Betrayed (20 page)

“That scrap of wood will never get us to England,” Mary scorned as they led the horses onto the creaking walkway over the water.

“Even scraps float,” retorted Amber, but as they neared the wretched ship, her own doubts soared.

Graham Douglas watched the two women approach through lazy eyes, his lids heavy from the day’s labour and his mind bored now that it was done. Graham was a sixth son and if he ever wanted power, he would have to make his own. He’d bought
The Spriggan
from an impoverished Irish merchant with coin he’d been amassing for the last seven of his four and twenty years. Changing her name to
Glory
had been the first improvement. Next he’d reinforced the hull and scraped it clear of barnacles, a task that had kept him and his six men busy for the better part of two months and completed less than an hour ago.

The
Glory
had a way to go before she was anywhere near claiming her rightful place on the Atlantic, and now restless boredom set in.

Brother Tom—and they’d yet to torture the reason for that name from the red-haired McKenzie who was not and certainly never had been a monk—was snoring on the hard planks below and the others had gone to whatever haunts they went to each night after the day’s work. Graham never ventured far or long from the
Glory.
His handful of men did not extend to a standby-crew and he’d not leave her unattended.

“Excuse me, sir,” the black-haired beauty called up to him.

Despite her smudged cheeks and tattered cloak, he could see the woman’s many charms at a glance. Striking green eyes shaped like almonds on a face that would make an angel proud. Aye, he had a weakness for pert noses that would wrinkle in playful mischief and full, lush lips that begged to be kissed.

He rose up along the foremast to his feet, then leant back and crossed one leg over the other. “Graham Douglas at yer service, ma’am,” he drawled with a grin that had served him well in the past.

She seemed taken aback at his ready introduction, but quickly composed herself and offered a smile. “Would you be so kind as to direct me to your captain?”

Ah, so she was English. And clearly refined. Pity that. A coin spent on such a sweet piece of baggage would be a coin well spent, Graham mused as he sauntered across the forecastle and rested his elbows on the tarnished oak railing to get a closer look. He thought to tease her a bit, but something in her steadfast gaze held him back.

“Yet again,” he said, flourishing a bow of sorts, “at yer service, ma’am.”

“Oh.” Those eyes of emerald fire narrowed, then her head dipped as she conferred with the woman at her side in a voice too low to overhear.

’Twas apparent, however, that the two were exchanging heated words. Graham’s natural curiosity peaked. He was well pleased when the green-eyed angel raised her chin to him again.

“We seek to buy passage to the coast of England,” she told him. “As far south as you can take us.”

Graham almost laughed out loud, then realised that she was serious. “Ye wish ta charter my ship fer yer sole use?”

Her gaze swept from bow to stern and her nose wrinkled, clearly at his loose definition of
ship,
and this time Graham did laugh. The little caravel was swift and agile, and ’twas his intent to become known as “The Phantom of the Atlantic” before he was done.

“’Twould cost a pretty coin,” he added, then wondered why. The
Glory
wasn’t sailing anywhere in the foreseeable future.

She came forward, pulling her horse with her and standing slightly to the side. “We would barter these two mares.”

The mare was of good stock, though a little worse for wear. A glint of sunlight off metal caught his eye and Graham peered closer at the badge melded to a very fine saddle indeed.

A thick blond brow rose in surprise at the Johnstone winged spur. Then came down abruptly as he saw the pointed features of a wolf’s head that Krayne Johnstone of Wamphray had added to his personal crest not long after he’d become laird.

His gaze sharpened on the lass. “I’m guessin’ ye have a name?”

“Amber,” she supplied without hesitation.

“Amber of?”

“Amber will suffice.”

Rubbing his stubbled jaw, Graham held her gaze and considered the possibilities. The Wamphray Johnstones had no sisters and, to his knowledge, neither of the brothers were married. It didn’t seem possible that such a gentle lass would have been capable of lifting two mares from Wamphray’s stables.

Here was a mystery to be solved.

Graham’s grin was back. He loved nothing more than a mystery and more so that it involved his good friend Krayne.

“Brother Tom,” he hollered at the top of his voice, startling both women and horses. The
Glory
had made it across the frigid Irish Sea, she could sure as hell hug the coast to England easily enough.

To the lovely Amber, he warned, “She’s nae fitted fer comfort, lass, yet if yer willing, then so am I.”

His gaze was distracted to the older woman, who was signing the cross upon her chest with much vigour and softly moaning, then again to Brother Tom as his dishevelled head appeared at the hatch leading from the ship’s belly. Graham waved the man to his side while he turned back to the beauty, waiting for the nod he had no doubt would come. He knew a desperate lady when he saw one.

He quickly explained the hasty change of plans to Brother Tom in a voice that would not carry, finishing with, “Leave the mares wi’ Blackie an’ urge him ta care well fer them. The Grey Wolf will be along shortly ta reclaim his property, I’m guessin’.
All
o’ his property.”

Amber blinked one eye open, saw a piece of rotted wood dangling precariously low above her head and groaned. Instant recollection of the night spent tossed from side to side until her insides roiled brought her full awake.

And they’d not yet left shore.

Graham Douglas had ignored her request to make haste, insisting that he couldn’t leave until his men had returned, sobered up, and stocked the hold with the necessary provisions for the voyage.

Then again, Amber supposed, safely anchored in shallow waters or rocking on the high seas, it was all the same when you were strung across the corner of a cabin in a hammock that swayed each time you so much as drew breath. Graham Douglas had exaggerated somewhat when he’d described their expected accommodations and offered them his own cabin.

His ship was not fitted
at all.

Mary had chosen the narrow berth to sleep upon, and Amber didn’t envy her. The bunk lacked a pallet of any sort, the hard wood covered with only a scratchy blanket that did not invite a closer look.

The hull creaked ominously, then rocked and bucked without warning, flinging Amber to the floor with her gown about her head and one foot caught in the ropes.

The scream was loud enough to wake the dead, and Mary wasn’t entirely convinced it hadn’t done just that when she jolted upright and heard her bones protest. She felt bruised from head to toe and stiffer than a corpse.

“Help!”

She turned toward the squealed plea, taking in the dark, bare room along the way and made the cross of Christ upon her chest as their sad plight struck her afresh. “What in heavens are you doing, child?” she chided, stumbling from the bunk to free the trapped ankle.

Amber rolled to the floor, then stood and straightened her gown.

Mary watched her, shaking her head in despair. “We cannot spend another night aboard this wreck and well you know it. Our path is clear. You tried your best and now the time has come to admit defeat.”

“Never.”

“My bones are weary and they’ve worked hard enough to deserve better than a watery grave.”

“Don’t ply me with guilt, Mary. I’ve ample to keep a lifetime.” And, before she could receive any advice on where to start making her amends, Amber went to look out the small porthole. The sky was yet a shadowy haze with the approach of dawn not fully upon them, giving the ocean a murky depth it did not have when she last looked from this porthole. Then she realised her mistake. “Passion’s teeth. We’re at sea. We’ve set sail.”

The captain’s cabin was perched at the stern, high above the rolling swells the ship cut through like a knife. Amber glanced back at Mary with excitement. “Graham Douglas did not boast in vain when he spoke of her swiftness. Come see. At this speed, we’ll be home before sundown.”

Mary’s shoulders slumped noticeably as she came closer and peered over Amber’s shoulder in silence.

Amber determined to be pleased for the both of them. She was halfway to freedom. She would
not
think on Krayne and all she left behind. She would
not
think on Mary’s conviction that everything would have worked out fine at Wamphray with a smidgeon of faith and a lot less stubbornness. What felt like a bottomless pit of loss in her belly was no doubt little more than trepidation at their uncertain future.

This way, at least I have a future.

Amber patted her skirts and did what she could to neaten the braid that had pulled loose and tangled during the night. “I’m going on deck to have a word with our captain and find some food to break our fast.”

Mary didn’t answer. Her gaze was fixed on the porthole, her back hunched, her hands in front of her where Amber could not see, but could well guess their occupation. She thought to give Mary a comforting word but knew that there was nothing to say. Every one of the woman’s fears was valid.

Now that they were on their way, the prospect of arriving at a home that William Jardin might or might not have sold in her stead, of finding an elderly husband to take care of the two of them after first somehow persuading him to aid her in arranging the annulment of her first marriage, looked less and less bright, if not dark as a moonless night.

She found Graham Douglas on the quarterdeck, braced behind the wheel with the wind billowing his black shirt as if it were a fourth sail. He cut an impressive figure against the backdrop of grey skies and white-tipped waves spraying over the side of the hull.

He beckoned her closer and, as she crossed the raised deck, a quick survey of the land beyond told her that they’d left the Solway of Firth behind for the Irish Sea.

“We’re making good headway,” she shouted above the roar of ocean and wind.

He grinned. “We left a good three hours ago ta take advantage of the morning tide. There’s fish stew below in the galley an’ a jug of ale ta wash it down with.”

Amber nodded, but was content to stay a moment and savour the crisp morning air. Seagulls squawked above them, for they sailed close enough to the coastline on their left for her to make out such detail as the ragged definition of the cliffs and the gorse growing wild along the top and some way down the edge.

“Should we be quite so close to the shoreline?” she queried.

“Have no fear, ma’am. I’m familiar with this channel and its troughs. We’ll come upon the Isle of Man shortly ta yer right, and once we’ve passed I’ll take us further out.”

She followed his gaze and found a bulky shadow in the distance, seemingly bopping up and down with the swells. “I see it.”

“Nay, that be a ship. We’ll soon be crossing paths. The Isle is yet some ways.”

The muscles at her neck pulled tight and she forced herself to dismiss the eerie premonition. If Alexander had somehow found her direction, and then managed to procure a ship of any size from Annan’s measly port, he would be coming up from behind and not sailing directly at them. Still, it did no harm to take fresh air for a while longer, just to be sure there was no danger.

Graham watched with amusement the raven-haired beauty’s sudden stiffness. He’d attempted to ply her secrets loose the night before to no avail. That meant he’d simply have to try harder in the light of day. As the moving monolith closed the distance, slowly carving the shape of a large mercantile vessel designed for cargo and not agility or speed, he noted Amber slink discreetly behind the mizzenmast.

“Show our signal,” he bellowed proudly, leaning over the wheel for a clear view as Brother Tom raised the square black patch with vividly detailed red eyes in the top right corner.

The Phantom flew for the very first time and his chest swelled.

“What in heavens is that?” Momentarily forgetting her cover, Amber stood aside, peering at the devil’s eyes with hands on her hips.

Graham would have been delighted to explain, but just then he sighted the grey and white stripes embossed with the outline of a wolf’s head flying boldly on the approaching ship. Krayne Johnstone skipped between his ships depending on which way his fancy blew, but the Grey Wolf only flew when Krayne was acting captain.

“The Grey Wolf approaches,” he called instead, watching Amber’s reaction eagerly. It took her a moment to make the connection, then she paled and flattened her body against the mast.

“That cannot be,” she muttered. “He could never make it there and back so quickly.”

His grin spread to warm his belly as he tossed the first wedge of cheese to his little mouse. “Aye, Krayne Johnstone usually dallies a sennight at least ta sample Bordeaux’s pleasures. ’Twould take a man much less curious than I ta wonder what chases the wolf back ta his lair.”

Amber’s heart constricted at the news that her husband had gone only as far as Bordeaux, and then again as she contemplated the nature of the pleasure he regularly sampled.

“Curiosity is the work of idle hands,” she snapped. “I couldn’t care less where the man goes or what he does there.”

“Then ye care only that he’d stayed, doing what he does, a little longer?” Graham countered and she knew her error at once.

“I’ve heard of the Grey Wolf,” Amber improvised with a deliberate chiding tone. “The outrageous tales, wrought to strike terror in maid and warrior alike, follow him from coast to coast. ’Tis not unseemly that I’d be content to forgo the odious circumstance of ever meeting such a blackguard face to face.”

“Not unseemly in the least,” Graham agreed, not at all convinced. Here was a tale, indeed, and he looked forward to the unravelling of it. That Amber of Nowhere and Krayne Johnstone of Wamphray knew each other, and knew each other well, was already a foregone conclusion in his mind.