Highland Lover: Book 3 Scottish Knights Trilogy (7 page)

“I’ll need things from my cabin,” she said.

“Nay, lass, we must go straightaway,” he said.

“I don’t want to be left with only the clothes I stand in, sir. I’m a sennight or more away from home, so I’ll need at least a change of garments. And if I’m not to freeze before we reach shelter, I’ll also need my cloak.”

“Where’s your cabin?”

“Just behind you, to your right,” she said.

“Take the lad up, Mace,” he said. “And uncover they coble.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” the other man said, stepping nearer.

Startled to learn that the leader was the smaller ship’s captain but realizing that he meant to give her at least a minute or two, she slipped past them into her dark cabin. Feeling for her fur-lined cloak on its hook, she flung it over her shoulders, then felt her way to the shelf bed, hoping to recognize her garments by touch.

“I’m behind you, mistress,” the leader said quietly.

Whirling, but able to see no more than his denser shadow blocking most of the dim light at the open doorway, she said, “I’m coming, but my woman and I threw our clothing over here to make room for ourselves in the two kists.”

“Your woman?”

“Aye, Ciara. They captured her as she was getting into her kist. She had latched mine, and I couldn’t get out. One of the men rattled the pin, but someone called him away. Had it not been for Will—”

“Just grab a kirtle or something and come on,” he interjected. “Whatever you take will get soaked before we reach my ship, or, more likely, the shore.”

“Dare we seek refuge in England?” she asked, grab
bing what felt like her blue kirtle and a bit of softer fabric beneath it that she hoped was a shift.

“We may have to,” he said, urging her toward the doorway. “If I am not mistaken, that squall line I saw bearing down on us will shortly engulf us. And my lads are likely somewhere between us and the squall.”

“Will it swamp them… or us?” she asked him as they moved to the ladder.

“Nay, but since we’ll be safer sailing with the wind than against it, we’ll likely let the waves and weather carry us ashore.”

Earlier, his voice had echoed at first, melding with the noises of the storm above and the crashing of waves against the ship. But as close as he was to her now, she’d detected a familiar note in it and wondered if he was someone she’d met or just a man accustomed to telling others what to do. Her older brothers had been such men before their deaths, and her cousins James and Ivor Mackintosh were as well.

“Now, lass, up you go!” he said.

Telling herself that it did not matter who the Scotsman was if he could get her and Will safely off the sinking ship, Alyson hurried up the ladder.

Watching her go, Jake wished he could see her face. His night vision was excellent, but it had been too dark below for him to see her features, although he had easily sensed her slipping past them into the cabin, and had followed her.

When he’d paused at the cabin threshold, his senses attuned themselves more to sounds and movements of the
ship than to her. Even then, the echo of her voice lingered, stirring a vague if unidentifiable memory of laughter, pleasant people, and good food. He knew that he had startled her by announcing his presence behind her. But she had remained calm and determined, despite the danger, to find her clothing.

A sudden lurch of the ship made him say, “Hurry, mistress. If she rolls…”

“I’m hurrying!” She swept up her skirts with her left hand, thrust the small bundle she carried under her left arm, and went up the ladder now using only her right hand for balance. Her calmness impressed him. He had not met many women who would act with such assurance on a storm-ridden ship.

Her speech had informed him that she was of gentle birth. Her thickly lined cloak and immediate resistance to following orders strongly suggested a noble one.

Going up after her, he saw that Mace and the lad stood by the sturdy-looking coble, which rested on the deck devoid of its canvas cover. Its mast would go up easily, and stout cables and ropes led from bow and stern rings to pulleys above.

“Hey, that’s
our
boat!” The shout came from three rough-looking men in leather breastplates who erupted from the stern hatchway, waving swords.

Snatching his own from its sling, Jake saw Mace grab his sword with one hand and thrust the boy aside with the other.

“Stay here, lass!”

Without awaiting a reply, Jake dashed down the slanted, rain-slick deck with a shout to divert the second and third men from their onslaught. Both turned toward
him, allowing Mace time to dispatch his challenger. Jake engaged the nearer man. As he did, he said, “Be ye a seaman o’ the
Maryenknyght
or a gallous Englishman?”

“I’m English, damn your Scottish hide,” the man said, lunging.

Flicking the Englishman’s sword aside with a deft stroke, fighting to keep footing on the slippery deck but damned if he’d let his opponent see him fall, Jake said, “Ye’ve missed your ship, laddie.”

The man, breathing hard, had already slipped twice. “They said there be treasure here,” he said. “Tell me where it be or I’ll spit ye t’ hell!”

Deflecting another wild swing of the sword, Jake snapped, “
Who
told you?”

“Aye, ye’d like t’ know.” Raising his sword again, murder in his eyes, the man drove his sword toward Jake.

Stepping aside, Jake finished him and looked to see how Mace did with the third man just as the chap darted around him, waving his sword like a madman.

Mace ducked under the blade and when the man rushed him, the burly oarsman heaved him up and straight overboard.

Glancing about as if seeking further opponents, Mace said as if naught had happened, “All’s ready tae hoist yon coble, sir. She’ll clear that railing easy.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Jake saw the lass hurrying toward them, holding her hood with one hand and her wee bundle in the other.

The lad had managed to get himself to the railing just behind the coble.

Before hoisting the boat, Jake said over his shoulder loudly enough to carry despite the howling winds sweeping
down across the deck from its higher port side to where they stood near the steerboard railing, “We’ll put you and the boy in the coble before we lower it, mistress.”

“Aye, sure, I ken who ye be now,” the lad said abruptly. “It ha’ been a-tugging at me memory since ye called tae us down in yon passage.”

Looking right at him for the first time, Jake smiled. “I remember you, too, now that I see you. Your name is Will, is it not?” When the boy nodded, Jake said, “We met on another ship, a year ago, on the Firth of Tay.”

Saying the words sharpened his earlier vague memory of pleasant people into who they had been. Knowing now why the lass’s voice had triggered the memory earlier, he remembered with some dismay just who she was.

“Lady Alyson, I trust you remember me, too,” he said, taking her bundle from her. Her beautiful, widening gray eyes told him that she did.

“Mercy,” she exclaimed. “Jake… that is, Sir Jacob Maxwell!”

“ ’Tis m’self, aye. And ‘Jake’ is enough, my lady, since your cousin Ivor and I are closer than most brothers. In troth, though, I’d never have expected to find you on this ship. When last we met, you were about to marry.”

“I was, and I did. My husband, Niall Clyne, is one of Orkney’s aides, which is why you find me here. But, as you said yourself, sir, we must make haste.”

“We must, aye,” Jake agreed. Stifling the unexpected disappointment that rippled through him at learning that she had indeed married, he added, “When we reach shore, I hope you won’t object if we address one another informally. I think it will be safer to do so until we know more.”

“If you can get us to safety, sir, you may call me whatever you like.”

Jake chuckled, but Mace said, “Cap’n Jake can sail aught that floats, m’lady.”

“Sir Ivor said the same, aye,” Will said, nodding, as Mace scooped him up and put him into the coble. As the boy made his way to sit on the midthwart beside the lowered mast, he said urgently, “Them pirates took Jamie, Cap’n Jake!”

“I know,” Jake said, handing him Lady Alyson’s bundle. “Sithee, lad, we’ve been following the
Maryenknyght
. Now, my lady,” he added, scooping her up much as Mace had done with the boy, “in you go.”

“Can you lower this boat safely?” she asked.

“Aye, sure,” he said, steadying the coble while she moved to sit by Will.

“After you do, how will you and your man get into it?”

“You’ll see,” he said. “You need only sit still whilst we do it.”

When she and Will were safe and gripping the mast, he helped Mace hoist the bow enough to clear the railing. Then they raised the stern. The tricky bit came next, but both men had done similar tasks many times. Using the pulleys and tie bars, moving with well-accustomed dexterity, they let the coble swing out over the railing and into position to lower.

Roping it off once more and standing on the railing, Jake got in first, then Mace. They raised the mast, then untied the ropes, watching each other as they slowly began to lower the boat. The increasing list of the ship made their task easier, but Jake knew that they remained in dire peril. The next giant wave might make the ship turn turtle, and that would be that for all of them.

At the last minute, a wave nearly undid them, but he and Mace released the ropes and grabbed oars to steady the boat as it slid down the offside of the wave.

“Row from where you are, Mace,” Jake shouted. “I’ll get the sail up and set whilst we’re protected by the ship. That wind will hit us hard in the open.”

Alyson watched intently, looking from one man to the other, and feeling as if her heart were seeking a home away from her chest. Although she believed that one should cope with life as it came, seeing her rescuers face three swordsmen and then having to descend from the ship in this small boat… She shuddered.

Surely, the pounding in her head and throat were but echoes of her pounding heart, but she could not recall a time when she had been more terrified. And Jake Maxwell’s saying that the
Maryenknyght
could roll at any time kept repeating itself in her mind. That didn’t help, but try as she might to stifle the thought, it lingered.

She and Will both bent over, trying to protect themselves from seawater that sloshed over the sides and rain driven by the errant gusts of wind that whipped and howled around the
Maryenknyght
as Mace, rowing in the bow, pulled the coble away from the ship. Jake stood right between Will and Alyson, unfurling the sail.

Will hauled himself up to help as well as he could, and Jake did not object. Alyson wished he would order the boy to sit down again but held her peace, having all she could do to keep her hood in place with one hand and her free arm wrapped around the mast. When wind caught the sail, Will sat down with a bump and bent swiftly
away from a spray of seawater, so their faces were close together.

Jake moved sternward to take the tiller.

“Are you frightened?” she asked the boy.

“Not if I can keep me eye on summat tae do,” he said. “When they was a-lowering us doon tae the water, I near lost what I ate earlier. But, after coming doon from the Bass Rock in that great basket wi’ Jamie, even that were nowt.”

Remembering the graphic description that the boys had given Ciara and her of their departure from the three-hundred-foot rock at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, Alyson managed a smile for Will. “The two of you are so brave,” she said. “I’d have swooned away at having to sit in a basket whilst someone above lowered me into heaving seas like those raging that night around the Bass Rock.”

“Aye, well, where they lowered us were no sae wild as what they rowed us through tae get tae the ship. In troth, I were more scared a-climbing up that rope ladder than in the basket. Lord Orkney said most folks prefer the basket tae walking over tae the leeward shore, though. We couldna go that way, ’cause it were too close tae where Tantallon Castle sits on the opposite shore. Since only Douglases live there, and most Douglases were a-looking for us fierce…” He shrugged.

“Why did people otherwise prefer the basket to the leeward shore?”