Flames of Desire
Page 17
That’s not only being a coward, she thought. That’s not even being a MacPherson. You’ll be destroyed if you keep acting like this.
But you would have had to kill a man.
Men have been killed before, and this was necessary.
And is Slyde?
Maybe.
Unconsciously, she hitched her chair closer to the window once again.
“Ye be wantin’ some air? ’Tis a bit foul in ’ere.”
“No,” she told him, attempting a flattering tone. “I just wanted to see the ships. Is yours out there?”
His chest swelled. “I’ll say ’tis, lady. An’ ye want t’ see ’er, do ye? Hey, come wi’ me ’ere.”
He grabbed her arm and all but jerked her upright, dragged her over to the window, which gave her the first good, long look at the harbor she had been able to get. Her heart fell as soon as she saw it. Finding the Highlander would not be an easy task.
There were at least four or five dozen ships in the harbor, ships of all sizes, all types, from all the nations of Europe. Some of the bigger ones were freighters, close in to the docks now. She could hear the shouts and curses of the workmen. The smell of tobacco was in the air, from Virginia far away, and sweet lumber from the endless forests of America, and tea and spices from India, where Sean Bloodwell had gone to seek a second destiny. Farther out were other freighters, waiting to load and unload, and numerous small boats, and then, way out at the edge of her visibility, several men-of-war, big and dark and threatening, any one of which might be…
“That’s mine, there,” Slyde was saying. “The M.S. Meridian. An’ yer a good man t’ ship on ’er, as I’ll show ye in a few minutes. Got ’er a cap’n, Randolph’s ’is name, ’o’d keelhaul ye fer spittin’ on the deck.”
Selena looked at the ship, which Slyde explained was being loaded with finished textile products from factories such as Sean Bloodwell had once owned.
“Sailin’ fer Boston on the morrow,” Slyde said proudly. “Hell of a place. We get liberty there, an’ we go into town an’ beat on the rebel colonials. Oh, it is a time, we ’ave, I tell you…”
She took another long look. If the Highlander was out there, she could not tell. But Slyde might know. The problem was to find out without arousing suspicions.
“An’ I could tell ye stories…”
She sat down at the table, smiling at him, and he became as endearing as a gruff puppy dog. About to know a noble lady in the best of ways, put her through her paces, an’ ’ere she was, takin’ ’im as a natural man, wi’ none o’ them ’aughty ways…
“I bet you’ve…I’m sure you’ve fought…pirates, even,” she said, feigning wonder and awe, and watching the trapdoor surreptitiously.
“Pirates! Why, pirates, privateers, now I’ll tell ye aboot that, indeed. The Meridian fights off at least one privateer each time across.”
Her intention was to work around to Royce Campbell, who had been rumored a privateer, but Slyde, growing more and more expansive, as he grew more and more drunk, rambled on, from story to story. At one point, he moved over next to her, and now held her with one arm and drank with the other. The hand around her waist roamed freely, fondling her breasts, diving down across her stomach and between her legs. Then Slyde got a little impatient, just about at twilight, and stalked over to throw one of his boots at the trapdoor.
“Hold yer horses,” Belle yelled in response. “I got one up ’ere seems not t’ ’ave ’ad it fer a year.”
Selena flushed at the gleeful howls that followed, but Slyde was treating her like his own woman now.
“All ye bastards be shuttin’ yer traps now,” he threatened, “or ye’ll be bleedin’ in the alleys o’ Liverpool. This ’ere is a ’igh-class lady, I want ye t’ know…”
Selena was almost grateful to him. Indeed, he was not a bad sort, even if at any moment he wanted to take her body for sport. And, she had decided, if that was what it would take to get them safely away from Scotland, she would just have to…
But she refused to think past that point. Out of Scotland. That would be an ending, truly.
With full darkness came the end of the workday on the docks, and soon the tavern was filled with jesting and profanity. Many of the men did not wait for their turn at the loft—Slyde was first on the list—and simply took the women out into the alley and had them standing up against the wooden planking of the walls.
Selena decided to risk it. “Is there a ship, the Highlander, out there in the harbor now?”
A look of curiosity and recognition brightened Slyde’s bleary eyes. He was just about to speak when the trapdoor flew open and Brian, tired but happy, dropped to the floor. Belle followed, looking a bit worn.
“I earned me money’s worth that time,” she said, leaning against the bar. Half of the sailors were drunk already, and there was an instant clamor for the loft.
“Mr. Slyde’s up next,” the barmaid declared.
“An’ I’ll be wantin’ it all night, too,” Slyde crowed. “I’ll be sailin’ on the morrow, an’ there’s a fine wench ’ere’s got t’ be broken in right afore I go…”
Shouting and yelling ensued, and complaints about his summary appropriation of the loft.
“Nay!” yelled the barmaid. “First come, first served, if ye’ve the money. Come on, now. ’Ave a drink. There’s merchandise aplenty, an’ the alley’s free besides.”
Slyde got up and grabbed Selena’s hand, pulling her toward the peg ladder in the wall. Now was the time. At least there were no King’s men here. They were safe, and if this was what had to be done…
They passed Brian as he came walking back toward the table.
Brian stopped in Slyde’s path.
“Out o’ me way, matey. It’s my turn, an’ I’ve got a fine piece t’ service here, as ye can see. I’ll see she’s worth yer while when I get through.”
Brian blinked, disbelieving. Selena saw, with instant trepidation, the little vein throb on the left temple, as it always did when he got angry. As it had on the day he’d knifed McEdgar. But they could not risk this now, not a fight and she tried to signal him, to tell him that it was all right…
“It’s dark now,” she said pointedly. “Why don’t you be seeking out the ship…”
“I don’t believe you’ll be climbing up there with this woman,” he was telling Slyde.
“Huh?” the sailor wondered.
“…I didn’t find out too much about the ship,” Selena tried again. “Just go out on the dock, and walk carefully…”
But it was not to be. Brian saw nothing at all amiss in being serviced by a whore for half the afternoon, but in the name of honor would jeopardize their very lives here in a dive in which anyone would have slit their noble throats for the price of a drink.
“Brian!” she cried.
But it was too late.
Brian let himself be overwhelmed by his nature and by a situation he did not take the time to understand. And Slyde had no idea that Brian was the brother of this young woman whose body he wanted to use as vessel for his urgent passion. He was not about to be dissuaded from that pursuit either. Rough and seawise, he sensed rather than saw the tightening of the muscles in Brian’s arms, the way he braced his legs, and when the punch came, the big sailor dropped into a crouch and shot a tremendous uppercut at Brian’s face. It struck a glancing blow along the left jaw. Brian spun slightly to the side, snarling, and Slyde backed up against the bar, then pushed abruptly away from it, his body a projectile. Brian did not move fast enough, and the two of them crashed down oh the floor, which stank of wet sawdust, tobacco juice, and the usual result of too much cheap liquor.
“No!” Selena cried.
“Hey! Fight! Fight!” came the excited cries of men and whores at the bar. “I’ll put m’ money on the big guy wi’ the bandanna.”
“Nay. Ye’re daft, ye are. The redhead’ll kill ’im. ’E’s a born fighter, ’e is.”
The barmaid was not so pleased with the action. “Godd
amn ye two bastards to hell!” she shrieked at Brian and Slyde, who grappled now in the filth. “Ye take it outside, ye hear. The magistrate’ll be a-comin’ down on me again, an’ I ’ave t’ pay ’em enough bribes already.”
From beneath the bar, she grabbed a huge, black blunderbuss of a weapon, and waved it at the ceiling. Even drunks headed for the door at the sight of it—anybody could get hurt now—and they poured out into the water-front street, shouting and pushing.
“…bloody officers be a-comin’ now, sure,” the barmaid cursed, and came out in front of the bar, aiming the big jackhammer of a pistol at the two men.
Slyde managed to pull away from Brian’s grip, and leaped to his feet, falling back against the wall.
“Brian! Let’s get out of here.”
But her brother was too far gone now, convinced of victory, and he approached Slyde, feinted, and rammed a fist into his gut. The sailor doubled up, panic in his eyes, and spun away along the wall, over toward the bar.
“I mean it, I’m a-tellin’ ye, stop it and get out,” called the barmaid, holding the gun on Brian. He paid her no mind, but went after Slyde again. She cocked the hammer back. He didn’t hear it. Desperately, Selena threw herself against the barmaid, and the gun exploded, blue and white and tremendous in the dim, smoky bar. Brian stopped, stunned by the sound. It seemed as if he was about to come to his senses when, in one smooth motion, Slyde cracked a bottle of whiskey against the side of the bar and, holding the neck of the bottle, drove it with all his considerable strength deep into Brian’s stomach. The sharp, jagged glass cut right through his leather belt, driving even the belt buckle deeply into him. It happened so fast that Selena did not actually see him fall—never remembered his actual falling—but then he was down, clutching at his stomach, trying to pull free the bottle, which protruded from him, and trying to hold in the flood of blood and tissue that poured forth. He howled in pure agony, but mercifully passed over into shock. A dreamy look came into his eyes, as they moved irregularly around the barroom.
“Now ye’ve done it!” the barmaid screamed. “’E’s dyin’. Slyde, you goddamn scum. The bloody bastard’s a-goin’ t’ die.”
“Don’t you call my brother that.” Selena said mechanically, and the barmaid stepped back at her tone and accent surprised, unnerved, just as Slyde had been earlier.
“Oh, Jesus, yer brother?” Slyde groaned.
Brian, writhing on the floor, dropping from consciousness, seemed to motion Selena with a bloody hand, and she knelt down beside him.
“God, lady, I didna ken ’e was yer brother. What’s…why…? and the sailor knelt too. A few customers still in the bar, who had gone deathly quiet when the blood flowed, now edged to the door and were gone.
“A goddamn nobleman, or something,” the barmaid cried, as if this were the last straw, the final indignity she had to suffer. She tucked the smoking gun under her skirts and headed for the door, too. “Ye can explain it to the law ,” she said. “I ain’t be goin’ t’ no gallows fer bein’ in on the killin’ o’ a young lord.”
If you only knew, Selena thought. You could get a reward…
Brian’s lips were moving, and she bent down, her ear next to his.
“It’s too bad…” he gasped.
“What’s he sayin’?” Slyde wanted to know. His eyes went nervously from Selena to the door. In the distance, over the shouting in the street, a whistle blew and hoofbeats sounded. “Lady, I’m sorry, I didna mean t’…”
“Shhhh. Quiet. Brian!”
The blood poured out. It was clear there was no hope. Even now Brian’s face had grown pale, ethereal, like a painting of a doomed crusader.
“…too bad…about the lilies…” Brian hissed between his teeth. A froth of blood was on his tongue, and a bubble of blood swelled and diminished in one nostril as he sucked for breath. Selena understood, and smiled through her tears. Once, long ago, she had told him that his brawling ways would kill him in the end, that she would one day have to place the lilies in his hands.
“Look, lady. I…I got t’ be…” moaned Slyde, listening to the approaching horses.
“Wait,” she told him, putting her hand on his sleeve. She did not know consciously, at that moment, why she restrained him. It may have been simply because he was the only one who had stayed behind with her. Or because he was truly shaken at what had happened, even though Brian’s death had, in no small way, been his own fault. But she touched him, and he hesitated, waiting beside her.
“Good luck,” Brian said, “…I…hope…you make it…”
His eyelids flickered He was gone. No, he was still here with her. There must be something…she thought.
Something to comfort him. Then she remembered. Father.
“Brian! Can you still hear me?”
Something like a nod. Outside, people were running in the street, trying to get away from the scene of the crime before the police rode up.
“Oh, God, hurry!” Slyde pleaded.
“Brian! Think of the best thing,” she cried, taking his bloody hand in her own. “Think of the best thing ever!”
Into his dull, fading eyes came a last warm light, something, a memory, locked in the lost days of his youth. When he smiled, his teeth were dark with blood, but it was a smile of delight.
“That…that time…with my sailboat…” he managed to gasp, “when Father…”
And Selena knew what he meant. Brian was seven or eight, and had been given a small sailboat of his own. The family was on holiday down along the shore of the North Sea, at Eyemouth, and the boy had taken his craft out on the water. Too far. Brian’s maritime skills were not up to the task of getting back to shore, and a wind rose in the afternoon, dark clouds piled high against the sun. Father had gone after him, to bring him back.
“…was…” Brian whispered, choking, his eyes on her, his hand clinging desperately now, “…was…the best time…”
Then his head jerked sideways, and his body seemed to collapse, to fall away from her even as she held him. The blood flowed on.
“Lady, we got t’ get out o’ here,” Slyde said. But it was too late. The horses of the waterfront patrol were just outside the door. Selena could hear one of the officers shouting questions at a lingering drunk. “What happened, man? What’s going on here?” and the sickening sound of a wooden club on bone, on soft flesh, as the man was beaten. “In the tavern,” he screamed between blows, and pretty soon the officer would get the idea and come inside.
“We got only one chance,” Slyde said, and pushed her toward the peg ladder. He practically propelled her upward through the trapdoor, and then leaped up after her, slamming down the door just an instant before the sound of heavy boots entered the tavern below. The loft was pitch-dark, and smelled worse than the barroom itself, heavy with the odor of passion and sweat and spilled love. “Get yer clothes off, lady,” Slyde pleaded in a hoarse whisper, pawing at her, clawing at himself. “Get ’em off an’ get down on the straw.” She understood, and then she was naked against bug-ridden straw, Slyde’s big, bristly body half covering her. Through a crack in the floor, she saw Brian dead beneath, his eyes open and looking right up at her, as if he saw her there. But it was over. Young Lord Brian MacPherson, born in Coldstream Castle, scion of a great family with all of life before him, Brian MacPherson, after a short life, dead on a bed of sawdust in a Liverpool dive, all things lost. She wanted to cry, but she was too scared. All things lost, and no hope, now…
A man came into her narrow sliver of view now, and stood over Brian’s body, bending over him so that she could no longer see her brother’s eyes. She saw his epaulets—an officer of the Liverpool constabulary.
“It’s the MacPherson lad,” she heard him say.
And then the head of another man came into view, and stood beside the first. A black, tricornered hat set slightly askew. But she saw clearly the now-familiar black cape, and the white wrapping, like a bandage, protruding from one side of his head, beneath the rim of the hat.
Selena was afraid that Slyde had heard, but if he did, he made no connection. After all, she thought he must be terrified, too. He had killed a man, and even had he known that she was a MacPherson, hunted by the Empire, he would have had to think a long time before risking a visit to the authorities. He shifted slightly, on top of her now, and she felt his body trembling against her, impotent with tension. She felt like retching, what with the close air and the stink, but held the nausea back.
A banging on the trapdoor then. “Hey! Anybody there? Come down from there.”
“Don’t make a sound,” Slyde hissed. “We’ve been drunk. We’re asleep.”
She did as he said. In a moment the trapdoor crashed open and a candle was thrust up into the loft. Slyde did not move, nor did she.
“Hey! You, there, with your arse in the air!”
Slyde did not move.
Through lidded eyes, she saw the officer hold out the burning candle. She wanted to warn Slyde. He must have felt the heat coming, but he gritted his teeth and waited. When it touched the flesh of his backside, he roared and leaped up, clutching himself and bellowing in pain and outrage. The officer was laughing heartily.
“I did nithin’t’ ye, sar,” Slyde cried, all hurt and innocence, and Selena, in spite of lying there naked on the floor, forcing herself not to move, trying to burrow her blond hair a little into the straw, felt a sudden respect for the man. He lived in a hard world, and he had to survive.
“What ye be doing up here, mate?”
The officer raised the candle and brought it higher. Flickering light exposed Selena. “Say now, there’s a fine piece.” He watched her for a moment. Selena did not move.