Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(67)

He lifted a thick finger to his lips. “No’ a word, Lottie,” he whispered.

Her heart vaulted into her throat. “Have we been overrun by pirates?”

He shook his head. “They canna see us in the fog. But we can hear them. They are passing us, and we must be as quiet as the dead until they’ve gone,” he whispered.

Lottie brought her hands to cheeks, pressing her fingers hard against her skin to keep from screaming with the anxiety that was ratcheting up in her.

Duff turned his attention to the closed hatch door. Lottie dropped her hands and looked up, too. They stood together, staring up, both of them straining to hear something, both of them waiting for someone to open the hatch.

“What is it?” Duff hissed.

Lottie heard it then, too—a soft pattering overhead.

“Rain,” she whispered.

Duff frowned. “That means the fog will lift soon.”

The pattering was light at first, but suddenly the rain fell heavy, falling in a deluge on the deck.

“I’m going up,” Duff said.

“Lot? I canna see you!” Drustan cried.

“I’m here, Drustan,” she said. She watched Duff go up, desperately wanting to go up with him, but unable to leave Drustan. She could never leave Drustan. Hadn’t that been her mother’s favorite refrain? Donna leave Dru.

“I’m hungry,” he said when she came to his side. He was clutching his carving to his chest. A gull, she’d noticed, and a rather good one at that. “I’ll see what I can find, aye?” she said, and dug in the crate for anything to eat and finding nothing but sour ale.

Drustan drained the flagon. “But I’m hungry, Lottie.”

“Soon, Dru. You must be patient.”

He suddenly looked up. “What’s that, then?” he asked. “What’s that noise?”

It sounded as if someone were pumping water from a well. “The tide must be rising.” Or was it going out? Why did no one come for them? If the ship had passed, why were they still locked away? The rain began to leak through the planks above them, and they moved into the center of the hold.

All at once there was a lot of shouting overhead. Drustan wailed beside her, frightened by the shouting. Lottie made out the word heave, and suddenly the ship pitched right so violently that it caught Lottie and Drustan unawares. She grabbed her brother and a post, and had hardly righted herself when the ship suddenly and violently collided with something. The force of it knocked her and Drustan to the floor. Lottie’s hand landed in water, and when she turned around, she saw water rushing in from the stern.

Drustan cried out, groping for the post, hauling himself to his feet. Lottie managed to gain hers, too. There was a hole in the hull the size of a whisky cask. She shrieked with alarm and grabbed Drustan’s hand. “Come! We have to go!” she shouted.

“No!” he screamed, and wrapped his arms around the post.

She tugged frantically at his arms and tried to unlock his grip, but Drustan refused to let go. She was no match for him—he was far too strong and she could not move as much as one of his fingers. “Dru! If we stay below we drown!” she cried, and punched him in the arm. “You have to come!”

He responded with a roar and squeezed his eyes shut.

Lottie gasped with the understanding she would go down with this ship. Drustan would not leave the post he clung to, and she would not leave Drustan, which meant she would drown. Panic clawed at her throat and her belly, threatening to erupt in bile. “Please,” she begged her brother. “I donna want to die, Dru! You must trust me, aye? Fader would tell you to do as I say!”

At the mention of their father, Drustan cut her a look. “I’m scared!”

“Aye, so am I! But I donna want to sink to the bottom of the sea with no hope! At least above we have a chance of surviving. Fader would want us to fight!”

“I canna swim!” he shrieked, and tears as big as raindrops began to slide down his face.

“We’ll no’ swim,” she promised him, her voice shaking as she caressed his cheek. “There are boats above, Dru, remember? Boats!” She hoped to heaven that was true, that everyone else had not deserted them. She gripped one of his large hands and managed to peel it from the post as water inched over their boots.

Amazingly, she managed to tug her reluctant brother to the stairs. He kept grabbing at things, trying to find something to hold on to, but her determination was making her stronger than she had ever been in her life. When they reached the stairs, she pushed him in front of her, yelling at him to go up, to open the hatch. “I’m frightened!” he shouted.

Diah, what was she to do with him? Lottie shoved around him. She scrambled up the steps and threw open the hatch, then just as quickly went down again and made him step in front of her. “Duff and Mats are waiting for you,” she said breathlessly. It was a lie, but she had to do something to get him to move. She watched his hulking shape crawl hesitantly up the steps, then slowly disappear onto the deck. When she was certain he was out, she began to scramble up the stairs after him.

She was halfway up when the ship lurched and she fell off the stairs, landing on the floor of the hold on a knee. Wrenching pain shot up her spine, stunning her. She took several breaths to quell the nausea the sharp pain had caused her. Water had reached her fingertips, and through sheer will, she got on two hands and one knee and pushed herself to standing. She hopped to the steps and tried again. Her good leg onto a rung, followed by her bad. Then again, gasping with pain as she put weight on the bad to lift the good one up to the next rung.