Righteous Side of the Wicked: Pirates of Britannia

by Jennifer Bray-Weber

  “You’re still going to help her?”

  “She got us out of a dangerous complication with Captain Rush.” And he couldna overlook her warning may keep the Hanoverian family from harm. Hurting innocents unnecessarily was something that never settled well with Coire. “It costs us nothing but the use of one man for a few hours. There’s an end to it. If there’s a chance the rebels get handily defeated, we’ll have no arms to run. Say nothing, stick to the task.”

  Nay, he didna have to send Redd. He wasna compelled to do this for Treva, either. Treachery cut deep and his scars were tender. All along, the signs were there. Indeed, Coire was wholly convinced the cunning Miss Treva MacDougall was a British spy. How could she not be? She had comfortable relations with the British from a low-ranking guard who set her free to a naval lieutenant. Yet, she was a wanted criminal. Her own clan rejected her, a turncoat. Yet, she was driven to protect them.

  How complicated she was. She laid open her fatal weaknesses to him. He knew deep down she had not shared her story of Graer or Dread with another. He alone held that singular status. No matter. Fenella had peeled open her heart to him, too. Shared her innermost thoughts, feelings, fears and dreams with him. Together, they would live out happy, fulfilling lives. Ah, what a naïve, pathetic boy he had been.

  At seven and ten, he’d fallen in love—with the wrong girl. His sister, Cait had introduced him to Fenella. She was a bonny, vibrant lass with coal black hair and lavender eyes. She was most happy out of doors and often spoke of going on wild adventures. Together she and Coire explored the forest hills, swam naked in the streams, loved under the winking stars. She enjoyed the quiet of hunting deer with him and laughing as they gathered river mussels while pearl fishing. Often they dreamed of running away. There was a whole world waiting to be discovered. ’Twas a hopeless fantasy.

  Fenella had caught the eye of every buck in the region, including his clan’s chieftain who set out to make her his wife. Coire could do nothing as Denys MacAulay claimed her for his own and the love of his life slipped away to another, taking a piece with him. The inevitable union strengthened the bond between families and the added loyalties bolstered MacAulay’s might. At first, Fenella willingly cast Coire aside, not looking back, excited by her new position. After all, MacAulay had brought her with him as he traveled, and she was able to visit faraway lands. Coire’s heart broke further knowing he was not the man to make her dreams come true. But the marriage ultimately destroyed Fenella’s spirit. She was caged and, as she once put it, was expected to be a hen, popping out bairns to care for. She’d been utterly unhappy.

  Of course Fenella didna love MacAulay who was fifteen years her senior.

  But Cait had. Or, rather, Coire’s older sister loved the idea of being the wife to the chief of a powerful clan and had been pining after Denys long before he was married.

  Cait was far too ambitious to be a mere crofter’s wife. No one would stop her from scheming her way into MacAulay’s bedchamber permanently. She would use and destroy anyone to reach her goals, including flesh and blood. Cait had offered a sympathetic ear to Fenella. ’Twas her who suggested Fenella seek Coire out to rekindle her carefree life with him. Not understanding or even recognizing how rapacious Cait was and being blinded by love, Coire had welcomed the chance at making Fenella happy.

  And so they lived in stolen moments. He’d whisk her away for horseback riding at midnight, swipe kisses in the gardens, or climb her favorite tree overlooking a hillside of blooming heather.

  What a boon it had been for Cait. She’d taken every advantage, creating her own love affair with the laird. Coire had been happy for her, though in hindsight he should have known their arrangements wouldna last. When the time was right, Cait made her move.

  Coire had not been one to like surprises, and the trap Cait had laid was a surprise that had blown his life apart. What a young, stupid boy he had been.

  He had waited as he often did beneath the yew tree on a starless night for his beloved. Fenella hadna shown, but a messenger had. He’d been summoned to meet MacAulay in his great hall. Coire had been unsettled as the laird was not due to arrive back at the castle for another fortnight. That was what Cait had assured him the day before. She’d even been downtrodden, having not seen her lover in weeks.

  A stone had settled in his gut. Something was off, and he feared for Fenella. Each step he took on the worn path to the castle burdened Coire with foreboding and guilt. He just crossed into the courtyard when he was intercepted by Cait. Her face was a mask of dulled shadows and flashing madness.

  “MacAulay knows about ye and Fenella. Yer cock has condemned us all.” She cackled. “Well, not all.”

  ’Twas then he realized just how badly his life was unraveling. Like watching a ship’s anchor cable disappear through the hawsehole in an excruciating funeral pace. “What’ve ye done?”

  “Yer such a stupid boy.” She planted a fist upon her hip as she always did when she wielded her authority as his older sister and talked down to him. “I’ve told ye I would not live in squalor. Ye and that whore gave me the perfect opportunity to earn Denys’s trust…and keep his bed warm. Now he wants to be rid of her. And ye will confess to yer prigging his wife.”

  He’d been dumbfounded even before the implications of what she said had sunk in. “I’ll never put her in any danger.”

  Cait leaned close, a heinous smug slant to her mouth. “Ye will. Ye see, if you dinna, Ma and Da will be banished from home, and ye imprisoned. Winter is upon us. With no home, no clan, no one to turn to, they’ll be forced to wander and beg. Who knows, they might find refuge with the tinkers.”

  The depravity of his sister was soul-deep. With Ma’s lengthy illness following a failed pregnancy, she had never fully recovered, leaving her fragile. She’d never survive the rigors of gypsy travel, and especially during the bone-cold months. “Ye’d do that to your own parents?”

  “Me?” She straightened, feigning shock. “’Tis ye who’d commit them to their graves. Not I.”

  “Ye she-devil.”

  “Names do not bother me, brother.” She fussed with the collar of his waistcoat. “Spare yer family. Denys will do no more than ostracize ye.”

  “And Fenella?”

  She patted his cheek. “Perhaps taking full responsibility will lessen her punishment.”

  Cait was as slimy as a snake. But a snake would have been preferable. She nodded to someone behind him and he was seized by two men.

  The great hall was full of clansmen crowded along the outer edges of the room, all eyes upon him. Wall torches blazing with their accusing light were the only sounds and it had been loud to his ears. Coire shrugged the men off and came to stand in the middle of the room. ’Twas but a tiny show of defiance, as much as he could rightly get away with. He bowed his head in subjection to the laird sitting on his massive, intricately-carved chair atop a raised dais.

  “Coire Darroch Fletcher.” MacAulay’s booming voice had shaken him to his toes. “Ye’ve something to confess? A crime against me?”

  He searched the onlookers staring expectantly at him. A hungry bunch they had seemed to him, waiting, watching, salivating as one of their own would fall—pure entertainment. Among those was a pair whose sagging bodies were amplified by their frowns upon their faces. The hope that his parents had held out for was pointless. Cait had sidled up behind them to offer her support and poison their minds.

  Coire filled his lungs and spewed his sins. “I have disgraced my name and my laird. I have seduced Fenella Murray MacAulay and led her astray.”

  He canna remember now all the false claims he presented, they flowed out in sickening desperation, but he remembered clearly the pain he’d caused his parents and how frightened he had been for them, for Fenella, for himself.

  Ma had grabbed her heart; Da had curled back his lips. Their disappointment and shame had been overwhelming. His chest had ached from the pain as both his parents turned their backs upon him. They’d cut him off as if he were
a putrid limb. He’d just caught the vanquishing smirk upon Cait’s face as she too turned her back. It had hit him then, his sister had planned this from the beginning.

  Pleased by Coire’s groveling and the display of allegiance by his family, MacAulay had nodded.

  “To show my benevolence and reward your father’s loyalty to me, I shall offer this one leniency. Yer family may remain under my protection but I denounce ye, Coire Darroch Fletcher, as a member of this clan. Ye have till morn to be out of Malig and off my lands.”

  ’Twas the best he could hope for.

  MacAulay lifted his hand in gesture and two men dragged Fenella in, her feet barely touching the floor. Her face was swollen and red with tears—at least he had hoped it was from tears. She was terrified and clamored to be free with all her might. Instinct had driven Coire to surge forward, but the two bastards that had brought him to the hall nabbed him.

  “Husband, please! Dinna do this! I beg of ye!” Her shrill pleas had been heartbreakingly pathetic.

  MacAulay stood and snarled down upon Fenella until she shrank. “As for my beloved wife…”

  He yanked down her bodice, ripping the fabric, exposing her breasts. Fenella shrieked.

  “Get this whore out of my sight.”

  “No! Please, Denys, please! He forced me! I swear it!”

  Her terror cleaved through him. And so had the accusation. Coire had struggled against the men holding him to no avail. He took a blinding punch to his nose and soon after landed face down in the mire outside the castle walls. He’d been stripped of his plaid. And he hadna put one back on since.

  Coire didna know what happened to Fenella, but she was not seen or heard from again. It was widely accepted she was dead. As for him, his grief over the loss of family, home, and Fenella turned to bitter virulence. He found his way to the coast and joined the first ragtag and bobtail merchant’s crew that’d have him. He trusted no one and fought often. By the time pirate captain Joelle Quint discovered him in a wharf alley, his attitude and body had hardened as hard as his heart.

  He crumpled to the muck from a sound beating after insulting the wrong brute in the tavern. She’d kicked at his boots to check if he had lived. Quint had been impressed, not by his ability to take a drubbing, but by the venom running in his veins. She’d said a man having lost all was a man of resilience and ambition. Given exposure to the right company, he could become someone who could better control his destiny, someone powerful. She’d had her men pick him up, haul him to her ship, and her surgeon tended to his wounds. Coire had been struck dumb by the fiery beauty. She was a queen amongst her men—strong, wise, unpretentious, and respected for her authority. The captain offered him a chance to join her crew, a brotherhood that lined their pockets while playing Robin Hood games—pirates paid to steal from the greedy and corrupt. Coire had nothing left to lose other than his life. He figured dying a pirate was better than dying in the dregs of a ditch.

  Quint had taught him more than how to be a good pirate. She taught him the true meaning of loyalty. He’d found a family among her crew and the brethren that prowled the Caribbean, a clan stronger than the one of his birth.

  For all that, he was a man made of one yawning scar. The damage had been done. ’Twas nigh impossible to earn his trust. But goodwill went far. While he didna trust Treva, sending word would help the rebels avoid a defeat. They’d reap the harvest.

  The domed crust of Ailsa Craig broke the horizon. By this time tomorrow, Coire will have padded his strongbox, be sailing high from an empty hold, and be free of the siren whose heavenly kisses made him stumble.

  Chapter Eight

  The ungrateful beast. Treva was beside herself over how Coire dismissed her, and after what she’d done to save them. And it made her all the more perturbed how she admired him—and his firm backside—as he hauled ropes across the deck with some of his shipmates. Not one to do as she was told, she left his quarters and wedged herself near the bowsprit out of the way, watching the busy crew work together with one accord. Besides, after sitting in his cabin for more than an hour, she realized he wasna going to come talk—or yell—at her.

  She simmered in her own doings. Of course he’d dismissed her. He had to. He was the master and commander of his ship. She had meddled in front of his men, albeit with favorable results. She was well acquainted with the hierarchy of men and where she ranked, but Captain Rush’s insistence in confiscating Coire’s cargo required her interference. Her mistake was thinking Coire would have been pleased with her persuasive arguments, not be angry. ’Twasn’t as if she could make things worse for any of them. Admittedly, his dismissal stung. That was another mistake of hers—allowing her heart to get in the way of good sense. And that made her feel shameful and embarrassed.

  So she refocused on what she accomplished. What luck that Edward Geary had been on the Courser. Having the ear of Captain Rush, she made sure to leak to Edward the information of the revolt organizing in Taylough, and the trouble brewing for the rebels and British forces outside Oban and Glasgow. It may not have been the most strategic move—give a little, get a little. ’Twas difficult to earn and maintain loyalties on both sides of the political war. Though she had possibly put more focus on Taylough—Graer be damned—and the risks were high, she was convinced Coire would maneuver out of any troublesome situation cleverly and be forced to deliver them instead to Glasgow—or near enough to the city—where she had a better chance of thwarting the rebel plot against Dumbarton castle led by Ranald MacEwen. And then perhaps Ranald could get word back to Duncan.

  Coire left the crew to their task to give orders to his first mate. They were dropping anchor in Fairlie Bay and preparing a longboat for what she assumed was to go to Taylough. He glanced over at her and her breath caught. His stare was fire and ice. What was he thinking? Had she really overstepped a forbidden boundary with him? She was about to find out.

  The captain stalked forward on heavy boots. He propped his foot up on a platform beside her and leaned over his arm upon his knee, his expression stony. A breeze lifted his hair from his sweaty neck and off his shoulders blocking out the sun. Treva shivered under his robust virility.

  “We’ve contacts in Glasgow. I’m sending word, your word, however credible it may be, of British knowledge on movements of rebels at Oban. And because we canna be too careful…” He paused, his gaze narrowed as his head tilted ever so slightly. She squirmed under the unsaid implication. Did he suspect she had an alliance with Geary? Was her guilt plain upon her face? Was it stitched upon her breast? “…Jonesy will go on to Taylough in search of Angus.”

  She was relieved that he would take precautions based on her warnings. But he was unhappy with her. She’d seen that repulsion of working with an enemy before. Nonetheless, she might wither under his punitive rancor. She was the enemy.

  No need to spare her own feelings. This was going to hurt. “Ye dinna trust me.”

  “Trust is earned, love.”

  “Did we not share our bodies? Is that not trust?”

  His brow pinched, but he held firm to his convictions. “I choose to believe that was a primal reaction for us both.”

  Nay. She rejected his words, wanted to argue against them. While his words bit, his tender actions after their union while they lay together betrayed him. He was as moved as she was. What they shared had been extraordinary, haunting, and transcendent. He only needed to admit it.

  “I trust ye, Coire. So much so I continue to put my life into yer hands.”

  Coire frowned. “What was it ye said when I first fished you out of the sea? Desperate women are capable of the unthinkable? Well, lass, just imagine what I am capable of when crossed by loose tongues. Perhaps yer trust is misplaced.”

  She refused to ponder on what that so obviously meant and stayed on the uncharted path to him she forged. “Ye must have loved her very much.”

  His shoulders tensed and his chin squared. “Who?”

  “The one who betrayed ye, who stole yer faith in
people. She must have been someone special.”

  He snorted, straightened away from her.

  “I’d like to know about her.” If he opened up, Treva might be able to prove to him not everyone had a knife poised at his back. As far-flung as it was, she wanted to be the woman to break through the rusted defenses around his heart.

  “There’s nothing to know. They opened my eyes to how malleable people can be. Showed me the intimate contrivances of women and what ruthless lengths against kith and kin they will go to in order to get their way.”

  They? Treva could only imagine what hell he must have gone through. How lonely he must have felt. God, she empathized with him, hated that he, too, felt the pain of treachery by someone close. She wanted to be the salve to heal his wounds. “Not everyone ye meet will betray you.”

  He leaned back in so near she could kiss him. How badly she wanted to kiss him. He stared at her mouth as her tongue swiped along her bottom lip. But as his darkened gaze slowly lifted to hers, ’twas apparent no kiss would be forthcoming. “’Tis a good thing, then, I learned everyone I meet will lie to me.”

  What could she say to that? They both knew she had lied to him repeatedly. “Know this, Coire. I will never intentionally do ye wrong.” She reached for him, but he snatched her by the wrist.

  “I know. I winna allow it.” He dropped her wrist, pushed off the platform, and left her in a wake of scorn.

  She’d been right. This did hurt. She was nothing if not defiant. Treva was on a mission greater than herself. Thwart the rebels from marching into a trap, and then she would find a way to earn Coire’s trust and heart.

  As she licked her wounds with renewed purpose, Jonesy appeared. He spoke briefly with his captain but as they broke apart, he looked up at her. ’Twasn’t enough that he avoided her since walking in on her and Coire. But any spared glance at her since the navy had disembarked had been harsh. He, too, dinna trust her. She sighed. His friendship had been nice while it lasted.