The Wild Rose of Kilgannon (43 page)

"I have as much right to be here as you," I said softly.

Dougall frowned. "The two of ye will be the death of me yet."

I ignored him and watched Alex. Dougall went to his side and declared DeBroun dead. Alex wiped his sword clean on DeBroun's clothes, then turned and met my eyes across the garden. He came to me without a word, taking my hand and leading me from the garden.

We returned to the Mary Rose
silently
and I to our cabin. No one had spoken to me, and Alex did not come to me for hours. I sat shivering in the warm cabin with the boys pestering me with questions. I held my baby while I tried to erase the memories of what I'd seen. It was Matthew who came and sat with me,
silently
at first, then slowly talking, telling me what they'd done before I'd arrived. He smiled just once, when he said he and Alex had flipped a coin to determine who would fight DeBroun.

"I lost," he said, and I met his eyes over the boys' heads, both of us knowing DeBroun would have killed him.

Alex came to me in the dusk, smiling with the boys, and taking the baby from me without a word. He sat on our berth and rocked his third son while the first and second plied him with questions.

"Where did ye go, Da?" Ian demanded again.

Alex met my eyes briefly, then looked at Ian. "To set-de a score, lad," he said
quietly
, while I stared at the wall. "To
settle
a score that only I could
settle
."

"It was unnecessary," I said
quietly
.

Alex shook his head. "No, lass," he said softly. "It was necessary. And it's done."

"What about Webster? Will you go after him as well?" Alex met my look evenly. "Perhaps. Perhaps when he returns, I'll pay him a visit, lass. Not a duel, but a visit." "I see. And burning the house? Houses?" "My calling card,
Mary
. Something to remember me by." Alex rocked Robbie, who had become fretful.

"Mary Rose," Alex said, and I looked at him again. "I love ye, lass. Dinna forget that. No man harms my wife or my family and escapes my wrath. I love ye, lass." "And I you, Alex. But this could have ended much differently."

"Aye." He kissed the baby's forehead. "But it dinna." I shook my head, unwilling to argue in front of the boys.

It was a quiet night. We were both awake for large parts of it,
silently
turning in our berth. Alex reached for me just before dawn, and I cried in his arms while he whispered words of love.

"Take me home, Alex," I sobbed. "Take me home."

"I will, Mary Rose," he said, and wiped the tears from my cheek. "I will, lass. But, Mary, ye ken I canna stay there. They'll come after me now for sure."

"I know, my love. But we can go home for a while anyway."

"Aye, for a while. We'll go soon."

"Why not now?"

"Soon."

The dawn brought rain. And unwelcome tidings. Gilbey brought us steaming cups of tea at first light, and with it the news that The Hammer of Scotland was preparing to set sail. Alex took the cup from Gilbey with a blank expression, and I looked from my husband to the younger man.

"So?" I said. "So?"

"So," Gilbey said, clearly unhappy to be putting his thoughts into words. He gave Alex a questioning glance and at Alex's nod, continued. "So The Hammer of Scotland is carrying two hundred Jacobite prisoners, Mary. Bound for the colonies, where they'll be sold into indentured service for fourteen years."

"Poor souls," I said, then turned to Alex with narrowed eyes. "But what has this to do with us?"

Gilbey cleared his throat and looked at Alex for help. Alex straightened his back and met my eyes. "Murdoch's on board, Mary," Alex said. "And we're going to go get him."

I started to laugh, which startled both men, and I rose to my feet, carefully putting my cup down on the table. "Alex MacGannon," I said, "one of us has gone mad. I'm not quite sure which it is, but one of us has gone mad." And I left the cabin.

He found me on deck, wrapping my arms around myself and staring at Gannon's Lady. When he put a hand on my shoulder I did not turn, and when he leaned to kiss my neck I batted him away.

"It won't work, Alex. It won't work." I turned to meet his eyes. "Why can't we just go home? I'm sorry that Murdoch is going to the colonies, but why must we risk life and limb yet again? Was yesterday not enough? Do you now crave danger?" "I willna endanger ye, lass, nor our sons. Ye'll be safe aboard the Mary Rose and well away from the action." He stroked a hand across my hair. "And remember, Mary. The Macleans aided us in freeing ye from Webster. Is it no' right to aid them in freeing Murdoch?"

"So you'll take two small ships, two brigs, against The Hammer of Scotland! An East Indiaman twice the size. You'll be outgunned and outmanned. What are you thinking, Alex?"

"We're faster."

"You're smaller."

"We can outmaneuver her."

"She has twenty-four guns, Alex. Twenty-four. The
Margareth's
four and Gannon's Lady eight. That's half the
gunpowder
."

"We canna use the cannon, lass."

I felt my eyes widen, then realized why he said that. "If you use the guns you'll destroy the ship."

Alex nodded. "And perhaps the men she holds."

"You're going to capture her."

"Aye."

"How?"

"We'll fire into her sails and then we'll board her. Murdoch kens we'll try. I told him if I got freed I'd
try
."

I stared at him, then shook my head. "You're going to become a pirate off the coast of England?"

He nodded again. "Just outside the mouth of the Thames, lass."

"You've gone mad."

He laughed and nodded. "I may have. But I'm enjoying it."

"Why?" I breathed. "Why, Alex?"

He pressed his lips together and stared into the distance, at last returning his gaze to mine. "When I was in the Tower, lass, I realized how much I hated to be powerless."

"E
very
one does."

He nodded again. "And I determined that if I was ever free again, I'd do my best to free every Scot under lock and key."

"At the risk of your own life?"

He looked at his boots, then raised his eyes to mine. "They'll hunt me for the rest of my life,
Mary
. They have no choice. I'm too well known now, too dangerous, to be left alone. Even if we go to Kilgannon, lass, I canna stay. At best I'll visit ye sometimes, but I canna stay. And if I'm no' there, who will guard ye and the boys? And the clan?"

"And this is better?"

"This, Mary Rose, is two things. A ship big enough to transport many of our people across the sea in safety, should we decide to go. And a means to thumb my nose at England while freeing my
country
men and a good friend and paying my debt to the Macleans."

"I see."

"I thought ye might."

"And you cannot resist."

He shook his head. "I canna. I willna."

I turned from him then, thinking of what he'd said. He was right, I'd known that, and had thought enough about it myself. We could go to Kilgannon, but we would never be left to live our lives there in peace. And by returning we endangered not only ourselves and our sons, but the entire clan. The reasons that Alex had given himself into Robert's custody were still valid. Alex had been pleased to discover that
Harry
's schemes had proved successful, but even if Kenneth cleared the obstacles to the legal ownership of Kilgannon, Alex was still an escaped convict, a condemned traitor, and a notorious one at that. They would never leave him at Kilgannon. The soldiers would come, or the ships. One day, they'd come after him. Was the saving of one life worth the loss of five hundred? I sighed.

"But where can we go now, my love?" I asked quietly.

He wrapped his arms around me. "
I've
been thinking, lass. We have few choices. We canna stay in
Scotland
or in England."

"A ship big enough to transport people across the sea in safety," I said, remembering his words. "You're thinking of going to visit Becca." He nodded. "The Carolinas ... Where you would have been sent as an indentured servant."

"No, that was Virginia. That's a thought too." He kissed my neck and I bent my head to allow him more access. "And there's always the Caribbean, but that's full of English ships and pirates."

"How would we live? Would you trade?"

"I've no' thought it all out, Mary Rose. I thought ye could help with the details." He turned me and held me against him.

"The details. Like where we'd go and how we'd support ourselves. Those sorts of details."

"Aye." And then he kissed me and for a moment or two I forgot we were in full sight of all the men on deck. I wrapped my arms around his neck, closed my eyes and concentrated on his lips. "I dinna ken what's coming, Mary," he whispered into my ear. "But I can tell ye I'll love ye forever."

"And I you, Alex," I said, my breaths coming faster now. "We'll sort the future out together later. All that matters is that you come back to me in one piece."

"I intend to do just that."

"You always intend to. Make sure you do."

"Aye." He smiled wickedly. "But, lass, I'm thinking ye should send me off with a special reminder of what I'm leaving."

I leaned back from him, suddenly aware of the clansmen
trying
to pretend we were not embracing in full view of them all. It was hopeless, I thought for the thousandth time, to have any shred of privacy on board a ship this size. They'd seen me come on deck angry and Alex follow me, and now they saw us with our arms wrapped around each other. Alex followed my gaze and then laughed as he met my eyes. And swung me up into his arms.

"Calum," he said to the captain standing not far from us. "I'll be busy for a bit and then we'll leave."

Calum nodded and fought his smile. "Aye, sir," he said without inflection.

"Alex!" I cried, half scandalized, half entertained, as he carried me to the stairs. "I'll go down these by myself," I said crisply. He released me and I straightened my clothing, then went
below decks
with as much dignity as I could muster. Alex turned to say something as he followed me, and the sound of the clansmen's laughter drifted behind us.

Once in our cabin, our mood changed and we turned to each other with quiet smiles. I shook my head as I reached for him. "What will I do with you, Alexander MacGannon?" I asked
softly
.

He kissed me with a lingering touch and ran his finger along my jaw. "Ye'll think of something, Mary Rose. Are ye angry with me, lass?"

I met his eyes while my thoughts tumbled.
Images of Alex flew through my mind: Alex, chin raised, making his way toward me in Louisa's ballroom; quoting a poem of seduction to me in Westminster Abbey; climbing Robert's garden wall to tell me he loved me; introducing me to the cheering clan while we stood atop a table in the hall at Kilgannon; and swinging me up into his arms as he carried me off to spend our first night together there.
And the sadder, wrenching memories as well: Alex rowing me out onto Loch Gannon and trying to explain why he was going to leave me to go to war; raising his arm in farewell as he led our men away from home; the horrible image of him returning, battered and defeated; and standing, defiant, in a hall full of his enemies while he was tried for defending his homeland.

"No, my love," I said
gently
. "I'm not angry. And I don't know what to do with you except love you. And I do love you, Alex. Beyond life. Beyond death. Until the end of time."

He bent to kiss me with a tender touch. "And I ye,
Mary
Rose. Until the end of time."

"Of which we have not much," I whispered, untying the lace at his throat.

"We'll have enough, lass," he said. "And then I'll go and get us a new ship."

"I want only that you come back to me safe and sound," I said, then gasped as he shrugged out of his shirt and pulled me to him. "Alex," I said to his naked chest, closing my eyes as he bent and ran a hand along my ankle and then up my leg under my skirt.

"Alex," I said again a few moments later as we lay entwined on our bunk.

"Hush, lass," he murmured, and threw the last of my clothing over the edge of the berth. "Hush. Dinna talk. Dinna think. Just feel." I closed my eyes again and followed his instructions.

"Alex," I said sometime later, "you have to take the Mary Rose against The Hammer of Scotland."

He looked at me evenly. "And why is that?"

"She's the fastest. And holds the most men."

"And my wife and sons are on her."

"We'll have to go to Gannon's Lady. We should be on the Margaret, but that's too difficult to do now." He was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Alex," I said and his eyes met mine. "Everyone in London knows the name Mary Rose. You'll have to cover it or paint it out. Or they'll know it's you immediately." He nodded again. "And you'll have to change the name of that ship."