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, pusling,” 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.
“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
