Passion and Plaid - Her Highland Hero (Scottish Historical Romance) (21 page)

“What?” He grunted at John.

“That one, he doesn’t count. You said six at
once.”

“Alright,” Rodrigo said as he turned up the
stairs. “He doesn’t count.”

T
he Atlantic Ocean

August 23, Evening

––––––––

I
n the light of early dusk, the three men emerged,
blinking and rubbing their eyes.

“A two mast-ship. Small for this sort of travel,
but that means it’s like to be lightly manned. That’s good.” Rodrigo picked up
a tool of some sort.

“Aye, that’s good,” Gavin said. “But even light
guards will easily overwhelm us without any weapons.”

“Good thing they aren’t too careful about where
they leave things. It’s no Heloise I’m afraid, but it’ll have to do.” John tossed
a rapier to Rodrigo, one to Gavin and grabbed a cutlass for himself. “Pistol?” he
said, offering one up.

“No. Another thing I learned as a pirate is how
useless a pistol is when someone’s screaming and running at you.”

“Fair enough.” John tossed the gun onto the deck,
Rodrigo winced, and as soon as it struck the floor, it exploded with a violent
report.

“Why did you do that?” The Spaniard said. “If the
ship wasn’t already alerted, they are now!”

“Ach, well, it wasn’t intentional, but it’s for
the best. I’d rather get it all over with at once.”

“Here’s your chance!” Gavin ducked as a musket
ball fired from across the ship sailed just over his head and punched a hole in
the wood behind him. “If one of those hits you before you start yelling and
charging, I’m almost sure that your idea doesn’t work.”

Rodrigo laughed and stood tall, stretching his
back.

“Get down!” Gavin said as he reached for his
friend’s trousers to yank him down, but Rodrigo stepped away.

“Down? No! You get up!” He strode forward as lead balls
whizzed past him one after the other on the right, then the left. “Whoever you
are, you’re no match for me, or even my friends!”

“Even?” John said. “Did he say ‘even my friends’?”
Gavin couldn’t help but grin.

As their eyes adjusted, the grim numbers became
easier to see. Three men stood on the opposite end of the ship, reloading their
muskets, behind the railing. Above the three escapees, two enormous masts, with
sails full of wind, groaned.

“You ever been on one of these?” Gavin said to
John as the latter fought to keep his footing and his stomach.

“In the water, aye, in a ship, aye. But in a ship
what was in the water? Canna say as I have. Being underneath is one thing where
you’re in the dark, but up here, it’s rather different.” He clutched his
stomach, stumbled, and shook his head as he stood. “I ask you the same, but
with an addition – have you ever fought a battle on a ship in the water?”

Gavin grinned, opened his mouth to respond, and
then felt a whoosh of air by his cheek. He jumped backwards. As he spun, he
felt another ball strike wood behind him.

From the other end of the ship, Willard emerged
briefly, in his standard long, black coat. He stood near the prow of the ship,
shouting at his sailors, “What is all this?” Someone answered, “The prisoners!”
and Willard disappeared again in to the shadows of his quarters.

Gavin ducked another wild slash and slammed his
elbow into a red-coated stomach. The man howled, and when he did, Gavin shoved
him backwards with such a tremendous force that he flew over the ship’s rail
and into the sea.

“Good show!” John shouted, and then he immediately
dodged a saber. Turning his cutlass around in his hand, he clunked the butt of
the weapon into the side of his attacker’s face, sending him, too, flying off
the side and into the water below. John turned, looking for Gavin. “Gavin?
Where did you go?”

Below deck, he heard a shout, and had his answer.

“Where is she?” Gavin demanded, shouting directly
into the sheriff’s face. “Where’s Kenna, Lynne and the rest? Tell me!”

“And why should I? So you can reward me with a
trip to some wild Scottish court where I’ll be hanged? I’ll tell you this,
though,” he spat, or rather drooled. “East India Company ships are never quite
so simple as other ones. Lots of hidden places, you see.” The sheriff laughed
his brown-toothed laugh. “I dare say unless someone tells you where the girls
are, you’ll never find them. Unless...”

“Just say it, you wretch!”

“Fine. You let me go and I’ll tell you where they
are.”

“No. You’ll tell me where they are, or I’ll put
this in your guts.” Gavin prodded the sheriff with the pointy end of his
rapier.

“Oh you are a simple one. If you kill me, that’s
it. The game’s over. You’ll have to steer this boat into harbor and take it
apart board by board until you find them. Of course, by then there won’t have
been any water given to them since...oh, this morning? I hope you like
mummies.”

“You
bastard
!” Gavin shouted. The sheriff
just smiled.

“I’ll tell you now that you won’t get anything out
of me. You can beat me. You can stab me and cut me, and I’ll never tell. And
I’ll even say why. Out of pure spite. Pure spite and hatred. For
you
. Of
course, if you let me go...”

“Gavin!” John shouted from the deck. “Need some
help up here!”

“Fly, little Scotsman. Go up there in your
flapping skirt and help your friends have their brawl. I suppose it’s even
possible you’ll end the fight before one of the sailors shoots your women.
Though I doubt it. These Company men, you see, they’re not known for being
reasonable. They’re known for getting things done.”

“Gavin!” John shouted again. “We
really
need some help!”

“Make up your mind, Gavin. Do you get your women
and help your friends? Or do you get bloody revenge? It would feel really,
really good to kill me, wouldn’t it? Run me through? Feel my blood on your
hands?”

Gavin clenched his fist, holding his sword so
tight it bruised his palm. He lifted the tip from Alan’s belly and then whipped
it straight up, gashing his chin.

“Oh ho ho! He’s going to do it, isn’t he? He’s
going to let go of all those obnoxious moral principles that only work when
they go against people he doesn’t like, hmm? Now he’s got his enemy locked up
and helpless. Harder to make these decisions now, isn’t it?”

A deep cut on the cheek made Alan hiss. “Do it,”
he said. “
Do it
! All those moral lectures. All the whining and talk.
That’s all it was, eh? Talk? You’re no better than me, Macgregor.”

The point of Gavin’s sword went straight to the
vein under Alan’s chin. Again, the sheriff hissed, sounding almost excited. It
dug deeper, and then it fell to his collar, then his chest, then the floor.

“I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth,” Gavin
said. “But I’ll not kill you in cold blood.” And then, as John called for him
again, Gavin shook his head, clearing his mind. “I canna believe I’ve wasted
this much time on you. Not when my friends need me. You’re not going anywhere.
I’ll not fall for your tricks. Stay here,” he said with a grin. “I’ll be back
for you.”

“Where were you?” John said as Gavin emerged. “You
dinna kill him, did you?”

“No, I did head butt him though. Couldna help myself.”

At that, John smiled a broad smile as he
effortlessly dodged another sailor who flew over a bannister and charged. With
a flick of his wrist, Two-fingers unbalanced the man and kicked him in the arse
as he careened into the sea.

“John, I...I let him go. He’s still down there,
but...”

“Enough, Gavin. I woulda done the same. Where are
they? I heard the shouting, but not that part.”

“Not a clue. We’ve got other things to worry about
just now, though.”

“Come and get me, you English dogs!” Rodrigo
roared, having advanced halfway across the deck. Somewhere along the way he had
acquired another sword, a short, curved blade, which he was using to parry
whatever came his way. “Willard! Come out! Stop hiding behind your hired guns!
Show yourself!”

“I’m right here.”

Gavin and John watched in silence as Mayor Willard
reemerged, but from a stairwell on the main deck rather than his cabin door.
Clutched in one hand, he had a short fencing dagger and in his other, Heloise.
As soon as Rodrigo saw, he flew into a rage.

“You!” he shouted.

Willard’s face twitched right by his nose. He
blinked once and moved nearer Rodrigo. “I’m no fighter. I’m twice your age.”
Even with everything happening around him, he seemed distracted. “I’ve
no...I’ve no stomach for this. Guard, use this sword. That Spaniard seems
fascinated by it.”

Retreating backwards, the mayor slid back into the
shadows of the cabin from whence he came and two red-coated guards emerged
before he closed himself inside.

Gavin and John lost track of the two as Rodrigo
cut one of the men across the chest and disappeared behind some rigging, his
sword dancing with the mercenary’s. Another pair of Company men hopped over a
short rail. The two Scots advanced, Gavin parrying a slash and John dodging
one.

“What are you grinning for?” John asked one of
them when they were close enough to smell the ruddy-faced men.

“Oi, look behind you.”

“Ach, like that trick’ll work,” John sneered. “We
turn, you stab us in the back.”

“John!” Gavin grabbed his friend’s sporran,
yanking him to the ground as a sword flashed right where his neck had been. He
signaled with his eyes for John to go escape in one direction and tilted his
head, indicating where he planned to go.

John grinned. “Say when, old man.”

Gavin deflected another blow. “Been awhile since
we did this, aye?”

“Least a week,” John said.

“Now!”

At once, Gavin dove backwards, rolling off the
side of the ship and John went the other way, putting the four men between
himself and the water. Suddenly, he realized his friend was nowhere in sight.

“Gavin? Gavin? Are you – oh God, did you go over?”

No response. The men advanced. All four of them
wore the same grotesque sneer with bloodlust in their eyes. A quick glance to
Rodrigo found him safely batting away a sailor’s blows. But no Gavin.

“Supposin’ it’s just me now,” John said. “Me and
you four. Certainly that shouldn’t be a problem for you, aye?”

One of them swung. John laughed as he knocked the
man’s hand away and walloped him with the butt of his cutlass. “You’ll have to
do better than that!”

Another tried him, but John just turned his blade
and kicked him backwards.

“I canna believe it! How am I – just a hoodlum
from Edinburgh – pushing four trained soldiers backwards? It must be how mad I
am that my friend is overboard and probably dead!”

Two of the men exchanged glances then looked back
at John and charged.

“Oh no! They’re really angry now! I canna hold
them much longer,” John taunted as he slapped one of them on the cheek with the
flat side of his blade, turned the other around and planted his boot in the
man’s arse. All four had somehow been pushed almost all the way to the side. “I
guess I’m going to have to fight them sooner or later! Ach, what’s that?”

One man, the one furthest to the back, turned just
in time to see a hand reach up from below the railing, grab him by the lapel,
and yank him over the side. When he screamed out and hit the water, another man
spun and slashed his sword.

Gavin dangled from the rail, grabbing a rigging
rope that hung near him and swung to move away from a stab. In one smooth
motion, he yanked the rapier from his belt, propped himself against the ship’s
hull with his feet and danced left, then right to dodge unbalanced slashes. As
he parried, he climbed, slowly and steadily.

“Take this!” The Company man drew up hard and
stabbed downward.

Gavin raised his arm, and the blade went just
underneath his elbow. He shrugged his shoulder, and when the cloth of his kilt
fell loose, he grabbed it, trapped the man’s wrist, and yanked down, pitching
him over the side.

The two remaining sailors turned back to John and
saw him grinning broadly.

“Fuck me! I didn’t expect that to actually
work
!
Gavin! Got another one for you!” John dove forward, cracking one of them on the
jaw with a fist and using his momentum to hurl the man overboard. Yanking him
forward, dangerously close to going over himself, the thrown man clutched
John’s kilt, and dragged him to the rail.

“If I don’t have to split the reward with anybody,
I think this all will have been worth it.” The last soldier drew close just as
Gavin was pulling himself back onto the ship’s deck.

Fixated on John, the last of the sailors laughed
and swung his arm straight at the back of the Scotsman’s neck. Gavin lunged and
flung his arm sideways, knocking the descending blade just wide. It still cut a
nasty wound in John’s side, but instead of piercing his guts, stuck in the
rail. As the man flew over the side, the sword remained. John collected it
after Gavin pulled his friend up.

“Come on! He needs our help!” Gavin said, looking
over at Rodrigo.

“I’m fine!” Rodrigo shouted.

Driven backwards against the stairs leading to the
Captain’s quarters, and barely swatting away the mercenary’s blows at the last
second, he didn’t, however, seem fine. “It’s the sword!” He said. “I can’t
bring myself to damage it!”

“Is he serious?” John said to Gavin. “He is, isn’t
he? He’s serious.”

Gavin dashed toward Rodrigo, turning a blow at the
last second before it split the Spaniard’s shirt. A half second later, the
Company man groaned, and Heloise clattered to the deck.

“Is that all of them?” John trotted up beside
Gavin and Rodrigo, and all three men looked around the deck of the ship. No more
guards. No sounds at all.

Breathing hard, Gavin nodded. “Must be. Now, let’s
go deal with-”

“Good luck, Gavin!” A voice – the Sheriff’s voice
– came from the left of the ship, in a small rowboat. Beside him sat one of the
two enormous bodyguards that had been with him at the festival. “Paul here, he
helped me out of the chains.”