by Julia London
He suddenly remembered Beaty asking if they ought to pick up arms and his nonchalance about it. Aye, he was going to kill her with his bare hands, limb by lovely limb. Aulay shouted through the gag, which was really more of a hoarse throttle, as the gag prevented the use of his tongue.
“Diah, of course, you want to speak,” she said sympathetically. She glanced back at the man on the bunk, then at him. “If I remove the gag, do you promise you’ll no’ scream? It willna matter if you do—there’s no one to hear you, really.”
His heart raced wildly at that—what did she mean, there was no one to hear? Where is my crew? Who is at the helm?
“Aye, all right,” she said, warily eyeing the ropes at his wrists and the blood on his cuffs, the shackle around his ankle. She winced at the sight of it. “How you must loathe us.”
Loathing was too good for the likes of her. But Aulay maintained his composure with the hope she’d free him of the goddamn gag.
She approached him cautiously. “Ah...you’re quite tall, are you no’? Will you bend your head, then?”
His glare only deepened, but he did as she asked, bowing at the waist like a bloody supplicant.
She worked at the knot of the cloth at the back of his head, her fingers brushing against his neck and tangling in his hair. The gag fell away from his mouth and he coughed when he was free of it.
She moved away from him, staring at him, eyes wide with what, fright? He was the one trussed up like a Christmas ham.
“Who is at the helm?” he asked hoarsely. “Is it my man, then?”
“Ah...no,” she said, then turned and hurried to the sideboard, twice pausing to steady herself when the ship pitched beneath her.
“Who then?” he asked impatiently. “Whoever is sailing the ship must reef the sails.”
“Pardon?” She’d reached the sideboard and was struggling to pour water from the ewer into a cup.
“If he’s no’ reefed the sails, he must do it now or we’ll capsize. If he doesna know how to sail in these winds, give him my first mate. Beaty is his name and he can sail through the worst of storms.”
She began the unsteady trek back to him, but with a sudden lift of the ship, she spilled quite a lot of the water onto the floor of the cabin. Another wave pitched her forward, and she caught herself on Aulay’s arm, then quickly yanked her hand away, as if he might burn her.
“Do you hear me, then?” he demanded loudly. “We’ll capsize if you donna do as I say.”
“Gilroy is a captain,” she said evenly, and tried to hold the cup to his lips.
Aulay jerked his head away from the cup, causing her to drop it. That distracted her, and he seized the moment and caught her by the throat. His wrists were bound, but he could still wrap his hands around her neck, could still squeeze the life from her.
She gasped, and tried to claw his grip free of her throat with one hand, her eyes bulging with fear. “I ought to snap your neck here and now, aye?” he breathed angrily. “Can you no’ feel that we’re tossing about like a child’s boat in the bath, lass? Your captain doesna know how to sail it, and if you donna wish to drown us all, then by Diah, put Beaty at the helm.”
Her eyes dropped to his mouth, and Aulay’s fool heart skipped a single beat, but then began to race as he felt the cold steel of a gun suddenly jab him in the neck. “Let me go,” she croaked, “or I’ll blow your bloody head from your shoulders.”
Aulay glared at her, and she glared back, her eyes an icy blue now, her cheeks flushed. Her lips had parted and she was choking. She was shaking. But she thrust the gun deeper into his skin.
“Do as she says, Captain,” came a hoarse voice from the bunk. “And we’ll fetch your first mate, we will.”
Neither he nor the woman moved. Her eyes narrowed, her brows dipping into a vee of determination. He slowly let go her neck, and she sagged backward, dropped the gun from his gullet. She clutched a small dueling pistol in one hand and pressed the other hand to her throat. She blinked and suddenly turned to the bunk. “Fader? How do you fare?”
“As poorly as a three-legged horse. Donna tend me, pusling, do as the captain says,” he told her. “Gilroy is a fine captain, that he is, but he’s no’ been a’sea in many years, and he’s no’ sailed a ship as fine as this, aye? Go, and see to your brothers while you’re out.”
She hesitated. She gave Aulay a dark look. But then she went, obedient, hurrying to the cabin door and yanking it open. A gale of wind and rain blew in as she went out, then was silenced when she pulled the door shut behind her.
Aulay fell back against the cabin wall, his breath short, his heart still beating rapidly.
“Donna blame her,” the man said from his bunk. “My daughter is no’ at fault for what has happened. The blame lies entirely with me.”
“It lies with all of you, and you’ll all hang for it,” Aulay said flatly. “All of you.”
The man said nothing more.
Aulay waited, pacing the wee bit of floor the shackle would allow him. He heard voices, but could not make them out, not with the wind howling and the ship groaning so loudly. But after an eternity, it seemed that the ship was pitching less. Perhaps the storm was weakening. Perhaps she’d given the helm to Beaty.
It seemed as if hours passed before she finally returned, bursting into the cabin and slamming it shut behind her in the face of a gale. She was soaked through to the skin, her hair was plastered to her head, and her gown so wet and heavy that it dragged the ground and clung to the voluptuous curves of her body. Her gun, he noted, was tucked into the waist of her petticoat.
She went straight to the bunk and leaned over the old man, stroking his head. “You’re warm,” she said.
“Aye, I feel as if that old Mrs. MacGuire has put her boot through me head,” he said.
“You’re bleeding again, Fader. I’ll fetch Morven, aye?”
“Leave him be, lass. He’s needed on deck and he canna do more than he’s done. If you’ve a wee bit more of the draught, however.”
She slipped a hand into the pocket of her gown and withdrew a brown vial. She shook the contents, then lifted the man’s head and helped him take the liquid. When he’d had enough, she held the brown glass vial up to the light from the porthole. “We’ve scarcely any of it left,” she said, the worry evident in her voice.
“Och, we Livingstones are made of sturdy stock. I’ll be quite all right,” the man said, but Aulay could tell from the roughness in his voice that he was not all right. That was just as well, then—one fewer to hang.
She sat on the edge of the bunk, shivering, periodically clutching the edge of it when the ship surged up or down or right or left. Aulay relaxed a wee bit—he was confident Beaty was now at the helm, as the ship was riding over the waves instead of crashing headlong into them.
He slid down onto his haunches, watching her, his gaze on her long, elegantly slender neck, the soft slope of her shoulders. Aye, she was bonny, that she was, as bonny as any woman he’d ever seen in his life. He had the sudden image of her silky hair covering her face as she twisted on the end of a rope.
He seethed with fury. With her. With himself. But he had to keep his wits about him if he had any hope of persuading her to remove the shackle and the binds at his wrists.
The old man was soon snoring. The lass—the Livingstone lass, apparently—stood and moved wearily to the table. She kicked off her boots, then wrung the water from her hair and tied it into a knot at her nape. And then, without compunction, she lifted her gown, put one foot onto a chair, and began to roll down a stocking.
Aulay was not happy to feel just as fascinated by this display of a shapely leg as he had been when she’d first come on board. God knew he’d known many audacious women, many of whom were closely related to him...but none like her. Not a single beautiful, gun-wielding, knee-kicking pirate. Not a single lass who could possibly steal a ship, pre
ss a gun into his neck and then brazenly undress before him.
What infuriated him most was that there was a part of his sorry self that was utterly aroused by it.
She seemed to sense his study of her. She turned her head and gave him a pointed look. Aulay shrugged. “What did you expect, then?”
“What did I expect? I expected this entire voyage to have gone quite a lot differently, that’s what,” she said crossly. She tossed one stocking down, then lifted the next leg and began to roll that stocking down.
Aulay tried not to look at her bare leg. Well. He didn’t try very hard, really, but he had it in his head he ought not to look. “Who sails?” he asked gruffly.
“Your man. Beaty,” she said with exasperation, and discarded the second stocking just as carelessly as the first. “He was quite at odds with the idea. He scolded me right harshly for having taken the ship, he did, and in front of all those men, too, aye? But when I explained that his very own captain had asked it of him—” she paused to look at Aulay “—after swearing on my mother’s grave that you were verra much alive,” she added, sounding miffed that Beaty would dare to question her on that front. “When I promised him that you lived, and you yourself had asked him to take the helm, he softened a wee bit and agreed to go on deck with Gilroy and the others.”
“And the rest of my men?”
“Your crew? They’re well, they are. Mad as hornets, but well enough.”
“No one hurt?” Aulay asked.
“Aye, well...three of them. Broken bones and the like. But we’re looking after them properly.” She yanked the fasteners of her gown and shrugged out of it, throwing it onto the back of the chair. Next came her stomacher. Astonishingly, she now stood barefoot in the middle of his cabin with nothing more than a petticoat, her stays and a chemise so sheer underneath that her breasts might as well have been exposed to him. She slipped her gun from her waist and laid it on the table.
“What in God’s name are you doing?” he asked incredulously. He’d never seen a woman disrobe without hesitation or conceit, unless for his pleasure. Certainly not in circumstances like this. This woman was utterly beyond redemption.
She clucked at him. “If I remain in soaked clothing, it will be the death of me, aye? I donna have a proper gown or a dressing room, do I?”
Aulay couldn’t help himself—he took in her figure. Slowly. Curve by delicious curve.
“Donna look at me like that,” she said.
“What, or you’ll shoot? What would you have me do, then? Fix my gaze on the wall?”
Her cheeks colored. She folded her arms over her body, which pronounced her perfect breasts to him even more, and shivered noticeably.
Aulay sighed. He was either a bloody fool or a great humanitarian, because he said, “My greatcoat is just there,” and nodded to a series of pegs on the wall that held his clothing.
She looked over her shoulder in the direction he indicated, but made no move to get the coat. “No, thank you.”
“Stubborn wench,” he said irritably. “Watching you shiver like a wee waif makes it feel bloody well cold in here. Take it.”
“That’s kind of you,” she said.
“’Tis no’ the least bit kind. I shall have you in good health so that I might see you hanged.”
The color in her cheeks darkened. “Hanged! I told you we’d return the ship to you! Think of it as borrowing—”
“Save your breath for your judge, lass.”
“Och,” she said with a flick of her wrist. “Your pride’s been wounded, that it has, and you’re angry now.” She took his coat from the wall and put it around her shoulders. “Thank you,” she muttered.
His pride had been more than wounded—it had been destroyed. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to relive his humiliation, but unfortunately, it was impossible to ignore.
He heard her moving about, the scrape of the chair against the wooden floor, and opened his eyes. She was not very big at all, he realized, smaller than average. “Where did you learn to kick like that, then?” he asked with irritable curiosity.
She sat on one of the chairs, her legs drawn to her. Only her toes were visible. “I didna know that I could,” she said with a slight shrug. “Fear makes warriors of us, I suppose.”
“Or fools,” he said. He moved his stiff jaw around, but it resulted in an annoying jab of pain through him, serving only to remind him that he’d been undone by a woman.
“Are these your paintings?” she asked.
Aulay stiffened. She had turned, was looking at the wall where he’d hung a pair of his canvasses. More paintings were stacked behind an easel in the corner of the room. For this voyage, he’d hung a painting of the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Cadiz, a view of the sea over the bow of his ship. The water there was as blue as the lass’s eyes. The other painting was of the Atlantic Ocean. Aulay had not ventured very far into that ocean, but he’d sailed it enough to have a memory of the setting sun.
His paintings were a private side of him. He didn’t like to talk about them, didn’t like to compare notes with artists he met from time to time. He rarely took his work ashore. He didn’t need anything else to separate him from his brothers. Cailean and Rabbie were both strong, virile men. When they were children, the two of them would stage battles and Aulay would draw. His father used to exhort him not to waste his time on endeavors best suited for the fairer sex, and to pick up arms, to be more like his brothers. “Learn to thrust a sword, no’ a paint brush, lad,” he would say.
“Our Aulay is a gentle soul, darling,” his mother would say, her intent to defend him. But she only made it worse. His father had no use for sons with gentle souls.
Aulay would not have said he had a gentle soul. All he knew was that the painting was something in him that needed to come out. It eased him. Still, his art was for him, and him alone.
He waited for the remarks he knew would come.
“There’s no’ a soul in them,” she said curiously, and stood up, moving to the wall to have a look.
“That’s because they are paintings of seas, aye?” he said defensively.
“You paint the same sea every time? Only the sea?”
Only the sea? What was the matter with her? They were obviously two different bodies of water. “They are no’ the same at all.”
“Aye, they are. One is blue, but they look the same.” She bent over and began to rummage through his other canvasses.
Aulay shifted uncomfortably. “Have a care!” he said sharply.
“More paintings of the sea,” she said, as if he didn’t know what he’d painted.
“The sea is never the same from one moment to the next, is it? It turns over on itself, it does. The changes are so vast that at times, they are almost imperceptible. But they are no’ the same, and you have no’ been invited to inspect my things.”
She lifted her hands in surrender. “But there are no people. No’ even a ship,” she said.
It was just his bloody luck to be humiliated by a woman who also happened to be an art critic. “Diah, you’re a thief with no appreciation for art,” he said dismissively.
“We’re no’ thieves,” she said as she resumed her seat. “Had it no’ been for our emergency, we’d no’ want your ship if you presented it to us with ribbons tied to the masts,” she said pertly.
Aulay snorted. “If you’re no’ thieves, then who are you?”
“It doesna matter—”
“Aye, on the contrary, it does indeed. You canna hide. I heard the giant call you Lottie when you came on board. The man there bragged of his Livingstone stock. You are Lottie Livingstone, no’ Lady Larson,” he said, spitting out the name. “Are you pirates, then? Is it my cargo you want?”
“Pirates!” She laughed, and her eyes sparkled with amusement. “If we are pirates, Captain, the
n we are the worst of all!”
“Then why have you stolen my ship?” he demanded. Why have you humiliated me? Why have you ruined this chance to save the life I love?
“We’ve no’...” She sighed and shook her head. “On my word, I tell you the truth, Captain Mackenzie. Please try and think of it as merely borrowing your ship, aye? I told you, we had no choice. You’ll leave us at port and then...then go about your business.”
She said it hopefully, as if she desperately wanted to believe that could happen. He was quick to disabuse her of that idea. “That’s absurd. You surely donna believe that I’ll no’ avenge the unlawful taking of my ship, aye?”
Her hopeful expression fell. She looked at the old man. “Then what should I do?”
“Pardon?”
She shifted her gaze to Aulay. “I could use your advice, aye?”
Aulay scoffed at the suggestion.
“I donna know what to do, Captain,” she said, sounding a wee bit desperate. “I can scarcely believe what I’ve done. Tell me what to do—you’re a man of great experience—”
“You honestly think I’ll advise you?” he asked incredulously.
“No,” she said, her brows furrowing. “But I hoped. I’m in water well over my head, I am, and I could use a wee bit of proper counsel. I’ve none, you might have noticed.”
Hardly proper counsel, seeing as he was the one bound. But it occurred to him he could perhaps use this opportunity to his advantage. “Where are you bound, then?”
“For Aalborg.”
Aulay’s heart seized. That was the wrong direction. “Denmark,” he said.
She nodded.
“Why there?”
“We’ve...we’ve something to sell,” she said hesitantly.
“Aye, and what is that? The contents of my hold?”
“No!” she said, affronted.
“What else would you have to sell, then? What could you possibly have that must be sold in some small port of Denmark, other than what is in my hold?” he pressed her. “I’m carrying wool and salted beef. My hold was full before you tricked us with your...” He almost said hair. “Tell me the truth, lass—do you mean to sell it?”
