Devil In Tartan

“Morven is as good a healer as comes from the Highlands, aye?” said Mr. MacLean. “He canna have better care at Lismore. And besides, Lottie, Bernt wants you to carry on, does he no’?”

She didn’t want to be reminded of the horror of this morning, but nodded that yes, he had told her in no uncertain terms to carry on. “But we canna keep him here in the captain’s quarters.” All three of them glanced around to the figure in the corner of the room, the captain of the Reulag Balhaire, bound and gagged and shackled to a desk that had been built into the wall, and at present, very much unconscious. He’d sustained a few blows, but it was the tincture Morven had managed to pour down his throat that had stopped his shouting and cursing. “Me granny always said this would put a horse on his rump,” Morven had said, shaking his head at the vial he held, clearly in awe of its powers as the captain had sunk into the depths of oblivion.

“Leave him be, Lottie,” Duff said. “The forward cabin is full, it is. It’s either here, or below decks, which is currently occupied by angry men bound to each other and under guard. If you remove your father to the hold, he’ll rouse them all to a fever, mark me.”

“Donna fret for the captain, lass,” Mr. MacLean had said. “He canna cause you harm now.”

The three of them looked at the captain again. “Will he be all right?” Lottie asked.

“He’ll be right as rain,” Duff said with authority Lottie wasn’t sure he possessed. “I reckon the captain’s pride will suffer more than his body.”

Diah, his body. When Lottie had first laid eyes on him as that sea of ogling men had parted, she’d been struck by how devilishly handsome he was. There he’d stood, quite resplendent in his trousers, with no coat or waistcoat, but only a lawn shirt, open at the collar. She’d not expected such a virile man to be captain of this ship, but someone more like Gilroy—older and bonier. And yet it wasn’t his bonny looks that had made her heart leap so, but his eyes. It was the way he’d looked at her, with such heated contemplation that she could feel her skin blistering beneath his perusal.

“It’s heartless to bring him so low as this,” Lottie muttered, and turned away from the stunningly attractive man in chains, lest Duff and Robert see her guilt...or favorable regard. “’Tis crime enough that we’ve taken his ship without his consent. I’d no’ like to add injury or insult to it.”

“Och, the deed has been done, lass,” Duff said dismissively. “’Tis no’ a free society we’ve begun here, is it? He’ll do as he’s made to do, he will. What choice has he?”

Duff was right, of course, but that didn’t stop Lottie from feeling incredible remorse for what had happened. She didn’t want to do any more to the men of the Reulag Balhaire than what she and her men had already forced on them. Oh, but this voyage had been badly conceived! They were in the midst of a living nightmare.

“Well then, we ought to be about helping where needed,” Mr. MacLean said. “I donna trust Gilroy in his present state of mind.” He glanced at Lottie. “You’ll be all right, will you, lass?”

She looked at the unconscious captain, at her unconscious father, and shrugged. “Apparently so.”

“Verra well, then,” Mr. MacLean said, and opened the cabin door. “Someone will be just outside at all times,” he reminded Lottie. “You need only call, aye?”

She watched them go out.

Silence. Blissful, golden silence. Everything had happened so fast! If she’d only had a wee bit of time to consider all the possibilities. But she hadn’t, and not one man had disagreed with her plan. She needed time to think, to reassess, and thank heaven, for the first time since sailing from Lismore, Lottie was alone.

Well...not alone. But quiet.

She sank onto a chair, suddenly aware of the heaviness that pervaded every limb, exhaustion settling in. She crossed her arms on the table, lay her head down on them and closed her eyes...but visions of the day plagued her mind’s eye.

It was a catastrophe—there could be no other word that would adequately describe it. It had really begun a fortnight ago, in the early evening of Sankt Hans, the annual celebration of midsummer. The Livingstone clan had been preparing for a play, one written and produced by Duff. Duff fancied himself quite the actor, and he’d rallied a few members of the clan to join his theatrical troupe. There were six of them set to perform when they heard the warning horn from Old Donnie. He lived on the tip of the island just across the loch from Port Appin, and it was his job to sound the horn if anything or anyone should come to the island.

Everyone had frantically begun to gather up incriminating whisky jugs. “What of the play?” Duff had wailed unhappily.

It just so happened that Lottie’s horse, Stjerne, was still saddled from her participation in the pony races, and when she saw Norval and Bear Livingstone leap to their horses, she joined them. It was the way of things on Lismore—she was always in the thick of things.

She’d not been the least surprised to find Laird Campbell, his periwig tightly curled and overly powdered, skulking among the rabbits. It wasn’t his first attempt to find the stills. Naturally, Mr. Edwin MacColl, the chief of the clan who inhabited what the Livingstones considered to be the good side of their island, would accompany him.

Lottie had always liked Mr. MacColl as long as he stayed on his end of the island. He was a widower, his children grown and married with children of their own. He was older than Lottie’s father, but still had a broad chest and thick, snowy brows that slid up when he smiled wistfully at Lottie as he was wont to do.

But his visits to the north end had become all too frequent of late, and quite recently, he’d suggested to Bernt that Lottie might make him a good wife. “I’ve a nice house for her to keep, plenty of food for the table,” he’d suggested, apparently considering these two facts to be his better points of persuasion.

Lottie had not been surprised by the offer. Frankly, on an island where unmarried lassies were not plentiful, every man seemed to believe himself her perfect match, just as her mother had predicted, God rest her soul.

Her mother had warned Lottie of her allure to males. “You’re a beauty, lass, and men are drawn to beauty to their own detriment like moths to light, aye? You must no’ allow them to turn your head with bonny words and empty promises. You must be diligent in seeking the man who honors you for your heart and no’ your face, then, do you understand me? And beware your own father, lass—aye, he loves you, more than life, he does, but he’s easily persuaded by the promises of others.”

If her mother’s words hadn’t sufficiently cautioned her, Anders Iversen, her one and only lover, had driven her mother’s point home.

Anyway, when Lottie had discovered the laird sneaking about, she’d escorted him to her home and had winced when her father emerged from the house a bit crookedly, a signal that he’d had too much drink.

“Ah, Laird Campbell. Fàilte!” her father said with great congeniality. No matter what trouble, he was always a jolly, carefree man. Lottie had come off her horse and had started inside with the men, but the laird had turned abruptly and said, “If you would, Miss Livingstone, give the men an opportunity to speak plainly. This is no’ the sort of talk appropriate for your ears.”

Lottie had bristled and had opened her mouth to suggest that was for her and her father to determine, but her father had said, “Aye, of course, laird. Lottie, lass, go and...have a look at the celebration, aye?” he’d said, waving his hand rather dismissively at her as he’d seen the laird inside.

An interminable amount of time seemed to have passed before the laird and Mr. MacColl finally emerged from the house, bid her good day—Mr. MacColl with a sheepish smile—and had returned to their boat. Lottie, Duff and Mr. MacLean had gone to her father straightaway to hear the news.

Naturally, her father had been completely unruffled by the laird’s visit. “He came about the rents,” Lottie’s father informed them, then chuckled irreverently as he bent over and reached behind the sideboard and produced a flagon of whisky he’d hidden there.

“I said we donna have what’s owed, no’ yet, but, I says to him, this—” he paused and rapped his knuckles on his head “—is always about its work.”

“Diah,” Lottie groaned.

“And the laird, he said, well has it worked out precisely when the rents will be paid?” Her father laughed as he poured tots of whisky around for them all.

“And?” Lottie pressed him.

“I said we’d have them in a month.”

Lottie’s belly had sunk. A month was bloody well impossible.

Her father had waved his hand at her crestfallen expression. “Calm yourself, Lot. We’ll think of something. Anything will be a wee sight better than what Campbell suggested, aye?”

“What?” she asked. “What did he suggest, then?”

“Och, he believes I ought to consider MacColl’s offer to take my daughter to wife.”

Lottie had gasped. She’d felt a little faint.

“Well of course he did! I’ve the bonniest daughter in all the Highlands, I’ve heard it said more than once. Why, there’s no’ a lad on Lismore who’s no’ pined for her, eh, Robert?”

Mr. MacLean’s face had reddened at once and he’d turned his attention to his tot.

“But as I told the laird, while they’ve all pined for her, she pays none of them any heed at all, on account of her broken heart.”

“Fader!” Lottie exclaimed, and felt the heat of humiliation creeping into her neck. “My heart is no’ broken.”

“The laird insisted I ought to do as MacColl had offered, and give you over as his wife, and in exchange, MacColl would pay our rents and oversee the Livingstones and thereby solve a host of problems from one end of the island to the other.”

“That’s quite a lot of problems,” Duff mused.

“I feel rather ill,” Lottie had said, and had sunk onto the old settee.

“I am an admirer of Edwin MacColl, that I am,” her father had blithely continued. “He’s a right smart fellow, I’ve always said. But I’ve as good a plan as MacColl.” He’d downed his whisky.

The only problem was that when her father had a good plan, disaster almost always loomed. “What plan?” Lottie had asked weakly.

“I’m coming round to that,” he’d said, holding up his hand. “The laird was no’ yet done with me, no,” he’d continued as he poured more whisky for himself, clearly enjoying the retelling of his encounter. “He said I was bloody impractical.”

“He didna,” Mr. MacLean had said flatly, sounding quite offended in spite of the obvious truth in the laird’s statement.

“He mentioned the limestone kilns, and the flax weaving,” her father had said with an airy wave of his hand, as if dismissing those two disastrous endeavors that had each ended badly and at considerable cost to the Livingstones. Bernt Livingstone was a whimsical man, scattered in his thoughts, impractical, and was easily gulled into schemes that fleeced their coffers. Once, when Lottie was a girl, there had been some talk of a new chief. But in the end, the Livingstones revered the code of the clan—Bernt was the grandson of Vilhelm Livingstone, A Danish baron, who had fled Denmark during the war with Sweden with a sizable fortune. He was their undisputed founder, and therefore, Bernt the rightful heir and chief.

Lottie could still recall how her father had stood in their salon that afternoon, his legs braced apart, his eyes gleaming with his plan. She lifted her head from her arms and looked at him. He was sleeping deeply with Morven’s tincture, free from the pain of the hole in his abdomen for the moment. She adored her father, but if there was one thing that sent her into fits of madness, it was his impetuosity. He’d squandered his inheritance on fantastic plans that had never come to fruition.

It was times like these that Lottie missed her mother the most. She’d been good ballast for her husband. She’d been gone for more than ten years, alas, death taking her and the infant daughter she’d given birth to when Mathais had been but a wee bairn, and Lottie only thirteen years old herself. But her mother, Lottie had realized years later, had been prescient on her deathbed. She’d known she was dying, and in those final hours, she’d called Lottie to her, had clutched her hand with a strength that belied her frail state. “Your father will need you, leannan, as will the boys, aye? Heed me, lass—it will seem your life is no’ your own, but you must swear to me now you’ll no’ forget yourself, Lottie.”

“What?” Lottie had asked, grief-stricken and confused.

“Swear to me now you’ll no’ forget your true desires and what you want, aye? You deserve the best of life. It will seem impossible to you, it will seem as if there is no room for you, but you will have that life if you donna lose sight of what you want. Do you see, lass? Do you understand me?”

“Aye, Mor,” Lottie had said, but in truth, she hadn’t understood her mother at the time. She’d been overwrought with grief, had considered her mother’s plea a fevered one. But her mother was right—from the moment of her tragic death forward, Lottie had been mother, daughter and mistress to her family. She’d tried to be the ballast her mother had been to a father who desperately needed it, but God in his heaven, her father made it difficult.

And now? She was sitting at the table of a captain she didn’t know, in his private quarters on a ship she’d taken from him, all because of that damnable whisky, another of her father’s bad ideas.

On the day of Sankt Hans, the laird had accused her father of illegally distilling spirits.

“Naturally, I denied it,” her father had explained. “Aye, he was a bit of a bore, really, what with his talk of penalties and for avoiding the crown’s taxes and undercutting a legitimate trade. He claimed that his clan was the only lawful clan with the right to distill and sell whisky, and I best think on MacColl’s offer to save my bloody arse.”

That was the moment Lottie had assumed all hope was lost for her and she’d have to marry that sheepish old man.

“Aye, and what had you to say to that?” Duff asked.

“I said, good luck to you, then,” her father had said with a twinkle in his eye, and had laughed roundly.

No one else laughed.

“Och, look at you all now,” her father had said gruffly, disappointed in their reaction. “MacColl’s offer is no’ without merit, is it, leannan?” he’d asked curiously, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “He does indeed have a bonny house, finer than this. Twelve rooms, is it?”

“I donna care,” she had said, flustered. “Do you think I can be persuaded with a few rooms? He’s older than you, Fader. Would you have me give up the hope of children one day?”

“Donna fill your head with bees, pusling,” he’d said jovially. “I ask only if you might consider it. Were it up to me, I’d no’ give my one and only daughter, the bonniest woman in all of Scotland, to that old man unless she asked it of me. My plan is far superior.”

Her father had a plan, all right.

His idea was to sell their whisky, once it had matured, in Oban, just across the loch from Lismore. That was where he’d met a man who dabbled in whisky trade, and knew where illicit spirits could be sold for a tidy profit. Lottie had lost patience with her father then—it was one thing to include all of the Livingstones in their secret distillation and plans for the whisky, but it was quite another to speak of it to strangers. It was little wonder Campbell was so suspicious—someone had been talking.

“Naturally, the Scotsman will have a wee bit of the profit for having arranged it, which is only fair, aye?”

“What do you mean, a wee bit of the profit?” Lottie had demanded.

“A mere twenty percent.”

Lottie had gasped with alarm and outrage right alongside Duff and Mr. McLean. “Twenty percent?”

“’Tis an opportunity, Lottie.”

“’Tis robbery, Fader,” she’d said hotly. “For twenty percent of our profit he ought to arrange for us to dine with the king! And now there is a Scotsman wandering Oban who knows what we’re about!” She’d fallen back against the settee and had flung an arm over her eyes rather violently as her mind whirled with the conundrum in which her father had put them.

“We canna sell the whisky in Scotland,” Duff had said to Bernt. “There are Campbells everywhere, aye? They’ll hear of it and toss us in prison and leave us there to rot like dead fish.”

Her father looked properly chastised, and Lottie turned away from him. If they’d only put a bit of money into sheep, as she’d suggested, they’d have no need to distill illegal spirits!

“Lottie, pusling, donna be cross with me,” her father had pleaded. “I’ve many mouths to feed and rents to pay. What was I to do?”

Well. There was a host of other things he might have done, but he hadn’t, and once again, it was up to her to figure a way out of the disaster. She’d stood and had begun to pace, her mind wildly racing. “If we risk discovery by the Campbells if we sell the whisky in Scotland, then we must go somewhere else.”

“Aye?” her father asked, his eyes widening with hope. “Where? England?”

“No, no’ England,” Duff said. “Campbells there, too, mark me.”

Lottie could think of only one place she knew anything about at all, and that only from the tales of others, including the only lover she’d ever had. Lottie hadn’t thought of Anders Iversen in a quite a while, really, and generally preferred not to think of him—she’d managed to put that unfortunate summer behind her. But who would help them now? Who else could they turn to? “Anders Iversen is the bookkeeper for the Copenhagen Company in Aalborg, Denmark, aye? And his father, the exchequer there, remember? The company trades in spirits—he told me so. Perhaps, with Anders’s help, we might sell what we have to that company, aye?”

“Aye,” Duff said, nodding. “I remember, spirits and tobacco,” he said. “Diah, Lottie, you’ve come up with a bonny idea, you have. Half of us on this island hail from Aalborg.”

“Do you think Anders would help us, then?” she’d asked Duff.

“Why, of course he would,” Duff said with great certainty.

“Are you no’ forgetting a crucial detail?” Mr. MacLean asked. “How are we to get the whisky to Denmark?”

“We’ll go by ship,” Lottie had said. “On the Margit.”

“Gilroy Livingstone’s ship? That old tub?” Mr. MacLean said with a snort.

“Donna let Gilroy hear you say it,” her father had warned. “He’s as fine a captain as any to be found in Scotland, and that tub is his pride and joy. Lottie, ’tis a splendid idea, it is.”

It was not a splendid idea, it was a rash one, born of desperation. She’d never met Anders Iversen’s father—for all she knew, he might have died, or changed occupations. She’d had no contact with Anders at all since he’d left Lismore a year ago. “There’ll be some cost to sail across the sea, there will, but we’ll keep our twenty percent,” she said.

“What of Anders?” Duff asked.

“He should be delighted to make the introductions if Lottie asks,” Mr. MacLean said gruffly. “And if no’, we’ll impress on him that we need every cent.”

“What a bonny and bright lass you are, leannan,” her father had said. “No man on this island deserves you. We’ll all go, all of us, you and me and Mats and Drustan and a good crew.” He hesitated, waiting for her objection. When she made none, he said quickly, “We must keep this close, aye?” he said. “The fewer who know what we’re about, the less we must fret over wagging tongues.”

Out of care for her father’s feelings, Lottie had not pointed out how ironic it was that he should say that. At that time, she’d wanted to believe she could set another of her father’s bad decisions to rights.

But now?

Now, she was very sorry she’d ever uttered those words, that was what. She’d never once considered they’d be chased, or set upon, or whatever had happened today, and she’d certainly never considered the possibility of taking a man’s ship. She was full of remorse and guilt and terror.

She sighed and gazed at the man in the corner. He appeared so peaceful in his oblivion. Pity that she should meet a true sea captain in this way. She would like to have been properly dressed, engage him in conversation about his travels. To perhaps trifle with him a wee bit. A girlish wish, foolishly fantastic in light of everything.

Lottie lowered her head onto her arms, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, determined not to allow tears to fall and torture her more. She had to think. She had to determine how they would get themselves out of this predicament with their heads on their shoulders. But her thoughts were drowned out by her heart pounding hard against her ribs with waves of remorse and fear.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS THE rising swells that seeped into Aulay’s consciousness, the familiar pitch and roll of his ship as it was tossed about in a storm. The pressing instinct to change the sails woke him. He was disoriented and groggy at first, his throat parched, his head aching fiercely...but he was increasingly aware of heavy rain pummeling the ship and lashing against the portholes, the crashing sound of waves hitting the forecastle and the impact of the blow.

Who is at the helm?

He tried to rise but his wrists were bound. He remembered he was on the floor of his cabin, his ankle shackled to a desk that was bolted to the floor. He was gagged, too, the cloth biting into the flesh at his cheeks. He managed to push himself up to sitting and sagged against the wall of his quarters, attempting to shake off the feeling of wool covering his brain. His wrists ached and were bleeding where he’d apparently tried to twist them free of the binds. His thoughts were so hazy that he couldn’t recall how, precisely, he’d ended up here. He couldn’t recall anything but the woman who had kicked him in the chin.

He blinked back the fog and looked around his cabin. His paintings on the wall, his books stacked neatly on the small bedside table. Familiar things...and there, in the middle of those familiar things was the woman, her head pillowed on her arms at his table. That bloody bonny hair had been the siren’s call that had snared him like a slow sea turtle—that much, he recalled. Aye, he’d be pleased to attend her hanging, he would. He’d watch the lot of them swing for what they’d done if they made it to the gallows and not feel the slightest bit of unease about it. He preferred to kill them with his bare hands, particularly if even one of his men had been harmed. Where are the men?

He glared across the room at the lady, wondering how to navigate this predicament.

God’s teeth, but he ought to swing alongside these thieves for having been so bloody stupid. He was a grown man, not a lad, and yet he’d behaved like one, fixated on the woman the moment he’d caught sight of her. He’d been stunned stupid by her beauty and his common sense had walked off a damn plank. He’d been transfixed with the creamy skin of a shapely leg as that gown had slid up and up, oblivious to what was happening around him, and practically salivating like a lad. It was a naïve mistake and he despised himself for it.

The ship lurched to starboard. Bloody hell, he needed her to wake. Aulay tried to shout, but the sound of his voice was muffled by the gag and the winds howling around the ship. He spotted a pair of his boots tucked in next to the desk. He rolled onto his side, and with his free leg, kicked them. They toppled over, but the soft leather didn’t make enough noise to wake her. He looked up to the desk. There were several things there, including an octant and compass. Aulay slid his free leg beneath him and pushed up the wall to his feet. He hopped closer to the desk and with one swipe of his bound hands, he sent the instruments tumbling to the floor.

The lass’s head snapped up with her gasp of fright. She jerked around, her hair flying, and stared at him, blinking, as if she couldn’t quite place him. But she quickly gathered her wits and leaped to her feet and backed out of his reach.