Devil In Tartan

“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 (#u5461b290-4931-5fa5-a8bd-089586fd6012)

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.

The ship suddenly rose up on a wave and just as quickly sank again, heeling right, and she was knocked off balance, crashing into the wall just below the porthole before catching herself on the sideboard. They would capsize if the ship wasn’t sailed properly, and somehow, he needed her to understand that. He looked at his desk. He grabbed a quill in his fist, and fumbled with the lid of the ink pot, spilling some ink onto a map. He picked up a chart and wrote reef. He pushed it toward her.

She stared at him with those wide, Caribbean-blue eyes. She pushed a tangle of hair from her cheek, then craned her neck to try and see what he’d written from where she stood. Of course she couldn’t, and shrank against the wall. “I know what you must think,” she said.