Off Balance
“Chuir thu fodha bàta m’athar,” Kyla spluttered, surrendering to the strong arm clamped under her breasts.
“Put yer anger into kicking,” came the hoarse reply.
Her rescuer was right. There’d be time enough for accusations about sinking her father’s boat. Staying alive was the priority.
She forced numbed legs to tread water, all the while hugging the precious MacKeegan plaid to her chest as she was pulled to the gunboat.
The garment might have dragged her to her death, but it was the only piece of clan identity remaining in this foreign place now the Lanmara was gone.
She squeezed her eyes shut to ward off the vision of her father’s grief when he learned the news. She had failed him.
Rough hands hauled her aboard the gunboat, and a mighty shove on her bottom sent her sprawling. Choking and shivering, she squinted into the too bright sky, then turned her head and coughed up seawater.
“A sailor should learn to swim.”
Confused, she sat up and gazed around, blinking the stinging salt from her eyes. Agitated men rushed from stem to stern. A goodly number of her own crew lay on the deck.
But the sarcasm had come from a man hunkered down a few feet away, watching her with dark eyes. Black hair hung like a wet curtain around his ruggedly handsome face. His broad chest rose and fell as he regained his breath. The wet shirt clinging to his torso only enhanced impressive muscles.
She was struck dumb by the unexpected beauty of the man who had saved her life, but then his words penetrated the fog and indignation soared. “In the Isles there was ne’er a danger of my galley sinking,” she retorted.
He smirked. “I thought ye said the birlinn belonged to yer father.”
An icy chill raced across her nape that had naught to do with nigh on drowning in cold water. According to Lochwood, no one in the Lowlands spoke the Gaelic.
It suddenly occurred to her she’d given no thought to what had become of the lunatic. Her gaze darted here and there, but failed to count him among the survivors.
“We’re assuming yer captain drowned,” her rescuer said. “I’m Laird Broderick Maxwell, by the way, and I arrest ye in the name of the king.”
*
Apparently satisfied there were no more men to be fished out of the firth, Aiglon returned to her perch, settled her feathers and studied the woman Broderick had rescued.
As well she might.
Even half-drowned and seething with fury, she was a sight to behold. He’d never seen a lass with such an abundance of glorious hair and anticipated it would be even redder when it dried. A man could do worse than wake each day wrapped in those tresses. The memory of firm breasts pressed against his forearm was still vivid.
But her next remark jolted him from his preoccupation with her physical allure.
“My father will expect ye to pay damages.”
He snorted. “And who might yer father be?” he asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.
“Darroch, Chief o’ Clan MacKeegan o’ Sleat, and husband to Isabel MacRain, daughter of the chief o’ Clan MacRain.”
Feigning astonishment at the extent of her father’s power, he widened his eyes and gaped, but then laughed. “Weel, ye can tell yer father his boat is at the bottom of the Solway because his crew failed to heed a warning from King James’ Warden.”
“Is that the reason I am being arrested?”
“That, and for smuggling…opium probably.”
Green eyes flashed, turning the interest stirring at his groin into an inconvenient erection the likes of which he hadn’t experienced in many a year.
“No MacKeegan will ever allow opium on board any of their galleys,” she insisted vehemently. “’Tis a matter o’ principle. My stepmother’s father nearly died of opium poisoning.”
She bit her bottom lip, leaving him with the impression she regretted revealing personal details about her family. “Our cargo consisted of woven cloth and hides bound for English markets.”
So, she wasn’t Isabel MacRain’s daughter. He wanted to know more about this enthralling woman, but first things first. “Why did yer captain nay obey?”
She shrugged. “’Tisna wise to argue when ye have a pistol pointed at yer head.”
Broderick was confused. “I thought the man with the pistol was the captain.”
She lifted her chin. “Ye’re mistaken. That was Laird Corbin Lochwood.”
Her revelation caused him to scan the rescued sailors aboard his ship once more. He shouldn’t be elated a man might have drowned, but the prospect of Lochwood’s death filled him with a sense of satisfaction. “Then who was in charge of yer boat?”
She dragged the sodden plaid around her shivering shoulders. “I’m Kyla MacKeegan, and I’ll thank ye to address me with the respect befitting my station as captain.”
“But ye’re a woman,” he replied, instantly regretting the words. He might have known this Hebridean spitfire clad in male clothing was capable of captaining a birlinn.
She snorted. “Lowland women might be too ladylike to captain ships. We’re made o’ sterner stuff.”
The galley lurched as his crew got them underway, headed for shore. The chilly wind turned Broderick’s wet shirt into a clammy shroud. He got to his feet and pulled it off over his head. “Fetch blankets,” he shouted to Delft, throwing the shirt to the deck.
He turned to apologize for his remark, but the words died in his throat. Her gaze traveled slowly from his chest to his groin and back. The fire in her eyes smoldered still, but now there was a hint of lust as she licked her lips.
Despite himself, he squared his shoulders and sucked in his belly, furling the rough blanket around his shoulders like a cape when Delft handed it to him.
He was being devoured by a stunningly beautiful woman. It was a new experience, and he liked it.
*
Despite the chilly wind, a wave of heat rolled over Kyla as she gaped at the half-naked laird who’d rescued her. She snapped her mouth shut. He’d knocked her off balance and she didn’t like the feeling one little bit. It fueled her anger.
The arrogant Lowlander strutting around the deck had sunk the Lanmara and drowned men for no good reason. “Of all the vessels plying the Solway, why did ye decide to pursue us?” she asked, teeth chattering as an icy premonition crept up her spine.
“Ye changed course after the Point,” he replied, avoiding her gaze.
She rolled her eyes in an effort to stop staring at well-muscled thighs braced against the ship’s movement. “So ye challenge every boat heading for Bowness?”
“We were on the lookout for a birlinn,” he admitted, stooping to retrieve his sword belt from the deck.
He fastened the belt around lean hips, all the while securing the cape blanket with his chin. He suddenly and unexpectedly looked endearingly vulnerable.
No, no, no. Her parents may have been smitten as soon as they met, but this swaggering sod had destroyed…
Something he’d said echoed in her frozen brain. They were searching for a birlinn…a vessel from the Hebrides.
She narrowed her eyes. “Ye were hunting Corbin Lochwood. I ken all about yer feud. Ye sank us in the hopes of killing him, and it seems ye’ve succeeded. Ye’re naught but a pirate and a murderer.”
*
Corbin had to hope the incoming tide would eventually carry him to shore—if the bale of cloth to which he clung didn’t become waterlogged and sink. His chances were better now he’d forced Adrian to loosen his grip and fend for himself.
Provided the salt water hadn’t ruined the wool, he’d salvage something from the catastrophe.
He chuckled at his folly, despite the cold fear gnawing at his belly. The icy water had already drained the strength from his legs and apparently frozen his brain as well. Revenge would be the harvest of this fiasco, not a pile of woolen cloth woven in some godforsaken croft.
He floated alone amid bits of splintered wood. At least the confounded eagle had ceased swooping over him. He remembered his grandfather’s gillie telling him they pecked out a man’s eyes first. He gritted his chattering teeth, resolved to survive this ordeal. He had no intention of becoming fodder for a bird of prey.
He’d watched the gallant Maxwell rescue Kyla. The gunboat was now a faint dot on the horizon, headed no doubt for Caerlochnaven.
He may have lost the lucrative trading goods he’d traveled so far to obtain, and the opium that would have secured his fortune, but he’d be damned if he’d let Maxwell steal the redhead.
She was his.