Highland Crown

by May McGoldrick

  Cinaed ran a hand down his face to shake free of the lust that was keeping him hard. He needed to think of something else besides the woman across the room. He reminded himself Isabella wasn’t one you made love to and then left. She was a prize, a love-and-cherish kind of woman.

  So what was he doing? Both their lives were complicated right now. She deserved better than what little he had to offer.

  “This one’s kinsman is pacing about down there like a mad dog, waiting to see him,” Jean said, addressing Isabella as she came around the partition. “He says to tell ye to get presentable, mistress. He can’t wait much longer, says he.”

  Isabella turned around and started braiding her hair as quickly as she could.

  Cinaed swung his feet to the floor. “Tell him he’s not wanted up here. I’ll go down to him.”

  Isabella turned to him for the first time since Jean entered the chamber. “Do you think you’re well enough to go downstairs?”

  “Well enough?” Cinaed arched a brow at her. She immediately blushed and looked away. “My clothes. Are any of them here?”

  Isabella walked the older woman to the door. “He’ll need a shirt to go with the rest of his clothes. The housekeeper said they’d all be ready for him this morning.”

  “And a manservant to help me wash and dress,” Cinaed added.

  After Jean went out, Isabella pressed her back against the door.

  “I’m appalled at my behavior. The way I acted. I practically attacked you. I had no right to behave—”

  “Stop.” He pushed to his feet and went to her. As much as he wanted to take her in his arms, he kept his hands at his sides. “You’re a woman. I’m a man. You saved my life, and I saved yours. We have a bond between us now. We’ve weathered more danger side by side than most people experience in a lifetime. Perhaps that has something to do with how we feel about each other. And how we both have behaved.”

  There was more he wanted to say, but he didn’t trust his heart not to interfere with the cool logic that was called for in this moment. It required great effort, but he walked back to the bed, picked up the bandages, and stretched out his hand to her.

  “Would you kindly do the honors, Mrs. Mackintosh?”

  She approached, and he sat on the bed. Her focus was exemplary, the furrow in her brow reminding him of the first time he’d opened his eyes to see her working on the wound in his chest. But her hair was delightfully disheveled from his fingers pushing into it. Her lips were swollen from their kiss. The fair skin on her cheeks and chin bore the marks of his beard. He’d be shaving that off as soon as the servant came up.

  He fisted his hands on the blanket at his sides so he wouldn’t reach for her.

  “What do you think Searc wants so early in the morning?” she asked.

  Cinaed looked down at her fingers expertly bandaging him. “I’d guess he’s heard about the loss of the Highland Crown.”

  “But that was your ship, was it not? Why should that upset him?”

  “The sinking affects him as well. It was my ship, but he was the middleman for the cargo I was carrying.”

  “Guns? Powder? Shot?” she asked, her eyes meeting his briefly.

  He knew the British charges against Isabella. It was just as well she knew his.

  “The Highland Crown could make the crossing to Halifax and to Philadelphia in six to eight weeks, sometimes taking up to twelve weeks to return. I try to bring a cargo of arms in twice a year, sometimes if the wind is good, three times.”

  She let out an unsteady breath and focused her attention on his arm. “A dangerous business for you.”

  “You say dangerous.” Cinaed lifted her chin and looked into her beautiful face. “And yet, you don’t say it’s wrong.”

  A thoughtful, mirthless laugh escaped her. “Six years ago, I would have been horrified. Two years ago, I would have had a slightly better understanding, but I still would have lectured you and reminded you of the pain and suffering armed conflict causes. But now?” She shook her head.

  “What do you say to me now?”

  She placed his hand on her shoulder, a better position to bandage. “The British pretend the Scots are equal to them in the eyes of the king. But it’s a lie. They have their armies here as occupiers of a conquered land. For fifty years, the British kings have been giving land and power to men who are more English than Scot, men who have sold their souls for profit. In the six years I’ve lived in Edinburgh, I’ve tried to be an objective observer, but sooner or later, even a blind person must see the hardship that poor and working folk are being forced to endure.”

  Cinaed heard the notes of anger and shame in her voice.

  “And if they speak out against the laws that make it impossible for a farmer to sell his crops at a fair price,” she continued, “or if they try to organize and protest that their wages are too low or that they are being governed and taxed and denied the ability to vote for their representatives in Parliament, they are portrayed as radical extremists and traitors, and cut down in the street or imprisoned by monsters in British uniforms, men like Lieutenant Hudson.”

  “You’ve been more than an observer, I think,” he said, impressed. Hudson’s accusations had been about the husband, but Cinaed felt Isabella was a crusader for the same causes. “This is the kind of thinking that leads to change.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s also the kind of thinking that gets innocent people killed.” Isabella lowered his arm from her shoulder. “But why did you get into it? This is not Edinburgh or Glasgow or Aberdeen. Certainly, there must be profit in shipping without making yourself an outlaw or an enemy of the Crown.”

  “What you say about soulless men being installed in positions of power is true in the Highlands, as well. And in the name of economic progress, they have been clearing the land and gutting the power of the clan chiefs. They say it is for the benefit of the people, but it is actually only for the benefit of the Crown and those absentee landlords who build their palaces in England from the profits of wool and the blood of the dispossessed.”

  “So, it’s the same here as it is in the south,” she said quietly.

  “About six years ago, on the northern coast, Lord Stafford ordered the clearing of his lands in Strathnaver. A man named Patrick Sellar was his factor. He used violence of the worst order to turn out the tenants whose families had farmed the land for generations. Over forty villages were burned and pulled down. Men and women were brutalized and even murdered. Eventually, Sellar was indicted for his crimes and tried here in Inverness. He told the court his actions were benevolent and intended to put what he called ‘these barbarous hordes’ into a position where they could become more industrious, educate their children, and advance in civilization. But the truth was that those who were unwilling to be starved on tiny plots were forced onto ships with only the clothes on their backs and sent across the sea to unknown lands.”

  “What happened in his trial?” she asked.

  “He was acquitted in a legal system that protects those with money and power.” Cinaed stood and went to the window. That wasn’t the end of it. Searc’s men caught up to Sellar about a year later and made him suffer.

  The Highlanders were still out there. He was certain of it. He turned and looked back at her. “And that is why I bring arms to the Highlanders who refuse to give up the fight. I’d be a liar if I said I don’t do it for profit, but I have good reason for doing it.”

  CHAPTER 15

  One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.

  —Sir Walter Scott, Count Robert of Paris

  Cinaed descended the stairs from the tower room. The chamber on the floor below had always been reserved and ready for special guests. He’d never known there to be any, but the room was made up as it always was, neat and tidy, as the master of th
e house demanded.

  A curious fellow, his kinsman. And as tough and tight as sharkskin.

  In his gruff and surly way, Searc enjoyed his reputation for frugality. In the eyes of his business associates, he operated his household on a skeleton staff. But aside from the few required workers, in truth he had more than a score of men who came and went at all hours of the day and night. They not only performed various functions in the household, they were his own private army. Searc’s men protected the place, watched over his business holdings, collected money owed to him, and applied muscle when needed. Indeed, this company of “manservants” and “kitchen help” had responsibilities that extended far beyond mopping floors, polishing silver, and delivering meals.

  It was one of those men who met Cinaed at the bottom of the stairs. Another member of Searc’s gang stood in a doorway across the great hall, a pistol in one hand and a cleaning cloth in the other. Searc, Cinaed was told, was waiting to see him in his study.

  As always, the ground floor was dark due to the shuttered windows that were opened only on rare occasions. Crossing through the great hall past a staircase that led up to the dining and drawing rooms, he made his way down narrow corridors that snaked past the kitchens and storerooms. Doorways leading to wine and root cellars also led to other corridors and other doors that gave access to tunnel entrances. Searc had always used only the wine cellar entrance for guests who needed to avoid notice when they entered his home, but every entrance was well guarded. No one came in without an invitation.

  Passing the kitchens, Cinaed climbed a set of stone steps into a second, rectangular-shaped tower at the back of the house. Outside the study door, he knocked twice and opened it.

  In his life’s travels, Cinaed had seen great cities, cathedrals that pierced the skies, circles of standing stones, and castles built to last a thousand years. Nothing, however, matched Searc’s study for the rich and wondrous curiosity it engendered. As an awestruck nine-year-old boy, Cinaed remembered thinking the entire world had somehow been shrunk and fit into this room.

  Shelves filled with books rose to a ceiling so high a special ladder on wheels had been installed just to reach them. Maps depicting the seas and coastlines and nations of the world covered an entire wall, and more lay on and under a work table. Navigation and charting instruments, clocks, a barrel filled with walking sticks and swords were scattered around the room. In one corner in a tall locked cabinet, Cinaed knew shelves held dozens of muskets, pistols, powder, and shot. In another corner, some of the most beautiful paintings and portraits he’d ever seen stood lined up like chops on a butcher’s tray. Piled on top of an iron strongbox as tall as a man, stuffed animals and brightly colored tropical birds stared blankly out at dust motes floating in the morning light.

  Searc’s desk was situated at the center of it all. It was piled high with stacks of ledgers and even taller mounds of paper. Letters, contracts, bills of lading, newspapers—all threatening to avalanche onto the floor at any moment. But for all the times Cinaed had been in this room, he’d never seen Searc sitting in the chair behind that desk. Like that killer fish whose name he’d taken, Searc was incapable of being still. Today was no exception.

  A surly clerk who looked as if he could cut a man’s throat as easily as add a row of sums, stood over an open ledger at the desk, taking directions from his master. Searc motioned to Cinaed to help himself to the breakfast dishes that had been set out at a side table.

  He filled a plate and sat. He didn’t know how hungry he was until he took the first bite.

  Searc dismissed the clerk with the same abruptness that marked everything in his life. He looked even more like a bulldog than usual this morning, Cinaed thought. When the clerk left the room, Searc came and stood by the window.

  “I know the Highland Crown is gone.”

  He wasn’t surprised the news had reached Searc. The ship had been expected to arrive at Inverness the morning after it was sunk. Cinaed had showed up at his door badly wounded. That was enough to surmise the truth.

  “My crew. Have any of them made it to Inverness?”

  “Your first mate and two longboats landed near Nairn.” Searc began to pace. “They sent on news of the sinking. They didn’t know what happened to you. They’d seen nothing of your second mate and the rest of your crew.”

  Cinaed wasn’t about to lose hope. The men in the last boat must have assumed he was dead after he was shot and went overboard. They knew Duff Head was no safe place for them. If they cleared the rocks, they could have come ashore at a less hostile point along the coast.

  “And I should live, by the way. Thanks for asking.”

  “The indestructible son of Scotland?” Searc scoffed. “What happened to the ship?”

  “The storm pushed her up on the reef.” He shoved the food away. His stomach wasn’t ready for a large meal. “She was gone in a few hours.”

  “Who shot you?”

  “Some villager you shouldn’t have sold a musket to,” Cinaed snapped. Searc almost smiled. Irony had always appealed to him. “The bloody sandmongers felt they’d been cheated because so little was washing ashore.”

  “Was all your cargo lost?”

  “Gone. I blew it up. I wasn’t about to let anything fall into the hands of the local authorities. No evidence remains of what the Highland Crown carried.” He was left with nothing. “I need to start over.”

  Cinaed quaffed some small beer and sat back, stretching his legs out. He remembered another time in his life, sitting right here in front of this man, when he’d had nothing to his name. Albeit, he’d been a boy then.

  “You think you’re poor, is that it?” Searc stopped moving and faced him.

  Cinaed shook his head. “I have no money, but I’ll never be poor again. I have skills and I have experience. I’ve sailed every type of ship seen on the Atlantic. I can command anything from a sloop to a brig to a barquentine. I know there are ship owners along the coast who are looking for an able captain to—”

  “You’re not poor,” Searc interrupted, stabbing the air with a stubby finger before going back to his pacing.

  Suddenly, he didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. “I’ll not borrow money from you. You’re still a Mackintosh. Even though I rank you far above that dog-faced clan of ours, the business between us is still just that. And I refuse to put myself in debt to a—”

  A pudgy hand shot up, stopping him. Searc leaned on the back of a chair and pointed his bushy eyebrows at him. “You’re not poor, you bloody fool.” He enunciated each word slowly and clearly.

  Cinaed’s eyes narrowed. Since he’d started smuggling arms, he’d procured weapons in New York or Philadelphia, and Searc always handled this end. The clan chief who was to receive each shipment was arranged here. Searc’s men met the Highland Crown with boats to transfer the cargo when they arrived, so he’d had no worries with customs house officials when the tow horses hauled her upriver to her berth at the pier. Searc took care of all of it, including any bribes that were needed for the excise men to look the other way. Prices were agreed upon in advance, and Cinaed’s share provided ample capital for fitting out the ship and investing in cargo for the next crossing.

  He liked the arrangement. He kept his independence. He didn’t want to be under Searc’s thumb by borrowing from him. But that didn’t seem to be what he was saying.

  “I know what is mine back in Halifax. I know what I’ve lost.” Cinaed sat back, crossing his arms. “But I’m not about to guess at whatever it is you’re trying to tell me. So, out with it.”

  Searc’s restless nature wouldn’t allow him to stand still long enough to explain anything. He paced back and forth a few times, then came to a sudden stop by his desk, glaring at Cinaed.

  “Just know that what I did was for your own good.”

  Already, he didn’t like the sound of this. “What exactly did you do?”

  “I invested it. All of it. For you.”

  The words tumbled out and l
ay stinking between them like month-old herring. Searc had been holding out on him. Despite knowing how the man dealt with others, Cinaed believed Searc treated him differently. They needed to trust each other when Searc laid out their business arrangements. But he’d been lying.

  “Invested?” The word left a nasty taste in his mouth. If this were any other man, Cinaed would have already had him by the throat. But because it was Searc, he waited. The man was pacing again, his hand inside his coat. He was taking no chances.

  “You’ve always been too free with your money to be a good businessman. I’ve seen how you’ve wasted it, sharing more with your crew than they deserve. You take risks for Scotland. That revenue cutter you stole and sank. All those rebels you transport back and forth, charging them nothing for the crossing. You’re all heart and no head.”

  “I’ve done well enough doing business my own way,” Cinaed said. “So, you’ve been keeping the lion’s share?”

  Searc stalked to his desk and began pawing through the pile of ledgers. “Not keeping it for myself.”

  Cinaed thought he was broke, having lost his ship. Now he wondered if Searc had kept enough for him to start again. “How much have you invested?”

  The dark brows drew together. “Calm yourself.”

  “This is as calm as I plan to be right now,” he threatened.

  “Well, you need to hear and agree to my terms.”

  “Terms?” Cinaed growled. “You steal money from me, and now I have to agree to terms to get my own money back? If someone pulled this on you, their body would wash up in pieces on the banks of the river.”

  “I didn’t need to tell you,” Searc barked. “I could have kept it and never said a word.”

  “But you did. So, out with it before my patience gives way.”

  Searc pulled out a ledger from the pile and laid it on the desk. A folded paper was visible between the pages of the book. Cinaed glared at the man. He knew nothing would make Searc divulge anything until he was willing.