DARE THE WILD WIND (39 page)

"You don't mean to fly that flag when you sail into
Fort William?"

"Not unless I want a cannonball through it,"
Cam laughed. "On this coast, the Jolly Roger is a deal more welcome than the Union Jack.  I'll run up the French flag when we put to sea again. 

"I'd planned to slip into a quiet inlet in
Loch Linnhe and travel the rest of the way by land.  Now there isn't any need."

He pulled her into a tight, thankful embrace.  Brenna leaned against him. 
He had kept his promise to come for her, in spite of every danger that faced him in Scotland
. 

Then, mindful of the watching crewmen, they broke apart.     

"You'll catch a chill on deck.  My cabin is comfortable," he said with his old crooked grin, "and you can trust in my honor where you're concerned."

His last words jolted her back to reality.  He didn't know about her marriage to Drake.  She had to tell him.

"Has there ever been a time when I feared anything from you?"

Belowdecks cupboards ringed the beamed ceiling of his cabin, and clothing hung in order on pegs on one wall.  A wide captain's bed nested against the ribs of the ship, half again the span of the usual berth, plumped by a feather mattress and a silk counterpane embroidered in carnelian and peacock blue.  Rolled charts lined in racks by a square compact desk, and
Cam's claymore hung mounted above it.  For the first time, she noticed a rapier swung from his hip.  Cam's Highland sword had been abandoned for the weapon of a freebooter, quicker and lighter on the deck of a ship.      

She hesitated just inside the doorway, and he drew her into his arms before she could protest.  Urgently,
Cam's mouth claimed hers.  After so long, his lips felt strangely alien and unfamiliar, and guilt forced her to pull away. 

"
Cam, we mustn't.  Not now."

With a low sound of protest, he let her go.  Brenna shrank away, backing into the bulkhead.  Uncomprehending and wounded, he offered her a choice of the cabin'
s single chair or the bed.     

"Forgive my lack of a proper drawing room."

Brenna sank down in the chair.
"Try to forgive me," she said miserably.  "So much has happened."

His voice was suddenly wary.  "I was a fool not to ask.  How is it I found you in
Cornwall?"

Brenna's eyes lifted slowly to his.  "
Cam, I'm married.  I came to Penherion with my husband."

His hands jerked convulsively, and his fingers clenched.  "To an Englishman?" he asked in a quiet, dangerous voice.

"To Drake Seton."

"The Earl of
Stratford?"  He recoiled and wheeled away, then turned back again, his features flushed and distorted.  "Of all the men in the realm," he grated out, "why Stratford?  Was it his title that tempted you, or just that the English won the war?"

For a heartbeat, Brenna could form no reply.  "I followed you to
London after Culloden Moor.  But I arrived too late."  She groped for words.  "Drake tried to help me find you.  And after... when they said you were dead...I couldn't go back to Scotland."

She faltered on the last, and
Cam's anger took on a different edge.  "Seton was always clever.  Making a show of helping me, pretending to help you."  He let out a derisive sound.

A protest rushed up in Brenna, but instinct told her it would do no good to defend Drake to
Cam. 

"
Cam, if I could have found you before you were taken away..."  She halted, struggling to explain.  "Don't you think I'd rather have been beside you in Scotland than mistress of the greatest estate in England?"     

"Damn the English.  They've taken everything
.  My land, my title, now you."  He began to pace the cramped cabin, the rage in his face ominous and deadly.  His hand went to the hilt of his sword.  "I swear I won't give Seton any quarter when we meet." 

Brenna's breath stopped for a second.  "Drake isn't at Penherion.  He won't be back for days."        

He misread the alarm in her face.  "I don't blame you, Brenna."  Some of the threat left his voice.  "But they've taken too much from both of us."

Brenna wanted no more talk of revenge.

"Tell me what's become of Iain.  Why are you using his name?"

For an instant, his eyes flickered.  Then his mouth twisted bitterly.  "Even on the high seas, it's safer not to use mine.  I'm taking enough of a risk sailing back into British waters."

She sought safer ground.  "How did you come to be in posses
sion of a ship?"

"And my new enterprise?  I take it you don't approve." 

"Of piracy?"  She couldn't deny it.  "How can I judge you?  I'm only glad you're alive.  But how did you escape the gallows?"

His wide shoulders rounded, and he let out a reluctant breath. 

"Brenna, Iain traded his life for mine."  His massive frame folded, and he knelt in front of her, his leonine head bent, his face in shadow.  "If I could have saved him, if I could have stopped it...  But I couldn't."

He looked up into her face.  "Iain gave me his place on the transport to the Colonies.  All I had to do was answer to his name."

Cam
's features were etched with shame and regret, with the fear that she would never understand what he had done.  After a numbed moment, Brenna reached out to comfort him, her fingers smoothing his brow and tangling in his russet curls.  Her eyes blurred with loss.  Iain had been Cam's blood kin, but he had been beloved to them both.  And tragically willing to sacrifice himself.

"Then you escaped from the transport?"

Cam
straightened to his full height again.  "Fortune finally smiled on us," he said, "and we seized on our luck."

Brenna jumped at a rap on the door.  A high childish voice piped through it.  "Captain, I saw you come aboard.  I thought you might want a bit o' something to warm you."

The boy carried a tray bearing brandy and biscuits and jam. 
Sandy  haired and sturdily built, he looked no more than twelve.

"Our cabin boy, Tad." 
Cam turned back to her, his mood lightening in the boy's presence.  "And this..." he said, "is my honored guest, Lady Brenna Dalmoral, lately of Scotland."

Brenna started at the slip of
Cam's tongue.  But perhaps it was better his crew didn't know the wife of a high  ranking English noble had come aboard the
Red Witch
.  Tad quickly set the tray on Cam's desk and withdrew, closing the door behind him.

"The boy is right,"
Cam said.  "I'm a poor host to offer you nothing but my questionable company tonight."

He poured the brandy into two goblets.  Sinking heavily down on the edge of the bed, he leaned forward, arms on his knees, and sipped slowly, frowning and staring past her.  Brenna took a swallow of her drink, shuddering and grimacing at the taste.  She set it aside, waiting for
Cam to break his silence.

The ship rocked gently, the rigging and beams creaking. 
Cam finished one brandy and started on another, and the moon slid out of sight beyond the porthole.  Finally he spoke.

"You must think I prefer this swill to the sight of you," he said.  "I try not to dwell on what happened after
Culloden Moor, what happened after I was put aboard that stinking transport."

His voice was quiet, but now it gained a bitter strength.  "The captain of the
Providence
was a martinet and a fool.  Six weeks into the voyage, we were off course in the doldrums,  dead in the water and running short on rations.  The crew mutinied by night.  They cut the captain's throat, and tossed all but one of his officers over the side.  Then they made a fatal mistake.

"They got so sodding drunk they forgot to post guards over their cargo.  When the men in the hold realized there were no armed men at the hatches, they were ready to break out.  All they needed was someone to lead them."

"You?" Brenna asked.

Cam
nodded.  "A good many were Scots, none of them MacCavans, but fighters to a man.  They were ready to follow me, and the rest fell in behind them."

"So you took over the ship?  But how did you sail it?"     

"The crew had spared the first mate. 
He was a weakling, but he knew the sea.  And after we'd dispatched the leaders of the mutiny, the rest of the crew was glad enough to serve in return for their release when we reached Hispaniola."

Casual
mention of such butchery sickened Brenna.  But desperate measures had been called for.  Who could know where the mutinous crew might have taken them to be sold as slaves, or if they might simply have scuttled the ship and its human cargo to silence any voices raised against them?

"When we dropped anchor off
Tortuga, I'd learned enough about navigation and seamanship to know the life suited me.  I called every man aboard on deck and proposed that we sign ship's articles and go on the account.  Any man was welcome, crew and prisoners alike.  Most of them gladly cast their lot for booty and adventure. 

"We needed a faster and better ship, and in
Cap  Haitien
I bartered our floating coffin for the
Red Witch
.  She mounts thirty two cannons, and she can outsail and board any British merchantman and Spanish galleon in the Caribbean."

Brenna had thought when the Rising was over,
Cam would never have to bloody his sword again.  "Haven't you had enough of killing?" 

He looked back at her, his blue gaze unwavering.  "What else is left to me?  The clans have been disbanded, and my land and title are forfeit.  If I'm caught on English soil again, I
will
hang.  That's the reason I've kept Iain's name.

"At the start, I only took it whe
n I discovered they'd mistaken him for me."  He went on with difficulty.  "They'd already taken him away.  There was nothing I could do to help him, and he couldn't speak to tell the English dogs the truth of it."

"Couldn't speak?" she asked.

"Iain was shot through the throat, and his horse had rolled on him in the bargain.  He was beginning to mend, but his voice never returned.  I blame myself for not staying with him that last day, but I was shackled at the leg and put on bilge detail, bailing water out of the bottom of the rotting hulk where we were held.  When they pushed me into the hold again, he was gone."

His features were set and grim, and Brenna could see the memory ate at him, had changed something inside him. 

"
Cam, what could you have done?" she said in a choked voice.  "They'd separated you."  She shut her eyes for a second against the hideous picture of Iain being dragged away to the gallows, unable to speak his own name.  "How could they hang a man who couldn't utter a word in his own defense?"

"They weren't bent on justice,"
Cam answered harshly.  "Only on hanging as many Scots as their gibbets could swing."

Brenna was silent for a moment, memories of Iain and his incessant cheerful pranks crowding her mind.  "You were right to take his name,
Cam, right to live.  Iain would have wanted that."

"I'll always hope he forgave me," he said in an unsteady voice.

Brenna was certain that, wherever Iain was, he must.  But she knew it would give
Cam little comfort to mouth platitudes now.     

A thump alongside made both of them start.  A longboat bumped against the hull.  Now Brenna heard the dip of oars in the water and other voices as the first boat's passengers began to clamber over the side. 
Cam jumped to his feet.

"My men are back.  I have to go on deck."

Reluctantly, Brenna stood as well.  It was past time for her to return to Penherion.  "I should go with you."

Cam
shook his head, and flashed her his old smile.  "The sight of you could be too much for men already in their cups.  It's better for you to stay below until I have matters in hand."

Telling Brenna to lock the door behind him, he started up the companionway.  She did as he said.  Very likely the returning sailors were too exhausted from their saturnalia on the beach and too much the worse from drink to take great notice of her.  But she wanted no trouble for
Cam.

She wandered to the porthole to peer out toward the village.  Moonlight rippled in silver ribbons over the water, but the bonfire that had leapt above their heads on the beach had died to an enormous pyre of smoldering embers.  The welcoming villagers had retreated to their houses, and the pebbly beach was empty.

Then Brenna heard the heavy rattle of a chain and felt the ship move beneath her feet.  Stunned, she realized the
Red Witch
was heaving anchor and setting sail. 

      
                   *****

Heart drumming, Brenna frantically searched the deck for Cam.  A cloud scudded over the moon, and only the brigantine's masts and the blue white billow of its sails stood out in the night.  Canvas unfurled as the dark figures of sailors hauled in lines and swarmed up the rigging.  Then she picked Cam out where he stood at the helm.  Gathering her skirts, she mounted the ladder to the quarterdeck, to run to him.