First Time with a Highlander

by Gwyn Cready

  Gerard nodded because he was unable to speak. I hope Duchamps means their carnage not ours. In truth, though, the idea of anyone dying in the next quarter hour made his stomach roil.

  “Why are they following us? Any theories?” He wanted Duchamps’s take.

  “The cargo, I presume. Insurance aside, though, I have no intention of losing it.”

  “When will they be close enough to fire?”

  “Ten minutes,” Duchamps said. “Maybe less. Of course, as you know, we won’t be able to return fire for several minutes after that. Those nine-pounders reach a good deal farther than our eighteens.”

  Gerard looked around him. The men were lined up in groups of six, each around one of the cannons running the length of the deck. He had seen every episode of Horatio Hornblower, not to mention Star Trek, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica, and could pull off an imperious, cocksure captain until the cows came home, but actually commanding a crew in a life-or-death situation was seriously beyond his capabilities. His palms were so slippery, he nearly dropped his spyglass.

  “What did you see up there?”

  Gerard said, “Nothing but the ship ahead.”

  “Should I send a man up?”

  “Um…” Gerard raised his gaze long enough to see Serafina swinging through the rigging like a monkey. “Aye.”

  Duchamps gave the orders, and one of the sailors scrabbled up the same ropes Gerard had just come down. He saw an exchange between Serafina and the man that ended in a gesture recognizable across countries and centuries.

  He turned back to find Duchamps’s gaze on Serafina as well.

  “Sir,” Duchamps began, “may I speak freely?”

  Gerard hesitated. “Aye.”

  “You have, perhaps, a special relationship with Struan Harris? As a man you wish to guide in his career—or in other endeavors?”

  Danger, Will Robinson. Danger, danger. “He’s the cousin of a man to whom I owe a great favor.”

  “If I may, you would be less likely to stir the talk of the crew if your association with Mr. Harris retained the unbreachable shellac of impartiality.”

  The poor man was putting his career on the line.

  “I thank you for your wise advice, Lieutenant. I have been remiss.”

  “Oh, no, sir. Not really.” The man’s voice grew even quieter and he looked as if he wished he could crawl into his boots and disappear—a feeling at this instant Gerard shared quite fully. “I…I have no objection to any man’s preference. My most beloved brother is a…a…”

  “Secretary?” Gerard offered.

  “Aye,” Duchamps said, slumping with relief, “and I would wish on no man the misery he has endured.”

  Gerard bowed. “Thank you, Lieutenant. You are most kind to speak so. ’Tis not a popular opinion to hold.”

  He nodded and inclined his head toward Gerard’s breeks, which, Gerard saw, were misbuttoned.

  Gerard flushed and made the necessary adjustments.

  Serafina glided in beside them, notebook at the ready, and Duchamps lifted the glass. “Oh! They’re sending a signal. ‘Captain…to come across.’”

  Gerard, who had expected “Surrender, Dorothy,” looked to his colleagues. Serafina shook her head firmly. Duchamps was more circumspect.

  “Are they offering a negotiation, do you think?” Gerard asked.

  “What do we have that they want?” Duchamps said.

  Serafina said nothing. Her face made it clear what she thought of the idea.

  “I don’t know,” Gerard said, “but it would be a hell of an opportunity to find out.”

  “A captain’s place is with his ship,” Serafina said.

  Gerard offered about as much value here as a screen door on a submarine—with probably the same outcome. On the other hand, he had no desire to make his way across the expanse of sea to a ship Duchamps read as an undisciplined recipe for carnage, but the fact remained Gerard was the most expendable man on board.

  He didn’t need to debate the issue long. A warning shot split the afternoon’s quiet, and the speck of black that flew out of the smoke whistled across the water through the sternmost yard, sending splinters raining down on the deck. He figured he had two choices: he could fight—and the men certainly gave the appearance of being ready—or he could attempt to save the men without a fight.

  “Ready my boat.”

  “Ready the captain’s barge!” Duchamps hollered.

  Serafina’s eyes wore a gloss of wetness. “Will ye need a secretary?”

  “No.”

  “Sir, I think—”

  “No.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I can help.”

  “Insubordination. Duchamps, write the man up. If he opens his mouth again, put him in the hold for the duration of the battle.”

  Her eyes were daggers, and Gerard prayed with every fiber of his being she would speak one more time. As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t a place deep enough on earth to put her if cannonballs started to fly.

  “I understand.” Duchamps gave him a sad but knowing smile. “I’ll do exactly as you wish.”

  Twenty-five

  Gerard gazed ahead, listening to the lap of oars in the water. The sailors rowed in a practiced unison. None of them met his eye. He wondered if that was standard when one rowed for a captain or if he was encircled by an aura of doom and their innate sense of it made it hard to look him in the face.

  He’d only looked behind him once. And there she’d been, her gray cap visible at the farthest corner of the stern. Would she be safe? Would he return? How had a party in Manhattan turned into a choppy boat ride to a forbidding, undisciplined ship in the middle of the North Sea in less than twenty-four hours?

  He closed his eyes and remembered the sparks of sunshine in her tumbling hair, smelled the tang of salt water on her skin, and felt her fingers laced in his.

  “Why are ye smiling?”

  Gerard opened his eyes and looked at Thistlebrook. “None of your bloody goddamned business.”

  One of the sailors snickered.

  “Quiet,” Gerard said.

  “They’re going to kill you.”

  “And why would they do that?” Gerard remembered Serafina’s proscription against beating information out of Thistlebrook. He wondered if the same proscription applied when the only witnesses would be the captain’s loyal team of bargemen.

  “Because you’ve taken something they want,” Thistlebrook said. “Don’t be a fool. Turn around.”

  “They said to send the captain across. I’m giving them two. Like cuff links. Personally, I think they’ll be thrilled.”

  The sailor laughed again.

  “Sailor! What’s your name?”

  “MacIlroy, sir.”

  “Button it.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  There was something about being the most powerful man in a six-foot radius that made Gerard feel like anything was possible.

  They were nearly to the other ship. A bosun’s chair had been rigged to bring him up. He saw it hanging off the side like a body hanging from a gallows. The boat made a thunk as it hit the ship’s side. One of the sailors began to secure it.

  “Don’t tie up,” a voice from overhead called. “The captain stays. The boat will go back. We’ll signal when you need to return.”

  “‘When you need to return,’” Gerard said. “Not if. Did you hear that, Thistlebrook?”

  The man chuckled. “Do ye think they’d bury your body themselves?”

  Twenty-six

  Gerard drummed his fingers on the chair’s arm. The armed men at the sides of the cabin door watched him with evident disdain. All in all, he preferred being ignored.

  He’d been split from Thistlebrook the moment they’d come over the rail. Either the men on this ship were far more interested i
n Thistlebrook, or Thistlebrook was awaiting his fate, just like Gerard.

  The door opened, and Gerard could not have been more surprised. The man he’d met in the Squeak and Blade, the man who resembled him and had been looking for Serafina, entered.

  Then it hit him. Jesus Christ, this is Edward!

  He didn’t know why it surprised him as much as it did. He’d been given every clue: Sera wanted a man to help her claim some cargo; the cargo belonged to Edward; a man looking for Sera in the tavern shared Gerard’s height and coloring.

  And yet, Serafina had not thought to tell him this fact.

  He hadn’t liked Edward when he’d met him. Now he found he liked him even less.

  Edward signaled the men to exit. He took one of the chairs.

  “Where is she?” he demanded in a hoarse whisper. “What have you done with her? I need to know right now.”

  That was not the question Gerard was expecting, and it was clear the man didn’t want anyone else to know of his interest. Gerard was tempted to tell him exactly what he had done with Sera, but there was something about the worry in the man’s eyes that required a straightforward answer.

  “She’s safe,” Gerard said.

  Edward’s face filled with relief. “Where? She’s not in her rooms in town. I checked.”

  Gerard had no intention of answering this question or any others.

  “She’s on that ship, isn’t she? She told me she would take the cargo if she could.” Edward’s worry had turned to something else, something more like hunger—a hunger Gerard suspected would very soon turn to anger.

  “She’s not on the ship,” Gerard said. “She wanted to be on it. I stopped her. She’s safely tucked away, awaiting word from me.”

  Edward’s eyes widened. Gerard could see what was going through his head. The man before me has the power to control Serafina Fallon?

  “Who are you?” Edward said.

  “You can’t guess?”

  “She hired you. She hired you to pretend you were me.”

  Gerard didn’t reply. He had found in business, the less one spoke, the more the balance of power shifted in one’s favor.

  But Edward didn’t know this truth, and the silence incited him. “Where did she find you? You’re not a Scot.” He’d said “Scot” with the same tone he would have used for “a bag of human excrement.”

  Gerard had realized, of course, the moment he’d put Thistlebrook on the boat that his stint as erstwhile captain of La Trahison was over. Nonetheless, it had seemed an action with a reasonable chance of appeasing the men here, whoever they might be. The fact that Edward had not asked him how he had taken possession of the ship seemed to indicate, just as Duchamps had suggested, that Edward and Thistlebrook were in league, and that Thistlebrook had told Edward everything that had happened on La Trahison as soon as he’d been separated from Gerard. Though whether “in league” meant the two were partners in an innocent trading venture or something more sinister, Gerard didn’t know.

  Gerard’s nonresponsiveness was taking Edward, a very poor negotiator indeed, to a rapid boil. Even Gerard, whose knowledge of prisoner interrogation came primarily from several dozen viewings of The Great Escape, knew better than to let his emotions show.

  “Thistlebrook says you know nothing about sailing, that you’re nothing more than a preening popinjay…an empty frock coat.”

  Gerard looked at him. “Well, I was imitating you.”

  The water burst from the pan. “You don’t see it, do you?”

  The dark dot of La Trahison on the water outside the porthole had begun to shift. The ship was turning.

  “She didn’t need you to collect the cargo,” Edward said. “She could do that with her eyes closed. She hired you for a different reason.”

  Gerard fought the temptation but lost. He searched Edward’s face.

  “Ah, cracks in the bulwark,” Edward observed. “Do you want to know?”

  “No.”

  “You lie. Let us see how sharp you are. Why would a woman hire a man who looks like the fiancé with whom she is still desperately in love?”

  Gerard heard nothing but the roar of blood in his ears.

  “That’s right,” Edward said. “To fuck him from her head.”

  Gerard flew shoulder first into Edward’s gut, knocking them both over with a crash.

  The door burst open, and the armed men dragged Gerard to his feet.

  Edward lay in a ball, wheezing. “Let him go.”

  The men shoved Gerard away from his prey and released him.

  “Go,” Edward said to the men.

  The door closed. Gerard let out a long sigh and reluctantly extended his hand. Even more reluctantly, Edward took it.

  “I’m sorry. I had to know.” Edward wiped the blood from his lip, which had been split in the skirmish. He drew a lace-edged handkerchief from his pocket and daubed his mouth. “I don’t blame her, you know. I was boorish and unkind.”

  Was? Gerard contemplated adding a bleeding nose to the bleeding lip.

  “But the fact remains, she is under my protection and, as a gentleman, I know I have treated her abominably.”

  “Under your protection?” Gerard had no clear idea what Edward mean, but the sound of the words made his anger rise.

  “Aye. For the last year.”

  “And how is bankrupting and abandoning her considered ‘under your protection’?”

  “Mister…” Edward waited for a last name. When Gerard didn’t offer one, he gave up and proceeded without it. “You are in love with her then? Or intend to extend an offer of marriage? I believe your relationship is of no more than a day’s length, perhaps two, but ’tis possible I’ve misunderstood.”

  Had Serafina spoken to him? Gerard found the idea impossible to believe.

  “I am here to do the lady’s bidding,” Gerard said, “whatever that might entail, for as long as she desires my support.”

  “What an agreeable assignment this has turned out to be for you then. I don’t deny I behaved in an ungentlemanly manner in regard to Serafina. My family was opposed to the union, and I was a fool to listen to them.” Edward straightened his coat and cravat. “My feelings for her are unchanged. I need to tell her that we may marry immediately.”

  “Once you claim the cargo.”

  A flash of anger appeared in Edward’s eyes and was quickly extinguished. “Serafina has never had much of a mind for business. She’s fearless, aye, and for a woman, surprisingly intelligent. But her exposure to the real business of trading has been narrow—only enough to give her false confidence and make her a danger to herself. Did she tell you her fortune is gone? She blames me, I suppose. And perhaps I should have stopped her. But I wanted her to have her way if she could. It was never much money, to be sure, but the choices she made…” He shook his head sadly. “Such folly. If you have any regard for her, please try to see that her future will be best preserved if the disposition of the cargo is overseen by me.”

  If he had any regard for her? Pompous prick.

  “Let me tell you what I think,” Gerard said with exquisite precision. “The best course of action for a gentleman who in his own words has acted abominably would be to hand the cargo over to Miss Fallon without delay and let her throw the income from it one coin at a time into the North Sea if she so chooses.”

  Edward pulled at a cuff. “I might say the best course of action for a gentleman who professes to be led solely by the wishes of a lady would be to do everything in his power to put a man from the upper reaches of society with an offer of marriage he believes would be welcome in front of her and let her decide for herself.”

  La Trahison was drawing closer.

  “Where are we going?” Gerard demanded. “What do these men intend to do?”

  “I believe they intend to take what they believe is theirs.”
>
  “They won’t succeed. Duchamps will fight. I’ve given him orders.”

  “Duchamps would fight even if you hadn’t given him orders,” Edward said. “That’s his job. I can’t make any promises about what will happen. ’Tis for that very reason I am relieved Serafina isn’t on board.”

  Gerard thought of the men on the ship. He thought of Duchamps. But most of all, he thought of Serafina—in harm’s way.

  “I’ll take you to her,” Gerard said. “But you must guarantee the safety of my men. You can have the cargo, but the men must remain unharmed.”

  Edward chuckled. “Your men? They are my men. But I have no more wish than you do to see them slaughtered. Let me talk to the men in charge here. I’ll see what I can negotiate. But I want your promise that in addition to taking me to her, you will present my proposal as an advantageous opportunity and one you endorse.”

  Gerard shook his head. “I owe her loyalty and that includes my honesty.”

  Edward shifted. “What will you advise her to do?”

  “To run. As far and as fast as she can.”

  “I’m sorry to say her current situation won’t allow for such a thing. And while her current misfortune will be the means to my good luck, I take comfort in knowing that, in a very short time, ’twill be the means to her good luck as well. I accept your offer.” He extended his hand.

  Gerard struggled to overcome his distaste for what he was doing, but nothing at the moment could be more important than saving the lives of Serafina and the other men. He took Edward’s hand.

  “You’re doing the best thing for her,” Edward said, rising.

  Gerard wished he could be certain it was true.

  Twenty-seven

  Technically, he was free and back on La Trahison, but realistically, it felt almost no different to be held at pistol-point on one’s own ship than it did to be held at pistol-point in the enemy’s. Gerard’s sailors were locked in the hold below while the men from Edward’s ship gathered whatever it was they were looking for and completed the arduous process of raising it by winch over the side, lowering it onto boats, and transporting it to the other ship.