by Julia London
“What am I to do, then?” Duff shot back. “Our whisky is gone as are all our hopes, and they can find no joy in being locked away!”
Aulay turned his glare on Lottie. “Miss Livingstone,” he said, quite formally, “Will you have a word with your clan and ask them to kindly stop making such a bloody racket?”
“What? Aye, yes—I will,” she promised, startled by his outburst.
Aulay pivoted about and resumed his place at the wheel beside Beaty.
“Well,” she said on a rush of breath.
“I’d take offense to that, I would,” Duff said. “But he’s no’ slept any more than the rest of them.”
Lottie yanked the blanket tightly around her shoulders. “I’ll have a word, then.”
“I’d no’ advise it, miss,” said the Mackenzie man, but Lottie was already moving.
Beaty was at the wheel, and Aulay stood with one arm braced against the mizzen, staring ahead into the sea. He cast a look over Lottie, sweeping all the way down to her toes, then up again before turning his attention to the sea before them.
Well then—the man who had made passionate love to her had gone missing, apparently. “Can we no’ help?” she asked.
“Aye, you can help by making them cease that ruckus,” he said curtly.
The man she’d captured had returned and was as surly as he had been the first day of his captivity. “I meant with the sails, or on deck.”
“No.”
“Your men are in need of rest—”
“I am well aware of it.”
Lottie’s gaze narrowed. She moved closer. “What is the matter with you, then? I know we’re a burden to you, but I—”
He suddenly spun around on her. “You’ve no idea what sort of burden you are, or how tall and wide your burden lies on my shoulders.”
He said it so violently that Lottie took a step backward, shocked.
Aulay glared at her a moment, and then sighed to the sky. “Bod an donais,” he muttered. “Lottie... I beg your pardon. I donna generally release my frustrations on the fairer sex, but Diah help me, I donna know what to do with you.”
He was confusing her. She didn’t know what he meant. “I’ve kept away.”
“That’s no’ what I mean,” he said, his eyes piercing hers. “We’ve eaten what was no’ ours to eat. We’re almost out of water. We return to Scotland like dogs with our tails between our legs, and by all rights, you ought to be hanging from the yardarm, aye?”
She flinched.
“But I donna know what to do with you and yours,” he said.
Lottie’s heart began to beat erratically. The ship suddenly rose up on a wave, then crashed down again, and he caught her waist to steady her. But Lottie could not be steadied and neither, apparently, could he. The cold hard truth of their situation had seeped into their membranes and was mixing with the desire in their veins. Esteem and thievery did not mix.
There was only one thing she could do, and that was to free him. “You know what to do,” she said. “There is only one thing you can do, Aulay. I know it. I expect it.”
Aulay blinked. His hand dropped from her waist.
“Give me leave to speak with my clan,” she said quickly before he could say something to dissuade her. “We can help you, we can relieve your men, we can give you all an opportunity to rest, aye? It’s the least we can do after all the trouble we’ve caused.”
He pressed his lips together, exchanged a look with Beaty, then nodded. Lottie didn’t linger. She found it painful to see him so conflicted over the grief she’d caused him. Diah, but they were sailing home on an ocean of grief, all of them, all of them full of sorrow for so many reasons. It was heart-crushing.
* * *
THE LIVINGSTONES CHEERED when she appeared around the crates. They were all in their shirtsleeves, unwashed, boasting scraggly beards. “Aye, I knew she’d come to save us!” Norval shouted.
“Give us our freedom, Lottie,” Morven said. “They’ve no right to treat us in this manner. ’Tis no’ gentlemen’s rules.”
“They are angry with us,” she reminded him. “And they treat us as we treated them.”
“Aye, and we’re angry, too, we are! They’ve thrown our whisky overboard!” shouted Gilroy from somewhere near the back.
“Have you forgotten that we threw their wool off to make room for the whisky?” Lottie reminded them. “And what good is the whisky to us now? It’s caused more trouble than it ever might have been worth.”
“What? Why?” asked Mark Livingstone.
Lottie stepped up onto a crate. “Lads, you know the Campbells will be as thick as a pack of wolves waiting for it, aye? And if no’ the Campbells, then the crown. The Mackenzies must hand us over or be accused of collusion. We’ll be caught one way or another, and then what?”
“We worked hard to make that whisky, Lottie!” insisted Mark. “Harder than we’ve worked at augh’ else!”
“We did, aye we did,” she agreed. “But it was always a risk, was it no’? We knew it could bring us trouble before we ever built the first still, aye?”
“We might have sold it yet!” Morven said. “The fault was in sailing to Denmark. We’re no’ sailors, no’ one of us, save Gilroy.”
Lottie winced with the painful truth in that. “That is my fault—”
“No, Lottie, the fault belongs to all of us,” Mr. MacLean said. “Our choice was to sail to Denmark or lose the whisky ere we had a chance to sell it. All of you know it is true—we met and said these things ere we ever put a foot on Gilroy’s ship. Have you forgotten?”
Mark looked as if he intended to argue, but Mr. MacLean held up a hand. “It hardly matters now, does it, then?” he implored them. “We are Livingstones. We care for our own. We must think ahead, not about the past.”
“We ought to help them,” Lottie said. “The Mackenzies are exhausted.” There was grumbling, but Lottie was quick to put an end to it. “They have no’ tossed us into the sea when they had every right! They’ve shared their provisions with us, and there are more of us than them! If you canna find it in your heart to help those who have helped us, then so be it—but I have given my word,” Lottie said.
“Aye, we’ll help,” Mr. MacLean said, eying anyone who would disagree. “But I would know what we’ll do when we return to Lismore. We’ve still the matter of rents to be paid.”
“Lottie, will you marry MacColl, then?” Norval asked her bluntly.
The question twisted like a knife in her gut. She looked around at the men standing before her. None of them seemed surprised by the question. “You all know of that?”
Norval shrugged. “He’s made no secret of his esteem.”
“You save us all if you wed him, Lottie,” Morven said.
Well, then, they were back to the beginning, were they? She should have known that there had never been any escape from her being the price to be paid to save all the Livingstones. She’d been naïve to think that she could avoide it. “We canna speak of what will come next if we never reach Scotland, can we? At present, we need to help the Mackenzies. Set aside your pride at having lost and be grateful we’ve not been walked off a plank.”
“Aye, release us from this hold before we all go mad,” Mark said.
“Give me your word that you’ll work, and work hard,” she said. “Swear it!”
“Aye, we will,” Morven said, and looked around at his clan. “We will,” he said, sounding as if he meant to convince the others.
“Dress, then, and I’ll see you on deck.”
She would marry MacColl, then. If, by some miracle, she escaped the gallows, she would give up her dream of seeing the world, perhaps of having children, and for the sake of her clan, she would marry him. It was, she thought, what her father would have wanted her to do. Perhaps she owed him that. To hang, or look at the walls of a cell, or marr
y an old man...none of it seemed better or worse than the other.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
AULAY WAS PERCHED high above the ship, working to repair the top sail line that had whipped clean of its ties. Jack Mackenzie was Aulay’s best sail man—he had an amazing ability to shimmy up the masts to the very tops when needed. But his leg injury had left Aulay without a necessary sailor on deck, and he’d had to climb up the mast to do the repairs himself.
He watched the Livingstones below him. They were working under Beaty’s command, and in truth, it was a relief—his men were getting some much needed rest.
Yesterday had been cold and blustery, and today was bright and the wind calmer. Aulay worked for the better part of an hour, finishing the repair just as the sun began to slide into the horizon. He looked toward the setting sun and thought of painting it. A powder blue sky with streaks of gold, a muddy brown line that was the coast of Scotland. Home.
This was the sort of seascape he loved, a vast canvas of water shining gold in the early evening light. Aulay retrieved the spyglass at his waist and looked out over the vista to study it, to remember it, so that he might paint it one day. That thin brown line would grow out of the water as they neared it, rising into sheer cliffs and rocks. The surface of the water would turn an undulating deep, dark blue in the moonlight, and the sky a tapestry of stars on inky black.
He guessed they had a day and a half of sailing, no more, before they reached Balhaire. They would sail between the Orkney and Shetland islands before turning south, down the western coast of Scotland, where his return would be heralded. As they maneuvered into the private Balhaire cove, a bell would sound, signaling their arrival. Mackenzies would begin to appear, a few at first, then groups of them, all of them hurrying the half mile or so from the castle and village that surrounded it, all of them eager to greet loved ones returned from the sea and the world beyond.
Aulay’s father used to come out of the castle to greet him, but in the last few years, he had not—a bad leg ailed him and he seldom walked down to the cove now. No matter—his father always waited eagerly for Aulay in the great hall, his dogs at his feet, a fire in the hearth, a plate of food and a tankard of ale waiting for his son. His mother would be there, too. She had long ago accepted his love of the sea, although she never understood it. She was forever relieved when he walked into the hall, her beautiful smile illuminating the dark old castle.
His brother Rabbie and his wife, Bernadette, would have heard the bell, and would arrive just after him, coming from Arrandale with their children. His sister Vivienne, her husband, Marcas, and their brood would join the family in the hall, and his nieces and nephews would beg to know what he’d brought them. Catriona, Aulay’s youngest sister, would run down to the cove, too eager to see him and hear his tales. She would trek up to the castle with him, her arm linked through his, peppering him with questions.
Catriona would have liked to have been someone like Lottie Livingstone, an adventurer, but her parents would never have allowed it.
Sometimes, Aulay’s oldest brother, Cailean, and his wife, Daisy, would be in residence, having come for a month or so from England where they lived. They would greet him with their young daughter in Cailean’s arms, their son, Lord Chatwick, in tow.
Aulay was allowed to play the part of prodigal son for a few days, returning to them with news of the world. For those days, he would be pampered and loved. It was the only way, he’d long ago discovered, to win his father’s esteem. But slowly his family’s life would return to the routine, and Aulay’s star would fade under the blazing virility of his brothers, the chatter of his sisters. He would fade into the wall hangings, sitting quietly to one side, listening to the details of a life that did not include him any longer, wanting to retreat to his rooms and paint.
He kept his personal experiences to himself—the women, the wine. The exotic and the heart-wrenching situations he saw in every port. He kept his personal life separate from his family because he found it difficult to describe the sun to people who had only seen the moon. Nevertheless, Aulay had always enjoyed his homecomings immensely and looked forward to them with great enthusiasm—the same enthusiasm he held for the next voyage after that.
But this time, he dreaded coming home.
Understandably, his family would be devastated by his news—they’d all pinned great hopes on this voyage in spite of their great skepticism. Aulay had convinced them this launch was the rebirth of their trade, a path of return to their days of glory. What he would deliver was the news that they could lose everything.
The cargo must be repaid. He had to determine a way to do it, even if it meant selling his ship. The Mackenzies were not debtors, they were too proud for that. Not even in the meanest of times had they been in debt.
Despair twisted in his gut, and Aulay lowered the spyglass.
He had no doubt that his father would insist the Livingstones be brought to justice for the losses they’d caused the Mackenzies, and his brother Rabbie would agree. They lived by simple rules at Balhaire—one did not take what was not theirs, and if they did, there were consequences. Regrettably, consequences didn’t simply disappear because Aulay had experienced something rather profound on this voyage. Their loss was not diminished because he’d happened to allow his heart to be filled by the woman who had taken their ship. Bloody hell, when there were women of every stripe in the world, why had he developed such esteem for the very one he could not defend?
He didn’t want to think of it, or confront it until he absolutely must. It was tragedy enough that he couldn’t rid himself of his more salacious thoughts of Lottie, much less her demise.
He went to put the spyglass away, but a movement caught his eye and he steadied the glass once more, shifting it slightly to the right. He could make out the topsails of a ship along the coastline.
He lowered the spyglass and started down.
On deck, Beaty reported that he’d seen the ship, too. “I’ll keep an eye,” Beaty said. “You ought to have a wee sleep now, Captain. We’ll reach the islands before dawn.”
Aulay was grateful for the opportunity to rest and made his way to his cabin by way of the hold, where he helped himself to one of the last biscuits and some salted fish they’d managed to catch this morning. When he returned to the deck, the sun had all but disappeared into a ribbon of pink evening light. As he reached the landing of the forecastle, the door to the forward cabin opened and Lottie stepped out. She hesitated when she saw him, then looked back over her shoulder and carefully pulled the door to. They’d hardly spoken since he confessed he didn’t know what to do with her. She looked better rested than she had in previous days, and the sun had put a rosy color in her cheeks. Her hair hung over her shoulder in a thick rope, and she played with the end of it, seemingly reluctant to move one way or another, to cross his path or step back into the smaller cabin until he’d disappeared round the corner to his own cabin.
“Is that where you’ve been hiding, then?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the first mate’s cabin.
“Better there than at the top of the mast, like you.”
“You spied me there, did you?”
“Spied you? I thought you meant to leap to your death what with all the trouble.”
He could not suppress a sardonic chuckle. “If I intended to leap to my death, I would have done it long before today, aye?”
That earned him a wee smile. “Aye.” Her gaze fell to the biscuit and fish he held.
“I owe you thanks,” he said, and slipped past her, intending to walk on to his cabin.
She looked at him with surprise. “For what, then?”
“For convincing your men to work. You were right—they’ve been a great help to us. My men are rested.”
“I think you are the first to ever suggest that the Livingstones have been helpful,” she said wryly. “We’re a hapless lot, Captain. I thought we�
�d drive poor Mr. Beaty to drink.”
“I’d no fret about that,” Aulay said. “Beaty will search high and low to find something to drive him to drink.”
Lottie’s smile deepened.
Aulay gave her a nod. His head told him to go, to politely end this conversation, and he walked on, but as he rounded the corner, Lottie took a small step forward and asked, “Will you avoid me forever, Aulay?”
His heart leaped ahead of itself. “I’ve been commanding a ship,” he said, although that excuse sounded quite hollow to his own ears. He was still moving, a sort of half walk, half hesitation. “I mean to rest now, aye?” he said, and made himself walk on to his cabin. He opened the door and walked inside, put his food on the table.
“Have you perhaps determined you ought no’ to put yourself in the company of a woman who will face a judge?”
He turned to the door. Lottie was standing there, her body silhouetted against a dark blue sky. Aye, it was something like that, some regret eating at him, tearing him apart from the inside out, and once again, he was astonished that she seemed to understand him. “What are you doing, then?” he asked. “Do you attempt to persuade me to be gentle with you when the time comes?”
“Will you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It willna be up to me, lass.”
“Then no,” she said, and smiled a little. “May I say something?” she asked.
Aulay leaned back against the table and motioned for her to continue.
“I think you are a kind man, Aulay Mackenzie. But you are a wronged man, there’s no denying it, and ’tis I who have wronged you. I’ll go to my grave regretting it. But you must know that I... How I...” She paused, seemingly unable to find words. She sighed. “I would that you know how much I’ve come to esteem you.”
Aulay had not expected her to say that, nor had he expected the words to softly wrap around his bruised heart.
“’Tis no’ a proper thing to say, I know. You’re a gentleman, a man of the world you are, and I’m a lass from a wee island. But I’m running out of time to do things properly, and I’ll have you know how I hold you in my highest regard. You’ve shown me kindness I didna deserve.”
