by Julia London
“You were never a sailor,” Lottie said sweetly.
“Aye, but I might have been,” he said through a yawn. “I verra well might have been.”
Lottie and the physician stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the old man for what seemed an eternity. Finally, they turned as one away from him.
“I’ve only so much laudanum, Lottie. He needs a proper physician.”
“Aye,” she agreed. “How will we pay?”
The physician shook his head. “I’ll ask around and see if there is any coin aboard this ship.”
He walked across the room to Aulay and went down on one knee to have a look at his wrists.
“There’s no’ a farthing in the pocket of any Livingstone,” she said. She removed her gown from a peg on the wall.
“Perhaps a Mackenzie then,” the physician suggested.
She snorted. “We’ve taken too much from them.”
“They donna have a choice,” the physician said. He rewrapped Aulay’s wrists. “Healing nicely, it is,” he said, standing up. “In a month, you’ll no’ recall it.”
“I will recall it,” Aulay assured him.
The physician stroked his chin as he stared down at Aulay. “Have you any coin, Captain?”
“Morven!” Lottie said.
“He’s bound to have a few crowns, aye?”
“No,” she said sternly. “We’ll no’ ask it of him.”
“I didna intend to ask,” the physician said with a shrug, and gathered his things. “Bernt ought to rest soundly until the morrow.”
He went out, and Lottie sank into a chair at the table. She picked up the heavy darning needle they used to repair sails. She threaded it and began to try and push the thick needle through the fabric of her gown.
Aulay watched her for several minutes. “I could go for a dram of whisky, I could.”
She paused and looked up. Then dropped her sewing to the table. “Aye. So could I. As it happens, one of the casks has been opened.” She put the things aside and went out the door.
Several minutes later she returned with two wooden cups. She slid down the wall to sit beside Aulay, leaning up against the wall next to him. She stretched her legs out beside his and handed him one of the cups.
Aulay took a long draught, relishing the familiar burn in his throat.
Lottie sipped.
“You’ve charmed my men into working by offering them the whisky, have you? That would explain the fraternity.”
“I didna charm them. I offered to pay them.”
Surprised, Aulay turned his head to her. “Pardon?”
“I mean to pay them,” she said, and sipped again.
“Pay them...with what, then?”
“With the proceeds of our sale.”
Aulay was shocked. No wonder there had been no attempt to free him. “What sum did you promise?”
She shrugged. “I donna know, exactly, but I promised to pay them more than your wage.”
Good God, she meant to steal his men, too.
She laughed lightly at his thunderous expression. “Donna fret so, Captain. They’re still verra loyal to you, on my word. They’ve called us every name they can think of in Gaelic and in English. Beaty put an end to it—he told them to keep their heads as you’d said, that we’d settle up in Aalborg on the morrow if pirates didna snatch us first.”
“Have you considered there is little to keep them from stealing your whisky when you weigh anchor in Aalborg?”
She frowned. “No, I have no’ considered it. But we’ll hold Beaty. And...we’ll have you.”
Aulay’s brows dipped. “No,” he said firmly, then drained the rest of the whisky. It burned unpleasantly in his belly. “Go and sell your bloody illegal whisky if you like, but leave me out of it.”
“I would if I could,” she said. “On my life, I canna think of much worse than to drag you along.”
“You canna think of worse?” he asked, incredulous. “I am astonished how you’ve come to view your thievery as just, and that I am somehow impeding your progress.”
“Well, you are,” she said matter of factly. “It will be a chore to have to watch you with one eye, dock thieves with the other and strike a deal with the Copenhagen Company all at the same time.” She smiled at him. “So please, then, donna give us trouble.”
“Ask all you like.” He tossed his empty cup aside.
She nudged him with her cup, handing it to him. He grudgingly took it. “Surely you realize that the sooner we are done with the sale of our whisky, the sooner you might have your ship and be on your way. You will sail on to Amsterdam, your men will have full purses, and this will all be but a distant memory.”
Aulay turned about so he could look her in the eye. “Lottie, lass...do you honestly believe that I will let you go?”
When she looked up at him, the low light of the candle made her eyes shimmer, distracting him from her ridiculous assumption that he would merely allow her to swan away in that torn gown of hers.
“I hope it,” she said softly.
He impulsively touched her cheek with his knuckle, stroking it. “I’ll no’ allow your thievery to stand without answer. I’ll be held responsible for the loss of my cargo, so you’ve left me no choice but to see you brought to justice.”
She glanced at her father. Aulay stroked her cheek again, and she leaned into his touch. How odd, this conversation, he thought. He was speaking of bringing her to justice for her crimes when all he could think of was kissing her. Something was terribly off balance in him, and he didn’t know how to right it.
“Take me, then,” she muttered. “Bring me to all the justice you like, but let the rest of them go home to their families. No one wanted this.”
Who was this woman? What woman offered herself up as the sacrificial lamb?
Lottie suddenly stood up. “You ought to rest, Captain. Come the morrow, you’ll have quite a lot to keep you occupied.” She walked back to the table, picked up her sewing, and began to struggle with a needle too big for her gown.
Aulay watched her from the shadows of his corner. The way she bent her head, the wisp of hair that fell over her eye, all of it filled him with longing. He imagined standing next to her, a man in control of his destiny and his movements. He imagined them together at the helm. At a dance. In his bed.
At an altar.
He must be teetering on the brink of insanity. He was bound, his ship under the control of his enemy, of this woman...and he was thinking of bedding her. Of more.
He downed the rest of her whisky and turned his back to her, unwilling to watch her any longer, unwilling to see one more disturbing image in his head that involved her, and struggling hard against the pull into her web.
He dozed off, but he was awakened by the sound of water. He opened his eyes, blinking against the dark. He was still in his cabin, still shackled. The only difference was that the light had grown dimmer and he could smell rain through the open porthole.
Aulay groggily turned his head, and when he did, his heart lurched in his chest. Lottie was at the table, bare from the waist up. She was partially turned away from him as she dipped a cloth into a bucket, then cleaned herself. She stretched one arm up and bent it over her head, and stroked the cloth on her skin, slowly sliding it down her side before dipping it in the bucket again.
The sight of her bathing was erotic and made Aulay instantly hard. He imagined bathing her. He imagined taking that cloth and tossing it aside, of putting his hands on her breasts, his mouth on her neck and the concave of her belly. He imagined her naked, those two pools of her eyes shining with pleasure and propelling him to drive into her until she cried out with release.
Lottie turned her head to the side and stilled, holding the cloth against her breast now. She stood like that for no more than a moment, then began to rub the cloth in a circular
motion over her breast.
Did she know that he watched her? She never looked at him, never turned her head toward him, and yet she moved the cloth in a sensual path over her body.
He would swear she was aware of his attention.
When she finally doused the light, he was so hard he ached.
CHAPTER TEN
GILROY POINTED TO a ship in the distance that had trailed them around the tip of Jutland and the white sandy beaches of Skagen. “Pirates, I’d wager,” he said, and propped his foot on a barrel, leaning onto his knee as he squinted into the distance.
“You’d be a poor man, then—that’s the Danish Navy,” Beaty said, and lowered the spyglass.
Gilroy chuckled. “That’s no’ a naval ship, lad.”
“The hell you say. I’ve sailed these seas as long as I’ve been able to stand on me own two feet, I have, and I think I know a naval ship when I see one,” Beaty shot back.
Lottie stepped between them before the arguing escalated. “How long to Aalborg?”
“An hour,” Beaty said confidently.
“An hour and a half,” Gilroy countered.
It was very little time either way. “Gilroy, might we speak, then?” Lottie asked, and gave him a meaningful look. “Will you gather the others? I’ll fetch Morven—he’s with my father now.”
She returned to the captain’s cabin just as Morven was peeling her father’s bandage from his wound. Mackenzie was perched onto one hip on top of the desk, his arms crossed over his chest, watching.
Her father’s pallor had turned a sickly shade of gray overnight, which Lottie desperately hoped was a lack of decent broth and sun and not a sign of worse.
“Lottie, pusling, is it you?” her father called, his voice hoarse and weak.
“Aye,” she said, and went to his side. His gray skin was flushed, and she exchanged a look with Morven.
“Aye, he’s got a fever, that he does,” Morven said gravely. “He needs help.”
“Donna bloody well bother the lass with talk of doctors,” her father said irritably, but he grimaced, as if even speaking caused him pain. “She’s to worry about the whisky, aye? If she doesna sell the whisky, it willna matter how many physicians you bring.”
“Fader, I—”
“Donna take less than one hundred kroner per cask,” he said.
She blinked. Fifty kroner per cask was too high. As if to confirm her thought, Mackenzie muttered, “One hundred kroner is impossible.”
“I agree,” Morven said.
“Donna listen to them! One hundred kroner and no’ a pence less!” her father demanded through gasps of pain.
“But—”
Lottie was stopped from arguing by Morven’s hand to her arm. He silently shook his head.
“Did you understand me, pusling?” her father asked. His eyes were closing.
“Aye, I do, Fader. One hundred kroner,” she said softly, and squeezed his hand.
“Such a good lass you are, a bonny good lass,” he muttered as he drifted into the cloud of his fever and the laudanum Morven had doled out.
“His wound is infected,” Morven said as he gathered his things. He hesitated and looked at Lottie with such sadness that she flinched. “I canna do more for him, Lottie. Bring help.”
That was a wee bit easier to ask than it was to do. Lottie had no idea how they would bring a physician to this ship, but she’d think of something. She always thought of something. Isn’t that what they depended on her for? To think!
“Come,” Morven said, and gestured with his head to the door.
Lottie followed him out, past the captain with the smoldering eyes that seemed always to bore through her. She and Morven joined Duff and Mr. MacLean, Drustan and Mathais, and Gilroy.
“All is at the ready?” Lottie asked Duff.
“Aye,” he said. “Gilroy will remain on board in command, and Beaty will be held as surety. Our lad Drustan and I will accompany you and the captain ashore,” Duff said, clapping Drustan on the shoulder.
“I donna see why Dru may go and I may no’,” Mathais complained. “I’ve as much to do with this as he.”
“Dru must help us keep a close watch on the captain, Mats,” Lottie reminded him.
“I donna want to keep an eye,” Drustan said, fluttering his fingers. “I want to go home, Lottie.”
“Aye, we all do, but first, we must find a physician for our father, aye? If you donna come with me, Drustan, how will I find a physician?”
Mathais hopped up onto a crate, wrapped one arm around the mast, and swung his body around. “I thought Gilroy was to go because he speaks Danish.”
“Duff speaks a wee bit of Danish.”
Duff held up his finger and thumb to indicate just how wee.
“Keep an eye on our father while I’m gone, Mats.” She glanced across the deck to Beaty. “Have you told him?” she asked Gilroy.
Gilroy winced and shook his head. “I’ve no’ had the heart to tell him, no. He fancies himself in control of the ship and his men.”
“Well, he is,” said MacLean. “’Tis a bloody miracle they’ve no’ cast us overboard. We’d all be sunk to the bottom if we hadna promised to pay them.”
“Perhaps you ought to tell Beaty,” Gilroy suggested to Lottie.
“Me?”
“He’ll no’ lift a hand against you,” Gilroy said.
Why must it always be her? “Mi Diah, you men!” Lottie huffed. “It’s a wonder any of you have lived as long as you have without me to help you.”
Gilroy looked as if he might tear up at her admonishment.
“I’ll tell him,” she said. “But you must ready Captain Mackenzie. He must be allowed to bathe and dress and shave. He canna go ashore looking as if he’s our captive. He should at least give the appearance of being in command. Just...just please do it, aye?” she said, and set out, marching across the deck to give Beaty the news that now he’d be the one with a shackle around his ankle.
Predictably, Beaty did not agree with the Livingstone plan, even though Norval pointed a gun at his head the entire time he argued with Lottie about it. He made such a commotion that Lottie was forced to reassure the Mackenzie crew that she had every intention of honoring her promise but needed to take certain precautions, as would they, were the situation reversed. Still, there was quite a lot of disgruntlement as Beaty stomped off in the company of Drustan and another Livingstone man to be bound up.
“I’d no’ tell you false,” she entreated the crew, clutching her hands together at her breast in a manner she’d learned at an early age men seemed to believe was a sign of sincerity, as they tended to rely upon what they saw and never really questioned it. She assured them that the sooner they were done with this business, the sooner they’d have their money and all the Livingstones off their ship.
“Aye, and what of our cargo? What are we to do with it?” Iain the Red demanded.
“You’ll be on your way to Amsterdam,” she said. “You’ll collect two pays for this voyage.”
The men looked at each other. “I donna believe it,” Iain said. He was big, with thick, curly ginger hair that matched the curly beard he wore. “I’ve never in me life collected two purses for one voyage, have any of you?”
The answer was such a resounding no that Lottie felt a slight tick of panic. The Livingstone’s entire scheme to sell this illegal whisky depended on her ability to convince every single man on this ship that this could be done. She noticed even the Livingstone men—whose guns were no longer trained on the Mackenzies, but used as staffs on which they might lean—were eying her skeptically.
“Aye, she speaks true,” said the young man with a splint on his arm.
“What do you know of it, Billy Botly?” said one Mackenzie, and cuffed him on his ear. “You’re scarcely more than a whelp.”
“Sh
e’s no’ lied to us,” Billy said. “Everything she’s said, she’s kept her word, aye?”
“The only thing she’s said that matters is that she’ll pay us, and that we’ve no’ yet seen,” someone shouted in the back.
“Aye!” shouted several of them.
Lottie felt on the verge of losing control of the situation, but at that moment, Captain Mackenzie emerged from his cabin with Duff and Gilroy behind him.
A shock ran through her that ended in a shiver up her spine. His was a commanding figure; she wished she possessed even a wee bit of his confidence. He was dressed in the last clean shirt, and a waistcoat, pantaloons and stockings, and the greatcoat she’d worn. His hair was combed in a queue, his face clean-shaven. He looked somehow taller, and broader through the shoulders, and curse the devil, but he took her breath away.
He strode into their midst, and suddenly, everyone was cheering. He held up his hands and began to speak. Lottie stared at him, lulled by the deep, dulcet tones of his voice. He made the guttural Gaelic language sound almost lyrical.
“English!” she said, shaking off her infatuation.
He shifted a cool gaze to her. “Donna fret so, Miss Livingstone. I merely explained that they are to keep the ship ready to sail, that when we return, we will resume our voyage at once.”
She didn’t believe him, but whatever he’d said had calmed his men. Relief began to snake through her. “Only that?”
“No, no’ only that,” he said pleasantly. “I also swore to them that we would have our justice.” He smiled.
Lottie should have been alarmed—at least think what her next steps would be—but all she could think was how his blue eyes glittered in the sunlight with defiance, and how that defiance made her feel warm and wobbly. A bit like she’d been struck and paralyzed by lightning.
He arched a brow, apparently amused by her perusal of him. “Do you no’ wish to change your clothing, too?”
Lottie blinked. She nervously touched her hair, then said to Duff, “Mind you keep an eye,” and whirled about, fleeing in mortification, aware that the men ogled her in her trews.
