Bodies
Early the next morning, Broderick settled Aiglon onto her perch aboard the gunboat. “We’ve an unpleasant task ahead of us,” he admitted. “But it has to be done. Kyla will feel better if we succeed in finding the bodies of her drowned crewmen.”
At least if the unfortunates were given a proper burial, she’d be able to reassure the men’s families when she returned to Skye.
“And I’m no closer to solving that problem,” he muttered under his breath, lest anyone overhear him conversing with the bird. “Truth is, I dinna want her to leave.”
The notion of searching for the bodies had struck him during another night of tossing and turning in an unfamiliar and lonely bed. He’d never slept with another person, but, for no apparent reason, his own body heat now seemed insufficient to keep him warm—except when he woke sweating after an erotic episode involving Kyla and various bodily contortions that were physically impossible. His preoccupation with the woman was driving him to lunacy.
He risked a guilty glance at the lass who haunted his dreams as she climbed aboard. When he’d explained his plan at breakfast in the hall, she’d insisted on accompanying the expedition, with her navigator.
He might have warned it could turn out to be a ghastly experience, but the set of her jaw indicated she wouldn’t be dissuaded. In any case, unlike him, she was a born sailor who understood the sea and her knowledge might prove useful in locating the bodies. He couldn’t deny he also relished the prospect of sailing with her.
Her smile of delight when he’d announced at yesterday’s luncheon that he would procure slings for her and Lily had rendered him speechless, and sent blood rushing to his groin.
He wanted to see that smile again…and again. The calm, unruffled Broderick Maxwell had turned into a randy fool.
He patted the pocket of his tunic where three slings rested. The steward who’d brought them to his temporary chamber late last night had obtained them readily from one of his tenant farmers. Now, all that remained was to invent some excuse so he could be included in the lessons. He’d tried whirling one of the slings over his head, feeling foolish without ammunition.
He’d dozed fitfully, a vision of Kyla slaying Goliath playing behind his tired eyes. The next minute she was Hippolyta, the Amazonian queen of Greek mythology. Hence the erotic dreams.
Aiglon screeched when the gunboat lurched, jolting his thoughts from biblical events, ancient Greece and guilty pleasures. “Head for the estuary of the Nith,” he shouted to the steersman. “Then hug the shore.”
Kyla appeared reluctant to come near Aiglon, so he made his way to where she stood amidships with Nicolson. He was disappointed she’d braided her hair. He cleared his throat in an effort to take his mind off loosening the tight plaits so the brisk wind could lift the red tresses like a blazing banner. “’Tis possible the bodies were carried out to sea, or washed up on the English side of the Firth, but the tidal Nith is a good place to start.”
She narrowed her eyes and scanned the waters fore and aft. “I agree,” she replied.
He somehow got back to the prow, ridiculously pleased she thought he’d made the right decision.
*
Braids invariably gave Kyla a headache, especially when they’d been plaited too tightly by a pouting maidservant who made no bones about expressing the opinion women had no place aboard a boat.
As for searching for bodies!
Kyla had been afraid Doreen might have an apoplectic fit when Lily whined to accompany the expedition.
However, if she let her hair fly free, the wind would play havoc with it, and she needed to keep her wits about her on this somber mission. She’d a feeling from Broderick Maxwell’s frown of disapproval that he didn’t care for braids either, though why she should care…
The peculiar urge to please him had to be stifled. She’d almost drowned because of his actions, and her father’s birlinn lay at the bottom of the sea, thanks in no small measure, she was sure, to the eagle tethered to the prow of the gunboat.
Bird of ill omen.
She cringed when Broderick loosed the jesses. “Aiglon will find them, if they’re to be found,” he shouted.
Awed by the width of the bird’s wingspan, Kyla watched it glide effortlessly over the water. “Probably more interested in fish,” she muttered to Nicolson.
He grunted in reply.
There could be no denying the pride in Broderick’s eyes as he watched his eagle. Indeed, it was more than pride. He loved the creature.
She clenched her jaw against the memory of a dog she’d loved to distraction. Having stubbornly refused to speak for seven years, she’d blurted out the hound’s name the first time she’d set eyes on him.
Blue, how I miss ye.
She was still lost in thought when they reached the estuary and Broderick ordered the sail be lowered. They proceeded slowly, propelled by the oarsmen.
Kyla deemed Maxwell’s grin amusing when she nodded her approval of his tactics. Perhaps Lily was right. He did like her. However, this wasn’t the time to worry about whether a man liked her or not. Since when did that matter?
“She’s found summat,” Nicolson said gruffly.
Kyla shaded her eyes and searched for the bird, attributing her unusual confusion to memories of a beloved pet, laid to rest scant months since.
Nicolson pointed. “Circling. Yonder.”
“Pull harder,” Broderick shouted, “to starboard.”
Kyla’s unease grew as they neared the bank where the eagle now perched in a dead tree—another portent of ill.
She gasped at the unexpected sight of vaguely familiar objects washed up on the shore. “Part of our cargo,” she yelled to Broderick when she finally discerned what they were. “Bales of woven cloth and hides.”
“I’ll send men to salvage them later,” he replied.
“Probably waterlogged,” she said sadly, relieved he judged the task at hand more important. “But if there’s a chance…”
“Body in the water,” Delft shouted, pointing to shore.
Two men slipped over the side into the shallows and waded into the reeds to where a body floated face down.
Kyla’s hopes that her missing crewmen may have miraculously survived plummeted to her boots. Her belly churned as they rolled the corpse over.
“An auld man,” one of them yelled. “He’s nay one o’ yer sailors.”
They pulled the body to the boat. Strong hands helped haul it aboard.
Kyla stared hard at a white, wrinkled face she didn’t recognize. “Who is he?” she asked, guiltily relieved it wasn’t one of her crew.
Broderick peered at the dead man. “’Tis Cladh, the sexton from Darling Abbey.”
Delft knelt by the body and lifted the man’s head. “Aye, and he didna drown. Somebody cleaved open his skull.”
Kyla inhaled deeply, unable to comprehend what was being alleged. “Darling Abbey?”
Broderick turned her to face the opposite bank. “Yonder.”
A strange foreboding crept up her spine when she espied a cathedral-like building looming in the distance. Something evil lurked in that holy place. She swayed, grateful Broderick still gripped her shoulders.
But his next words only added to her unease.
“Who’d want to murder an auld gravedigger?”
*
They continued to search the banks of the Nith, but Broderick’s attention kept returning to the blanket-covered body beneath one of the tholes. A vague feeling of disquiet refused to leave him.
He glanced over his shoulder numerous times at the abbey, just visible in the distance—and he wasn’t the only one. Unless he was mistaken, the same foreboding had washed over Kyla when she’d espied the monastery. She’d almost swooned against him.
The body was certainly an unexpected discovery, and one he was bound to investigate as Warden of the Solway. At least this death couldn’t be laid at his door.
They’d gone almost as far as Kingholm Quay, but the tide would soon turn, stranding them on the mudflats if they weren’t careful. On the point of abandoning the search of the opposite bank, they found the two drowned sailors within a few yards of each other.
Kyla and Nicolson knelt silently by the bloated bodies after they were brought aboard.
Broderick ought to offer condolences, but any words he might utter would sound empty.
“They were cousins,” Kyla rasped, piercing him with angry green eyes. “From Ywst.”
He could only nod in reply. Her obvious grief was another nail in the coffin of his fancies. She would never see him as anything other than the man who’d sunk her father’s boat.