Madeleine had spent her whole life trying to figure out ways to escape situations, whether it was from her cruel mother or drunken courtiers, and when backed into a corner, a woman needed surprise to help her succeed. “When he comes for you,” Rose said. “I will speak to him in French. Convince him to take me, too. If he doesn’t, you will have to escape and climb into the one small boat left tied to the side of the ship. There are two ropes keeping it up, one at each end. For it to fall, you need to cut both ends.”
Beatrice nodded, her lips parted and her breath coming fast. “I can’t do that alone.”
“I managed once, but it’s not ideal.” She couldn’t remember how, having been knocked unconscious. Only the hand of God had kept her in the boat to live until Cullen found her on the shores of Islay. Cullen. She would get back to him or die trying.
Footsteps sounded on the rungs of the ladder outside the cabin door. Rose nodded to Beatrice. “Be brave,” she whispered and inhaled slowly, fighting off the pangs of panic.
A key turned in the brass lock, and Henri filled the open doorway. Hair windblown and a half grin propping up one side of his mouth, Rose wondered how she ever could have trusted him to sail her away from France. Desperation made one rash and foolish.
As anticipated, Henri went straight toward Beatrice. “The men are anxious to meet you, my dear. Above deck where you can feel the sun on your face.”
“I would watch her defiled,” Rose said in French. “Take me up, too.”
Henri’s grin turned toothy, and he laughed. “Oui, my sweet. You thirst for revenge, non.” Reaching high, he untied the intricate knots from the hooks in the ceiling and brought them along like dogs on leashes. He threw an arm around Rose’s shoulders. He smelled of sweat and ale. He breathed near her ear. “We can join in, my dove.”
The perverse bastard was giddy with excitement and whistled as he climbed before them up the ladder, their ropes in his hand. The leers that greeted them above deck threatened to overwhelm Rose with terror. Her valuable virginity no more, even with Henri wanting to keep her for himself, he wouldn’t be able to deflect all of them if they turned on her along with Beatrice. Henri’s first mate, John, was openly stroking himself through his trousers. They threw lustful taunts at them, but luckily, they were in French so Beatrice couldn’t understand all the ways they were planning to violate her.
Focus. To the boat. Rose narrowed her concentration on her goal, and shied away from the wall of crewmen so that she and Beatrice reached the ends of their tethers with the small dinghy hoisted behind them.
“When I say, break through your bindings, jump into the boat, and slice through the rope on your end,” Rose whispered. “Hold on when we drop.” All she needed was a distraction. S’il vous plaît, mon Dieu, she prayed, her lips moving in silence.
“Navire!” yelled the lookout from high up in the bare masts. A ship? “Anglais!” An English ship?
“What is it?” Beatrice asked as the crewmen turned away from them, running to the bow.
“A distraction,” Rose said, breaking through the ropes around her neck and hands with ease. Beatrice followed. “Get in,” Rose said. “But don’t cut all the way through yet.”
Rose sawed apart two of the three threads of the rope on her side, when a cannon boomed. The impact hit the water near the bow, sending a splash high and scattering the crewmen. Henri yelled orders for their cannons to be manned. “Madeleine,” he shouted, but she ignored him.
Another explosion blasted, hitting the ship. The impact shoved Beatrice hard into her line, her knife cutting completely through the rope. She screamed as the dinghy listed downward. If Rose didn’t cut her side, the girl would be dumped into the frigid water. Without thought, Rose sliced her dagger through the last line of her rope. Beatrice clutched the rails as the small boat plunged straight down into the Atlantic.
Dieu merci, the boat had landed right side up with Beatrice inside. She looked upward. “Jump,” she called, waving frantically.
Knife still in hand, Rose propped one foot onto the gunwale. She inhaled, preparing to leap, when two hands dug into her waist, yanking her back. Without knowing who or how many were behind her, Rose lifted the dagger in two hands as she was spun around. Face-to-face with the black-toothed grin of John, she thrust her fisted hands downward, dagger point first. Her aim was true, slicing down through the V of his untied shirt, through the dark curling chest hair, and into the hollow at the base of John’s throat.
John’s hold on her dropped, and he grabbed his neck, blood gurgling up from around the protruding knife. Rose drew his heavy sword as he fell over and looked out at the deck, cluttered with running crewmen.
All of them, including Henri, seemed to have forgotten her as they raised the sails and returned fire. Each cannon release shook the ship beneath Rose, making her stagger. She looked over the side, but Beatrice’s boat was halfway to the English ship. Rose squinted at the deck. Was that Tor Maclean? And Errol? Broc? What were they doing on an English vessel?
“Rose.” The faint call of Cullen’s voice wrapped around Rose’s heart, and she spun. Dripping wet, Cullen’s head appeared over the bow at the far end of the ship. Hand over hand, he climbed a rope that attached to a long arrow piercing the wooden foremast. His head disappeared as he threw a leg over the side and hoisted himself up onto the deck.
Henri drew his sword, laughing as Cullen reached for his own weapon, only to find it missing. His great-grandfather’s sword was probably sinking to the ocean floor. Unarmed, Cullen faced the French captain.
Rose lifted the sword she’d taken from John, the deck length seeming to grow longer like the setting of one of her nightmares. Several crewmen spotted her, turning her way. She couldn’t wait any longer to act. With a quick prayer, she inhaled, standing on her toes and leveling the sword tip. Mon Dieu. She charged forward.
…
Blood pumped through Cullen’s freezing body. He curled his fingers, willing the numbness to subside as he faced de Fleur on the deck of his shattering ship. The mightier King’s Jewel could certainly take this French galleon, but Cullen refused to leave Rose to go down with it. Another cannon struck the hull, throwing both men off-balance, but de Fleur kept his blasted sword. Without his own, the victory would be difficult. But with Rose standing alone on the other end of the ship, there was no choice but victory, for he wouldn’t lose her again.
A high-pitched roar shot through the air, and Cullen glanced from de Fleur to see Rose running toward him, sword held out before her. In her white night rail and robe, hair unbound, lips pulled back, she looked like an avenging angel. Dodging two pirates, a third caught her around the waist. But she pitched the sword forward.
Its weight and her thrust sent the sword skidding across the deck, directly toward Cullen. As de Fleur lunged at him, Cullen threw himself on his stomach, rolling to the side to grab the sword. Still warm from Rose’s hands, he held it as he sprung up. But instead of attacking de Fleur, he turned, running down the deck toward the bastard who held Rose by the wrist as he lit another cannon.
Cullen slammed his fist into the man’s jaw, and the crewman spun away on impact. Rose flew into Cullen’s arms. As if taking a breath upon breaking through the surface of the ocean, Cullen inhaled, and for the briefest of moments everything was as it should be. Rose. His Rose, in his arms. “I’ve got ye,” he said. Her scent still clung to her, cutting through the bitter smoke and tang of sweaty bodies and low tide.
“Highlander!”
Cullen pivoted, setting Rose at his back, sword before him. De Fleur spit, stepping over one of his fallen men who had suffered a piece of the splintered mast through the neck. Blood smeared across de Fleur’s forehead. “You shall pay for bringing the English here, Scot’s dog. Lover of King Henry.”
Cullen let him ramble on in mixed English and French. De Fleur defamed Cullen for his lack of manhood, except where it pertained to copulating with livestock and the English monarch. Without another small boat, Cullen needed a
plan to get Rose and himself off the ship. But first, he needed to kill the bastard who’d put a rope around Rose’s neck. “Stay behind me.”
The claimed sword was lighter than his claymore, and despite his climb up the rope, power still radiated through him. He staggered slightly, lowering his shoulders to give the appearance of one who was at the end of his endurance. De Fleur grinned, idiotically taking the cues as truth. With a souring twist of his lips, he lunged. Cullen deflected the blow, pushing de Fleur to the side so as not to expose Rose. She hopped behind Cullen, keeping to his back.
Steel against steel, they struck and deflected. De Fleur threw his muscle into his attacks, grunting and cursing. Cullen let him get close but held him off with weakening grunts of his own. De Fleur laughed with the taste of near victory even though his ship was breaking apart around them under the cannon strikes.
Gasping for breath in the smoke, Cullen lowered his arms to feign exhaustion. De Fleur, spittle on his curled lips, lunged to deal the death blow. At the last second, Cullen raised his sword, bringing the hilt down on de Fleur’s wrist. His sword clattered to the deck, and Cullen shoved his heel into the Frenchman’s chest. The bastard sprawled backward. With two strides, Cullen stood over him, sword raised.
“She’s mine!” de Fleur screamed, crazed fury twisting his face.
“She was never yours,” Cullen said and thrust the sword down, straight through de Fleur’s heart, pinning him to his own deck. The bastard’s eyes bulged as blood leaked up around his wound, soaking his once-white shirt. He was surely on his way to Hell.
Another cannon hit, and Cullen ran toward Rose. Arm around her waist, he helped her duck under splintered masts and through the suffocating smoke toward his dangling rope. They’d have to brave the winter waters. “Can ye swim?” Cullen asked as he held Rose to him, wrapping the rope around their middle.
“Does it matter?” she asked, looking down and back up to meet his gaze. She knew as well as he did that it would be nearly impossible for her to survive the swim to the English ship. He’d made it by sheer desperation to find her and a lifetime of swimming in freezing lochs.
Rose curled her fingers into his shirt, her face pinched with sorrow. “No matter what, know that…know that I love you, Cullen Duffie. I would never leave you.”
Secluded on the deck where the bowsprit stood splintered like a lightning-struck limb, he wrapped his arms around her, kissing her with all the desperation and fear he’d felt when he’d found her gone. Raking through her hair to cradle her head, he slanted his mouth over hers, reveling in the taste and heat of his beautiful wildcat.
Rose answered him with her own molten kiss, giving him as much as she could in that moment before they fought the cold waves below. Another cannon strike shook them, slamming them, tied together, against the gunwale.
Cullen steadied them. “Tha gaol agam ort,” he said, caressing his thumb down her soft cheek. “I love ye, too. Will ye marry me?”
Amidst the hell raining down around them, a bubble of joyous laughter broke from her lips. She nodded, in short, vigorous tips of her head, hair blowing around her face. “Oui, Cullen. Je t’aime. Yes, with all my heart,” she replied, her gray-green eyes the most beautiful color he’d ever seen. The words proclaiming their love, spoken in different languages, spanned oceans between their vastly different worlds. It didn’t matter that she was French or that she was meant for a king. It didn’t matter that he was the MacDonald chief with a duty to his clan. They were not what they’d been told they must be. Together, they were more than that.
“Attrape les,” one of the crewmen yelled, spotting them. A rush of filthy, desperate men came running. It was time to jump.
Lifting Rose, Cullen stepped onto the gunwale. “Hold the rope, too, if ye can.” Rose wrapped her fingers around the line and braced her feet against the side of the ship. Cullen straddled her and did the same. Hand over hand, he dropped them closer to the sea. The waves spit up spray as they lapped against the hull. The cannons from the English had stopped. Taylor didn’t want to lose his prize to the sea bottom.
The water loomed six feet below them. Above, de Fleur’s men climbed toward the arrow anchoring them to the ship. He began to unloop the rope from their waists. “We can’t swim with this rope around us,” he yelled.
“I don’t intend for ye to swim at all,” came a man’s strained voice. Cullen kicked against the hull to look around the edge of the ship where a dinghy fought the waves, two people in it. Beatrice and a half-drowned Errol.
“Dieu merci,” Rose yelled. “Beatrice!”
“I wasn’t leaving ye up there,” she yelled toward her. “Errol jumped off the English ship to help me.”
Errol threw his shoulders into rowing directly under them, and Cullen held Rose as he uncoiled her, lowering her into the shifting boat. Cullen followed, sitting quickly to take over for Errol. His cousin breathed heavily. “’Twould have been lighter to row if the daft woman would have climbed up into the ship instead of deciding to row herself back over here.”
“I wasn’t leaving her,” Beatrice yelled back, tears flowing freely from her eyes as she reached forward to grab Rose’s hand. Beatrice’s gaze rose to the ship, pocked with cannon holes in the upper deck, the masts broken, smoke rolling up to the clouds. “Is he dead?” she asked.
“Oui,” Rose said, meeting Cullen’s gaze. “Henri de Fleur will never harm another soul again.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“So, your name is Rose Maclean,” Captain Taylor said and rubbed a hand down his face. Distrust was evident in his tone, but he seemed less prying since hauling in the French galleon with Cullen’s help. Capturing a well-known French pirate’s ship would be a huge boon to Captain Taylor’s military record.
“Aye,” Rose said instead of her usual oui.
Cullen rested his warm hands on her shoulders. After risking life and clan to save her, there was no doubt that he supported her in every way possible. And the turnout today showed the clan might feel the same.
They stood in Dunyvaig’s great hall before the holly-bedecked hearth. The golden glow of hundreds of candles cast shadows and light over the gathered crowd. MacDonalds, Duffies, as well as others living in Dunyvaig’s village had shown up en masse to the night’s festivities.
“She is a distant cousin,” Tor Maclean said. “From the north.”
“She’s orphaned,” Beatrice said from her spot next to Errol. With her mother exiled, Errol had stepped up to help Beatrice despite his anger over her trickery. They had much to work through before he trusted her, or any woman, again, but he’d begun to help her set up living on her own, and they were talking.
“She has no family to speak of. Only us,” Broc said.
“I will swear to it,” Joan Maclean added.
All the clan members on the front row, forming a half circle around the hearth, nodded, making Rose feel the press of tears in her eyes. She didn’t even know all their names, but they’d heard how she’d risked her life to save Beatrice. In fact, the once-despised shrew wouldn’t stop praising Rose for her cunning and bravery onboard Henri’s ship.
“Yet you speak with a French accent, and a French pirate stole you from your bedchamber when he escaped Dunyvaig’s dungeon.”
“The fiend thought she was someone else,” Charlotte said, nodding her head. “When he came to ask us to hide his king’s ships along Islay.”
“But the accent?” Captain Thompson said beside Taylor. “Where did you come by it?”
“I had a French tutor,” Rose explained as if it made complete sense. “We spoke so often in his native language that it became natural for me to drop my Hs and speak a bit through my nose.” She tapped the end.
Beside her, Broc coughed into his fist and sniffed loudly. “Sorry,” he mumbled when Captain Taylor cut him a glare.
“If ye wish to witness the proceedings, step aside,” Cullen said. “If ye would prefer to return to the mainland to continue to unload the treasure from de Fleur
’s ship, feel free to depart.”
“I thought you said she was already your wife.” Taylor said, looking between them and Father Langdon.
“In the eyes of God,” Cullen said. Rose gazed up into his handsome face, shining with happiness.
A man from the back of the room stood on top of a barrel. “Me arse is tired of sitting on this whisky that ought to be in my cup. On with the wedding.” Several grunts of agreement went up through the gathered crowd.
“What happened to the woman the crew said de Fleur was hunting? Madeleine Renald?” Taylor asked, unsatisfied. “The pearls she stole were on his ship.”
William stepped forward, his frown severe. “Madeleine Renald, whoever that is, must have been murdered by de Fleur for her pearls. Rose Duffie is the only lass to come upon our shores. She belongs here.”
Farlan puffed up his chest, nodding to agree with his brother. “Now let us make this bond official before a bairn rounds out her stomach while we wait for ye to finish with yer questions.” A wave of deep chuckles radiated through the crowd.
Rose blushed and blinked back tears. Of all the people, William and Farlan MacDonald had come to her side after Cullen had brought her home. They had immediately sworn allegiance to Cullen and had treated both of them with respect. Trust would have to be rebuilt between them, but it was a promising start.
With another perusal of Rose, Captain Taylor turned, waving Captain Thompson to follow him. Hands behind his back, leaning forward, he strode through the parting people with a regally indifferent bearing. The front doors banged shut behind them.
The crowd gathered back in, and Ava and Grace came out from hiding to join Tor near the hearth. From what Ava said, the English captains thought she was dead, so she couldn’t be seen, and they shouldn’t be allowed to question Grace since Grace had a tendency of looking guilty whenever questioned about anything.
“We are all here now?” the priest asked.
The Rogue of Islay Isle (Highland Isles) Page 21