Thank God.
Next time, she’d ignore the urge. Like now? An image of their naked prisoner popped up, and her stomach flipped. She couldn’t shake her recollection of thick, sandy hair and his bulging muscles, yet she had no idea what his face looked like, due to all the bruising.
Cursing beneath her breath, she headed to the seaman steering the ship, using the new rudder she had designed. “How is it working? The waves have grown fierce.”
“Fine, Captain. ‘Tis stronger than the last rudder. We shall weather any storm.”
They discussed a few more things, he confirmed they were headed directly toward Gray Wolf Cove, then she walked over to the stern railing. Resting on her forearms, looking out to sea, she watched the ship’s wake churn the greenish-blue waters of the North Sea. Gulls dipped and soared on invisible currents.
She loved the sea, and had planned to make shipbuilding her life’s work. She wanted to follow in the tradition of her late parents. Although she had plans to sell the company back in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, she promised her employees to stay on as one of them, and help design the boats her father had taught her to love.
Five years ago, her life had turned on its head. She missed the New Hampshire shoreline, and the gentler waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Scotland’s North Sea often grew stormy and frantic, but her vessel was stout and could stay afloat. The friends she had made while visiting the New England Highland Games must be missing her. Her life in New England, working as a ship builder, was only a memory.
That life was far, far away, and about four-hundred years in the future.
CHAPTER 2
Blair loved to swim and sunbathe like she used to, each summer at Hampton Beach on the New Hampshire coastline. Unfortunately, Scotland’s North Sea in autumn was bitterly cold. It could steal your breath, and that was another reason she wanted to find out exactly who their new guest was, and where he’d come from. He couldn’t have been in the water very long, not at this time of year.
Either he decided to go for a swim in the nude, or his clothing was lost in the waves and currents of the frigid sea. Bathing suits wouldn’t be invented for centuries, yet. She doubted he’d fallen off a ship or a fishing vessel. They hadn’t spotted any ships, recently, even after the morning fog had lifted. A man in the crow’s nest had spotted the strange man, adrift. Her crew had managed to pull him aboard, likely saving his life.
Now, she needed to find out if he was worth keeping alive. There were only a few reasons to allow a stranger to stay on board her ship; if he had a ransom value, or if he wanted to join them. Any monetary value would be easier to ascertain, once she questioned him.
She made a mental note to keep Raven, and the blood-thirsty Thomas, away from her prisoner. Her men were easily riled, and she wanted no harm to come to the stranger. At least, not yet.
***
Dragged across the deck, then down into the bowels of the ship, Niall bit his lip to keep from screaming. Pain wracked his body, from his bruised face to his battered ribs. Blood seeped from his unbound wrists, and he struggled to keep his feet beneath him. Two smelly men yanked him up and over a transom, then down a set of narrow, dark stairs. With one man ahead, and the other behind, he struggled sideways. Slamming into one wall at his back, then headlong into the other, he fought to stay conscious.
They jerked his aching bones and swollen flesh, until they reached a sweeter-smelling room. It reminded him of his life at Tulac Castle, where he broke his fast with fresh-baked bannock. A crusty wedge slathered with churned butter would go far in satisfying his hunger. Licking his lips, he prayed for a tankard of ale to accompany such a wanted repast. When they shoved him onto a creaking, wobbly wood stool, he yelped.
“Mind the splinters, lads,” Niall said, his words barely above a whisper.
Laughter echoed through the low-ceiling room. He blinked, happy to find his vision less clouded. His good eye searched the room. Two men stood beside him.
I must no’ give them a reason to retie my wrists.
A young lad pushed through the men, and slammed a chipped mug on top of the wooden table in front of him.
“Captain said he is to drink this.” The lad’s sandy hair was as shaggy as Niall’s, and his green eyes were…familiar.
“Find this cur some rags,” the gravelly-voiced man said to the boy. Bill was an older man, with long gray hair tied back in a messy queue. Thick about his waist, he spoke with authority.
Before Niall could put into words the sudden desire to ask the lad’s parentage, the lad had scampered from the room. Another man stood at the opposite side of the small table.
“Keegan gets underfoot, and I have a hankering to swat him silly. I be Jacob, but all these rascals call me Cook.” The man wore a soiled linen apron. He turned back to his nearby cooking fire. Pots and pitchers swung on deep hooks above their heads, and the table looked nailed to the deck.
The ship’s galley was warm. Niall’s body soaked in the heat, and his damp hair quickly dried. Licking his lips, he picked up the tankard. When no one yelled, he drank. The water was fresh, and quickly washed the dust and salt from his lips, and throat. When he had drunk his fill, the whiskered cook ladled something hot and steaming into a bowl. When he set the bowl in front of Niall, some sloshed over the sides, and onto the table.
Niall cursed under his breath. “If this tastes as good as it smells, I’ll ask ye to have more care.”
The lanky brown-haired man at his shoulder, Thomas they called him, slapped the left side of Niall’s head.
“Easy, Thomas.” The older man turned to Niall. “Keep yer opinions to yerself, and eat yer black bean hash. Yer aboard The Black Thistle, now. A mighty broadside, the scourge of the North Sea. I be Barnacle Bill, the ship’s Quartermaster, and ye shall keep quiet until allowed to speak.”
Pain slashed across Niall’s ear, but it served him right for speaking his mind. Such a character flaw had already cost him his family, and turned several women from his bed. Not even Lana would want him now. He was bloody, bruised, and at the mercy of pirates. Where did this leave him?
***
The air turned even colder, and storm clouds rolled in from the north. Blair had planned to collect needed supplies, then turn the ship northward, and head home.
Home? Their secret island was not quite the home where she’d grown up. She had named their secret base New Lincoln, after the town she visited when the New England Highland Games were in full swing. New Hampshire was her real home, and though she and her family had established a shipbuilding business in Portsmouth, Lincoln was where she went to unwind each autumn.
Born in a time and place more than four-hundred years in the future, she ached to return to the life she had known. After her idiot husband had somehow led the English to their former settlement, and was killed, along with several of the crew, and members of their families, finding a new location was imperative. The responsibility for the ship, the crew, and their families, had fallen to her. She’d chosen a well-hidden spot in the Pentland Firth, the strait separating the Orkney Islands from Caithness. The island she’d chosen, was south of the Pentland Skerries, a group of uninhabited islands north of Wick. Uninhabited, except for the island she had chosen.
Gazing at the darkening clouds, she realized that the gathering storm lay between them and the safety of their island home. Praying for calm seas, decisions would have to be made in haste, but her mind filled with baser thoughts. Her cabin, her lonely bunk, and the days stretching out before her, gave her no comfort. Raven’s love-making had temporarily satisfied an itch, but the man was rude, crude, and not to her liking. If only she could return home, to New Hampshire and the twenty-first century.
When the skin on her knuckles grew numb from the stiff salty breeze, she retraced her steps, and silently headed below decks, into the belly of her ship. Yes, it was her ship, and its crew followed her.
For now, anyway.
As long as she kept them safe from the King’s navy, filled thei
r bellies, and kept their ship loaded with tradable goods, or gold, they would give her no problems.
Raven was another story. At times, her first mate questioned her orders, and grumbled when she and Bill, her quartermaster, discussed how to divide the spoils. Raven was an expert at stirring up the crew, especially after tapping a barrel of ale. Why had she let him in her cabin? That one slip turned into a regrettable mistake she hoped never to repeat.
As she strode past the galley, she glanced at Bill and Thomas, who stood beside the stranger. Their prisoner shoved his empty bowl across the table toward Cook, and downed a tankard of what she hoped, was fresh water.
“Up ye go. ‘Tis time to show ye to our special accommodations, lad.” Bill grabbed the prisoner by the shoulder, and the sandy-haired man yelped in pain, making her step inside the small galley.
“Easy with him, Bill, he’s been through an ordeal. I hope neither you, nor any other man, experiences such trauma.”
“Aye, Capt’n. Shall I don my kid gloves and escort the bonnie lad, with my arm wrapped around his waist?”
The other men laughed, and Blair bit her lip not to join in. She wasn’t offended by their banter. They would do what she asked. Raven was not around, so the tension level in the room was low.
“My thanks,” the stranger whispered. With his head hung low, and his hands planted on the table, he managed to rise from the stool. He stood wavering on shaky legs, still as naked as they had found him.
“Clothing?” Blair’s left eyebrow rose, and Bill grinned.
“Aye, Capt’n. I sent Keegan off to round up some rags.”
She nodded, wrenching her gaze from the stranger’s naked buttocks, and headed toward her cabin. If they were in for a stormy night, she wanted to get some rest. Having ordered the helmsman to put into a familiar sheltered cove, farther south, the ship would weather the storm quite well. She prayed they reached Gray Wolf Cove soon.
When she slipped into her cabin, Keegan was gathering up the lunch dishes. Dinner was in about two hours, so a short nap would suffice.
“Keegan, aren’t you supposed to be looking for some clothing for our guest?”
“Aye, mama. I mean, Captain. I wanted to make sure yer cabin was neat, first.”
“Fine. Wake me in two hours.”
“Huh?”
She’d forgotten alarm clocks and wristwatches were not part of this world. “When cook rings the dinner bell, I mean.”
Keegan smiled, bowed, and slipped from the room.
Alone at last, she opened the stern window, inhaling the salty tang of sea air. Waves in the distance grew larger, and darker. Salt spray dampened her cheek as the wind out of the north latched onto the frothy tips and lashed the ship.
She missed the mountains, but loved the sea. New Hampshire and Scotland had more than one thing in common; their weather could change in the blink of an eye. Five years had passed since that horrid day in early autumn. It had been her favorite time of year, but now autumn was tainted by bad memories. She now looked forward to snow blanketing the craggy rocks, surrounding her adopted village.
Though still September, she could almost taste the snow on the breeze, overpowering the North Sea’s fishy scent. Heading home was a good idea, but not until their safe passage was a sure thing, and not until the hold was full. A knock on her door pulled her thoughts from eating buttered popcorn at a movie theater or catching a Patriot’s game on TV.
“Yes?”
The door swung open, and Raven blustered in. His smirk made goose bumps erupt on her arms. When he locked the door behind him, she moved behind her small writing desk. Standing up to him was the only way to control the man.
“What is it? I am quite busy.”
Raven’s gaze flickered to her bunk, before he returned to her. As he paced the small room, he removed the black scarf from around his head, then his hands lowered to his belt.
“Get out!”
He paused, and his eyebrows shot upward. “I thought we had an…understanding.”
“You thought wrong. Three weeks ago, we shared a moment of madness. I am no longer mad.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she raised her chin. Praying he took the direct hint, and left, she strained to keep her body taut.
“I see. So, ‘tis true? Ye be fond of men with golden hair?” He ran his large fingers through his long black hair, making the queue loosen and its tie fall to the floor, but he walked no closer.
“If you are referring to our guest, please get a grip. He’s our prisoner. If we find he’s someone whose family has deep pockets, I will ransom him. When rid of him, we will gather our stored goods, and return home.”
“Aye, the winds are picking up, especially from the north, which might delay our return. We doono’ need another mouth to feed. I say we toss him back into the sea.” Raven stepped closer.
Blair drew her curved dagger from her belt, and held it at her side, tip down, but the threat registered on his face.
“Ye threaten yer lover?”
“We are not lovers. When a man seems intent on taking liberties he has no right assuming are his, I will not simper and sigh like other females.”
Raven’s eyes narrowed to slits, and his rage pulsed in the cords of his neck. He spun on his heel. When he reached the door, and turned the lock, she exhaled. Opening the door, he stepped into the hall, then glanced back at her.
“I shall see ye at dinner?”
Blair nodded.
Her body, tense from his unsettling visit, relaxed. She raced to the open door, slammed it shut, and turned the lock. Only then did she feel safe enough to undress and slip beneath the wool blankets of her bunk.
***
“The capt’n says ye need to be clothed, so put these on,” Bill said. Another man tossed him a bundle.
Niall caught the pile of rags and pressed it to his chest, keeping the smelly garments out of the several inches of bilge water that covered his chilled feet. He stepped up onto a rough wood pallet. His bed was dry, as it sat atop several boxes above the floor of the hold. As he dressed, he felt that the man called Bill looked familiar. He glared at Niall, as if trying to place him. Did he recognize him? Would he tell their captain?
A female captain. He was still in shock.
“Might I inquire of our general location?” he asked Bill, while keeping his hair hanging over his face. Hours had passed since they had fed him, then locked him inside a small prison in the lower hold. Water covered much of the area. Bill was a small man, but the ceiling brushed the top of Niall’s head.
“Right nice speech, lad. Ye almost sound like one of them English curs who murdered our people. If the capt’n wants ye to know where ye drifted, she shall tell ye.”
What had he done to deserve such animosity? Was it his fault that they had plucked him from the sea? “The captain is a woman, and she called ye Bill.”
Bill laughed, slapping his knee. “Aye, I be Barnacle Bill to most, and I see yer eyes are no’ so damaged that ye dinno’ miss the fact that Blair MacIan be a woman.”
“Aye, she be one Hell of a woman,” the other man said.
“Doono’ show disrespect, Thomas. If Raven heard ye, he would swat yer face with the side of a broadsword.” Bill sighed, and rubbed the scruff on his chin.
Since Niall had no idea how long he had floated in the sea, he must look a mess. He remembered bits and pieces of his fall from the cliff, such as when his face collided with a rock. When they had rescued him, he must have slammed his chest against the ship. His ribs were bruised, but not broken.
He must not let them discover his identity. Angus Sinclair’s brutal reputation might have made it to the sea. Even if these men and their captain were pirates, and could locate his sire, Angus would never pay a ransom to save his son, of that he was sure. The man hoarded gold and silver, to the detriment of all else. If Gavin’s words rang true, that their sire had murdered their mother and their step-mother, he was pure evil. Would Gavin be able to raise funds to pay a ransom?
“Nay, my brother has his own troubles.”
“What is that yer mumbling?”
Niall shook his head, and kept silent.
“Get them clothes on, and be ready,” Bill said.
Niall kept his dirty hair covering as much of his face as possible. The damaged left eye, swollen shut and possibly grotesque, would keep any familiarity hidden until he could make his escape. Making friends with someone like Bill, might help get him out of his cell, and back on deck. Then, he would weigh his options.
“Bill, for what must I ready myself?”
Bill grinned, then frowned. Heavy boot steps were coming closer. “The capt’n wishes to question ye. Until then, keep quiet. I suggest ye feign sleep.” Without further explanation, Bill headed in the opposite direction of the boot steps, and Thomas followed.
Hurrying to dress, Niall turned his back to the cage door, then curled into a small ball on the elevated pallet. His bruised ribs ached, but if Bill wished to warn him, who was he to ignore such a boon?
As the pounding steps grew closer, Niall realized the steps were too heavy for a woman’s. He forced his bruised and battered body to grow still. With slow, deep breaths, he prayed he appeared asleep, to whoever stood outside his prison.
***
The pounding in her head grew louder. Blair jerked awake, yet desperately tried to keep from losing the erotic dream. Her heart thundered in her chest, while the ache between her legs yearned for release. Snatches of the dream hovered in her mind.
Moss-green eyes bore into her from above. Warm muscular arms wrapped her in a cocoon of gentle lovemaking, as he thrust inside her.
When the image dissolved into a pixilated fog, she inhaled a deep breath, and slid from bed. If one of her favorite romance authors had written such a scene, she’d stay in bed and finish the chapter. No such luck, today.
When the pounding continued, she slipped her shirt over her head, and it fluttered down, and hung to her thighs. She tied the laces at the neckline, then glanced at the door.
My Hunted Highlander Page 2
