Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(5)

“Of course. Thank you, Captain, thank you,” the man said, and quickly motioned for the men to row.

As they turned the small boat about, banging into the ship’s hull as they did, Beaty sighed loudly and gave Aulay a sidelong look.

“What, then, you’d have the lady drown?” Aulay asked.

“No!” Billy cried.

“No,” Beaty admitted reluctantly. “But there are too many of them, and one of them so large that he’ll be as much trouble as three, he will. Where will they sleep, then? Have we enough water for them all? And what of these fools?” he asked, gesturing to Aulay’s crew, all of them still at the railing, still chattering about the woman. “You’d think they’d never seen a lass.”

“We’ll put them in the hold with a night guard, aye?” Aulay said.

“Shall we arm ourselves?” Beaty asked.

Aulay glanced at the listing ship. “They are no threat to us.”

Beaty’s response was muttered under his breath.

It took two trips to bring all of them. When the first batch of men was delivered, along with a crate of food, Beaty demanded irritably, “Why’d you no’ bring the lady, then, if you’re so fearful of her drowning?”

“She willna come until her father can be brought,” said the man who had first spoken to them from the jolly.

They watched the second batch of men come, and when they were delivered safely on board, they stood with the first batch at the rail in an anxious cluster, their eyes on the jolly as two of them returned to the listing ship.

Not one of them looked like a sailor to Aulay. Most of them didn’t seem to have their sea legs, stumbling and banging into each other as the ship bobbed on the swells and they sought their balance. It was all very odd. He was impatient, too—the transfer was taking far too long. The Reulag Balhaire had to keep tacking around to keep from drifting too far from the smaller ship. Aulay watched the progress of the last few. The enormous man who had remained behind with the lady singlehandedly lowered a figure in a rope sling to the waiting boat. Next came the lady, climbing down the rope ladder with surprising agility. She leaped into the boat, foregoing any of the hands offered up, then turned her head up to direct the larger man. He began to make his way down, too, but much more clumsily—lumbering, really, appearing to have trouble fitting his feet into the slots along the ladder. When he at last made his way into the boat, the inhabitants had to fan out to both sides to keep the small boat steady and accommodate his girth, and the boat itself seemed to sit lower in the water as they began the laborious progress across.

As the small boat neared the Mackenzie ship, all the men strained to have a look at the woman. She kept her head down, her attention on the injured man. The only distinguishable thing about her was the unbound hair. Long hair that looked almost as white as snow, a beacon against the gray sky and sea.

When the boat came alongside the ship, Aulay’s men crowded around, each juggling to be the one to help the lady up, and if pushed aside, hanging over the railing to have a look. Two men came aboard first, and together, they lifted the injured man with a pair of ropes. There was quite a lot of commotion as that man was carried off to one of the cabins. Aulay’s men scarcely gave the injured man a look—they were clearly far more interested in the ascent of the woman, all of them craning their necks, and some of his crew swaggering about the railing like roosters as they called their encouragement to her.

Aulay saw the crown of her head as she hopped over the railing and onto the deck. “Madainn Mhath,” she said, as if she were greeting guests at a tea party. The men crowded closer.

“Och, let the lass breathe, then,” Iain the Red said crossly. “Billy, lad, give the lady room.”

“Are you all right, then?” asked Fingal MacDonald, one of Aulay’s crew.

“Verra well, thank you.” Her voice had a pleasing lilt to it. “If you please, sirs, might you step back a wee bit, then? I canna move.”

“Give way, give way!” Iain shouted at them.

There was a shuffling, but none of his men gave an inch to another. Iain shoved one man aside, and when he did, Aulay caught a glimpse of an elegant hand as the woman pushed hair from her temple.

“You’re unharmed, are you?” Beaty asked, and judging by the concern in his voice, Aulay guessed his disdain for this rescue had completely dissipated.

“Oh aye, thank you,” she said. “I’ve had quite a fright, that’s all.”

“You’ve quite a lot of blood on your gown,” Beaty said.

“Do I?”

Her lyrical voice was oddly accented, with a slight hint of a Scots brogue and a proper English accent. It reminded Aulay a wee bit of his mother, who was English by birth but had lived in Scotland for nearly forty years now, and had a similar accent.

“Aye, indeed I do,” she said, sounding surprised. “Never mind it—I fear more for my father.”

At that moment, the lumbering giant came over the railing, and it felt almost as if the ship tipped a wee bit. “What am I to do, Lottie?” he asked. “I donna recollect what I’m to do.”

The giant of a man sounded like a dullard.

“Stay close,” she said sweetly. “You’re all so verra kind,” she said to Aulay’s men in that lilting voice. “I should like to thank your captain, aye? Might you point him out?”