by Julia London
Norval was still standing guard on the quarterdeck. Gilroy had taken over the wheel, and Beaty was squatting down beside a small brazier where he held a stick with pieces of fish over a small flame. He glanced up as Lottie neared him, and even in the dim light, she could see him blanch when he saw her gun. He slowly rose to his feet, his eyes fixed on it. “What’s that for, then?”
“Donna you mind it. Come with me, please.”
Beaty snorted. “You mean to escort me with a gun to me head?” He laughed with great derision.
Lottie lifted the gun and pointed it at his head. Behind him, Gilroy’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. “It’s no’ for your head, sir, but your captain’s. If I see any trickery, he’ll pay the price.”
Beaty looked at the gun in her hand. Was it possible for him to tell the gun was empty? She’d shot its only bit of lead into the ceiling above the Mackenzie crew. “I could take that wee gun and toss you over with one hand, lass,” he said darkly.
She knew that, quite obviously, but she called his bluff. She cocked the gun. “Try,” she said.
Gilroy recovered from his shock and slowly smiled. “Did I no’ say that you ought not to trifle with the Livingstones?” he asked proudly.
“I thought you were Larsons,” Beaty drawled. “Have you lost your mind, lass?” he asked. “Have you no’ put yourself in enough peril?”
“Aye, without a doubt, I have,” she agreed. “But I’ll no’ allow you to put me in more peril. Come,” she said, gesturing to the stairs.
Muttering beneath his breath, Beaty stalked toward the steps. She followed him to the captain’s cabin with the gun pointed at his back, but he wasn’t terribly intimidated, apparently, for he entered the quarters in something of a snit, striding inside and pausing in the middle, his legs braced apart, his hands on his hips, surveying the lay of the land.
“What the devil?” Bernt said from the bed, and tried to rise up on an elbow.
“Please donna tax yourself, Fader,” Lottie said with the pistol pointed at the captain. “We’ve a wee bit of business, that’s all.”
The captain was leaning casually against the wall and glanced insouciantly at her gun. “You’ve no’ been threatening my men with that wee gun, have you?”
“Aye, she has,” Beaty said. “Pointed it right at my head, she did.”
“Here he is,” she said to Mackenzie. “You asked for him. Now speak.”
“Where are your men?” he asked, undaunted, unhurried. “Surely one of them can come along to hold the gun for you, aye?”
“I donna need anyone to hold it. My men are feeding your men,” she said pertly.
“Put away the gun, lass,” he said. “Beaty will do as I say. Put the gun down.”
“Tell him, then. I donna know which direction he sails, so tell him,” she demanded.
“You can tell by the prevailing wind, aye?” Mackenzie said calmly, and lifted his bound hands. “East,” he said, pointing in one direction, then arcing his hands to the opposite direction, “to west.” And then he said something low and rapidly in Gaelic.
Had she been tricked? Lottie’s temper flared; she lifted the empty gun and sighted it between the captain’s eyes.
He didn’t as much as flinch. In fact, he arched a brow as if amused by her.
But Beaty flinched, throwing up his hands as if to stop her. “There’s no call for that!” he said anxiously. “You’d no’ shoot an unarmed man, lass!”
“She’ll no’ use it,” the captain said.
He was not the least bit afraid of her. He probably didn’t believe she knew how to use a gun properly. Men were always assuming things they shouldn’t. She knew how to fire a gun, for God’s sake. She was only missing a bullet.
“Put it down, Lottie,” he said calmly. “We’re wasting time, aye?”
“We’re to use given names now, are we? I’ll put it down when you explain to Mr. Beaty that we are to sail to Aalborg, and I can see with my own eyes that he’s no’ sailing us straight into the arms of the king’s navy.”
Again, the captain spoke quickly and softly in Gaelic. Whatever he said caused Beaty to give a slight shake of his head. Lottie panicked—her knowledge of Gaelic was limited to a few words and phrases. The Livingstones generally spoke English, except for the older clan members who spoke the language of the Danes. “English!” she said sharply. “You must speak English!”
Mackenzie looked almost amused. “English, then,” he said graciously.
“Do as she says, aye?” her father said roughly from the bunk. “My daughter is as fine a shot as she is bonny.”
The captain said something else in Gaelic; Lottie cocked the gun. The captain kept his gaze on her gun but leaned over and pointed to something on one of the maps.
“I’ll blast a hole in you, I swear I will,” Lottie said sharply.
“She looks a wee bit mad,” Beaty said nervously.
“Mad? I look mad?” Lottie said. What shreds of patience she might have been clinging to were lost. “I suppose were you the one holding the gun, you’d look perfectly reasonable! Why is it man’s unfailing belief that if a woman is anything less than demure and silent, she must be mad, but—”
“Lottie, lass...” her father said.
“Men think themselves so bloody superior,” she snapped. “Come, Beaty, before I demonstrate just how mad I am. What would you do, were you me? My father wounded, my men without knowledge of the sea—”
“You should no’ have pirated a ship, then!” Beaty said indignantly.
The captain said calmly, “There is no need to argue, aye? Have you paused to consider, then, miss, that if you blast a hole in me, there will be a heavy price to pay? My men will go along with your thievery as long as they know I’m your captive. But if I’m dead?”
If he were dead, they’d all be dead—no one needed to tell her so. Lottie could well imagine the carnage, beginning with Beaty, who would not hesitate to snap her neck. Mackenzie knew this. He knew that her gun was merely display and really no use to her at all in this circumstance. Diah, but her heart was pounding so hard she could scarcely hear her own thoughts. “You donna frighten me, sir.”
“Do I no’?” he asked congenially, as if they were playing a game. “Then shoot me.”
“Och, pusling, before you shoot him, the tincture Morven has given me has no’ dulled the pain. Might there be some brandy about?”
“Pardon, what?” She was so intent on the captain and the quicksand she found herself in, that at first her father’s question didn’t make sense.
“Brandy,” he said again. “I could use a wee dram, that I could.”
Lottie looked at Mackenzie.
He sighed at the imposition. “In the sideboard, below.”
Lottie moved backward, keeping her eye on Beaty, and bumping into the immovable table. Beaty looked terribly confused, his gaze swinging between her and his captain and her father. Lottie managed to keep the gun trained on Mackenzie as she dipped down and opened the cupboard beneath the sideboard. She took her eyes from him for a brief moment, reaching inside the cabinet for a half empty bottle of dark amber liquid. She noticed a neat stack of lawn shirts, trews and trousers. Lottie grabbed the bottle, closed the door and quickly stood.
Beaty leaned toward the captain and said something quite low.
“English!” Lottie shouted.
Beaty lifted his hands. “I need a wee bit of help setting a course for Aalborg, aye? ’Tis the cap’n’s head that can work out all the figures—no’ mine.”
“No,” she said as she skirted around the table with a bottle of brandy in one hand and the gun in the other. The throbbing had started up in her neck again, and her arm was beginning to burn from holding the gun aloft. She knew that it wobbled, and she could see the captain had noted it, too.
“Ah, there’s an angel. Thank you, pus
ling,” her father said, and with a shaking hand, took the bottle she held out to him.
“You ought to put the gun down, Lottie,” Mackenzie said. “You’ll lose all feeling in your arm if you donna. You’d no’ want to cause injury to yourself.”
“Uist,” Lottie said, warning him to be quiet.
He smiled wryly and asked, “What is the penalty for piracy, Beaty?”
“Hanging, sir.”
“We’re no’ pirates,” Lottie said irritably.
“What is the penalty for holding a captain with a gun against his will, Beaty?” he asked, his gaze on Lottie.
Beaty paused to consider it. He shrugged. “Hanging. Or walking a plank.”
The pain in Lottie’s head began to shift to her belly.
The captain made a tsk, tsk sound. “You should no’ have picked up the gun, then, aye?”
Her father, who had taken two healthy swigs of the brandy, suddenly chuckled. “Aye, he’s a clever one, Lottie, this captain. He means to unnerve you. He canna know that you’re no’ easily disheartened.”
Ironically, Lottie was feeling quite disheartened at the moment.
“Donna pay him any heed, pusling.” Her father paused to take another healthy swig of the brandy. “You have the gun and the ship, aye? If you so desired, you could shoot them both and toss them to the fish and the crew would be none the wiser.”
Lottie turned her head and stared at her father.
“By the bye, Captain, your brandy is excellent.”
“My intention is only to help,” the captain said. “As you’ve said, you’re in a wee bit over your head, aye? I’d no’ like to see you on a plank.”
“I’d rather hang, were it me,” Beaty opined.
Lottie swung the muzzle of the gun from the captain to Beaty now. “All right, then, you’ve seen your captain and now we’ll go below to tell your men he is very much alive, aye? Come now, before I find a plank for you.”
“Aye, go, Beaty, lest they deliver us into the depths of the sea,” the captain said. “And God help them find Aalborg if they do.” He smiled.
Bloody hell, but this man had her at sixes and sevens. Beaty started for the door, but paused to speak in Gaelic to Mackenzie.
“Now,” she said sternly.
Beaty opened a door, and Lottie fell in behind him. She glanced at the captain as she followed Beaty out, and the man had the audacity to smirk. Smirk.
That’s what she got for asking for help.
CHAPTER SIX
“MY DAUGHTER, she’s made of strong mettle, that one. Never known a woman like her. No’ even her mother, God rest her soul.”
She was a fool, and Aulay was on the verge of suggesting the old man was demented, but the door flung open and men began to stream into the room, led by the giant—the same one that had knocked the life from Aulay—who had to duck his head to enter. Two others followed him. They walked past Aulay without so much as a glance.
He wanted some explanation about who these people were, why they were crammed into his cabin, and what the bloody hell was wrong with the big one. He reminded Aulay of a bairn in a man’s body. He was rocking back and forth on his heels and moaning as he stared down at the man on the bed. The younger one stood with his back to the wall, his legs braced apart, his jaw set, as if he was determined not to show the least bit of emotion. Aulay recognized himself in the younger one—he’d been that lad many years ago. He had two warrior brothers who had commanded their father’s attention and respect with their physical prowess. He had two sisters who’d been the jewels of his father’s eye. And he, third of five, had gone unnoticed unless he was behind the wheel of a ship. It was strange to think of it now, but at that age, Aulay had struggled to find the attention and praise in his family or clan. He was the quiet one, the studious one, the lad who pursued painting. It was hard to be noticed by the others, and he’d felt entirely inconsequential in the world except when he was at sea.
The third man in his cabin, of middling age, was a physician or healer of some sort. He examined the old man’s wound.
The old man wanted a report of all that had gone on since they’d come aboard. The lad attempted to report, but the giant kept speaking over him, expressing his vociferous and sincere desire to go home. But when the physician removed the bandaging from the old man, the giant began a keening cry that startled Aulay...and no one else.
Moments later, the lass returned. The giant called her name, and she went to him, putting her arms around him, holding him close like a mother would hold a child.
“Drustan lad, calm yourself,” the injured man said, and groped for the giant’s hand as the healer finished removing the bandages from his torso. “It’s no’ but a bad gash, aye?”
Lottie leaned over the physician. Whatever she saw caused her to gasp aloud.
“Aye, what is it, then?” her father asked.
“What? Nothing!” she said, fooling no one.
“Now, now, donna the lot of you fret,” the old man said. “A wound always looks worse than it is. Is that no’ so, Morven.”
“That is no’ so,” the physician said.
“You know verra well what I mean,” said the old man. “Look at your long faces! I’ll be right as rain!” he said irritably. “Why, I scarcely feel a thing, thanks be to the captain’s fine brandy.”
Aulay suppressed a groan. That was expensive French brandy, the last of what he and his brother Cailean had smuggled into Balhaire a few years ago.
“Have you any more of it?” the healer asked.
“Aye, there’s a good lad, Mats, hand him the bottle.”
“I’ll need fresh water as well,” the physician said, and Lottie went at once to the sideboard to fetch it, returning with the ewer.
The physician poured water directly into the brandy bottle—so much that there would be no salvaging the brandy. He shook the bottle to mix the contents, then put his hand on the injured man’s leg. “Steady yourself, Bernt,” he said, and poured the diluted brandy onto the wound.
The old man howled with pain, which startled the giant, and he, in turn, shrieked like a banshee. When he did, the youngest of them threw his hands over his ears. “By all that is holy, Drustan, donna do that!” he shouted. “It hurts me bloody ears!”
“I’ve made a sleeping broth,” the physician said, nonplussed by all the shouting and screeching. “It ought to keep you from this world for a few hours, Bernt. You need to sleep, aye?”
“What if he dies?” the giant asked tearfully.
“I willna die,” the old man said sternly. “A small wound canna kill a Livingstone, lad.”
“We’ll need a clean bandage,” the physician said. All of them looked at Lottie.
“Aye,” she said, and without the slightest compunction, went to the cupboard beneath the sideboard and removed one of Aulay’s shirts.
“I beg your pardon—wait,” Aulay said, but of course she paid him no heed, and handed the shirt to the physician. He tore the shirt into strips, then employed the two younger men to help him bind the old man’s abdominal wound.
When the bandaging was done, the physician picked up a bowl. “This is the sleeping draught.” He held it up like a vicar would hold a cup of wine at communion.
“Aye, let’s have it, then,” said her father. “I’ve got an awful pain, that I do.”
Lottie lifted his head and the physician helped him drink from the bowl.
“All right, then, lads,” her father said with a sigh when he’d finished. “You heard Morven—I’m to sleep now. Do as Lottie says, aye? But go now, let your old father rest. I’ll be good as new when we reach Aalborg.”
“I donna like to be here,” the giant said to no one in particular. “I want to go home to Lismore.”
“We’ll be there soon enough, lad,” the physician said, but Aulay saw the man exchange a loo
k with Lottie. He doubted his own words.
Lottie kissed first the giant, then the younger one. “Mind you do as Duff or Mr. MacLean tells you,” she said to them. “If they donna need you, find a place to sleep. We’ve a long voyage ahead of us and I’ll have you rested, aye?”
“But what of you, Lot?” the youngest one asked.
“I’ll stay here, with Fader.”
The young man glanced at Aulay and frowned. “What of him?”
All heads turned toward him. “We’ve no other place to put him,” Lottie said with a shrug.
“I donna like to be here,” the giant said again.
“Aye, I know,” she said soothingly, and rubbed his arm. “None of us do.”
“I do,” the younger one said as he bumped into a chair on his way out. “This is a bigger ship than Gilroy’s, and it’s much faster. I should like to be captain of this ship one day.”
“That post has been taken,” Aulay reminded the lad as he reached the door.
The young man shot him a wide-eyed look and disappeared out the door.
“Keep an eye on your brother!” Lottie called after them as the giant followed.
“I always keep an eye,” Aulay heard the younger one say in a tone that suggested he believed he was very much put upon.
“He ought to sleep like the bloody dead for a few hours,” the physician said as he went out. He paused to look at Lottie. “You look like death, lass.”
“Thank you,” she said, and pushed wet hair from her face.
“Is there no place you might sleep, then?”
“I’ll sleep here,” she said.
The physician looked at Aulay.
“He’ll no’ disturb me,” she said before the physician could remark. “He can do no harm, bound up as he is.”
“Well,” the physician said, then shrugged and went out. “God nat,” he said, wishing her a good night, and went out.
