Chapter Twenty
Duncan spun around on the stool, turning his back to Strom. “Give it a go, Mr. Strom. Yer remedy for seasickness is good enough, however a sash blocking one eye worries me. Yet, if I’m to live the life of a pirate, I might look it, aye?”
Strom fitted a small round of leather over Duncan’s right eye and tied the black patch’s strings around his head. He motioned for Duncan to stand. “What do you think, Mr. MacCoinnich? Better?”
Duncan rose from the seat cautiously. He stood there, then walked around the cabin, assessing the state of his innards “I believe it works just as well.” With his right eye covered, the need to retch disappeared just as well as it had when he kept a rag tied around his head, and the patch was a damned site more comfortable.
“The eye patch will impress the men,” the ever-emotionless Strom said, then graced him with a roll of his eyes. “Of course, it takes little to impress most of them.” He shifted his attention to Alasdair. “And the arm? Stronger, Mr. Cameron?”
Alasdair worked his arm back and forth. “Stiffness nearly gone, Mr. Strom.” He wiggled his fingers. “I believe I could even grip a sword or pull a trigger.”
“Very good then.” Strom yanked open the door. “We near Olvidado. We should reach Especia by sunset tomorrow. Follow me, and we shall review all you have learned about our cargo and the deals we wish to procure.”
Duncan fell in step behind Strom. While he would not quite say he liked his captor, he respected the man. Intelligent, experienced, and fair, Duncan wondered why the mighty Strom accepted his position as third man in charge on the Scorpion. The quiet, perceptive man missed nothing, and the captain always deferred to him whenever making a decision. Strom knew the ship better than the back of his hand, and he’d proven more than once he could almost predict what the weather held. Mr. Strom deserved a ship of his own.
Duncan rolled his shoulders and looked out across the horizon. Azure sky above. Blue-green sea below. He clenched his teeth, hating it every bit. He wished like hell he was back in Scotland with Tilda in his arms. A month he had bided his time. Healed. Watched. Learned. A month he had endured the unspeakable pain of missing his beloved Tilda.
“Come, Mr. MacCoinnich.”
An impatient huff escaped Duncan. Strom would be quite the adversary when it came time to escape, and he would sorely regret it if circumstances forced him to kill the man. But Duncan would allow nothing to prevent his return to Tilda. He planted his hands atop the railing and lifted his face to the wind, praying that somehow his thoughts and love would be carried back to her. Upon his soul, he missed her. Worried after her. Feared for her well-being. What if that damned Fennella had gone for her next? He itched to wrap his fingers around Fennella Mackenzie’s plump neck and give it a hard twist.
He and Alasdair had worked out a plan to escape on Especia, then find passage back to Scotland. One way or another, the plan would work, or they’d die trying.
“Mr. MacCoinnich.” Strom’s insistence interrupted his musings. “You waste precious time thinking of that which can never be.”
“Never underestimate a man’s determination to steer his own fate, Mr. Strom.” Duncan turned to peer at the horizon to his right.
Whilst the eyepatch did wonders for his stomach’s condition, it definitely hindered his field of vision. He’d have to adapt to that. It could mean the difference between life and death in battle. He caught sight of a ship not too far off the starboard side and stiffened as soon as he spotted the colors. “MacDonald’s,” he said under his breath.
“Yes,” Strom observed. “The woman stated she had called upon her kin to run alongside us to ensure we reached our destination with little trouble from the Mackenzies.”
“Her kin?” Duncan turned and faced Strom. “Fennella is a Mackenzie.”
“She is also the only sister to the MacDonald of Skye,” supplied Captain James as he joined them at the railing. “How else do ye think she commands such fear and obedience across the seas?”
So, the MacDonald’s hatred of him was two-fold. The man not only wanted him dead for breach of contract but also to appease his sister’s wrath. “Yet, the Archipelago Spice Company’s profits all go to the Mackenzies? That doesna sound like the avaricious MacDonald.”
“A percentage goes to the Mackenzies. The rest to Clan MacDonald.” Captain James leaned against the railing, squinting out across the sea. “Years ago, the MacDonald and Mackenzie alliance was the most powerful force on the waters afore the split between the two clans. To this day, some of those business dealings remain. Especially those overseen by Fennella.”
Duncan wished to hell Tilda or the Mackenzie had told him such at the beginning. Such knowledge would have helped find the traitors amongst them a great deal easier.
“I do believe ye’ve outdone yerself this time, cousin,” Alasdair observed, his narrow-eyed gaze centered on the MacDonald ship. “Alexander always said ye had a talent for sniffing out trouble and rolling in it.”
“How close do ye work with the MacDonalds?” Duncan asked, ignoring Alasdair’s observation. Such information was pertinent not only to his survival but his escape. Their carefully laid plan needed changing with this newest bit of news.
Captain James clapped a hand to his shoulder. “Dinna fash yerself. We shall select new names for the both of ye afore we make port. I already sent a wherry across to the MacDonald’s ship to let them know Fennella’s prey died in the hole from the beatings of the press-gang.” He shook his head. “Happens all the time. I even gave them yer Christian names as those who had died so’s they can send word back to the widow-maker herself.”
Duncan gritted his teeth. He felt sure Fennella would waste no time in sharing that information with the Mackenzie and Tilda. Such news only made his escape and return to Scotland more critical. He muddled over the captain’s words. Reported dead and bearing a new name could benefit him when it came to finding passage back to Scotland.
He thumped a hand atop the railing and smiled at Captain James. “Might I suggest the name of Fraser Sullivan? I know that name well enough to answer to it as it was part of my christening.” And if the name made it back to Tilda, he prayed she would recognize it for the full name he had used when they had spoken their vows. Then she would know him alive and headed back to her.
Captain James shrugged. “Fraser Sullivan it is.” He looked to Alasdair. “And yerself?”
“James Gordon,” Alasdair said.
Duncan smiled. Alasdair knew the game he played. Gordon and James were Alasdair’s middle names.
“Good enough,” Captain James said as he walked away. He paused and glanced back at Mr. Strom. “Ensure they are ready for tomorrow. We’ve nay made port at Especia for a long while. I would like some personal profit from this trip as well as profit for the company. Fennella will watch this haul closer because of the likes of those two.”
“Very good, Captain.” Mr. Strom waved Duncan and Alasdair forward. “Come. We shall review the inventory we wish to procure.”
Time to put the plan into play. “Why do ye no’ store the company’s spices and silks in the smaller area to the front of the hold and fill the larger area to the back with barrels of rum for yer own profit? Last I was in Edinburgh, such drink brought more than a fair price, and if ye whisk it in under the noses of the excisemen, should bear ye quite a bit a coin. Mayhap on the way back to Scotland, stop in at Islay and add a few barrels of whiskey to the mix as well. I have contacts there. I could easily arrange such.” He paused for effect and shared a knowing look with Alasdair, a look meant to convince Captain James that he knew what the hell he was talking about even though he had nary a clue.
’Twas the same tactic he had used on the MacDonald of Skye, and it had been convincing enough to pry open the man’s coffers and procure a lucrative contract paid in advance. “We could do quite well, Captain.”
“The Archipelago Spice Company must receive its cargo, or there’ll be hell to pay.” Captain Jam
es glared at him, but Duncan recognized the man nibbling at the bait he’d cast.
He’d read him well. The captain couldn’t resist the possibility of extra gold in his pocket.
“The hold needs but a bit of shelving built. I noticed that weeks ago when Mr. Strom took us down there.” Duncan held his ground. “We could easily conceal the barrels for our own enterprise behind such additional shelving.”
“Aye,” Alasdair chimed in. “I’m surprised ye had no shelving to keep the spices and silks dry.”
“Shelving, ye say?” Captain James frowned, turning to stare at the opening in the deck leading down to the hold.
“Aye,” Duncan hurried to reply. “Sets of racks clear to the ceiling.” He turned to Mr. Strom. “Ye said yerself the bolts of silk and tins of spices come in long crates.”
“We have no means of negotiating for rum,” Strom said. His distrustful look warning Duncan he suspected their motives.
“Why negotiate when all ye must do is a bit of entertaining to accept such bounty into yer hold?” Duncan flipped a hand toward the MacDonald galleon still riding on their starboard side. “Look how high she sits in the water. She’s empty. I’d lay odds she’s bound for rum at Especia. Everyone knows the MacDonald nay bothers with the transport of spices and silks.”
“We dinna meddle nor war with the MacDonalds. ’Twould be a fool’s errand.” Captain James pushed away from the railing and strode away.
“We dinna have to war,” Duncan called out after him. “We merely entertain the crew and the MacDonald’s suppliers whilst in port. Ply them with drink and render them weary with all the women our coin can buy. After that, it would be easy enough for them to load the rum into the wrong ship—especially with us there to guide them.”
Captain James halted and turned back, his sly smile growing wider with every passing moment. He locked eyes with Mr. Strom. “What say ye, Mr. Strom? Think ye it could be done?”
Strom studied the MacDonald ship, shifted his gaze to Duncan, then returned his focus back to the galleon cutting through the waves alongside them. “Mr. MacCoinnich holds his whiskey well. He outdrank Petri yesterday eve and relieved the crew of several crowns. He could easily oversee such a venture and drink the MacDonalds to the floor.”
Captain James settled his hand on Duncan’s shoulder again and squeezed. “Pull this off, and I’ll see that ye get a ship of yer own.” He squeezed harder, digging his fingers into Duncan’s flesh. “Fail or betray me, and I’ll see ye fed to the sharks.”
*
Tilda kept her back pressed against the stone column and the wide brim of her hat pulled down low over her eyes. Slouching into her coat, she assumed the stance of a weary sailor. With her half-empty tankard of ale tucked to her chin, she scanned the crowded room of the pub from behind the cover of the dented mug.
A few men from the Scorpion sat around several tables in one corner of the dingy room while some of the MacDonald crew gathered at a cluster of tables nearby. Both groups of well-watered sailors increased the deafening noise of the room with an occasional sloshing of their glasses into the air coupled with unintelligible shouts. The pub separated the men of the sea from their wages with ease.
Laughter exploded from the MacDonalds, drawing the attention of three of the men sitting at the farthest corner of the Scorpion’s table. Two of them, faces hidden with full, thick beards, along with a tattooed, dark-skinned man, rose and meandered over to the MacDonald table.
The fearsome, black-bearded man in the lead, wearing an eyepatch and almost as big as the foreigner at his side, seemed so familiar. Maybe it was the set of his shoulders or the way he walked. Or both. It came close to breaking her heart to watch him move with the same smooth, predatory strut she knew and loved in Duncan. But how could he be her husband?
He looked to be a seasoned man of the sea. Tilda swallowed a great gulp of air and blinked hard and furious. Now was not the time to cave into a sniveling mess and hallucinate about her dearest, lost love. They needed information about Duncan, and they needed it now.
Passing her tankard back and forth between her hands, she wiped her sweaty palms on her breeks. Where the hell was Tait? He had wandered the confines of the pub for most of yesterday and again today, doing his best to find out anything regarding the whereabouts of Duncan and Alasdair. But now the man had disappeared, and she had nay seen him in quite a while. Tilda clenched her teeth. If Tait had fallen under a woman’s spell, she would snap his neck with her bare hands. Tilda knew good and well that a sweet-talking whore was her cousin’s greatest weakness. He couldn’t resist them.
“Bring ye another, laddie, or can I offer ye something better at warming yer bones?” A woman twice Tilda’s age, half-naked, and reeking of rancid oils, spilled ale, and a body in dire need of washing, straddled Tilda’s thigh and rubbed against her with a suggestive wiggle. “What say ye, lovie? I gots us a corner right over there. A bob’ll get ye anything ye wish and then some. I shan’t disappoint ye. I grant ye that.”
Tilda suppressed a gag, tucked her chin, and turned away. “Later, love,” she said in the deepest voice she could manage. She didn’t need the whore sounding the alarm that the young man leaned up against the post was not one at all.
“Here now, love.” Tait stepped in, curled an arm around the working girl, and steered her away. He took a coin from the inner pocket of his waistcoat, pecked a kiss to it, then tucked it snug into the woman’s sagging cleavage. “Gimme an hour, love. Gots to speak with me quartermaster here, then I’ll be searching for that coin, ye ken?”
The whore giggled, grabbed hold of both his hands, and pressed them to her breasts. “We can tuck that coin lots a places, lovie.” Then she staggered away.
Tait turned to Tilda, all levity gone. “Outside. Now.”
Setting her tankard on a nearby table, Tilda followed him through the open archway to the platform overlooking the docks. She pulled a kerchief from her sleeve and swiped at the sweat streaming off her face. Hot, humid, and heavy with the stink of rotten fish, urine, and the damp, suffocating earthiness of the nearby jungle, the clearing, surrounded by a screen of palm trees was next to unbearable. No breeze stirred. The fronds of the trees hung motionless, wilting down around the gentle curve of the trunks.
Tilda held the cloth in front of her nose and mouth, doing her best to not gag. “What did ye find?”
Tait responded with a look that crushed her soul.
“No,” she whispered, her voice cracking and fear choking off her air.
Hands planted on his hips, Tait shook his head and stared down at the ground. “I canna believe it’s true, but Captain James swears by what the MacDonald men said on the docks yesterday. He said both Duncan and Alasdair died in the hole. Said the pressgang got too rough.”
Tilda staggered to the edge of the clearing and dropped to her knees. Hugging herself, she rocked back and forth, racked with silent sobs. Her beloved had died in some dark, dank hole. A cesspit unfit for animals. Beaten. Tortured. He’d suffered and died. All because of her. She covered her face with her hands, wishing she could scream.
A month, she had hoped. A month, she had prayed. All the way across the sea, through every storm, through every vicious squall, she had held onto hope and prayed. She beat her fists against the ground and keened out her pain. How could she have been such a fool? What had she done for God to curse her so?
“Come, lass. Let us get ye back to the ship, aye? Ye’ve had no sleep since we made port, and we dinna ken for certain ’tis true. Until the Scorpion or the MacDonald galleon sets sail, we can see if there’s more to learn. I would nay have told ye this much, but I felt ye should know all I had discovered so far—just in case.”
“I did need to hear yer words.” Tilda pushed to her feet and drew her sword. “But I shan’t return to the ship just yet. I tire of this sickening game of waiting and creeping about in the shadows. I mean to kill every last one of those bastards. Kill them and make them pay for what they did to my Duncan.”
Tait twisted her sword out of her hand and grabbed hold of her wrist. “Ye aren’t making sense. If it turns out to be true, Duncan would nay wish ye to sacrifice yerself, and ye know that as well as I. Honor yer husband and yer love for him by carrying on. By surviving. By bearing his son and raising the boy to love his father’s memory.”
Tait’s words took her aback. “How did ye know?” She had told no one about the bairn she carried. The precious bairn for which she had so fervently prayed. The beloved babe her Duncan would never see nor hold in his arms if the cruel rumor Tait had discovered was true.
Tait’s jaw tightened as he curled her into the crook of his arm and hugged her. “Because I know ye, my wee Cat. I know ye well, and I know the behavior of women when they’ve got a bairn coming.” He snorted out a humorless laugh. “Having a brothel at the cove has enlightened me entirely too much on such womanly matters.”
Shouts and laughter boomed from within the small seaside pub. A shrill, off-tune piper played a jaunty tune, accompanied by the squawking of a drunk sawing a bow across a fiddle. The same three men she had observed from the Scorpion, the three men who didn’t appear deep in drink at all, emerged from the pub, ushering the large combined group of crew members from both the Scorpion and the MacDonald galleon down the steps to the quay. The staggering men spilled across the landscape, laughing, shouting, puking, and some stopping to take a piss. Tilda wished she had Duncan’s pistols so she could pick the fools off one by one and send them to the hell they all deserved.
Tait stepped to her side and took hold of her arm, directing her attention to the same three she had thought stood out in stark contrast to the revelers. “Those three. Look at them. Especially the one in the front with the eye patch.”
The Warrior (Highland Heroes Book 2) Page 24