by Julia London
Aulay was momentarily at a loss for words. But Lottie had found her words, and she stepped into the cabin. “These last days have been frightening, and devastating...and exhilarating and remarkable,” she said earnestly. “I’ve lived an entire lifetime in a matter of days.”
He understood her sentiment completely—his own eyes had been opened after thirty-seven years.
“I’ve changed in so many ways, Aulay, and no matter what awaits me, I find it impossible to contain my feelings, aye? I’ve no’ always confessed my true feelings when it mattered most, but now I know—I canna leave you without saying that I esteem you,” she said, her hand pressed to her heart. “Beyond my wildest imaginings.”
Her voice broke, and Aulay moved before he thought, taking her hand, pulling her into the cabin and into his embrace, heedless of others who might see them. He pressed his face into her hair, inhaling her scent. They’d been days at sea, and yet she smelled sweet to him, felt soft and warm. Everything about her was, in his eyes, perfection.
Lottie slipped her arms around his waist and whispered, “I’ve longed so for you to hold me.”
“Lottie.” His head clashed painfully with his heart. Lottie had captured him in body and spirit. But he also loved his ship, and his life at sea—it was all that had mattered to him until a few short days ago. He didn’t know what mattered any more. He couldn’t fathom what he had to do in Scotland, how he’d be forced to avenge his ship, his life, his good name.
None of it made sense. None of it seemed right. No matter what path he chose, it was the wrong one. He couldn’t even say with certainty if she was sincere now, or if she meant to seduce him into freeing her.
“I thought you hated me,” she muttered.
“Hate you? I could never hate you, Lottie. No matter what else, I could never hate you.” I love you. Can you no’ see it? Can you no’ see the source of my torment? I love you.
He picked her up, kicked the door shut with his heel, then turned her about and sat her on the table. He kissed her as he slipped in between her thighs. She wrapped her arms around his neck and returned his kiss with vigor, stoking a hot, intense flame in him that he’d be a fool to touch.
But Aulay was weak—he not only touched that flame, he let it consume him.
His hands wandered over her body, down her arms, up her torso to her breasts. He cupped them in his hands as he kissed her. He could feel a strange tightening in his chest—he was not a superstitious or sentimental man, but he felt something pulling them together, some force greater than the both of them locking its arms around them. He was, for better or worse, connected to this woman in a profound way.
She shifted, pressed against his hardness. She was not shy, which made Aulay want her that much more. So many deep-seated emotions were bubbling up in him, surprising him. He wanted to hold her, to protect her. He wanted to make love to her, to be inside her. But a nagging thought kept pressing against his wildly beating heart, trying desperately to slow it, to slow him.
She raked her hands down his chest, and Aulay caught her hands. “I donna want to give you false hope, Lottie.”
Her eyes shimmered in the low light. With desire. With need. “I donna care—”
“You do care—you, of all people, must care. No matter what happens between us, it doesna change the truth of what we both must face. Do you understand, me?” he asked, and caught her face between his hands, forcing her to focus on him. “Tell me you understand what I say, leannan.”
“Aye, I understand,” she said solemnly, and carefully brushed aside a thick strand of his hair from his eyes. “I’m no’ a fool, Aulay. I understand the stakes. But if my life as I know it is to end, one way or another, I will have it be worth the judgment. Do you understand?”
She touched him far more deeply than he would have believed his heart could be touched by sentiment. His emotions were roiling again, waves crashing through him, each one rising higher than the last, falling harder and faster. She’d sparked a helpless and powerful need to feel her body beneath his, her heart pressed against his chest.
Aulay moved his hands over her shoulders and down her sides, untying the knot in the tails of the shirt she wore, then lifting it over her head. He picked her up off the table, put her on her feet and unlaced her trews. They fell and pooled at her ankles, and she stepped out of them.
She was stunning, a vision of feminine beauty with heavy breasts, a curve of waist into hips, and long slender legs. Aulay’s blood was rushing in his veins, and he quickly removed his clothes as she unbraided her hair and let that glorious curtain fall around her shoulders.
He gathered her up, kissed the hollow of her throat, then groped for his greatcoat and threw it onto his bunk before laying her down on top of it. “Diah help me, Lottie, but you’ve bewitched me, that you have,” he said, and kissed her lips. “I am your servant.” He kissed her cheeks, her mouth, her neck, and moved down, to her breasts.
She slid her fingers into his hair, arching into him. “I donna want a servant—I want a lover.”
He’d thought he couldn’t be more aroused, but she sent him higher. He wanted to explore her, every muscle, every patch of soft skin. He wanted to absorb the feel of her body into his so that he’d never forget it. He would fill her with his desire, would show her what it meant to love in a life worth living, to know what it felt to be loved. He did love her. In these moments with her, he knew that he loved her.
A deep sigh of pleasure escaped her; she dug her fingers into his shoulders as he moved his attention to her breasts. She arched her back into him, her legs moving against his, pressing against his erection. He slid his hand down her body, over the flare of her hip and her leg, and then between them.
Lottie’s breath quickened, warm against his cheek. Aulay moved from the primal place that resided in every man and pushed her thighs apart with his knee, then pressed against her. She caught his face in her hands before he entered her, staring into his eyes, searching for...what? He was beyond control, lost in the ecstasy of her, impatient to carry on.
Lottie smiled. She kissed him, raking her fingers through his hair.
“Aye, what?” he whispered a wee bit desperately.
“You, Aulay. You’re what.”
He sank into those words. He moved his hand down her body, skimming her breast, her abdomen, and caught hold of her hip as he slid his body into hers and began to move.
This was not like their frenzied coupling of the other night, when they’d been driven by a lust born from heartbreak. This was greater than that—this was a coming together in a more primal sense, a man and a woman performing an ancient dance of being one. She had possessed him, and he possessed her, his strokes urgent, his desire swelling and taking ravenous shape.
Lottie gasped with her release; Aulay lost himself in his own. He sought his breath, clinging to the sensations of their coming together for as long as could. But at last he did prop himself on his arms and gaze down at her, pulling a thick strand of hair from her face.
Her eyes were closed, her expression one of utter happiness, free of pain and worry. She had never been more alluring to him.
“Tha thu breagha,” he murmured. You are beautiful.
She smiled, opened her eyes and touched her fingers to his chin, then kissed his jaw before pushing her face into his neck and shoulder and turning into him.
Aye, it was worth it, Lottie.
At least to him, it had been worth every moment.
CHAPTER TWENTY
LOTTIE WOKE UP with a start.
She was still wrapped in the warmth of Aulay’s arms—a safe harbor.
She carefully untangled herself, kissed his bare chest, and slipped off the bunk. Aulay didn’t move—he was sleeping so soundly that she wondered how long he’d gone without sleep. She dressed quietly and quit the cabin. It was the middle of the night—there was no one on deck that
she could see but a pair of Mackenzie men, one of them minding the wheel, one of them with a spyglass held to his eye. She wondered what he could possibly see in the light of a moon.
She snuck into the forward cabin and stepped over Mathais. Drustan had taken one bunk and she crawled onto the other. In mere moments, she had drifted into blissful sleep.
The sun had risen when she woke again. Lottie stretched, happy as a new bride. She felt sated. She felt loved. Not in the way gentlemen generally professed their affection for her while looking at her with a bit of a leer in their eyes. But loved, deep and wide, body and soul. She’d never felt so desired like this. As if he desired all of her, and not just her looks. Aye, those moments with Aulay had been worth every moment of her life thus far.
“Why are you smiling, then?”
“What? Pardon?” Lottie sat up with a start. She hadn’t noticed Mathais was awake and dressed. He’d pulled his blond hair into a queue in the manner Aulay wore his gold locks at times.
“You were smiling in your sleep,” he said, staring at her curiously. “Were you dreaming of Fader?”
No. For the first time in days, not for one blessed moment. “Aye, I suppose I was,” she lied. “Do you remember the summer he bred those pups to hunt the rabbits?” She smiled with the fond memory of the puppies romping around their small salon. Unfortunately, her father had brought home pups that were useless for hunting rabbits, but better suited to sitting in ladies’ laps.
Mathais stared at her as if she were speaking Danish. He bounced a leg impatiently. “We’ve no time for talk of dogs, Lottie,” he chastised her, and began to pace, full of nerves. “A ship is near us. Sailed all night to reach us, that’s what Gilroy says.”
“What?” She leaped to her feet and started to look around for shoes. “Whose ship, then?”
“That’s the problem, aye? It’s got no flags, no markers.” He suddenly gasped. “It could verra well be a ghost ship.”
Lottie had no idea what that was and had no desire to learn. “Where is Dru?”
“Where is he always, then? Sitting on a barrel, carving on a piece of bloody wood.”
Lottie gave her youngest brother a sharp look. He shrugged sheepishly. “Well, he’s taken no notice of the ship or anything else,” Mathais complained. “Gilroy says it might be excise men,” he excitedly continued. “Or a privateer. But it could be a ghost ship.” He spoke with far too much eagerness for Lottie’s tastes.
Her heart began to race with apprehension—this was exactly what had happened a little more than a week ago—a ship had come too close and they’d speculated about who or what it was. She located her boots and yanked them on, and followed Mathais out onto the deck. A few men were standing at the port side staring out at the ship. Diah but it was quite close, sailing in parallel to them. She could see men on board that ship, the guns pointed at them, and her heart jumped. Not again.
Livingstones and Mackenzies alike were scrambling to change sails and move crates and casks around on the deck, to pull guns into place. She leaped off the forecastle landing onto the main deck and ran to Duff, who was among those at the railing. She tugged on his sleeve to gain his attention. “Who is it? What’s happening?”
“Canna say. But they are in dire pursuit of us, that they are.”
She heard Aulay bark a command to two men up on the masts. She whirled around at the sound of his voice, seeking him, but at that moment, Drustan noticed something was amiss, and stood up from his crate and bellowed for Lottie.
Aulay’s head snapped around. He looked at Drustan, then shifted his gaze to Lottie.
“Aye,” she said, understanding his look—his command, really—and went to Drustan. Her poor brother, bless him, was confused and in the way of men who were working to keep ahead of the other ship.
“Take him below,” Aulay said, and reached for the spyglass from Iain the Red.
“Who is it?” Lottie asked.
“I donna know,” he said, and held the spyglass up to his eye as he spoke to Iain in Gaelic. He handed Iain the spyglass then whipped around, nearly colliding with Lottie. “Lass, please, aye?” he said, gesturing to the hatch. “Take you brother and go below. We canna have the two of you underfoot.”
She wished he would assure her, she wished she could assure him that no one was more willing to help than she, but he’d already moved on, shouting up to the men on the masts.
Behind her, Drustan knocked a cask that rolled into one of the guns. Lottie caught his arms and made him look at her. His eyes were unfocused, something that happened when the world didn’t make sense to him. It was as if he disappeared inside himself. “I’m here, Dru. Where is your wood?” she asked, turning him toward the hatch that led to the hold.
Drustan looked down at his hands, his brow furrowed. “I donna know. Have I lost it, then?”
“Let’s have a look below, aye?” she said. “If we donna find it there, we’ll start anew.”
“Here it is!” he suddenly shouted, having located it in his pocket, and allowed Lottie to steer him down into the hold.
After several days of housing too many men, the hold had a certain stench to it. Drustan was quite at home here, apparently, for he plopped onto a pile of straw and began to work on his bit of wood, bowing over it, squinting as he carefully carved slivers from it, already having forgotten whatever had happened on deck.
Sometimes, Lottie wished she could live as simply as her brother—how bonny it would be. Unfortunately, she had nothing but worry to occupy her and all she could do was wait.
She paced endlessly. She went in search of candles to replace one that had burned down. She could hear the men overhead, sometimes moving things about, sometimes shouting. How much time passed? An hour? Four? It seemed an eternity before the hatch was suddenly thrown open, startling her and Drustan both. Mathais clambered down the steps, leaping halfway and landing squarely into their midst.
“What has happened?” she demanded.
Her brother was aflutter, unable to keep still. “We’re to sail through the Pentland Firth!”
Lottie had no idea where that was or the significance of it. “Aye, and...?”
“And it could be quite dangerous if you donna know what you’re about. It’s a bit of sea between the Orkney Islands and the mainland, aye? Sailors are meant to go between the Orkneys and the Shetlands, for the sea is wider there. The firth is narrow and the tides are fast, and that’s why we’ll sail it. Gilroy says if we enter the firth at the right time, the sea will sling us round the bend.”
“What?” Lottie exclaimed. “What bend? That seems so—”
“Dangerous, aye,” Mathais said, his eyes gleaming with the prospect.
“And the other ship? Will they no’ be slung as well?”
“Aye, they’re just behind us!” Mathais announced.
“No, no no,” Drustan said. “I donna want another ship!”
“Aye, Dru, but you’re no’ to fret,” Mathais said with great authority. “We’ll beat them, we will. We will win!”
“We’ll win!” Drustan shouted.
Lottie’s breath was growing short with her nerves. “I must... I have to see with my own eyes, Mats. I have to understand what is happening. Stay with Drustan.”
“But I’m to help!” Mathais exclaimed.
“Aye, and you will. But I must see!”
“No, Lottie, I donna want you to go up there. Stay here!” Drustan wailed.
“She’ll come back, Dru, she always comes back,” Mathais said impatiently. “Donna weep over it. I hate when you weep.”
Lottie hurried up the steps before either one of them could stop her.
The wind had picked up and knocked her back a step as she emerged onto the deck. All around her men were engaged, pulling ropes, rolling sails or manning the yards. She picked her way through the throng, trying to stay out of their way,
but finding herself in the wrong spot when someone shoved a crate and it narrowly missed knocking her right over the railing.
She climbed the steps to the quarterdeck, where Aulay, Beaty, Duff and Gilroy were gathered. Aulay stood at the wheel, his legs braced apart, his hair uncovered, whipped by the wind. She turned around to look behind them and gasped. The ship was closer than it had been earlier today. “What do they want?” she demanded of no one in particular.
“What do they ever want?” Duff said.
“You ought no’ to be here now,” Aulay said to her, sparing her a glance.
A strong wave knocked the ship to its right, spraying the quarterdeck. Lottie lost her footing and went down hard.
“Take the wheel, Beaty,” she heard Aulay say, and then felt two strong arms slide under her arms and haul her to her feet. Aulay marched her down the steps to the main deck. “Go below, leannan. I’ll no’ see you harmed.”
He turned to go but Lottie caught his arm. “Aulay, I...”
“Save it,” he said, not unkindly, but in the manner of a man who had much more important things to do than soothe her.
It was just as well. Lottie didn’t know what she meant to say, really. Sorry seemed woefully inadequate. Save us seemed too bloody obvious. Hold me, I’m frightened was unfair.
Mathais was quick to hurry back up to the deck when she returned, disappearing through the hatch before she could speak to him. “Mind you have a care!” she shouted after him.
“Aye, aye!” he called down, and let the hatch door slam shut.
Lottie and Drustan went back to waiting.
Minutes turned to hours, long enough that Lottie twice replaced the candle in the lantern that swung from a beam above their heads. She found something for them to eat, but mostly, she moved restlessly about. Occasionally she looked up when she heard shouting. She watched Drustan cover his head when they heard a lot of movement above them, sounding like a herd of cattle charging. And then there was nothing but the creaks and moans of the ship moving through water.