Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(38)

He downed the rest of her whisky and turned his back to her, unwilling to watch her any longer, unwilling to see one more disturbing image in his head that involved her, and struggling hard against the pull into her web.

He dozed off, but he was awakened by the sound of water. He opened his eyes, blinking against the dark. He was still in his cabin, still shackled. The only difference was that the light had grown dimmer and he could smell rain through the open porthole.

Aulay groggily turned his head, and when he did, his heart lurched in his chest. Lottie was at the table, bare from the waist up. She was partially turned away from him as she dipped a cloth into a bucket, then cleaned herself. She stretched one arm up and bent it over her head, and stroked the cloth on her skin, slowly sliding it down her side before dipping it in the bucket again.

The sight of her bathing was erotic and made Aulay instantly hard. He imagined bathing her. He imagined taking that cloth and tossing it aside, of putting his hands on her breasts, his mouth on her neck and the concave of her belly. He imagined her naked, those two pools of her eyes shining with pleasure and propelling him to drive into her until she cried out with release.

Lottie turned her head to the side and stilled, holding the cloth against her breast now. She stood like that for no more than a moment, then began to rub the cloth in a circular motion over her breast.

Did she know that he watched her? She never looked at him, never turned her head toward him, and yet she moved the cloth in a sensual path over her body.

He would swear she was aware of his attention.

When she finally doused the light, he was so hard he ached.





CHAPTER TEN

GILROY POINTED TO a ship in the distance that had trailed them around the tip of Jutland and the white sandy beaches of Skagen. “Pirates, I’d wager,” he said, and propped his foot on a barrel, leaning onto his knee as he squinted into the distance.

“You’d be a poor man, then—that’s the Danish Navy,” Beaty said, and lowered the spyglass.

Gilroy chuckled. “That’s no’ a naval ship, lad.”

“The hell you say. I’ve sailed these seas as long as I’ve been able to stand on me own two feet, I have, and I think I know a naval ship when I see one,” Beaty shot back.

Lottie stepped between them before the arguing escalated. “How long to Aalborg?”

“An hour,” Beaty said confidently.

“An hour and a half,” Gilroy countered.

It was very little time either way. “Gilroy, might we speak, then?” Lottie asked, and gave him a meaningful look. “Will you gather the others? I’ll fetch Morven—he’s with my father now.”

She returned to the captain’s cabin just as Morven was peeling her father’s bandage from his wound. Mackenzie was perched onto one hip on top of the desk, his arms crossed over his chest, watching.

Her father’s pallor had turned a sickly shade of gray overnight, which Lottie desperately hoped was a lack of decent broth and sun and not a sign of worse.

“Lottie, pusling, is it you?” her father called, his voice hoarse and weak.

“Aye,” she said, and went to his side. His gray skin was flushed, and she exchanged a look with Morven.

“Aye, he’s got a fever, that he does,” Morven said gravely. “He needs help.”

“Donna bloody well bother the lass with talk of doctors,” her father said irritably, but he grimaced, as if even speaking caused him pain. “She’s to worry about the whisky, aye? If she doesna sell the whisky, it willna matter how many physicians you bring.”

“Fader, I—”

“Donna take less than one hundred kroner per cask,” he said.

She blinked. Fifty kroner per cask was too high. As if to confirm her thought, Mackenzie muttered, “One hundred kroner is impossible.”

“I agree,” Morven said.

“Donna listen to them! One hundred kroner and no’ a pence less!” her father demanded through gasps of pain.

“But—”

Lottie was stopped from arguing by Morven’s hand to her arm. He silently shook his head.

“Did you understand me, pusling?” her father asked. His eyes were closing.

“Aye, I do, Fader. One hundred kroner,” she said softly, and squeezed his hand.

“Such a good lass you are, a bonny good lass,” he muttered as he drifted into the cloud of his fever and the laudanum Morven had doled out.

“His wound is infected,” Morven said as he gathered his things. He hesitated and looked at Lottie with such sadness that she flinched. “I canna do more for him, Lottie. Bring help.”

That was a wee bit easier to ask than it was to do. Lottie had no idea how they would bring a physician to this ship, but she’d think of something. She always thought of something. Isn’t that what they depended on her for? To think!

“Come,” Morven said, and gestured with his head to the door.

Lottie followed him out, past the captain with the smoldering eyes that seemed always to bore through her. She and Morven joined Duff and Mr. MacLean, Drustan and Mathais, and Gilroy.

“All is at the ready?” Lottie asked Duff.

“Aye,” he said. “Gilroy will remain on board in command, and Beaty will be held as surety. Our lad Drustan and I will accompany you and the captain ashore,” Duff said, clapping Drustan on the shoulder.