Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(54)

Tears welled in her eyes again, but she swallowed hard, rubbed her palms on her skirt again, then forced herself to move woodenly around the table. She paused to put her hand on Mathais’s shoulder. “I’ll return directly, aye? Stay with Dru.”

Mathais folded his arms across the table and laid his head on them.

Lottie brushed carelessly against Aulay as she moved past and out onto the landing. On deck, Mackenzie and Livingstone men were moving about, many of them up on the masts, shouting at each other as they rolled sails.

She folded her arms tightly across herself and made herself look at Aulay.

“Lottie, leannan, I’m so verra sorry—”

“No, donna say it, please,” she said, closing her eyes a moment. “I’ll fall to pieces if I hear one more condolence.”

Aulay said nothing.

“You could no’ have been surprised by it,” she said.

He scrutinized her face a moment, as if uncertain what she wanted from him. “No.”

She had not been surprised by the news, either. Shocked to her core, yes. Devastated beyond understanding, certainly. But not surprised. A part of her had known when she’d left her father this morning that it would come to this. Perhaps not as quickly as it had, but a part of her had known. She looked away, feeling the burn in her eyes again.

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

She dabbed at one eye. “I could no’ possibly.”

“Drunk anything?”

“The ale at the inn,” she said weakly.

“Diah, Lottie, you’ll be no use to anyone if you donna mind yourself.”

“I was no use to my father even in the best of health, was I? One might argue that I brought this on him. On us. On all of us,” she said bitterly, and tightened her hold of herself. If she didn’t, all the misery frothing in her would spill out and contaminate everything and everyone on this ship.

“You’re no’ to blame,” he said quietly.

“I wish I could agree with you.”

“Ah, Lottie, lass,” he murmured, and caressed her arm. “Listen to me, aye? We must bury him.”

We. He was being kind. How could he be so kind to her after all she’d put him through? She gave him a tremulous smile. “Please donna trouble yourself, Aulay. I know we must. We’ve a place on the island, next to my mother.”

Aulay winced and shook his head. He wrapped his hand around her elbow and drew her closer. “I mean tonight.”

Tonight. How could she bury her father tonight? Would they be in another port? She’d not leave her father in some foreign port! She opened her mouth to tell him so, but then understanding dawned, and she gasped, rearing back, away from him, repulsed. Enraged. Horrified.

“You canna leave him as he is,” he said, his voice soft. “There is the issue of decay.”

She whirled away from him, appalled, fearing she might heave. “Donna say another word!” she begged him, and pressed her hands to her abdomen to contain her distress.

“You’ve born quite a lot in your life, and you’ll bear this, too.” He stepped up behind her, leaned his head over her shoulder and said softly, “Your father would no’ want to rot away before his children.”

A swell of nausea overcame her. She pressed her fists into her belly, swallowing it down. Hot tears clouded her vision again. She wanted to say things, to tell Aulay that her father was a good man, that he didn’t deserve this death. She wanted to say that she’d failed him, and for that, she would never forgive herself. But no words came out. She began to lean forward, as if pushed by an unseen force. She felt faint.

Aulay caught her with an arm around her waist and pulled her back into his chest, holding her upright. “Ah, leannan,” he said, caressing her head. “It will be all right,” he promised her. “On my word, it will be all right.”

He was wrong—it would never be all right. Lottie had failed to save her father and her clan and it would never be all right.

“We’ll have a proper ceremony, aye?” he said soothingly into her ear. “I’ll give you and your brothers a bit of time to prepare yourself.”

How did one prepare to toss her father’s body into the sea? She couldn’t do it. She wanted to lie down and close her eyes until the pain in her heart and head eased. Forever, in other words, for the pain in her heart would never ease. “Is that why we’ve sailed? To bury him?” she asked tearfully.

But Aulay never answered her, because someone below began to shout for him. He let go of her, the warmth and hard wall of his body disappearing from her back. “Go, now, and tell your brothers. I’ll send your actor up to help you.”

Emptiness surrounded Lottie as Aulay hurried down the steps and strode across the deck.

She watched him go. She could still feel his strength surrounding her, could still sense the small bit of comfort she’d felt with him firmly at her back. She thought of the way he’d held her in the stable—so tenderly, and at the same time, his hold unbreakable.

It felt like a dream. Everything felt like a sad, sweet dream.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THERE WAS NO wind to speak of as they made their way from Aalborg into Kattegat Bay, and progress was slow. The tiny pinprick of light behind them was also moving slowly, and had made no gains on the Reulag Balhaire for several hours.