Broderick leaned as far over the side as he dared and stretched out a hand, unsure if the man could see him for all the hair plastered to his face. “Leave it off,” he yelled. “’Twill drag ye down.”
“Nay, I canna…”
He disappeared again only to surge out of the water moments later, one arm holding the plaid aloft.
Broderick blinked. The white arm was slender. The wet shirt plastered to the man’s chest revealed what looked remarkably like…
Without a second thought, he unfastened his sword belt, stripped off his tunic, and dove into the seething water.
Off Balance
“Chuir thu fodha bàta m’athar,” Kyla spluttered, surrendering to the strong arm clamped under her breasts.
“Put yer anger into kicking,” came the hoarse reply.
Her rescuer was right. There’d be time enough for accusations about sinking her father’s boat. Staying alive was the priority.
She forced numbed legs to tread water, all the while hugging the precious MacKeegan plaid to her chest as she was pulled to the gunboat.
The garment might have dragged her to her death, but it was the only piece of clan identity remaining in this foreign place now the Lanmara was gone.
She squeezed her eyes shut to ward off the vision of her father’s grief when he learned the news. She had failed him.
Rough hands hauled her aboard the gunboat, and a mighty shove on her bottom sent her sprawling. Choking and shivering, she squinted into the too bright sky, then turned her head and coughed up seawater.
“A sailor should learn to swim.”
Confused, she sat up and gazed around, blinking the stinging salt from her eyes. Agitated men rushed from stem to stern. A goodly number of her own crew lay on the deck.
But the sarcasm had come from a man hunkered down a few feet away, watching her with dark eyes. Black hair hung like a wet curtain around his ruggedly handsome face. His broad chest rose and fell as he regained his breath. The wet shirt clinging to his torso only enhanced impressive muscles.
She was struck dumb by the unexpected beauty of the man who had saved her life, but then his words penetrated the fog and indignation soared. “In the Isles there was ne’er a danger of my galley sinking,” she retorted.
He smirked. “I thought ye said the birlinn belonged to yer father.”
An icy chill raced across her nape that had naught to do with nigh on drowning in cold water. According to Lochwood, no one in the Lowlands spoke the Gaelic.
It suddenly occurred to her she’d given no thought to what had become of the lunatic. Her gaze darted here and there, but failed to count him among the survivors.
“We’re assuming yer captain drowned,” her rescuer said. “I’m Laird Broderick Maxwell, by the way, and I arrest ye in the name of the king.”
*
Apparently satisfied there were no more men to be fished out of the firth, Aiglon returned to her perch, settled her feathers and studied the woman Broderick had rescued.
As well she might.
Even half-drowned and seething with fury, she was a sight to behold. He’d never seen a lass with such an abundance of glorious hair and anticipated it would be even redder when it dried. A man could do worse than wake each day wrapped in those tresses. The memory of firm breasts pressed against his forearm was still vivid.
But her next remark jolted him from his preoccupation with her physical allure.
“My father will expect ye to pay damages.”
He snorted. “And who might yer father be?” he asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.
“Darroch, Chief o’ Clan MacKeegan o’ Sleat, and husband to Isabel MacRain, daughter of the chief o’ Clan MacRain.”
Feigning astonishment at the extent of her father’s power, he widened his eyes and gaped, but then laughed. “Weel, ye can tell yer father his boat is at the bottom of the Solway because his crew failed to heed a warning from King James’ Warden.”
“Is that the reason I am being arrested?”
“That, and for smuggling…opium probably.”
Green eyes flashed, turning the interest stirring at his groin into an inconvenient erection the likes of which he hadn’t experienced in many a year.
“No MacKeegan will ever allow opium on board any of their galleys,” she insisted vehemently. “’Tis a matter o’ principle. My stepmother’s father nearly died of opium poisoning.”
She bit her bottom lip, leaving him with the impression she regretted revealing personal details about her family. “Our cargo consisted of woven cloth and hides bound for English markets.”
So, she wasn’t Isabel MacRain’s daughter. He wanted to know more about this enthralling woman, but first things first. “Why did yer captain nay obey?”
She shrugged. “’Tisna wise to argue when ye have a pistol pointed at yer head.”
Broderick was confused. “I thought the man with the pistol was the captain.”
She lifted her chin. “Ye’re mistaken. That was Laird Corbin Lochwood.”
Her revelation caused him to scan the rescued sailors aboard his ship once more. He shouldn’t be elated a man might have drowned, but the prospect of Lochwood’s death filled him with a sense of satisfaction. “Then who was in charge of yer boat?”
She dragged the sodden plaid around her shivering shoulders. “I’m Kyla MacKeegan, and I’ll thank ye to address me with the respect befitting my station as captain.”
“But ye’re a woman,” he replied, instantly regretting the words. He might have known this Hebridean spitfire clad in male clothing was capable of captaining a birlinn.
She snorted. “Lowland women might be too ladylike to captain ships. We’re made o’ sterner stuff.”
The galley lurched as his crew got them underway, headed for shore. The chilly wind turned Broderick’s wet shirt into a clammy shroud. He got to his feet and pulled it off over his head. “Fetch blankets,” he shouted to Delft, throwing the shirt to the deck.
He turned to apologize for his remark, but the words died in his throat. Her gaze traveled slowly from his chest to his groin and back. The fire in her eyes smoldered still, but now there was a hint of lust as she licked her lips.
Despite himself, he squared his shoulders and sucked in his belly, furling the rough blanket around his shoulders like a cape when Delft handed it to him.
He was being devoured by a stunningly beautiful woman. It was a new experience, and he liked it.
*
Despite the chilly wind, a wave of heat rolled over Kyla as she gaped at the half-naked laird who’d rescued her. She snapped her mouth shut. He’d knocked her off balance and she didn’t like the feeling one little bit. It fueled her anger.
The arrogant Lowlander strutting around the deck had sunk the Lanmara and drowned men for no good reason. “Of all the vessels plying the Solway, why did ye decide to pursue us?” she asked, teeth chattering as an icy premonition crept up her spine.
“Ye changed course after the Point,” he replied, avoiding her gaze.
She rolled her eyes in an effort to stop staring at well-muscled thighs braced against the ship’s movement. “So ye challenge every boat heading for Bowness?”
“We were on the lookout for a birlinn,” he admitted, stooping to retrieve his sword belt from the deck.
He fastened the belt around lean hips, all the while securing the cape blanket with his chin. He suddenly and unexpectedly looked endearingly vulnerable.
No, no, no. Her parents may have been smitten as soon as they met, but this swaggering sod had destroyed…
Something he’d said echoed in her frozen brain. They were searching for a birlinn…a vessel from the Hebrides.
She narrowed her eyes. “Ye were hunting Corbin Lochwood. I ken all about yer feud. Ye sank us in the hopes of killing him, and it seems ye’ve succeeded. Ye’re naught but a pirate and a murderer.”
*
Corbin had to hope the incoming tide would eventually carry him to shore�
��if the bale of cloth to which he clung didn’t become waterlogged and sink. His chances were better now he’d forced Adrian to loosen his grip and fend for himself.
Provided the salt water hadn’t ruined the wool, he’d salvage something from the catastrophe.
He chuckled at his folly, despite the cold fear gnawing at his belly. The icy water had already drained the strength from his legs and apparently frozen his brain as well. Revenge would be the harvest of this fiasco, not a pile of woolen cloth woven in some godforsaken croft.
He floated alone amid bits of splintered wood. At least the confounded eagle had ceased swooping over him. He remembered his grandfather’s gillie telling him they pecked out a man’s eyes first. He gritted his chattering teeth, resolved to survive this ordeal. He had no intention of becoming fodder for a bird of prey.
He’d watched the gallant Maxwell rescue Kyla. The gunboat was now a faint dot on the horizon, headed no doubt for Caerlochnaven.
He may have lost the lucrative trading goods he’d traveled so far to obtain, and the opium that would have secured his fortune, but he’d be damned if he’d let Maxwell steal the redhead.
She was his.
Tunnel
Maxwell donned a tunic once they were underway, then offered Kyla his blanket.
The tempting offer came as a surprise. The wet plaid weighed heavily on her shoulders, but she shook her head.
Before she had a chance to protest, he whisked the plaid away. She tried to get to her feet to grasp it out of his hands, but her stiff limbs refused to cooperate.
“Dinna worry,” he said with a grin, letting the plaid fall to the deck in a puddle. “Ye can keep an eye on it here.”
He hunkered down beside her and enfolded her in his blanket. “Better?” he asked, still smiling.
She wanted to wipe the infuriating grin off his handsome face, but had to admit the rough blanket brought comfort. She clung to its edges and snuggled into it as he walked away, annoyed that she liked the damp male scent of him lingering in the wool.
Her spirits plummeted when she caught sight of a large castle dominating the distant skyline as they approached the estuary of the Nith. Like Dun Scaith, it looked like the epitome of an ancient medieval stronghold. Unlike her wind-blackened island home, it was built of some kind of red stone.
“Sandstone,” Maxwell explained.
She scowled at him. How did he know what she was thinking? Next he’d be telling her the name of the bastion.
“Caerlochnaven,” he said, his voice full of pride. “My home.”
Kyla saw a foreboding place in whose dank bowels she was doomed to be imprisoned.
She’d thought the castle sat at the confluence of the Nith and the Solway, but, once they reached shore, realized it was actually further inland. She doubted her legs would carry her that far if she was forced to walk.
She begrudgingly accepted Maxwell’s help climbing over the side of the gunboat. The warmth of his strong hand was annoyingly comforting. Determined not to give him the satisfaction of thinking she was grateful, she stuck out her bottom lip and wrung water out of her plaid. “At least ’tis a mite warmer here out o’ the wind.”
He made a mock bow. “Ye’re welcome, my lady. Can ye ride a horse?”
“O’ course,” she snorted, picturing her father rolling his eyes. She’d never been as enamored with horses as her parents. But the suggestion she might ride was too good to pass up. In her current state, a short journey on horseback was preferable to walking.
Maxwell spoke to one of his men, then strode over to take the reins of a handsome roan from a servant. He mounted the big horse with ease.
Taken aback when he reached out a hand, she glanced over to the surviving members of her crew, huddled together a few yards away. They’d all been issued blankets—a sign Maxwell wasn’t all bad. She was relieved to see Nicolson among them; he’d apparently taken Lochwood’s shivering young valet under his wing.
“Do ye want to ride with me or nay?” Maxwell growled.
“’Tis my duty to stay with my crew,” she murmured, folding her plaid into a manageable square.
“They’ll have to walk. Nay enough horses.”
Cursing her own weakness, she took his hand and mounted behind him, jamming the wet plaid between their bodies.
*
Broderick would have preferred the pleasant torture of Kyla MacKeegan’s breasts pressed against his back instead of a wet plaid. But at least she’d agreed to ride with him, though why he’d suggested it…
She was his prisoner after all.
But her accusation that he was a murderer still rankled; if she knew of the feud, she must know of his father’s crime. Had he gone too far in his haste to catch Lochwood in a criminal act and caused unnecessary deaths?
For some reason beyond his understanding, he wanted her good opinion, wanted her to again look at him the way she had immediately after the rescue.
Despite her determination to deny her feminine side, she was very much a woman—a strong and attractive one at that. She’d wedged the wet wool between them but the thighs rubbing against his were firm and…
He lost his train of thought as he imagined those athletic legs wrapped around his hips in the throes of passion.
She gripped his tunic. It was odd for an accomplished horsewoman to be nervous of Lark. The gelding was a big horse, but as gentle as they came.
The gatehouse he passed under every day loomed ahead. He suddenly saw the massive structure as Kyla must see it—the gateway to some dreadful fate. He didn’t doubt her courage, but no wonder she was putting on a brave front. It wasn’t surprising she was intent on holding on to the plaid like a lifeline.
He felt an unexpected urge of protectiveness. It occurred to him at the same time that he’d often wished Lily had a female presence in her life. Perhaps Fate had sent Kyla to them.
*
Kyla curled her fingers into Maxwell’s tunic when his huge horse stepped onto the castle’s drawbridge. She’d ridden and walked across the stone bridge that connected Dun Scaith to the mainland since childhood and never thought twice about the angry surf roiling below.
The black moat surrounding Caerlochnaven was as still as a bottomless pond, yet her heart careened around her ribcage and she feared she might retch. Perhaps the massive gatehouse that loomed ahead was the reason for her anxiety. Or mayhap a dunking in cold saltwater, or the loss of her father’s beloved Lanmara.
Tears welled as she contemplated the twin towers, red brick dusted with chalky white that spoke of age and exposure to the elements. Dun Scaith had none of the crenellations that Caerlochnaven boasted.
She held her breath when they were swallowed up inside a dark tunnel. Afraid she might swoon if she closed her eyes, she chose instead to fix her gaze on the small arched sliver of light at the end, trying to ignore the weight of the towers above her.
Panic constricted her throat. She was choking and would never again breathe the free air of Skye’s wide open spaces. Her captor exchanged a word of greeting with a shadowy figure who loomed out of the darkness.
A warm hand gripped her knee. “Don’t be afraid,” Maxwell said. “Hamish is just the gatekeeper.”
She ought to protest that she wasn’t afraid, but the words refused to form and she sensed Broderick Maxwell would know a lie when he heard one.
She gulped air when they exited the tunnel, surprised to see a little lass standing at the door of the keep, waving to her captor.
His daughter!
The wretch had a wife.
Why she felt deeply disappointed, she couldn’t say.
Wheelbarrow
Corbin hadn’t anticipated the ride in a heavenly chariot would be so uncomfortable. He’d been brought up to believe there was no pain in God’s many mansions, but every bone in his body ached and his dry throat was on fire.
He slowly opened one eye, intending to reprimand the angel transporting him for choosing the most rutted route to his eternal reward.
His gut clenched. His angel was a hunchbacked gargoyle dressed in shabby peasant clothing who stank of rotted fish. Corbin hadn’t lived a life totally free of sin, but surely he didn’t deserve to be dispatched to the netherworld. “You’re no angel,” he rasped.
The chariot came to an abrupt halt. The demon’s mouth fell open. “And ye’re nay dead.”
The conveyance came close to tipping when Corbin struggled to sit up. He gripped the sides, fearful the fiend intended to dump him into some fiery furnace. He realized the chariot was made of wood and was actually…
“A fyking wheelbarrow?”
The demon chuckled and stuck a sweetgrass in his mouth. “Thought ye were dead. Easiest way to get ye to the graveyard.”
Worried he was trapped in a purgatory betwixt heaven and hell, Corbin scanned his surroundings. “We’re in a cemetery,” he muttered.
“And I’m Sexton Cladh,” the gargoyle said. “Ye washed up on our beach and the abbot bade me bury ye. I’m nay a young man, so I couldna carry ye so far.”
One word penetrated Corbin’s befuddled wits. “Abbot?”
“Aye. This ’ere’s Darling Abbey.”
Corbin looked beyond the gravestones to an imposing edifice. He’d heard of the abbey, built centuries before by John Balliol’s widow as the final resting place for her husband’s heart. It was a relief he had washed up on the Scottish side of the Solway—Galloway unfortunately, but still.
Dizziness forced him to put a hand on Cladh’s bony shoulder when he heaved himself out of the wheelbarrow. The man was flesh and blood after all. He feared his legs might buckle beneath him, but at least he was still clothed, though his garments were damp and full of sand. He suspected the sexton would have stripped him and sold his clothing before consigning him to the grave.
Speaking of selling goods…
“Was there any sign of a bale of cloth on the beach where you found me?”
The sexton paused in his chewing and wrinkled his brow. “Cloth, ye say?”
Corbin anticipated the lie that came next.
Kilty Pleasures (Clash of the Tartans Book 3) Page 4