Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(15)

“Your man. Beaty,” she said with exasperation, and discarded the second stocking just as carelessly as the first. “He was quite at odds with the idea. He scolded me right harshly for having taken the ship, he did, and in front of all those men, too, aye? But when I explained that his very own captain had asked it of him—” she paused to look at Aulay “—after swearing on my mother’s grave that you were verra much alive,” she added, sounding miffed that Beaty would dare to question her on that front. “When I promised him that you lived, and you yourself had asked him to take the helm, he softened a wee bit and agreed to go on deck with Gilroy and the others.”

“And the rest of my men?”

“Your crew? They’re well, they are. Mad as hornets, but well enough.”

“No one hurt?” Aulay asked.

“Aye, well...three of them. Broken bones and the like. But we’re looking after them properly.” She yanked the fasteners of her gown and shrugged out of it, throwing it onto the back of the chair. Next came her stomacher. Astonishingly, she now stood barefoot in the middle of his cabin with nothing more than a petticoat, her stays and a chemise so sheer underneath that her breasts might as well have been exposed to him. She slipped her gun from her waist and laid it on the table.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” he asked incredulously. He’d never seen a woman disrobe without hesitation or conceit, unless for his pleasure. Certainly not in circumstances like this. This woman was utterly beyond redemption.

She clucked at him. “If I remain in soaked clothing, it will be the death of me, aye? I donna have a proper gown or a dressing room, do I?”

Aulay couldn’t help himself—he took in her figure. Slowly. Curve by delicious curve.

“Donna look at me like that,” she said.

“What, or you’ll shoot? What would you have me do, then? Fix my gaze on the wall?”

Her cheeks colored. She folded her arms over her body, which pronounced her perfect breasts to him even more, and shivered noticeably.

Aulay sighed. He was either a bloody fool or a great humanitarian, because he said, “My greatcoat is just there,” and nodded to a series of pegs on the wall that held his clothing.

She looked over her shoulder in the direction he indicated, but made no move to get the coat. “No, thank you.”

“Stubborn wench,” he said irritably. “Watching you shiver like a wee waif makes it feel bloody well cold in here. Take it.”

“That’s kind of you,” she said.

“’Tis no’ the least bit kind. I shall have you in good health so that I might see you hanged.”

The color in her cheeks darkened. “Hanged! I told you we’d return the ship to you! Think of it as borrowing—”

“Save your breath for your judge, lass.”

“Och,” she said with a flick of her wrist. “Your pride’s been wounded, that it has, and you’re angry now.” She took his coat from the wall and put it around her shoulders. “Thank you,” she muttered.

His pride had been more than wounded—it had been destroyed. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to relive his humiliation, but unfortunately, it was impossible to ignore.

He heard her moving about, the scrape of the chair against the wooden floor, and opened his eyes. She was not very big at all, he realized, smaller than average. “Where did you learn to kick like that, then?” he asked with irritable curiosity.

She sat on one of the chairs, her legs drawn to her. Only her toes were visible. “I didna know that I could,” she said with a slight shrug. “Fear makes warriors of us, I suppose.”

“Or fools,” he said. He moved his stiff jaw around, but it resulted in an annoying jab of pain through him, serving only to remind him that he’d been undone by a woman.

“Are these your paintings?” she asked.

Aulay stiffened. She had turned, was looking at the wall where he’d hung a pair of his canvasses. More paintings were stacked behind an easel in the corner of the room. For this voyage, he’d hung a painting of the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Cadiz, a view of the sea over the bow of his ship. The water there was as blue as the lass’s eyes. The other painting was of the Atlantic Ocean. Aulay had not ventured very far into that ocean, but he’d sailed it enough to have a memory of the setting sun.

His paintings were a private side of him. He didn’t like to talk about them, didn’t like to compare notes with artists he met from time to time. He rarely took his work ashore. He didn’t need anything else to separate him from his brothers. Cailean and Rabbie were both strong, virile men. When they were children, the two of them would stage battles and Aulay would draw. His father used to exhort him not to waste his time on endeavors best suited for the fairer sex, and to pick up arms, to be more like his brothers. “Learn to thrust a sword, no’ a paint brush, lad,” he would say.

“Our Aulay is a gentle soul, darling,” his mother would say, her intent to defend him. But she only made it worse. His father had no use for sons with gentle souls.

Aulay would not have said he had a gentle soul. All he knew was that the painting was something in him that needed to come out. It eased him. Still, his art was for him, and him alone.

He waited for the remarks he knew would come.