Passion and Plaid - Her Highland Hero (Scottish Historical Romance)

by Karin, Anya

“I think most of all three of us hurts,” Gavin said with a sigh. “How many days does this make? Three?”

  “Four by my count. Assuming they feed us twice a day.” Rodrigo cleared his throat. “I’ve been fed seven or eight times by now.”

  “Did you eat any of it? I kept trying, but something about the texture of oats when you can barely move your lips, I couldna do it.” John’s voice scratched as he spoke.

  “A few bites from each bowl. It would be quite a lot easier if they’d let us feed ourselves instead of making those foul-smelling guards lift spoons to our mouths.”

  “How long can they keep us like this? My wrists ache so badly I doubt I’ll be able to hold a knife again.” John moved left and right. Gavin heard the squeak of rope against the wooden post where his friend was tied.

  “Ach, it’s only six weeks, give or take, by boat across the ocean. So unless they take us all the way to the islands and leave us down here to rot the whole time, it canna be any longer than that.”

  Footsteps, heavy ones, descended the stairs that connected the deck to the hold of the ship that was filled with Gavin, John, Rodrigo, and a whole lot of barrels of some kind of supplies meant for the islands.

  “Boys, boys, boys. I guess we’ve found ourselves in a bit of a spot, eh?”

  “My fault,” John whispered. “I was just wondering to myself how this could possibly be worse. I suppose there’s the answer.”

  Alan kicked open the hold door, and stepped through. A beam of sunlight stretched almost to John’s feet.

  “Well here’s a happy surprise,” Gavin said.

  “Ha! Happy indeed,” he said back. “But I suppose you’re right. Instead of beating you with this lash like I was planning on, I could just let you go. That would certainly be agreeable, hmm?”

  A heavy thump of leather on skin made plain what he had in his hand. Without thinking, Gavin winced. The previous days’ beatings still hurt. Gavin felt the pain deep in the bones. It was the sort of agony he couldn’t forget by falling asleep.

  “What do you want with us? Why willna you let us go? We’ve done nothing to you what you didn’t deserve.”

  “Oh my, he speaks with such indolence for a man tied and bound in the bottom of a ship.” Alan made a sucking sound, and then spat on Gavin’s chest. Most of their clothing had been stripped from them when they were imprisoned, and they had been hurt badly, but that one offense by the sheriff was the worst he’d endured.

  “Just tell us what you want and we’ll give it to you, aye?”

  Rodrigo and John both grunted in agreement.

  “Alright then, Gavin,” the sheriff’s voice sounded like a hissing serpent when he spoke Gavin’s name. “I’ll tell you what I want. We’ll see if you offer to give it back to me then. I want you to never have come to Edinburgh. I want for all the trouble you caused to just...go away. I want to be back in the place where I’d made my home and made a life for myself.”

  “Every time I ever heard you speak of Scotland it was with venom in your voice, sheriff. You hated Edinburgh just as you hate all of us. You did nothing but complain about the food, the people, even the music! And you expect me to believe you want to go back?”

  “Would it surprise you that I’ve found everything since to be less appealing? Recall, if you will, what you did to me. I’ve lived in back of a barn, slept once on the road under a bush, and then in a ditch, and then for two nights at a filthy tavern on Rose Street. Then, I was given the pleasure of returning to the stables. You’re right. Why ever would I want to go back to a time when I slept in a bed every night?”

  “Every night except the ones you spent asleep on the side of a road, or in the stoop of a pub, you mean,” John said with a mocking laugh.

  Alan’s hand whipped through the air, the leather strap whistled, and caught John between the head and the shoulder with a terrible thud followed by a muted, hissing, agonized groan.

  “Any more clever quips?”

  No one responded, out loud anyway.

  “Good. As I was saying – what was I saying?”

  “You were waxing endlessly about the horrible things I’d inflicted upon you. Even though you were the reason it all happened. Your corruption, your greed and your arrogance is what brought all this upon you, nothing else! Take some responsibility for what you’ve done, Alan!”

  “Look, Macgregor. If things were different. If you weren’t you and I wasn’t me, maybe we could get along. I don’t find you all that awful, not really. The problem is you forever stepping in the way of my life. Of me just getting along.”

  “You canna be serious,” Gavin said, risking the lash. “Is this how you keep yourself from seeing what you do?”

  “It’s always something, isn’t it?” Alan walked in a slow circle, heels clomping on the wood. “You’ll always figure out some way to blame me for whatever it is that you see going wrong. How’s this for a turn around. Did you ever once – ever in your life – consider that before you started stealing everything and righting made-up wrongs in Edinburgh that we, that the English who the Crown put in charge, weren’t actually as bad as you thought? Mull it over. Before you and your cronies here came along, there were rich and there were poor, just as there are now, yes?”

  “Aye, I suppose,” Gavin said. “But you’re not-”

  “Finished? Quite right. I’m not finished,” the sheriff cut in. “And you’ll let me or I’ll bind your mouth. Good. And I’ll address your Spaniard when I’m done with you. I’ve got at least as much to say to him.”

  “Ach,” John whispered, “I suppose he’ll be talking until we’re pitched from the deck into the deep blue.”

  “I should hit you for that but I won’t. Not because I don’t want to, but because I pity you. You’ve spent two years, maybe more, I don’t know because that’s how little you matter to me. You’ve spent this time trying to get justice or freedom or whatever it is you think you’re doing. And how is it going to end up? With you and your pretty girl married and happy in a Scotland free of the English?” The sheriff laughed a mocking, bitter laugh. “Is that what you think? Sorry to tell you, it won’t be happening. Scotland isn’t for the Scots anymore. It’s for the Crown. Just like England. Do you think England is for the everyday English? Even for the minor nobles? If you do, you’re wrong!”

  Slowly, he paced the room, thumping his leather strap against his palm. Gavin reflected that the sheriff must have been thinking about this for quite some time. To his right, he heard Rodrigo moving back and forth, or maybe it was his hands shifting in the painful shackles that he heard rubbing against the post.

  “Get to the point, Alan,” Gavin hissed. “I’ve a busy day.”

  “I’m sure you do. My point is this, Macgregor. Without you, without your meddling and your thievery, men like me would not have turned corrupt! Wouldn’t have been any reason for it, you see. Could have happily gone on earning our livings as always, in a perfectly legal way, and you could have too, if you’d chosen. Instead you had to try and...and cut a path, carve a swathe of righteousness through the town, eh? Leave behind everyone you saw as evil cut off at the knees. Without you, Macgregor, there would be no me.”

  Gavin sucked his lip between his teeth for a moment before it stung too badly. He didn’t want to do anything that might endanger his seeing Kenna again, so decided that incensing the sheriff wasn’t the best thing he could do at just that moment.

  “From your silence, I think maybe you’re listening to reason for the first time. Good. Now, as for you.” Alan’s boots clomped over to where Gavin knew Rodrigo was located. “You make me more angry than anything those two could do. They’re crusaders. They’re silly children playing at a game they don’t understand. But you...I gave you a second chance at life, Spaniard.”

  Rodrigo groaned, but said nothing.

  “Do you remember where you were when I hired you? That wife of yours – who by the way is presently in a similar condition to you three, though much less beaten up and wearing nic
er clothing – you and she were without two pennies to rub together. Or a lira or a drachma or whatever it is you savages use for money.”

  “Real,” Rodrigo said softly.

  “What was that?”

  “The money, it’s the real.”

  Alan sighed. “Learn something new every day. Of course I knew that. Anyway, when I found you, you were broke, you had been rejected from a mercenary corps. You had nothing! Not a single thing! You couldn’t feed your wife, you couldn’t feed yourself!”

  “Say what you mean, sheriff.”

  “You pretended you couldn’t talk. Why?”

  “So I wouldn’t speak my true thoughts.”

  Leather whistled, Rodrigo shouted in pain and surprise and quickly caught his dignity.

  “You ought not tease people when you’re tied up, Spaniard. What else was it about you? What else was it that you thought I never knew? Oh, that’s right. That’s it, I remember. These waters aren’t unfamiliar to you, are they?”

  “You’re saying nothing they don’t already know.”

  “Ah, is that the case. Then I suppose I should start referring to you as Captain Montez, then?”

  “Captain?” John said. “I thought you said you were just on a ship.”

  “I was. I was never a captain.”

  “Crewman, captain, what’s the difference? A pirate’s a pirate. I’ve made special arrangements for you, by the way. Would you like to hear about them?”

  “I’d like to hear your head thump against this post, you awful bastard.”

  “Oh he’s spirited! Good!” The sheriff whipped his lash, crashing it once across Rodrigo’s back and then once in the face. The only noise the Spaniard made was a grunt. “Spirited and tough. I’m going to enjoy this. But the special arrangements. You see, while these two, and their three consorts – two, I mean. No, no, make that one. Lynne, she’ll be joining the staff at the plantation with the two of you as indentured servants. Only because the mayor doesn’t want to call you slaves. Elena will too, but this one will finally get his go in a crow’s cage. Kenna of course will have a much better lot. The mayor – or rather, plantation man – has really taken a liking to her.”

  Back and forth he walked, slowly.

  “Hit me,” Rodrigo said. “Come here and hit me. Don’t use that lash, do it like a man. For once in your life, do something like a man would do it.”

  “Oh, gladly. But I’m afraid first I must-”

  “When I’m hanging in that cage, I’m going to tell everyone what you did with your servants in Manchester. I might be pecked to death by birds, but before I am, I’ll shout to everyone that comes to watch about your taste for serving girls. And how you are too revolting for them to give in to you willingly.”

  Whatever you’re doing, Rodrigo, keep at it, Gavin thought.

  The sheriff took a step forward and drove his fist into Rodrigo’s teeth. “We’ll see if you can spread lies when you’ve no teeth!” Another punch made the big Spaniard groan.

  “Lies? I think you wouldn’t be so angry if they weren’t true. Hit me again. Take out your rage. Make me suffer for who you are.”

  Alan lashed out again, but this time there was no thump of a fist on a face. Instead his hand met wood.

  And then he screamed.

  “I was no captain, that much is true,” Rodrigo said. “But I still learned some things in my time on the seas.”

  Metal thunked. The sheriff screamed and began to thrash. “You bastards will pay for this!”

  “For one,” Rodrigo said. “I learned how to slip shackles. Come on, we’ve got something to do.”

  A moment later, Gavin and John were standing free, looking back and forth at each other, blinking in the light that streamed through the door at the base of the stairs leading to the deck.

  “Wait a tick,” Gavin said. “Something over here. Oh would you look at that? It’s the clothes we had waiting to change out of after the festival. What a wonderful surprise.” He tossed a bundle of cloth to John and one to Rodrigo. Quickly, the men threw on their kilts, and Rodrigo yanked his leather trousers up. None of them had shirts, and boots were ignored.

  “One thing, Rod, before we go?”

  “What?” He grunted at John.

  “That one, he doesn’t count. You said six at once.”

  “Alright,” Rodrigo said as he turned up the stairs. “He doesn’t count.”

  Nineteen

  The Atlantic Ocean

  August 23, Evening

  In the light of early dusk, the three men emerged, blinking and rubbing their eyes.

  “A two mast-ship. Small for this sort of travel, but that means it’s like to be lightly manned. That’s good.” Rodrigo picked up a tool of some sort.

  “Aye, that’s good,” Gavin said. “But even light guards will easily overwhelm us without any weapons.”

  “Good thing they aren’t too careful about where they leave things. It’s no Heloise I’m afraid, but it’ll have to do.” John tossed a rapier to Rodrigo, one to Gavin and grabbed a cutlass for himself. “Pistol?” he said, offering one up.

  “No. Another thing I learned as a pirate is how useless a pistol is when someone’s screaming and running at you.”

  “Fair enough.” John tossed the gun onto the deck, Rodrigo winced, and as soon as it struck the floor, it exploded with a violent report.

  “Why did you do that?” The Spaniard said. “If the ship wasn’t already alerted, they are now!”

  “Ach, well, it wasn’t intentional, but it’s for the best. I’d rather get it all over with at once.”

  “Here’s your chance!” Gavin ducked as a musket ball fired from across the ship sailed just over his head and punched a hole in the wood behind him. “If one of those hits you before you start yelling and charging, I’m almost sure that your idea doesn’t work.”

  Rodrigo laughed and stood tall, stretching his back.

  “Get down!” Gavin said as he reached for his friend’s trousers to yank him down, but Rodrigo stepped away.

  “Down? No! You get up!” He strode forward as lead balls whizzed past him one after the other on the right, then the left. “Whoever you are, you’re no match for me, or even my friends!”

  “Even?” John said. “Did he say ‘even my friends’?” Gavin couldn’t help but grin.

  As their eyes adjusted, the grim numbers became easier to see. Three men stood on the opposite end of the ship, reloading their muskets, behind the railing. Above the three escapees, two enormous masts, with sails full of wind, groaned.

  “You ever been on one of these?” Gavin said to John as the latter fought to keep his footing and his stomach.

  “In the water, aye, in a ship, aye. But in a ship what was in the water? Canna say as I have. Being underneath is one thing where you’re in the dark, but up here, it’s rather different.” He clutched his stomach, stumbled, and shook his head as he stood. “I ask you the same, but with an addition – have you ever fought a battle on a ship in the water?”

  Gavin grinned, opened his mouth to respond, and then felt a whoosh of air by his cheek. He jumped backwards. As he spun, he felt another ball strike wood behind him.

  From the other end of the ship, Willard emerged briefly, in his standard long, black coat. He stood near the prow of the ship, shouting at his sailors, “What is all this?” Someone answered, “The prisoners!” and Willard disappeared again in to the shadows of his quarters.

  Gavin ducked another wild slash and slammed his elbow into a red-coated stomach. The man howled, and when he did, Gavin shoved him backwards with such a tremendous force that he flew over the ship’s rail and into the sea.

  “Good show!” John shouted, and then he immediately dodged a saber. Turning his cutlass around in his hand, he clunked the butt of the weapon into the side of his attacker’s face, sending him, too, flying off the side and into the water below. John turned, looking for Gavin. “Gavin? Where did you go?”

  Below deck, he heard a shout, and had hi
s answer.

  “Where is she?” Gavin demanded, shouting directly into the sheriff’s face. “Where’s Kenna, Lynne and the rest? Tell me!”

  “And why should I? So you can reward me with a trip to some wild Scottish court where I’ll be hanged? I’ll tell you this, though,” he spat, or rather drooled. “East India Company ships are never quite so simple as other ones. Lots of hidden places, you see.” The sheriff laughed his brown-toothed laugh. “I dare say unless someone tells you where the girls are, you’ll never find them. Unless...”

  “Just say it, you wretch!”

  “Fine. You let me go and I’ll tell you where they are.”

  “No. You’ll tell me where they are, or I’ll put this in your guts.” Gavin prodded the sheriff with the pointy end of his rapier.

  “Oh you are a simple one. If you kill me, that’s it. The game’s over. You’ll have to steer this boat into harbor and take it apart board by board until you find them. Of course, by then there won’t have been any water given to them since...oh, this morning? I hope you like mummies.”

  “You bastard!” Gavin shouted. The sheriff just smiled.

  “I’ll tell you now that you won’t get anything out of me. You can beat me. You can stab me and cut me, and I’ll never tell. And I’ll even say why. Out of pure spite. Pure spite and hatred. For you. Of course, if you let me go...”

  “Gavin!” John shouted from the deck. “Need some help up here!”

  “Fly, little Scotsman. Go up there in your flapping skirt and help your friends have their brawl. I suppose it’s even possible you’ll end the fight before one of the sailors shoots your women. Though I doubt it. These Company men, you see, they’re not known for being reasonable. They’re known for getting things done.”

  “Gavin!” John shouted again. “We really need some help!”

  “Make up your mind, Gavin. Do you get your women and help your friends? Or do you get bloody revenge? It would feel really, really good to kill me, wouldn’t it? Run me through? Feel my blood on your hands?”

  Gavin clenched his fist, holding his sword so tight it bruised his palm. He lifted the tip from Alan’s belly and then whipped it straight up, gashing his chin.