by Paula Quinn
Trina tried not to show her fear, but that didn’t mean her knees weren’t knocking together. She’d never killed a man before and doing so at close range, close enough to look him in the eyes, would be difficult, mayhap impossible. She was thankful for the mist. Getting a good, clear look at this man might slow her reflexes, but she had to do something. She blinked and rammed her knee into his groin, or rather, because of the blinding dimness, his upper thigh. She was about to run when a familiar voice stopped her.
“Back away from her or ye’ll suffer a dozen arrows. We never miss!”
Relief flooded through her at Kyle’s confident declaration breaking through the fog and the sound of rushing waves. No one ever saw Kyle coming.
“I surrender peacefully,” the intruder called out with a graceful sweep of his cutlass before him and a gallant bow.
“Who are ye?” Kyle demanded.
“I be Alexander Kidd, captain of Poseidon’s Adventure, and only son and heir of William Kidd, most infamous pirate to sail the high seas.”
A pirate? He was a pirate? Trina didn’t know whether to believe him or pick up a rock and smash it over his head. She’d never seen a pirate before. She wanted to take another look at him. He had to be lying. Why would a pirate come here? It was more likely that he was a captain in the Royal Navy come to arrest her uncles and brothers for something they did on one of their excursions to the Lowlands.
“We should shoot him,” she called out to her kin. “Set the dogs on him.”
She could feel his eyes on her, hard, dark eyes that cut through the moonlight.
“After I’ve surrendered?” he said in her direction, sounding disappointed.
“Caitrina, step away from him,” Cailean commanded, provoking a deep-throated growl from the wolfhounds at his feet.
“What d’ye want?” Kyle demanded, slowly moving closer.
“I want an audience with yar chief,” the intruder announced. “He has somethin’ that belongs to me.”
Trina laughed and began to step away from him. “Kill him and let us run home and warn—”
The remainder of her words was cut off by one arm coiling around her waist and another around her throat. The cool edge of a dagger against her throat set her heart to pounding against his hard angles.
“Ya’re beginnin’ to tempt me to take more than just me map.”
The husky timbre of his voice along her neck sent bolts of charged, fiery energy through her. Caitrina closed her eyes, hating her body for betraying her.
“Now, be a good little lady and call off yar lads or me men will open fire.”
She blinked at the mist as shadows began to appear, one after the other. He was telling the truth, at least about having a small army at his back. She opened her mouth to call to Kyle when her captor sank to the ground behind her, hit in the head by a rock from Braigh’s sling.
The shadows hurried forward. Hell, Trina had to think quickly! Her small troupe couldn’t fight the Royal Navy or a shipload of pirates. But there was a way to hold them off. She drew her dagger and reached down, taking the unconscious intruder by the hair.
“Stop!” she called out, holding the dagger to the captain’s throat. “Any one of ye takes another step and I’ll leave him to the seagulls!”
Chapter Three
The sun rose quickly, spilling light into one of the most cavernous great halls Alex had ever been in. The place had to be big in order to accompany the giants it housed. Even their dogs were huge, six in all. Ugly, scruffy looking beasts that growled under their breath if he all but looked at them. He didn’t remember other Highlanders being this tall and broad of shoulder. Even with his entire crew, Alex doubted any kind of victory over these men. Presently, he didn’t have his crew. None of his men were allowed entry into the castle save for Samuel and Hendrik Andersen.
Despite the growing knot on his head and the pounding that accompanied it, he managed a smile for a pretty red-haired lass who set a cup down on the table in front of him.
“The chief will see ye shortly,” she said, or rather sang.
One of the Highlanders seated at the table tugged on her skirt and she inclined her ear to him. She smiled behind a veil of sunset and fire curls and turned to Alex. She nodded at what the man was whispering to her. Alex didn’t need to hear what the lad was saying. When one grew up at sea, sometimes with raging winds snatching voices from the air, one learned to read lips.
When the girl covered her mouth and giggled, Alex’s lips cocked to the left, as did his head. He didn’t mind folks thinking him a scoundrel, but he wouldn’t tolerate them thinking him lily livered. “I assure ya,” he corrected the lad at her ear, “I have not shit meself since I was a babe. Even if yer chief sports two heads and a bolt of lightnin’ shootin’ out of his arse, me streak will remain unblemished.”
Beside him, Samuel laughed softly and shoved at Alex’s shoulder. “Remember that wench in Tonga who pushed a snake out of her—”
Alex silenced him with a heel to Sam’s toe under the table, then softened his smile on the couple. “Pardon me quartermaster.”
“How did ye know what I told her?” the lad who’d whispered asked, a glint of steel, reflecting from the drawn dagger in his lap, lighting his blue-green eyes. “Did ye read my lips?”
“I did,” Alex confessed, recognizing this one’s voice from the hills. “’Tis a skill vital in me profession. Be ya the one who struck me?”
“That was my cousin, Braigh. I’m Kyle. This is Mailie. Mayhap ye could give me a lesson before ye leave?”
“If I get what I came fer then I don’t see why not. Only it will take more than one lesson to learn to read a person’s lips.”
“Well, my uncle Rob might kill ye tonight. One lesson is all I might be afforded.”
His uncle, the chief. The man his father trusted to guard his map. Alex looked the chief’s nephew over. Kyle MacGregor appeared to be about a score years, perhaps a little younger, but he was every bit as arrogant as rumor claimed his kin to be.
He had no more time to contemplate the lad when the scent of wild heather and smoky peat filled his senses. He turned, remembering the fragrance of the archer who owed him a hat.
Caitrina.
“Bring them,” she told Kyle, who, with a dozen or so men, rose from the table and escorted him, Samuel, and Andersen out of the Hall.
“Ye have Kyle to thank fer yer life,” she slowed to tell Alex. “I thought we should have killed ye.”
Seeing her face through the delicate mist was one thing, seeing it clear and drenched in firelight was another thing entirely. If she was an example of Highland women, then what the hell had he been doing in other parts of the world all these years? He wanted her instantly, even before he paused his steps to take in the even sway of her hips and the roundness of her rump as she charged on ahead of him. He wanted to stare into her glacial blue eyes and watch while he set her afire and conquered her like the beast he’d become at sea all these months.
Someone behind him gave him a harsh shove forward.
Alex was no fool. She was a prize he wouldn’t win. In their fur-clad capes and long hair, the lot around him looked perfectly able, and, he’d go so far as to venture, a bit eager to cut him to pieces and question him later. The MacGregors. Every child growing up in the Lowlands heard of the MacGregors once or twice before bedtime, ensuring proper obedience to his parents.
Alex didn’t give a damn about tall tales. The chief had somehow earned his father’s trust. That said enough for him. But the map belonged to Alex and he would have it. His father had gone through much trouble to see that he got it and he intended on seeing his father’s plan through. If it meant finding himself having to kiss the arse of a fine wench instead of dragging her to his bed, he’d be happy to do it.
He followed his escorts to the second landing and down a long corridor, then down another, lit by tall candle stands and flickering torches. He looked over his shoulder at Samuel and Andersen walking amid more of the
tall, daunting-looking Highlanders who were escorting them. Were they being brought to the chief or to some far off room to be murdered?
They finally arrived at a heavy wooden door upon which Caitrina knocked.
Stepping inside the chief’s private solar was like walking into the embrace of a loved one. Fire from the great hearth bathed the chamber in warmth and soft, golden light. Thick, colorful tapestries hung from three of the four walls, adding to its coziness. Two ornately carved tables stretched out beneath the windows, each hosting an array of books, vases of bunched heather and orchids, a flagon of beaten bronze, and a polished chess set. It was a good room, as far as rooms on land went. The best things about it were the women, four of whom sat in a half circle around the fire. Alex couldn’t decide who was the most beautiful. The one in the third overstuffed chair, he told himself. With hair the same color of rich mahogany and eyes bluer than any charted body of water, she could only be Caitrina’s mother.
Hell, he could be happy here.
These people weren’t savages. He was glad. It would make getting his map easier.
“Captain.”
He turned to the deep voice and rethought his initial assessment. The man rising from his chair where he’d been relaxing with a number of others in the farthest corner of the room looked quite able to take on all of England if he wanted to.
“I am Robert MacGregor, clan chief of the MacGregors of Skye. I have taken the men who came ashore with ye captive. They will be killed and dumped in the loch if I’m no’ satisfied that ye are who ye claim to be. Yer ship also will be blown oot of the water.”
Alex found Kyle by the window and offered him a confident grin before turning back to the chief. He would admit the lad’s uncle could probably scare the piss from a man. Still, for Alex, that day hadn’t arrived.
“Then ’tis fortunate that I can prove me claim.” When he shoved his hand inside his coat, he found three daggers at his throat. He held up one hand to ward off the three men who had been sitting with the chief. “I mean to present a letter from me father.”
They waited while he produced the parchment and handed it to the chief, who surprised him again by sitting back in his chair and reading the letter with no help from anyone else.
When he was done, the MacGregor handed him back his letter and shook his head. “Anyone could have written it.”
“I bore witness to the penning of the letter by Captain Kidd.”
Everyone turned to Andersen, who hadn’t spoken a single word until then. The chief eyed him for a moment or two, then crooked his finger at him. Unruffled, Andersen stepped forward.
“I remember ye,” the chief said. “Ye were with the captain when last he visited.”
“I was,” Andersen told him. “Just as I was with him before he was arrested. His wish was for his son to have the map. Now that I’ve found him, I will fulfill his father’s wishes.”
“And how d’ye know this man is the captain’s son?”
Indeed, how did he?
“I have been searching for Alexander Kidd for some time and I’ve discovered much about him. For instance, he has many enemies in the Royal Navy and in many homes in New York City. If a man is going to live by a false name, surely he would choose one less notorious. Still, the best proof I can offer is Neptune’s trident,” Andersen said, then explained further when the chief quirked his dark brow. “A tattoo on his upper left arm. The trident is missing a point. His father told me of it…”
With nothing else to say while Andersen established his identity—and hell, but he knew a lot about Alex—Alex glanced around the solar. His gaze roved slowly over the faces staring back at him. He found Caitrina standing close to a pale-haired beauty of roughly the same age. He smiled at them. Neither smiled back.
“Captain Kidd,” the chief called to him, breaking the spell Caitrina’s gloriously big blue eyes had on him. “I would see the trident missing a point.”
Alex obliged. He would have stripped naked if it meant gaining possession of the map. He removed his coat and handed it over to Andersen. His shirt followed—to a symphony of little female gasps—as he turned his muscled arm toward the flickering light.
The chief nodded. “I’m convinced that ye are whom ye say and therefore will turn over yer map. Yer faither was a good friend. Ye and yer companions here are welcome to stay and break fast with us. Fill yer bellies and then be on yer way.”
Alex bowed, then replaced his shirt. Liking a room was one thing, but he’d wanted to leave an hour ago. He wasn’t formed for land. His heart longed for the undulations of the bucking, surging beast beneath his bare feet, the spray of the ocean all over him. Someday though, if he lived long enough, he might want to settle down his feet. Camlochlin tempted.
But Alex didn’t have time to make friends now. He had a treasure to find. “That’s good of ya, my lord, but I wouldn’t risk the Royal Navy followin’ me here. We’ll be leavin’ once I have the map.”
“Stay and break fast with us,” one of the men seated with the chief said. He didn’t ask. He rose from his chair directly before Alex and fixed his level gaze at him.
“My brother, Colin MacGregor,” the chief introduced.
Kyle’s father, Alex knew right away, if resemblances meant anything. But for a harder cut to his eyes and a dash of salt at his temples, he could have been Kyle’s twin.
Colin tilted a corner of his mouth.
Only darker.
“The navy won’t follow ye here.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Alex wanted to know.
“Cannons,” Colin told him, then stepped around Alex and moved toward the center of the chamber, arm extended.
One of the four women around the hearth rose and met her husband, a blush stealing across her nose like a newly married maiden, fresh from their bed.
“My sons and nephews,” the chief continued, demanding the return of Alex’s attention, “will escort ye back to the Hall. Adam, Edmund,” he motioned to the two men appearing at Alex’s shoulders. “Malcolm, Lucan, Patrick, take them back with the rest of ye. I’ll be there shortly.”
And just like that, Alex, Samuel, and Andersen were whisked away without another word.
“So what then?” Sam asked, eyeing the group encircling them. “Are ya all related? Married to each other?”
Alex tried to pay attention for as long as he could while they all explained who they were and what their relationship was. He lost track soon into the genealogy and turned while he walked to look Caitrina over.
Neptune take him, but she was beautiful. He let his gaze skim over her from head to foot. The milky mounds of her bosom drew his attention and ignited fire in his blood. The long column of her throat seduced his mind with thoughts of kissing it, biting it.
“Be there any hat makers here?” he asked her, lifting his eyes from her lips.
“Nae.” She swept a cheeky, gloriously dimpled smile over him, dashing to pieces his resolve not to sweep her off her feet and kiss her, and to hell with the consequences. He’d leaped out windows before to escape hounds on his arse. Kissing her might be worth it.
“We have nae hat makers, but we have a few trusted physicians. And since ’twas either yer heart or yer hat I needed to remove from yer body, I thought ye’d prefer to lose yer hat.” She stopped moving forward and set her cool gaze on him. “Was I mistaken?”
He shook his head, fired up by her saucy mouth.
“Good.” She continued on, pushing past him. “Ye can thank me fer my thoughtfulness some other time.”
“I will.” And he meant it. He’d love to stay and thank her long into the night, but a kiss or two before he left would have to do. “That’s a promise.”
“So,” another voice said, as Kyle came to stand at Caitrina’s back, his sudden appearance jarring her a bit—or was it the interruption of their not so cool smiles that made her glare at Kyle when she looked over her shoulder at him? “What kind of treasure did yer faither hide?” he asked.
&nbs
p; “If I told ya,” Alex said, swinging back to the forward direction, now at Caitrina’s side, “I would have to kill ya.”
“’Tis a ship,” Caitrina told her cousin, then proceeded to completely ignore Alex’s surprised gaze on her. “’Twas called Quedagh Merchant and later Adventure Prize.” She finally met Alex’s eyes and shrugged a shoulder. “I listened when yer faither visited and spoke of it.”
Why? he wanted to ask her. Women weren’t interested in the sea or in what pirates had to say about it. But what did it matter? He stopped himself from trying to work her out in his head. He’d be gone in a few hours and Miss Caitrina Grant would be forgotten.
Today, he would eat, drink, and enjoy the company of his hosts. After that, he would set sail for his treasure and make Camlochlin a memory.
Chapter Four
Trina thought she might go mad at the constant struggle she endured during breakfast. She found that keeping her eyes off Alex Kidd was the most challenging endeavor she’d ever had to perform. The worst part was that she failed—along with almost every unwed female in the Hall. How could anyone succeed when he smiled with the arrogance of a prince and the danger of a wolf? Och, how she wished they were still in the dark outdoors so she couldn’t see the spark in his sultry dark eyes, the deep cleft that dimpled his strong chin. And Lord, she’d never seen a man wearing earrings before, but his thick golden hoops and shoulder-length hair somehow added to his dangerous appeal. Even if she never looked at him again, the memory of his bare torso when he removed his shirt for her uncle would haunt her for ten lifetimes. Cut to absolute perfection, his chest and upper arms were crafted in hard, twitching sinew that boasted power and lissome strength. His tanned, flat belly made her curious to touch him. She blushed, thinking of having never touched a man in such a way before. He strode like a conquering emperor across the Great Hall filled with deadly Highlanders. He didn’t fear them, or, if he did, he masked it quite well. Virility oozed from his every nuance of movement, and even she, a virgin, felt the sexual pull of it.