Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(33)

Diah, she’d been so unforgivably na?ve.

Anders revealed himself to be a bloody arse. What sort of man would turn his back on a woman after sharing such a profoundly intimate experience? What sort of man would not then offer to take the woman to wife, especially after giving her every reason to believe that he would? And yet, Anders had seemed surprised she’d even thought it. He’d taken her hands in his and said with grave earnestness, “Lottie, s?de, I’m bound for home at the end of the month. I’m to take over my father’s affairs. You know this.”

Well yes, he’d said that in the beginning. But as passion between them had grown and swelled she had assumed things had changed. She’d always fancied herself too clever to be manipulated by a charming libertine. She was not very clever at all, as it turned out.

“You’ll come with me,” Anders had said, knowing full well she would not.

Aye, he knew her better than she knew herself, for that was the first time Lottie’s idea of herself veered sharply away from who she really was. All her life, she’d wanted to step out into the world, to leave that island with its too many rabbits and too few people and live. Really live. To see the world, to fall in love, to have a happy, healthy family. But when it came down to a choice to be made, the painful realization had set it. She couldn’t leave her father or her brothers, not really. They all needed her. They all depended on her. She knew it, and Anders, damn him, had known it all along. She could recall the way his smile had faded into dismay when he’d understood that she’d given herself to him because she loved him. It had not been a lark for her as it obviously had been for him.

Now, a year later, she knew the whisper on everyone’s lips: what would happen to Lottie Livingstone? Should she not be married now, should she not be providing some man his blessed heirs and warming his bed and washing his linens and cooking his meals? Why was it that men were the only ones entitled to their desires in this world?

She looked up; her father was watching her with eyes so bright and glittering that they startled her. “Och, donna be downtrodden, lass,” her father said. “Put your hair up and pinch your cheeks, don your gown, and you’ll be as bonny as ever. He’ll rue the day he left you behind.”

“He didna leave me behind,” she said, trying to salvage at least a piece of her dignity. “And my gown is ruined. It is torn and stained with blood.”

“You’ll find something on this ship to mend it, mark me. They mend sails, do they no’? A bit of soap ought to remove the blood—oof, Morven, must you prod so?” her father complained as Morven tried to look under the bandage.

“It needs changing, Bernt.”

“I’ll need something for the pain, then,” her father said. “Burns like the devil, it does.”

“Fader?” Drustan said nervously.

“Donna pay me any heed, lad,” her father said to Drustan. “Tell you what—go ask Gilroy if you can be of any use. Go with him, Mats. Find the lad an occupation. Lottie, go along as well, and find a way to mend your gown. ’Twas your mother’s favorite, and mine, too.”

Lottie gladly quit the cabin and the shrewd eyes of the captain. She followed her brothers to the door.

“Lottie,” her father said, stopping her before she could make her escape. “You’ll need to have the captain shined and polished as well, aye? Canna have him accompany you looking like a pauper. No’ especially if you mean to see Anders. Now there was a handsome lad if I ever I saw one. Was he no’, Morven?”

“Donna recall,” Morven muttered.

“Well I do. Bonny as a man can be, I’ll say that for him.”

Lottie opened the door and walked out, shutting it firmly behind her.

Unfortunately, she had no place to go and lick her wounds, so she settled on top of a whisky cask and watched the Mackenzie men up on the rigging changing the sails, chattering back and forth while the Livingstones guarded them from below. They all seemed rather friendly, and she couldn’t help wonder if they hadn’t hatched some sort of plan, if this wasn’t the calm before the storm of revenge they meant to launch.

“Lottie.”

She jerked around at the sound of Morven’s voice. His brown hair stood nearly on end, and his beard was beginning to look unkempt. “You best find a physician when we reach Aalborg,” he said grimly. “Bernt’s wound, it doesna look good. I’ve given him the laudanum tincture for the pain so he’ll sleep. But he needs proper attention.”

“But you—”

Morven shook his head before she could finish her thought. “I’m no’ a physician, Lottie. He needs a proper one. I’ve done all I can do, aye? I’ll make a salve for the captain’s wrists.” He moved to leave her.

“Morven!” she said. “How will I do as my father says I must? I canna take Mackenzie with me! He’ll escape, he’ll seek authorities straightaway.”

“Aye, you can,” Morven said. “These men will wait for their pay and their captain, but if they have only one of those things, they’ll no’ wait long, do you see? You need to take him with you for our sake.”

“And then what?” she asked. “If they wait patiently while we sell the whisky, and then again while we wait for someone to unload it from this ship, will they merrily make sail without us? How will we all return to Scotland?”