Betting the Scot (The Highlanders of Balforss)

by Trethewey, Jennifer

  …

  Searching for the cave opening in the dark, Declan and Magnus were reduced to crawling on hands and knees. Had the opening been sealed? Had he somehow misremembered? Was this even the cave he and Magnus had explored when they were nine and ten? His heart had been beating double time since Magnus had delivered the news of Caya’s abduction. Now he was growing short of breath. He fought back the urge to panic.

  “Found it,” Magnus rasped.

  He scrambled to Magnus’s side and helped tear away the rough grass covering the opening.

  Alex leaned over his shoulder. “Jesus.”

  “It’s much smaller than I remember,” Magnus said.

  The opening was the ideal size for a boy of ten, a slit in the rocks approximately two and a half feet long by ten inches wide. From what he recalled, another four feet farther down, the opening expanded. Being lean, he thought he could slither inside. But Magnus could not fit his great chest through the cleft. Nor could Alex.

  “I’m going down,” Declan said, and he slipped his feet into the hole.

  “Wait,” John said. “We need four men of stealth and deadly skill. I think I can make it. Who else?”

  “Me,” Ian said.

  “I can,” Peter said.

  “Nae, lad. We need your knowledge of the ship. We cannae afford to lose you.”

  “I’ll do it.” Fergus stepped forward.

  Hamish wrapped a hand around Fergus’s arm to stop him. “Nae. I’m the best man with the knife. I’ll go.”

  Though not blooded in battle like the other five former soldiers, Hamish was undeniably good with a knife. Declan had seen his ruthless precision cutting leather for saddle and harness.

  Alex demonstrated for Hamish. “Approach from behind, one hand over his mouth, pull him to your chest, and slide the blade across his throat quick and deep as ye can, aye?”

  Hamish nodded once.

  “Right then,” Laird John said. “Declan, Ian, Hamish, and I will go down through the cave opening. Once we’ve dispatched the men on shore, the rest of you take the cliff path, but be careful. More than one man has already fallen to his death.”

  Confident, Declan and his team of assassins removed their shirts and shoes and slithered one at a time through the rough rock. Declan went first, holding on to a rope, glad of the dark. Had he been able to see his suffocating surroundings, he might have balked. When he had cleared the narrow stone channel and could stand upright in the opening, he tugged on the rope.

  Ian went next, followed by Hamish, then Uncle John. As each man emerged from the slotted entrance, he was helped by the others and held steady on his feet until he adjusted to the inky black. The air in the cave was not still. Wafts of salty sea breeze swept over Declan’s face, and he inched toward the source.

  The four men remained connected, one hand on the wall, the other hand on the shoulder of the man in front of them. Declan moved forward, guiding them down, down, down—partly by memory, partly by instinct, mostly by his need to reach Caya.

  None of them spoke. The only sound was their collective breathing, which echoed eerily inside the cave. At last, he saw the literal light at the end of the tunnel. The half-moon cast a pale blue glow on the beach. To their good fortune, the four pirates huddled downwind of their fire, their backs to the cave opening. The swoosh of the wind and waves, the crackle of the fire, and the talk among the pirates covered the sound of blades being drawn and bare feet padding over stone.

  Working as one, the gruesome job was over in an instant. Declan signaled the others waiting above, then pulled the dead men into the shadow of the cave and removed the blood-soaked clothing while Alex and the others descended the cliffside path and hid inside the cave.

  Upon reaching the beach, Alex joined Uncle John and Ian inside the cave. They made their transformations into pirate clothes and resumed positions around the fire. Declan breathed in. Taking action, taking a life, helped assuage his fear. He calmed himself and readied his mind and body for battle. There would be more blood spilled tonight. Payment for Caya’s abduction. Hopefully, none of it would be Sinclair blood.

  He took a moment to inspect the two dead bodies lying at the base of the cliff. One of them was Jack Pendarvis. A small part of him felt sorry for the foolish man, sorry for the grief Caya must feel for losing her brother. But the greater part of him was relieved he wouldn’t have to kill the man himself. Caya might never have forgiven him.

  Taking the oarsmen was child’s play. Ian and Declan made the killings. Magnus and Uncle Fergus donned the bloody garments of the oarsmen. They doused the fire and readied the launch.

  Laird John stopped Hamish. “I need you to remain on shore. After we take the ship, we’ll signal, and you can relight the fire.” John turned to Vicar James. “You’ll lie facedown in the bottom of the craft, covered with the tarpaulin until the six of us are over the rail and the battle has begun. You’ll stay with the boat. We’ll get Caya off the ship first, and you’ll row her back to safety.”

  “Understood,” the vicar said.

  Peter, Oswald, and the six disguised men climbed into the launch. As they rowed toward The Tigress, Peter asked, “What about me?”

  “Ah, yes. You’ll be the diversion,” John said. Declan heard a smile in his uncle’s voice.

  After a desperate struggle and vehemently whispered protests, Alex and Laird John had dressed Peter in tartan plaid and head kerchief to look like a lass. If Declan weren’t worried to the point of madness, he would have laughed.

  “There now, laddie,” John said. “The crew will be so busy looking at the whore we’ve brought them, they willnae pay any mind to the rest of us.”

  “But I want to fight.”

  “Peter, listen,” Declan said, turning the boy to face him. “You ken the layout of the ship. As soon as we’re on board, point me to the captain’s quarters. That’s most likely where Caya will be, aye?”

  “Aye,” Peter said grudgingly.

  “Then throw off your women’s clobber and check the hold. There’s a chance he would lock Caya in a cabin below. I want her freed and off the ship as quick as ye can. Do you understand, man?”

  “We’re halfway there,” John said. “Time to start the performance, men.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  A resounding thump came from the deck, sending a shower of dust down upon the women’s heads. O’Malley shouted curses and warnings of bodily harm should any of the crew damage his cargo.

  “Whatever is going on up there?” Lady Charlotte gazed upward as if she might see through the ceiling boards.

  “They’re loading a cache of stolen whisky.” Caya noted the unnatural calm in her voice.

  “I see,” Lady Charlotte said. “If you don’t mind my asking, are you really from around here? You don’t sound like a Scot.”

  “You sound Cornish, actually,” Miss Whitebridge put in.

  “I am Cornish. I’m from Penzance to be exact, Miss Whitebridge.”

  “I knew it.” She clapped her hands, pleased for having guessed Caya’s origins. “But you must call me Virginia. We use our Christian names just as sisters would, do we not, Mary?”

  “Yes, but what on earth is a Cornish lass doing in the Highlands?” Mary plunked herself on a crate, elbows on her knees.

  “Long story.”

  “Believe me,” Charlotte said, “we have the time.”

  Virginia brightened. “I know. We’ll each share our own stories to make you feel more comfortable. I’ll begin.”

  In the following hours, while the light from the lantern held, each woman retold her story for Caya’s benefit. Interestingly, telling the story of their pathways to bondage seemed to calm them, as if speaking the names and places of their homes kept their pasts alive, kept their hope for salvation alive, kept them alive.

  Virginia Whitebridge, daughter of a wealthy spice merchant, had been snatched from the streets of London while shopping.

  “I blame myself to a certain degree,” she said. “I
should never have gone to the bookshop alone. On my way, a boy called to me for help. I followed him down an alley. Harmless, I thought. The next thing I knew, someone knocked my spectacles off my nose, covered my mouth, and dragged me to a carriage. I must have fainted because I don’t remember being carried to the ship. I wouldn’t mind so very much if I had my spectacles. I’m positively lost without them.”

  Charlotte Goulding had an even more sinister tale to tell. She had inherited the bulk of her father’s sizable estate. Though Lord Goulding had left a substantial jointure to his second wife, Charlotte’s stepmother made it plain she was unhappy with the settlement. “I have no evidence, but I would bet my life that witch sold me to O’Malley.”

  Morag Sinkler wept openly when she told her story. The girl couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old. She had made the mistake of stopping at the candy store for a lolly on the way home from church.

  “If I hadnae been sae greedy for the sweets, I wouldnae be here.”

  Virginia placed an arm around Morag and comforted her.

  “I wasn’t so much sold as passed off,” Mary Tucker said. Her brother was secretary to a member of Scotland Parliament. They had lived in a flat in Edinburgh off High Street. The flat was suited for two, but when her brother announced his engagement, he also announced that he had arranged for Mary to wed a well-to-do herring merchant named Sean O’Malley.

  “That sounds familiar,” Caya said.

  And so she began her story. She was surprised by her own candor. There seemed no reason to hide any detail. Rather than stupefaction and shock, she received nods of sympathy, sounds of understanding, reassurances of their similar bond. They embraced her and welcomed her into their sisterhood of exile.

  Though their stories were unique, they had two things in common: all five women were from good families and all were unmarried. O’Malley had told them virgins would fetch a better price.

  Mary leaned forward. “If the captain thinks for a minute yer no’ a maid, he’ll pass you among the crew—”

  “Mary, please,” Virginia said.

  “She’s right, though,” Charlotte added. “From the things the captain has said, I don’t think he’ll sell us to a brothel. Most likely some lonely man who desires a…a…” Charlotte’s voice quavered, showing for the first time a crack in what seemed to be her impenetrable English armor.

  “Have you tried to escape?” Caya asked.

  “And go where?” Mary said. “We’re surrounded by the sea.”

  “The captain doesn’t lock us in to keep us from escaping. He locks us in to keep his crew out,” Virginia said. “That’s one thing to be grateful for.”

  “That doesn’t stop them from—”

  “Mary, don’t say it,” Virginia cautioned. “You’ll upset her.”

  “Don’t say what?” Caya asked. The women looked at the floor. “Tell me. Please.”

  Mary lifted her chin. “Some of the crew come down here and…expose themselves.”

  “We never look,” Charlotte said.

  “But you can hear them do unspeakable things,” Mary added, her face twisted with disgust.

  “If ever I get the chance,” Morag said, her small hands clenched in fists, “I’m going to stab Captain O’Malley in the heart.”

  Caya imagined for a moment how satisfying stabbing the man would be. Never once in her life had she thought to kill someone before. Today, though, she understood the hatred and loathing that drove men and women to murder.

  The regular thump of footsteps above changed to shouts and raucous laughter.

  “What’s happening?” Lady Charlotte raised her question to the ceiling again.

  “Dinnae ken.” Mary stretched and yawned.

  “They’ve finished loading the whisky. They’ll be raising anchor and setting sail,” Caya said in a flat voice. “It’ll be morning soon.”

  Suddenly, shouts shot across the deck above them. Screeching, howling cries. Roars so loud, so long, and so murderous all the hairs on Caya’s arms stood on end. The five women rose, their faces upturned.

  “What is that?” Virginia asked.

  Mary laughed. “That, my dear ladies, is a Highland war cry. We’ve been boarded by Scots!”

  “Someone’s come to save us.” Morag flung her arms around Mary.

  Caya hesitated. She wanted to believe it. Dare she hope?

  “Miss Caya, are you down there?”

  “Peter, is that you?”

  “Aye, miss. Anyone else down there with you?”

  “Just women. There are five of us ladies. We’re locked inside a cage.”

  “Coming.”

  She heard Peter stomp down the ladder, run, stumble, hit the floorboards, curse, and pick himself up. “I’m all right.”

  “We’re over here.”

  “I can see ye now.”

  Peter pulled at the hasp, kicked it, then used his dirk to prize open the lock. When that didn’t work, he used the handle of his knife as a hammer. The sounds from above grew more and more disturbing. Peter continued to pound on the lock while Caya’s fear they might not escape in time mounted.

  “Peter, whatever you’re doing isn’t working,” she said.

  “Aye.” He panted from the effort. “I’ve got an idea.”

  Tinny sounds, like someone hammering a nail, resonated through the slatted door. All the while, shouts of agony, the clang and zing of steel blades, and the occasional crack of gunfire emanated from above.

  “Hurry, Peter. Hurry,” she said, desperate for freedom.

  “I’m taking the hinge pins out, miss. Almost done.” He grunted once. “There.”

  Caya pushed hard, and the door crashed to the floor, revealing a grinning Peter holding a dirk. She’d never been so happy to see his dirty face. Her sisters stood wide-eyed, clinging to one another. Except for Mary. She’d smashed the wooden crate and held a jagged piece of it in her hand like a club.

  Peter swept them a courtly bow. In his most manly voice, he said, “Follow me, please, ladies, and keep your heads doon.”

  He scampered up the ladder. “All’s clear. Come up one at a time.” Caya held the base of the ladder for Virginia to climb into the air above. They waited at the bottom, gazing up through the hole. It seemed like forever. Then Peter called for the next.

  “You go,” Charlotte said to Caya.

  “No. Morag, it’s your turn. Go quickly.” Morag hiked her skirts and ran up the ladder.

  Again, the women waited.

  “Next,” Peter shouted. “And hurry.”

  Mary and Caya took Charlotte by both arms and shoved her up the ladder. While they waited, she and Mary looked at each other, smiling, knowing full well they would argue over who would go next.

  “Even or odd?” Mary asked.

  Caya knew the game. “Odd,” she said, and put a hand behind her back.

  “One, two, three.”

  Their hands shot out, and the dawning light shone down through the cargo opening on Caya’s two fingers, and Mary’s one.

  “I stay,” Caya said. “You’re next. Up you go.”

  When Mary disappeared, Caya felt a ball of panic swell in her chest. What if she didn’t make it off the boat?

  “Next,” Peter called, and Caya hiked up her skirts.

  Above and out in the open, she squinted in the dawn light. The deck was a hellish chaos filled with curses, gun smoke, and blood. One man she didn’t recognize lay on the boards screaming. His belly had been slashed open, and he held his insides in with both hands.

  “Come on, Miss Caya.” Peter pulled her toward the railing.

  She coughed and waved away the gun smoke. Then she saw him, Declan, in a ferocious battle with a large sailor. It looked as though the sailor had the upper hand. His attacker advanced a step, and Declan retreated two. He blocked each blow of the blade with his own.

  “Come,” Peter pleaded.

  But she couldn’t leave until she knew Declan was safe. He stumbled and Caya caught her breath. The
sailor’s blade came down. She shut her eyes, unable to watch. How could she watch her beloved killed? And yet, she had to know. Caya forced her eyes open in time to see Declan’s blade thrust up and through the sailor. He rolled, and the big sailor dropped to the deck, flailing.

  With effort, Declan withdrew his blade from the man’s body.

  “Declan,” she called out.

  His head snapped up, eyes tracking the deck until they fastened on her. A sudden burst of shame flooded her body. The danger they were in, this battle, all this blood and carnage was her fault. What if one of the Sinclair men was injured or killed? Would Declan ever forgive her? For that split second, her fate teetered in the balance. Had Declan come for the whisky? Or had he come for her?

  And then he smiled with such relief in his eyes she thought her knees would buckle under her. He had come for her. He’d risked everything for her, and she knew by the look on his face that nothing could have stopped him. True to his promise, he was there to protect her, and for a moment she felt safe again, sheltered, as though she were in his arms. Safe from all the ills in the world. Forgiven.

  He took a step forward, and another figure loomed up behind him.

  “No!” she screamed.

  Declan’s head jerked and his body slumped sideways against the ship’s railing. A man had clubbed her beloved in the head with the blunt end of his pistol. She ran to Declan, but before she could reach him, the pirate pushed his slack body overboard.

  “Declan!” Caya reached for the railing. Declan couldn’t swim. He would drown. She had to save him. A hand slapped around her wrist, halting her forward motion, holding her fast.

  “You’re staying with me,” the blood-spattered face growled.

  Caya kicked, punched, scratched, and twisted. Anything to free herself and get to Declan. “Let go of me, you bastard. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you!”

  When the man released her, she stopped her flailing, surprised he had obeyed her wishes. The look on his face went from vicious to blank. Then, he crumpled to the deck, a slow graceful fall. Peter stood behind him, holding his bloody dirk and looking surprised.

  “Thank you, Peter,” Caya called, and she vaulted over the railing.