LITMIR.BIZ

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she been tricked? Lottie’s temper flared; she lifted the empty gun and sighted it between the captain’s eyes.

      He didn’t as much as flinch. In fact, he arched a brow as if amused by her.

      But Beaty flinched, throwing up his hands as if to stop her. “There’s no call for that!” he said anxiously. “You’d no’ shoot an unarmed man, lass!”

      “She’ll no’ use it,” the captain said.

      He was not the least bit afraid of her. He probably didn’t believe she knew how to use a gun properly. Men were always assuming things they shouldn’t. She knew how to fire a gun, for God’s sake. She was only missing a bullet.

      “Put it down, Lottie,” he said calmly. “We’re wasting time, aye?”

      “We’re to use given names now, are we? I’ll put it down when you explain to Mr. Beaty that we are to sail to Aalborg, and I can see with my own eyes that he’s no’ sailing us straight into the arms of the king’s navy.”

      Again, the captain spoke quickly and softly in Gaelic. Whatever he said caused Beaty to give a slight shake of his head. Lottie panicked—her knowledge of Gaelic was limited to a few words and phrases. The Livingstones generally spoke English, except for the older clan members who spoke the language of the Danes. “English!” she said sharply. “You must speak English!”

      Mackenzie looked almost amused. “English, then,” he said graciously.

      “Do as she says, aye?” her father said roughly from the bunk. “My daughter is as fine a shot as she is bonny.”

      The captain said something else in Gaelic; Lottie cocked the gun. The captain kept his gaze on her gun but leaned over and pointed to something on one of the maps.

      “I’ll blast a hole in you, I swear I will,” Lottie said sharply.

      “She looks a wee bit mad,” Beaty said nervously.

      “Mad? I look mad?” Lottie said. What shreds of patience she might have been clinging to were lost. “I suppose were you the one holding the gun, you’d look perfectly reasonable! Why is it man’s unfailing belief that if a woman is anything less than demure and silent, she must be mad, but—”

      “Lottie, lass...” her father said.

      “Men think themselves so bloody superior,” she snapped. “Come, Beaty, before I demonstrate just how mad I am. What would you do, were you me? My father wounded, my men without knowledge of the sea—”

      “You should no’ have pirated a ship, then!” Beaty said indignantly.

      The captain said calmly, “There is no need to argue, aye? Have you paused to consider, then, miss, that if you blast a hole in me, there will be a heavy price to pay? My men will go along with your thievery as long as they know I’m your captive. But if I’m dead?”

      If he were dead, they’d all be dead—no one needed to tell her so. Lottie could well imagine the carnage, beginning with Beaty, who would not hesitate to snap her neck. Mackenzie knew this. He knew that her gun was merely display and really no use to her at all in this circumstance. Diah, but her heart was pounding so hard she could scarcely hear her own thoughts. “You donna frighten me, sir.”

      “Do I no’?” he asked congenially, as if they were playing a game. “Then shoot me.”

      “Och, pusling, before you shoot him, the tincture Morven has given me has no’ dulled the pain. Might there be some brandy about?”

      “Pardon, what?” She was so intent on the captain and the quicksand she found herself in, that at first her father’s question didn’t make sense.

      “Brandy,” he said again. “I could use a wee dram, that I could.”

      Lottie looked at Mackenzie.

      He sighed at the imposition. “In the sideboard, below.”

      Lottie moved backward, keeping her eye on Beaty, and bumping into the immovable table. Beaty looked terribly confused, his gaze swinging between her and his captain and her father. Lottie managed to keep the gun trained on Mackenzie as she dipped down and opened the cupboard beneath the sideboard. She took her eyes from him for a brief moment, reaching inside the cabinet for a half empty bottle of dark amber liquid. She noticed a neat stack of lawn shirts, trews and trousers. Lottie grabbed the bottle, closed the door and quickly stood.

      Beaty leaned toward the captain and said something quite low.

      “English!” Lottie shouted.

      Beaty lifted his hands. “I need a wee bit of help setting a course for Aalborg, aye? ’Tis the cap’n’s head that can work out all the figures—no’ mine.”

      “No,” she said as she skirted around the table with a bottle of brandy in one hand and the gun in the other. The throbbing had started up in her neck again, and her arm was beginning to burn from holding the gun aloft. She knew that it wobbled, and she could see the captain had noted it, too.

      “Ah, there’s an angel. Thank you, pusling,” her father said, and with a shaking hand, took the bottle she held out to him.

      “You ought to put the gun down, Lottie,” Mackenzie said. “You’ll lose all feeling in your arm if you donna. You’d no’ want to cause injury to yourself.”

      “Uist,” Lottie said, warning him to be quiet.

      He smiled wryly and asked, “What is the penalty for piracy, Beaty?”

      “Hanging, sir.”

      “We’re no’ pirates,” Lottie said irritably.

      “What is the penalty for holding a captain with a gun against his will, Beaty?” he asked, his gaze on Lottie.

      Beaty paused to consider it. He shrugged. “Hanging. Or walking a plank.”

      The pain in Lottie’s head began to shift to her belly.

      The captain made a tsk, tsk sound. “You should no’ have picked up the gun, then, aye?”

      Her father, who had taken two healthy swigs of the brandy, suddenly chuckled. “Aye, he’s a clever one, Lottie, this captain. He means to unnerve you. He canna know that you’re no’ easily disheartened.”

      Ironically, Lottie was feeling quite disheartened at the moment.

      “Donna pay him any heed, pusling.” Her father paused to take another healthy swig of the brandy. “You have the gun and the ship, aye? If you so desired, you could shoot them both and toss them to the fish and the crew would be none the wiser.”

      Lottie turned her head and stared at her father.

      “By the bye, Captain, your brandy is excellent.”

      “My intention is only to help,” the captain said. “As you’ve said, you’re in a wee bit over your head, aye? I’d no’ like to see you on a plank.”

      “I’d rather hang, were it me,” Beaty opined.

      Lottie swung the muzzle of the gun from the captain to Beaty now. “All right, then, you’ve seen your captain and now we’ll go below to tell your men he is very much alive, aye? Come now, before I find a plank for you.”

      “Aye, go, Beaty, lest they deliver us into the depths of the sea,” the captain said. “And God help them find Aalborg if they do.” He smiled.

      Bloody hell, but this man had her at sixes and sevens. Beaty started for the door, but paused to speak in Gaelic to Mackenzie.

      “Now,” she said sternly.

      Beaty opened a door, and Lottie fell in behind him. She glanced at the captain as she followed Beaty out, and the man had the audacity to smirk. Smirk.

      That’s what she got for asking for help.

      

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