Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(53)

“We’re sailing away,” Mathais said again. “Where are we bound?”

Lottie didn’t care. It hardly mattered now. All she wanted was for her father to wake up, to tell them he had a new plan, to laugh at their tears and remind them that if the English and the Jacobites couldn’t kill him, neither could a piece of wood. “Come away from the window, Mats,” she said wearily.

But her father would never wake, and it was her fault. She could scarcely look at her brothers, she was so filled with guilt. She should never have mentioned Aalborg. She should never have played into her father’s grand scheme. She could have destroyed the stills, she could have agreed to marry MacColl—she could have done so many things. But she’d let a whisper of Anders Iversen enter her thoughts, had believed she had the answer. How easy it would be, she’d thought.

She should have known it would all end in colossal failure.

She shouldn’t have gone ashore this morning. She should have left the whisky to the men and stayed by her father’s side. Maybe she would have noticed him failing. If she had, she might have summoned Morven before it was too late, maybe kept him alive until the doctor had come.

An enormous, indefatigable force of exhaustion from grief and guilt was pushing her down and flattening her into nothing.

“What are we to do?” Drustan asked her. Again. His question repeated over and over, her answer not satisfying whatever it was he needed to hear from her.

“We’re going home,” she said.

“Is that where we’re sailing, then?” Mathais asked, turning from the porthole.

She didn’t know where they were sailing, she didn’t care, and could scarcely feel the gentle rock of the ship beneath her. Her mind was perfectly blank. The only thing she was truly aware of was the terrible ache in her head and her chest. Like a vice, squeezing the life from her. Let it.

The door swung open and startled the three of them. Aulay strode into the room. He had removed his coat and waistcoat and had rolled up his sleeves. He wore a sword at his side, and his hair, so perfectly groomed this morning, was wild about his shoulders. His gaze moved from Lottie to the lifeless body on the bunk. He swallowed. “Lottie...lads. I offer my deepest condolences,” he said, bowing his head a wee bit.

She pressed her lips together and nodded as another stream of tears fell from the corners of her eyes. It seemed impossible there was anything left, but here the tears came, unbidden, unwanted. She wished she could fall into his arms, she wished he would hold her while she sobbed away whatever was left of her spirit.

Her tears agitated Drustan—he suddenly stood up and went to his father’s body, which had been wrapped in a coverlet. Drustan kept trying to unwrap the body. Lottie leaped to her feet as he tried again. “Stop that. Stop that now,” she said harshly.

Her tone only increased his agitation, and Drustan began to wail.

“Diah, will you cease that wailing!” Mathais cried, slamming his hand against the wall.

“Dru!” Lottie said tearfully, and rose up on her toes, wrapping her arms around Drustan’s neck as sobs wracked his body again.

“Look away, now. Look away, mo chridhe.”

He buried his face in his hands and sank down to the floor, unable to cease his wailing.

“By all that is holy, make him stop!” Mathais shouted. “Is it no’ bad enough that he’s left us? Must we listen to that as well?”

“Mats, please,” Lottie said, but her voice sounded hollow, devoid of proper emotion. She couldn’t bear their grief, not this time. She couldn’t bear her own. “We all come to acceptance the best way we can,” she heard herself say as she caressed Drustan’s head.

“Well I have come to acceptance,” Mathais said, and moved so suddenly that he banged into a chair; it fell backward with a crash. Mathais was suddenly breathing hard, as if he’d run a great distance. Lottie sensed he was on the verge of exploding with rage and frustration. She let go of Drustan and put her arms around Mathais. The poor lad sagged, dropping his head onto her shoulder, his lanky arms loose around her waist, and fresh sobs racking his body.

Lottie squeezed her eyes shut and let him sob until he could no longer cry. He slipped away from her, falling raggedly into a chair at the table.

She braced her hands against the table and drew a deep breath. They were quite a trio, she and her brothers. She drew another deep breath...and slowly became aware of another in the room.

She’d forgotten Aulay. She pushed herself up and turned around.

His gaze was full of sympathy. “Are you all right, then?” he asked quietly.

No. She was at sixes and sevens and felt as if she were spinning out into darkness. She shrugged indifferently.

He took a step forward. “I would no’ intrude on your grief, Lottie, but I must speak with you.”

“Now?” she asked weakly. Whatever it was, she had no capacity to hear it.

“Aye, now.”

She sighed. “What is it, then?”

Aulay glanced at her brothers. “Privately, if you please.”

Privately. Lottie glanced around the room, looking for something. A cloak? A wrap? Anything to delay a private conversation she was certain she didn’t want to hear.

She glanced down at her rumpled gown and rubbed her damp palms against the soiled, torn skirt. What a fright she must look—her eyes were swollen from sobbing, her skin undoubtedly as splotchy red as poor Mathais’s. Her hair, a bird’s nest, was partially falling down her back. Had she looked such a fright in the stable? The stable. How long ago that seemed! Like a dream, a pretty little dream while her father was dying.