Unlike other Scots, he seldom wore plaid, even as a waistcoat. He preferred the long, black leather doublet he wore today. Only the snow-white shirt and luxurious maroon scarf tied at the column of his corded, sun-browned throat interrupted the monotony of his ensemble.
The sunlight caught the long sliver of scar that lashed across his left cheek, but rather than disfiguring his face, she’d long ago decided the mark rather gave him a dashing, pirate effect. He even sported a ruby earring in his left ear, although his wasn’t a large, gaudy looped affair, but instead, a half-circle, studded with blood-red gems.
A tempting pirate, indeed.
And was it any wonder?
The man had been a buccaneer—a privateer—for His Majesty for several years. Once, when she’d been fourteen, she’d accidentally overheard that tidbit. Branwen had also learned Bryston had gone to sea at the tender age of ten and owned his own ship by one and twenty.
No small feat, that.
However, no one ever discussed Bryston McPherson’s life as a swashbuckler openly. Nor the reason he’d abruptly given up his wandering the oceans several years ago.
Two burly men flanked him, the threesome advancing toward the abbey with measured gaits.
Assessing them, she cocked her head.
Most definitely not Scots.
One possessed skin the color of smooth, dark honey, and the other almond-shaped eyes and an extravagant mustache. They sported two dirks apiece in their waistbands, as well as swords. Were they sailors or men Bryston had brought along as bodyguards?
Surely, the wharf wasn’t so very dangerous as all of that. Why, even urchins scampered about the piers alone, delivering messages and running errands.
Perchance the extra security had something to do with Bethea’s abduction and the despicable Earl of Montieth who was behind the act.
Nae, that couldn’t be the reason. The strapping man advancing toward her had seen Montieth arrested for treason. The earl might very well have met a gruesome end by now.
Finally noticing her, Bryston changed his direction, his sturdy legs and elongated treads carrying him to her in short order. As usual, his guarded eyes hid his thoughts as effectively as shutters secured across windows.
The daunting men followed him, their alert gazes taking in every inch of the churchyard. Had she come upon them in another setting, they might’ve frightened her.
Bryston nodded his blond head, those dark coffee-brown eyes of his, hooded and reserved and so unexpected given his champagne colored hair. “Miss Glanville.”
Hmm, she’d been Branwen for years.
Why the formality now?
She slid a surreptitious glance at the other men.
Because of his companions?
Bryston possessed a deliciously deep voice, but rather than rough or grating, his speech flowed forth with a lyrical quality. Possibly because he possessed an extraordinary talent for singing, mostly naughty ditties or soulful seamen’s ballads.
“Mr. McPherson.” Arching an eyebrow, she righted herself and returned his formal greeting before offering a sincere smile to the men accompanying him.
They gave brief, polite nods, but remained silent and alert?
One of Bryston’s eyebrows shied upward at her coolly polite tone as if he knew precisely what she was thinking.
“Roxdale?” As always, Bryston was a man of few words.
“Keane and the others are just there.” She turned to point them out, but instead, pulled the corners of her brows together.
Where had they gone to?
He followed her stare and braced one broad hand on his hip, a sudden tautness settling over him. Tattoos adorned several of his fingers, and a plain gold band encircled his little finger.
Eyes narrowed and legs splayed, his companions fingered their swords.
Unease fairly oozed from the trio.
What in the world?
“Where?” Bryston asked succinctly, scraping his astute gaze over the abbey and the other sightseers.
“They were near that pair of coffins.” Wrinkling her nose, Branwen tucked a stray strand of black hair behind her ear that was tickling her cheek. “I suppose they might’ve gone around to the other side. There’s a graveyard there. It’s quite fascinating. Some of the stones date back several centuries.”
He angled his head, sliding his attention in the direction she’d indicated. “Zhao, ye and Bayu find Roxdale and his family and escort them to the Queen’s Arms. Use caution and apprise the duke of the situation. I’ll go ahead of ye with Miss Glanville.”
According to Keane, the tavern and eatery they were to have their midday meal at was a scant half-mile away.
Wait. Situation?
What situation?
“Come along, Miss Glanville,” Bryston said without preamble, taking her elbow, all the while that keen gaze of his roved the landscape.
What did he seek? Or who?
“Why?” she asked shortly.
“Plans have changed,” he said shortly.
She dug her heels into the soft grass.
“Pray, explain yerself.” Casting a glance over her shoulder, she caught sight of his men disappearing around the priory’s other open end.
“I canna assist Keane today.” He glanced down at her, the corners of his eyes tight, and the irises so small, she felt as if she gazed into warm chocolate pools. Light blond bristle covered his jaw, and a muscle flexed there on the right side. “I must be away as soon as I ken ye and the others are safe.”
A steely inflection in his tone caused her heart to leap and flutter against her ribs.
“Why, Bryston? What has happened?”
At his urging, she fell into pace beside him.
“An old enemy was sighted in Leith nae more than an hour ago.”
“Enemy?” Her mouth had gone dry as cold ash, and she licked her lower lip. “Does this have somethin’ to do with yer days as a buccaneer?”
He gave a sharp nod and propelled her forward. “We have nae time to waste, lass. I must see ye safe before I sail with the tide.”
“Yer leavin’?” She tried to sort her jumbled thoughts, not at all certain why that knowledge dismayed her. Perhaps because he’d only returned and he was rather a permanent fixture at Trentwick these past several months? “I thought ye didna sail anymore.”
“I still own a ship.” He didn’t elaborate.
Which to her knowledge, he hadn’t set foot upon in years, and he’d remained remarkably closed-mouth as to why.
His pace didn’t ease as he ushered her along beside him. Just like a man. Drag her with him because he was in danger, but refuse to explain what, exactly, was going on.
“Are those men ye sent after Keane part of yer crew?” They looked like what she’d always envisioned swashbucklers would.
“Aye.”
They’d reached the dirt track leading to the main road by then, and she looked behind her once more. There was still no sign of Keane, Marjorie, or the girls.
Mayhap they’d taken a tour of Holyrood Palace, which abutted the abbey. Elana had expressed a wish to do so.
“Why canna I wait for Keane and Marjorie?” Unease slithered along her spine as she quickened her pace to keep up with him. It wasn’t that she was afraid of Bryston. She wasn’t.
In point of fact, she’d sensed something was amiss before he’d arrived.
“Because I dinna ken if I was followed, and I’d see ye tucked away first.” His hand flexed around her elbow, and it occurred to her that he deliberately kept her near his side.
Shielding her?
From what?
Another tremor of alarm winged through her, causing her stomach to sink in that weird hollow way it did when she was startled or unnerved.
“And because my enemy was askin’ questions about ye and Roxdale that I dinna like,” Bryston elucidated.
“Couldna ye have simply sent a note, instead?” Branwen knitted her brow. Wasn’t he also endangering her and her family by mee
ting them at the Queen’s Arms?
She scooted her focus to the trees and shrubberies, viewing the area with new attentiveness and misgivings as wariness settled upon her.
Was this the reason she’d been unnerved earlier?
Had she sensed something was afoot?
Never as jolly or charming as Camden or Graeme Kennedy, or any of Keane’s other friends, the intense, alert man beside her had become a stranger.
“Nae.” His jaw spasmed, but he stared straight ahead, his slightly imperfect profile a testament to his nose once having been broken.
“Ye need to trust me, Branwen. I canna take the time to explain right now.”
Back to Branwen now, was he?
The bloody man blew hot and cold, as fickle as a female cat in heat.
“This disna make any sense,” Branwen said, tugging forcefully at her arm.
She didn’t know Bryston well enough to toddle off with him, much less trust the man.
Well, she knew him, of course.
He was a particular friend of her guardian’s, after all. She’d even danced with him once at the Hogmanay celebration last year. But she didn’t know this Bryston McPherson, the buccaneer turned covert agent.
Slightly breathless at their rapid pace, she searched her surroundings again.
The quaint village loomed before them.
Cozy, peaceful, unremarkable.
Cobbled streets and stone structures lined Easter Road, the main entrance. The ships’ masts gently rose and fell as the water lapped at the vessels’ bellies. Dozens of men and women milled about the busy streets as carts and wagons lumbered back and forth from the docks.
Two men on horseback rode down the center of the lane, and a young boy ran across the street, a big brown dog barking at his side. A gray and white cat sat contentedly upon a stone step before an establishment, its eyes half-closed.
Nothing appeared the least amiss.
Nonetheless, unease slithered down her spine and coiled in her belly as her conscience hissed a warning in her ears.
“I think ye’d better let me return to my family, Bryston.” She despised the slight tremor in her tone.
However, he didn’t give any indication he’d heard her.
“Bryston?” she said again, much more forcefully.
“Have yer feet completely healed?” he asked abruptly, cutting her the briefest glance.
What?
What a peculiar thing to ask.
“Aye. My toes were mostly bruised. I’ve been fine for over a week now.”
Bryston made a rough sound in his throat that almost sounded like a curse. He tightened his grip on her arm as he jutted his bold chin and said almost conversationally, “Branwen, see the mast flyin’ a flag with a dolphin and red rose?”
A trio of seedy men just emerging from a building and now staring boldly at her and Bryston. One bore a long, russet beard and a flamboyant red hat, complete with swaying crimson and black ostrich feathers. The other pair wore ill-fitting sailors’ garb, and even at this distance, she could see their sweat-stained collars, underarms, and overall griminess.
Alarm lifted her nape hairs to attention, and she tore her attention away.
Squinting at the horizon, she spotted the striking flag Bryston had directed her attention to. It was quite similar to the tattoo adorning his arm.
Nae coincidence, that.
Her attention fixed on the fluttering rectangle, she nodded. “Aye. I see it.”
“That’s my ship, The Dolphin, and our destination. When we get to the next corner, we’re goin’ to turn right, and ye need to run as fast as ye can,” Bryston murmured low and soothingly as if it were the most natural thing in the world to say.
“What?” She shot him an astounded look, fear zigzagging an irregular path from her heart to her throat and raising every single pore on her arms and back. “Why?”
Again, he dropped his earnest gaze to hers for a second. Her eyes clashed with his, now darkened to slate. Tension slanted his dark blond brows into a taut line. “We’ve been spotted.”
“Bryston McPherson, I’m nae takin’ another step until ye tell me what’s goin’ on.” Once more, she dug her heels in and came to a stop. It would be the height of folly to blithely go off with him without knowing what caused such a reaction from him.
But wasn’t that what she’d just done? Left the abbey at his insistence?
Hold yer wheesht, she berated her too-logical conscience.
“Damn it, lass. I dinna have time to explain all to ye now.” Bryston cast a harrowed glance down the road, his expression growing grimmer by the second. The lyrical cadence of his voice became brusque and steely. “Ye must trust me, Branwen.”
Branwen also looked to where he stared, and a chill raised goose flesh from her shoulders to waist this time.
The three menacing men advanced in their direction, their movements orchestrated and predatory.
Danger. Danger. Danger.
Her heart pounded a warning cadence.
A sly, evil smile quirked the mouth of the man with the ridiculous hat.
Och, God.
“Bryston. They are the enemy ye spoke of, arena they?”
“Aye,” he said, fisting his hand and looking as if he’d seen a ghost.
“Who are they?”
“The men who killed my wife.” He slid his hand down her arm to grasp her hand. “Now, run!”
Chapter Three
12 April 1721
Leith, Scotland
Bryston seized Branwen’s fine-boned hand and hauled the raven-haired, pewter-eyed beauty with him as he sprinted down the crowded track. Tall for a woman, she kept pace with him, her hand clutching his as if her life depended upon it.
It very well might, damn it to hell.
Her breath rasped in and out, but she didn’t slow her pace nor complain.
Another time, he’d have admired her bravery and resolve. At present, however, his mind raced ahead of his pounding feet, plotting the best escape route.
How was it a man that Bryston had believed dead for years walked the streets of Leith? A man he despised with such loathing, his blood boiled and fury blurred his vision?
“McPherson!”
He cringed upon hearing that hated sing-song voice.
“I see you and your lovely mademoiselle. I wonder, mon ami, will she meet the same fate as the belle Delphine, oui?” The French pirate, Marc-André Le Sauvage—not his real surname but one he’d earned because of his brutal acts—bellowed in his thick French accent, followed by a deranged laugh.
The man was a savage in every way.
Aye, and mad, too.
“Jesus on the blessed cross,” Branwen panted, glancing over her shoulder, her unbound hair a flowing ebony curtain. Her bright cloak billowed around her ankles as they flew down the street, dodging people.
“Bryston, who is that man?”
Nae one ye ever want to meet, lass.
“Who is Delphine?” she gasped, between breaths and slanting a harried look over her shoulder. “How does he ken ye?”
Her questions would have to wait.
“Out of the way. Move aside,” Bryston shouted, stretching his legs into a sprint only to slow his progress to dash around a startled elderly woman clutching an overflowing basket to her ample, sagging chest.
Dammit.
They’d never outrun Le Sauvage and his henchmen with this many people milling about.
Indignant men and women exclaimed and protested as Bryston rudely shoved them aside without apology. Behind him, the Frenchman shouted his name again before he ordered his men to pursue Bryston and Branwen.
“Zut. After them, Bisonette, Faucheux. They must not escape.”
Shite.
Bryston turned down another street, this one narrower and less populated, but reeking of refuse. A pair of rats scampered into a hole in the foundation. His heart stampeded in his chest, battering his ribs, and his pulse pounded a frenetic staccato in his ears.
/> The rumors of Le Sauvage’s death had been just that. Rumors.
God’s teeth.
And in the ensuing almost five years since he’d seen the devil’s spawn and learned of his supposed death at sea, Bryston had become complacent.
But, by God, why wouldn’t he have?
I believed the bastard dead and burnin’ in the ninth layer of hell right next to the devil himself.
The blackguard was supposed to be dead—his ship lost in the Indian Ocean during a gale.
Somehow, the bastard had survived and had come back to haunt Bryston. His gut wrenched as a vision of Delphine’s waxen face and glassy eyes staring sightlessly up at him drove a rusty blade deep into his innards.
Not now! Later, when Branwen was safe, he could permit the old feelings and memories to bubble to the surface.
“This way. Hurry!” He towed a winded Branwen onto a cross street.
He raced them down another lane, weighing his options. Had he been by himself, he’d not be as worried, but Branwen drastically complicated a successful escape.
Though she hadn’t said a word, she tired. She stumbled, gasped, then caught her footing and kept going. She labored for breath, little wheezing sounds coming from her parted mouth, her hand still clutching his in a finger-numbing grip.
The port lay several streets away, and who knew how many of Le Sauvage’s other men patrolled them this very minute, looking for Bryston?
Likely, they watched his ship, as well.
The last time he’d seen that French cockscum’s reviled face, Bryston had cradled Delphine’s lifeless, blood-soaked body in his arms, only a hair’s breadth away from death himself. The scar on his cheek from the wound that had nearly killed him that day pulled tautly as a feral grimace skewed his face, and a primal growl erupted from his throat.
Her features pinched with terror, Branwen cut him a swift, searching look.
“Dinna stop, lass.”
He’d vowed to kill that scurvy dog after Le Sauvage had murdered his beloved wife—slashing her golden skin and inflicting burns, time after time, trying to force information from her she had no knowledge of.
Because there wasn’t any goddamned bloody treasure—never had been as far as Delphine knew.
Memories tumbled over one another, a riot of unsolicited and unwelcome recollections, surging to the forefront of his mind.
To Bargain with a Highland Buccaneer Page 2
