blanket.
“What of me, then?” Aulay asked. “Am I to be denied food and a chamber pot?”
“Pardon?” She lifted her head to peer at him.
“Supper,” he said impatiently. “A chamber pot. I need to—”
“Och, you need not explain it.” With a weary groan, she pushed herself up and brought her legs over the side of the bunk. She braced her hands on either side of her knees and stared at him as if he were an unruly child.
He held up his bound hands. “I’m your captive, lass. You have a duty to tend to me as the rules of war demand.”
“Rules of war!” She clucked her tongue. She pushed herself to her feet with some effort, gathered her discarded boots, then took his greatcoat from the wall once more. She picked up her gun, slid it into the pocket, then shuffled to the cabin door and opened it.
“Lottie,” he said.
She paused. She slid a sidelong gaze to him.
“Something warm, aye? And some ale.”
She pressed her forehead to the edge of the door with a sigh. “What more, Captain?”
“Nothing,” he said.
She started out the door.
“A chamber pot!” he said.
He heard her mutter as she went out. He smiled to himself. He couldn’t threaten her into untying him. He couldn’t scare her, either, apparently. But he had strength on his side, and he was determined to exhaust her into it.