Devil in Tartan (Highland Grooms #4)(93)

“Lottie? Is that you?” Mr. MacColl suddenly appeared behind the woman and stepped around her. “Aye, thank you, Miriam, you may go.” He turned a beaming smile to Lottie and ran a hand nervously over the silver hair on his head. “You’ve come back! I had some question of it, that I did, but here you are! Come in, come in, aye?” he said, gesturing for her to enter. “Miriam! Have we any tea? Bring some tea for the lady! And...and some biscuits!”

“We donna have biscuits, you know it well!” the woman shouted from the back.

“It’s all right,” Lottie said quickly. “Please, Mr. MacColl, donna go to any trouble.”

“’Tis no trouble for you, lass. I’m so...pleased, that I am, that you’re quite all right. I had feared the worst.”

“The worst?” she asked curiously. “Oh. I brought these for you.” She held out the flowers to him.

Mr. MacColl looked at the flowers and his face lit with delight. He beamed. “Miriam!”

He took the flowers and ushered her into a room. “Please,” he said, gesturing to a seat.

Lottie sat gingerly as Mr. MacColl bustled about, looking for something in which to put the flowers. She noted some touches of his life before his wife had died. A bit of china. Some bonny paintings on the wall. But it was rather stark, really, and obvious that a man lived here without benefit of a female companion. Or children, his all grown and married now, with families of their own. Her heart ached a little for him.

Mr. MacColl returned to her side and sat on a chair across from her.

“You said you expected the worst?” she asked curiously.

“Oh, aye,” he said, blushing. “I thought... I suspected, well...” He paused. He swallowed. He studied his hands, clearly searching for words.

“The stills are gone, Mr. MacColl,” she said, taking advantage of his fluster. “My father, he ordered them taken down when we left. I’m glad they’re gone.”

He sighed with relief. “I am happy to hear that from your lips, Lottie, that I am. Naugh’ but trouble, that. Gilroy’s ship didna look seaworthy, and there was rumor of a wee bit of trouble on the North Sea. A ship that sounded quite like Gilroy’s had fired on a naval ship and set it afire, which, again, sounded a wee bit like Gilroy, aye?” he said with a slight roll of his eyes. “And that wee ship has no’ been seen since.”

“So, you knew that we...”

“Oh, aye,” he said, nodding. “I saw you go out, I did. Sailed right past us here on the south end.”

There was no other way to the sea. They’d been such fools, the lot of them. “We thought no one had seen us.”

“Oh, but we all did,” Mr. MacColl said cheerfully. “Was your, ah...voyage successful, then?”

Lottie shook her head. “Quite the contrary. There was indeed trouble on the North Sea and Gilroy’s ship sank.”

Mr. MacColl’s eyes rounded.

“We couldna find a buyer and lost our cargo...and we lost my father.”

Mr. MacColl’s eyes widened. “Bernt? The devil you say,” he added softly, and moved to sit next to Lottie on the settee. He took her hand in his. “Lass, my deepest condolences. What happened, then?”

Lottie told him everything. Everything. She left nothing out—from the fight with the naval ship, to stealing the Mackenzie ship, to Aalborg and the awful voyage home. She told him about the fortnight spent at Balhaire, and their escape. She told him about the Livingstone predicament, and the Mackenzie loss, and what she hoped to do to repay their loss, and what had brought her here. She talked so much that her head began to throb with all the talking.

When she had finished, Mr. MacColl smiled affectionately. “Your father has long boasted that you were the brightest star on our little island, aye? He was right about that, he was. Of course I’ll do as you ask, Lottie...but are you certain this is what you want, then?”

She laughed ruefully. “No’ at all.” She colored slightly and said, “I donna mean to offend.”

“I’m no’ offended, lass. I’m a wise old man. I understand you completely, aye?” He stood up. “Shall I come with you now?”

“No’ now, if you please,” she said. “I need a wee bit of time—I’ve no’ told anyone. Will you come for supper?”

“I will.”

She stood up and smiled at him. He took her hand and kissed the back of it, then smiled at her again. “You’re a brave lass, no one can ever say you’re no’.”

Lottie wasn’t brave at all. She’d just run out of options.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CATRIONA, BLESS HER, did not need to be persuaded. She arrived at the cove at precisely noon, dressed for sailing and wearing the boots Aulay had brought her from Flanders a few years ago, carrying a small satchel. “We may be gone a few days. Are you prepared for it?” he asked her once more.

“Aye, of course!” she said brightly. “What else have I to occupy me, then?”

She was the first to board the small cutter Aulay had borrowed from the MacDonalds, having paid a call to them yesterday afternoon.

Iain the Red and his brother Malcolm had volunteered to sail them down the coast. They were fortunate to catch a good wind that sent them well along for the better part of the day. It was a stroke of luck that they reached Lismore Island just as the sun was starting to slide west. They put in at a small dock on the southern end of the island, and Aulay and Catriona walked on shore. After they’d meandered down a path a ways, they met a pair of shepherds.