Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(32)

“Canna leave it,” Morven said. “I’ll see if I’ve got something to make a salve. I’ll change Bernt’s bandaging then tend to his wrists.”

As Morven moved away, the captain gave Lottie a slight smile of triumph.

“Lottie? Lottie, where are you, pusling?” her father called to her. “We’ve much to discuss. Where is Gilroy?”

“Ah...” Lottie reluctantly moved away from Mackenzie and his freed hands, but took the rope and anything else he might reach and use against her. “Gilroy is at the helm, he is.”

“We’ve to prepare for the landing on the morrow,” her father said, and slapped Morven’s hand away from the bandaging around his torso. “Leave it, man.”

“I ought to have a look, Bernt.”

“Look at my appetite, lad, if you want something to look at, aye? I’m fit as they come. I’ve long enjoyed excellent health, have I no’, lads? Aye, then, Lottie, Gilroy, he’ll accompany you on the morrow. You’ll need to bring along the Mackenzie captain, too,” her father continued, as if it were a trifling matter. So trifling, in fact, that he paused to drink from the flagon of ale.

“Pardon?” said Lottie at the same moment the captain said, “No’ bloody likely.”

“You canna leave him here—we’ve no’ enough men to guard him and the crew, have we?” her father pointed out. “His crew will no’ act while we have him, trust me on this. They’ll do as we say.”

“They’ll do as I say, and I’ll no’ go ashore,” the captain said firmly.

“Och, but you will, Captain, you will. We’ll hold your Beaty under threat of harm if you donna.”

The captain suddenly surged to his feet with surprising agility. “You would add to your crimes by threatening my first mate?”

“Fader!” Lottie exclaimed. “How can we possibly command him if he is no’ bound? I can hardly walk through the streets of Aalborg with a bound man at my side.”

“Gilroy will keep him under control,” her father said.

“I’ll go,” said Mathais. “I’m verra good with a sword.” He made a thrusting motion.

“No, Mats, no’ you. You must remain here to help guard the first mate.”

Mathais perked up at that.

“No!” Lottie insisted. She could imagine it—Mathais would get it into his head that he ought to use his sword at the slightest hint of provocation.

“Now, pusling, you canna go dressed as you are,” Her father said. “What would our Mr. Iversen think of you then? Can you imagine, Morven, our Mr. Iversen having a look at his long-lost love dressed as she is?”

Morven’s jaw tightened.

Lottie could feel her face turn an appalling shade of red. It was bad enough that everyone on the island knew of her love affair. It was humiliating to be reminded of it at every turn. “I am no’ his long-lost love and I hardly care what he thinks.”

“Of course you do, leannan. Why, he’s the reason you suggested Aalborg, is it no’?”

Morven, she noticed, avoided her gaze. And the captain, well...she could feel his eyes boring through her back. He was probably imagining all sorts of scenarios just now, and probably all of them very near true.

“Our Mr. Iversen will be pleased to lend us a hand,” her father blithely continued. “You were clever to think of it, pusling.”

“Will you no’ refer to him as our Mr. Iversen? And I donna intend to see him more than a moment to ask if we might use his name. I’ve enough to do as it is.”

“No? Well, I suppose it is time you put that unfortunate acquaintance behind you. Canna remain at my side all your life, can you, lass? No’ good for a woman to be without a man.”

“Fader!” She wished a hole would open in this ship and suck her into the sea’s depths. What was more dismaying—that her father was speaking so carelessly of a painful time in her life? Or that Morven and worse, Captain Mackenzie, were on hand to hear it?

Her father said, “Look at her, then, the lass can scarcely bear to think of it. Aye, well, no man on the island can bear to think of it either, for it’s ruined you for anyone else, mo chridhe.”

“That is quite enough!” Lottie snapped. What was the matter with him? He was never so careless with her feelings and yet seemed almost oblivious to them now.

What he said was true. Since Anders Iversen had come to Lismore and ruined her idea of anyone else, and worse, since Anders had left Lismore, she’d been the object of great speculation. He’d come in the spring from Denmark, a distant cousin of the family. He’d come when the meadows were full of wildflowers like those she’d dreamed about, and the sun bright but not too hot, and he’d swept Lottie off her feet with his dazzling smile and quick laugh and touches to her hand and face. After years of caring for her brothers and her father, of having no prospects that excited her, of being the object of desire of every male on that island, no matter their age or occupation or other entanglements, Anders had made her heart leap, and she’d fallen head over heels into infatuation.

Her infatuation strayed beyond moral decency into a more physical realm. She’d convinced herself that God had sent her the man she was destined to marry, that her lack of virtue was expected, given their mutual feelings.