Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(76)

The other thing that startled her was how many people were in the room. The laird and his wife, of course, as well as Catriona. Aulay stood at the hearth with a man with rich brown hair who was a wee bit taller and broader. That man stared at Lottie in a manner that she was very much accustomed to, but then suddenly glanced away, to a woman seated in a chair nearby. There was another couple, the lady on a settee, the gentleman standing behind her.

“Miss Livingstone,” the laird said. “You will pardon me if I donna rise, aye? My leg pains me. You’ve met my wife and daughter. Might I also introduce my son Rabbie Mackenzie, and his wife, Mrs. Bernadette Mackenzie.”

“How do you do,” the woman said in a crisp, English accent.

How did she do? She was shaking in her borrowed slippers, hoping there was something to which she might cling to keep from collapsing.

“My daughter Vivienne and her husband, Mr. Marcas Mackenzie,” the laird continued.

“Madainn mhath,” the woman said.

“Madainn mhath,” Lottie responded, her voice scarcely above a whisper.

“You may introduce yourself, then,” the laird said.

Lottie curtsied and introduced the Livingstones, who stood behind her in a half circle, none of them coming any deeper into the room.

“I’d like to ask a few questions, if I may?” the laird continued and gestured to a chair at his desk. “Will you sit, then, Miss Livingstone?”

Lottie glanced at the chair. She clasped her hands before her to hide her trembling and said, “If you please, milord, I prefer to stand.”

One of his bushy brows rose above the other. “Verra well. You may begin by explaining when you first saw the royal ship in pursuit?”

So it had been a royal ship. Lottie exchanged a worried look with her men.

“Shortly after we came round the Orkneys, sir,” Gilroy said, stepping forward. “’Twas my ship that was lost.”

“What caused the altercation between you and the royal ship?”

Gilroy looked at Lottie.

She cleared her throat. “We carried illegal spirits, milord. Spirits we’d distilled, aye?”

There was a rustling in the room, and the laird glanced at his sons. Aulay’s expression remained impassive, but his brother was gaping at Lottie, either appalled by her audacity, or that she’d admitted it.

“If I may?” Lottie asked. The laird nodded. “We’ve a new laird on Lismore Island, Mr. Duncan Campbell, aye? He’s raised our rents, and we canna afford to pay them. My father...” She paused, swallowing down a lump in her throat, the wound still so fresh. “May he rest in peace,” she added softly. “My father had the idea that as we could no’ produce our rents by our usual means, which is to say, a wee bit of farming or fishing, that we might do it with whisky.”

“Illegal whisky,” the laird unnecessarily reminded her.

“Quite.”

“Did you know, then, that the Campbells are engaged in the legitimate end of the whisky trade?” he asked curiously.

“Aye, milord.”

The laird looked again at his sons.

Lottie felt strangely at ease, somehow calmed by the truth. It was easier to just say it, to admit everything they’d done, than try and hide aspects of it to make them look at least somewhat justified. So she forged ahead. “Our laird Campbell, he suspected what we were about, that he did. He meant to find the stills, but we had them hidden verra well. Still, he kept coming round, kept looking, and we knew it was only a matter of time ere he found them. We decided we ought to sell what we had.”

“Why Denmark?” the laird asked curiously. “God knows there’s enough of a market in Scotland, aye?”

“Aye, milord, but we thought it no’ safe, no’ with Mr. Campbell’s suspicions and his eyes everywhere. We... All of us,” she said, gesturing to her companions, “are descended from the Danes. A man had come from Denmark last summer and mentioned that he had worked with a trading company in Aalborg that traded spirits and tobacco.”

“You were sailing to Denmark when the royal ship met you, then.”

Lottie nodded. “They came round, signaled for us to drop our sails. When we did no’, they fired on us,” Lottie said. How odd that the memory was so vivid in her mind, but seemed like almost a lifetime ago now. It felt like a story she’d once told. So much had happened since that day.

“And you fired on them?” the laird asked.

“Aye,” Lottie admitted. “On my honor, I donna know how we managed to strike them at all, much less cause a fire. None of us are sailors.”

“I’d say you’re a better shot than sailor, I would,” the laird said. “The ship had to be scuttled.”

“Bloody hell,” Duff muttered behind her.

“So, then, while you were taking on water, along comes the Reulag Balhaire to your aid, and you determine the best course of action is to deceive the captain and his men and take control of the ship, is that it?”

Lottie winced. She glanced at Aulay. “We didna mean to keep it,” she said softly. “We meant to...to borrow it, more or less.”

“Borrow it,” the laird repeated. “How in hell do you borrow a ship?”

Her cheeks felt as if they were burning. “Aye, well, we tricked them, milord. We had nothing but that bloody whisky, nothing to our name, and verra few options.” She paused, swallowing down the bitter truth that she had chosen the wrong path. She should have accepted her fate as a woman and a daughter of the Livingstone chief and accepted MacColl’s offer. Her regret knew no depths. She cleared her throat. “We stood to lose our land to the laird and decided, as a clan, that we ought to sell the whisky. We never meant to do more than take our whisky to Aalborg and sell it and return the ship to the captain as we found it.”