Chapter Twenty-One

“A word,” Captain Wendall said beside Shaw, but Shaw kept his gaze on Alana’s soft form, watching her walk away to disappear on deck. “Chief Sinclair,” he said, his tone stern and loud.

Shaw glanced to the gruff older man. “Ye have your princess safely aboard, and we have our papers.” Shaw’s words came even and low, a far different sound than the warrior yell resounding inside his brain.

Wendall nodded and leaned into him, lowering his voice. “I will let King James know of Sinclair loyalty when I bring back Dixon’s body. Without my words and support, James could easily turn against the Sinclairs, yanking back all your lands, titles, and castle, making every last Sinclair an outlaw. Do you understand?”

Shaw’s eyes narrowed with his increasing frown. “I understand ye are threatening me.”

Wendall’s mouth turned up into a half smile, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled. “Good. Remember that.” The man pivoted and strode to mount his horse, and Shaw turned back to the ship, the man’s cryptic threat already replaced by the pain of loss. It bored into his chest as if intent on hollowing him out.

By now, after a lifetime of loss, he should be used to pain that carved through him, leaving emptiness, an emptiness that nothing could fill. Not revenge, not whisky, not war, not even peace and friends. Alana had walked away. She’d taken Rose and climbed aboard a ship, and he couldn’t even go get her back because he knew Alana wouldn’t leave Rose. And Colonel Wendall had just made it very clear that his support required Rose to go to France.

He stood in a battle stance, his hands fisted at his sides as he watched the crew prep the ship to sail.

“Tell him,” Logan said behind Shaw. “Damnit, look at him. He looks worse than when Reagan died.”

“Let’s get the fok out of here,” Alistair said. “We have the documents with the royal seal. The mission is complete.”

“Tell him what?” Rabbie asked. Somewhere behind Shaw at least two of Alana’s friends sobbed. Kerrick cursed, and Alana’s mother remained silent. Did she care so little about Alana that she could just let her sail away? Or had Alana’s surrender in Shaw’s bed driven the mother to apathy?

Shaw moved to the edge of the dock, looking for a glimpse of Alana. All he could see were the French captain’s horses being led below on a ramp on deck and barrels of trade stacked in orderly rows. The gangplank was still down. What if he barged up it and grabbed Alana and Rose away? Alistair had the bloody papers, but would they mean anything if Wendall painted the Sinclairs as traitors to King James?

Damn it all! If the wet nurse could just assure Alana that she would take care of Rose. Not that he wanted the bairn to sail away, but if she was a princess, she would be taken well care of in France. “Alana,” Shaw yelled, but no one paid him any attention.

“Fok Alistair, he thinks losing Alana is all his fault,” Logan said and cursed again. Bloody hell, I will tell him.” Logan strode closer, but Shaw didn’t care about anything anyone wanted to tell him, unless it involved a way for him to get Alana off that ship or him to France. Could she ever forgive him for not stopping the slaughter of her father and capture of her mother?

Logan grabbed his shoulder, giving him a shake. “Shaw, ye were going to help Alana’s parents once ye saw Dixon give the order to attack the group. Ye need to tell her that.”

Alistair grabbed Logan’s arm, yanking it off Shaw’s shoulder. “Leave it be, man. We have the papers. Let us ride.”

“Look at him,” Logan yelled at Alistair. “He looks…like the day he found his ma bloody and broken under the castle walk. Tell him the truth.”

His men’s words began to penetrate Shaw’s plans to chase after Alana and Rose. He looked at Alistair. “Tell me what truth?”

Alistair’s face was red, his jaw clenched. His free hand gripped the back of his own neck, and he rolled his shoulders. “Ye were going to jeopardize what ye had worked so hard for. Dixon was a high-ranking English officer who would petition King Charles for our lands.”

“That would be the same Dixon who was going to kill three innocent bairns and is right now bleeding out in the incoming tide over there,” Logan said, pointing with a jabbing motion.

“Why else do ye think that Shaw was contacted for this mission?” Alistair countered, throwing his hands out. “King James just thought…” He sharpened his normal brogue into a skewed version of a royal English accent. “‘Aye, I will ask that annoying laird up north to take my daughter to St. Andrews.’ Nay, Dixon gave him your name and got that other colonel to bring these papers.”

“Dixon was going to kill the bairns and blame the killings on the Sinclairs,” Logan yelled back.

“I did not know he would do that, and if Shaw had backed out of helping Dixon at Stirling, I would not be standing here holding these papers,” Alistair said.

Shaw turned to look at the two angry men. He knew that they had hot tempers and definite opinions about how they should rectify the loss of Sinclair holdings. But their blazing stares and clenched fists told him that this was something more than counter-opinions.

Shaw looked directly at Alistair. “What did ye do at Stirling?”

Alistair lowered the papers down, and Logan snatched them away from him. “I do not want ye bleeding all over them when Shaw hears what ye did,” Logan said.

“Fok,” Alistair said and raised his fists to his forehead, rubbing hard. He inhaled fully before meeting Shaw’s gaze. “Ye were going to tell Dixon we would not help, that Sinclairs would defend the Covenanters if he turned the confrontation into a battle.” He shook his head. “I could not let ye do it.”

Shaw’s jaw clenched as he waited to hear the words, but he remembered clearly how angry Alistair had been when he said he was going to ride down to stop Dixon. “Ye hit me in the head,” Shaw said, watching him closely.

Alistair’s gaze slipped away as if he couldn’t look Shaw in the eye. “I was the only one close enough to reach ye.”

“And stupid enough to try it,” Rabbie said, hate for his cousin thick in his tone.

“He hit the back of your head with a rock,” Logan said. “Knocked ye unconscious, and ye fell forward over your horse’s neck. The beast led ye out of the mess.”

“While Logan and I helped Dixon and secured his favor by riding down with them,” Alistair finished.

Shaw stared at Alistair, his eyes moving to Logan, who was nearly as guilty for keeping this from him. He reached forward, taking the thick roll of papers from Logan and handing them to Rabbie. The lad tucked them inside his sash across his heart and backed away.

“Bloody hell,” Logan murmured, both hands sliding down his face as he realized that he, too, would soon bleed all over the papers.

Shaw shook his head. “Traitorous bastard,” he said, staring at Alistair.

“But it worked,” Alistair said, pointing to Rabbie’s chest. “The end justifies the means,” he said, quoting from one of the books Shaw’s mother used to teach them to read as lads.

“Because we did not help the chief of the Campbells of Breadalbane, he is dead and his wife will order all Campbells to destroy the Sinclair clan,” Shaw said. “We have won back our castle and lands, but we will be besieged by the thousands of Campbells across Scotland. Did ye think of that?”

Alistair glanced at Violet Campbell, who now stood, watching the French ship as if looking for a sign of her daughter.

“Or are ye now planning to murder her?” Shaw asked. “And now all the Highland Roses who overheard?”

Alistair’s face tightened, paling. “Nay.”

Shaw looked at Logan. “The two of ye may have started a war that will never end until the last drop of Sinclair blood soaks the earth.”

Logan’s mouth dropped open, his brows raised. He pointed at Alistair. “He did that. I told him not to, but once ye were unconscious he was the acting chief. I…followed his…orders…” Logan’s words faded off, his face growing red.

The anger at his two friends should have erupted an inferno within Shaw, making him dole out immediate punishment and declare banishment. Rabbie and Mungo stood near as if waiting for it. But Shaw only felt sick, sick of the betrayal, the secrets, and the darkness that had plagued his life since his father died.

The only light had come from Alana, and she was sailing away from him. He turned toward the ship, the gang plank already raised. The French sailors scurried around the decks, coiling up ropes and loosening sails. Long poles pushed against the pylons holding up the dock, to encourage the ship to move out into open water.

“I am going to France,” he said.

“What?” Logan spit the word out.

Shaw turned to him, his gaze taking in all of them. “And ye will oust Edgar Campbell, defeat any Campbells that Alana’s mother sends, without killing any of Alana’s family, and prepare Girnigoe Castle for our return.”

“Our return?” Alistair asked, his face and tone wary.

“Aye. When I bring Alana back from France, if she forgives me, she will be the lady of Girnigoe Castle.” He stepped forward, grabbing Alistair’s shirt at the neck, his fist curled under the man’s chin. He leaned in to stare hard into his wide eyes. “Are my orders clear?”

Shaw felt his hand tightening, his arm lifting Alistair up so that the man stood on the toes of his boots. How easy it would be to slip his grip up to Alistair’s bristled, dirty neck, squeezing the bastard until his windpipe collapsed. He knew no one would stop him. From the look on Alistair’s face, he knew that, too.

“Aye, Shaw,” Alistair stammered out. Shaw could feel his Adam’s apple rise and fall with his hard swallow.

“Bloody hell!” Kerrick yelled.

Shaw’s gaze snapped up to where the Campbell warrior stood staring down the dock. He pointed, and Shaw turned, dropping Alistair with a shove. The man sputtered, his hands resting on his knees.

Shaw spun to see a line of men standing with Colonel Wendall. Wendall’s arm was extended as his men fired at the ship with muskets at the same time at least ten of them shot arrows blazing with fire. They hit the ship’s sails, catching quickly as if the arrows dripped with fiery resin. Too far from the dock for men to jump to safety, the crew who weren’t shot with musket fire scrambled to put out the growing flames. Shaw ran to the dock, looking to the Englishmen.

Wendall’s gaze fell directly on him, and he gave a nod. Without my words and support, James could easily turn against the Sinclairs, pulling back all your lands, titles, and castle, making every last Sinclair an outlaw.

The man wanted the princess dead, too, but would put the blame on Dixon and remain in King James’s favor. Wendall turned, issuing orders for another round of lit arrows to be released, and then mounted his horse, disappearing with his band of men as townspeople ran to the edge to see the growing inferno in the bay.

“Wendall?” Logan yelled.

“Already gone,” Alistair said, and Shaw realized they’d run up next to him, but his focus turned back to the ship where Alana and Rose and the other innocent bairns were.

Kirstin grabbed his tunic, yanking it back and forth. “Wendall just paid ye off to let the bairns die in that fire, but Alana’s on there.” She looked to the ship. “And she is…oh God, she is terrified of fire.” Tears streamed down Kirstin’s face.

Blast. Would Alana be able to think straight with the fire growing around her? Shaw drew his sword, an instant reaction to threat that could do nothing against fire.

“What do we do?” Alistair asked, his voice filled with so much remorse.

Shaw didn’t answer, just threw his sword on the ground and kicked off his boots.

…

“Oh my God,” Alana whispered, her breaths shallow and fast as her heart pounded beneath Rose and the wrappings holding her to her chest. She crouched low by the barrels, her gaze riveted to the fire licking up the sails. It crackled and flared in the breeze, racing higher and dropping bits of flaming sailcloth to rain down on the deck. Its sinister hunger and the breeze made it catch on the wooden crates surrounding them.

She was paralyzed. Memories of the walls of Finlarig covered with fire as it ate up the tapestries made tears swell out of her eyes. Smoke. Panicked yelling. Desperate stomping and slapping. Closing her eyes, she was once again trapped within Finlarig Castle after the English had thrown her inside to burn with her family.

Someone ran past her, stepping on her foot, but the pain was nothing compared to the squeezing of her heart. She sucked in a breath, coughing on the smoke. Rose cried, and Alana opened her eyes to see the babe’s gaze on her, watching her with wide blue orbs. Was the smoke clogging her little lungs? Alana caught her one little hand that had wiggled free of the blanket. Rose’s long, slow-moving fingers wrapped around Alana’s thumb, squeezing. The trust in her gaze broke through the haze of panic as abruptly as a slap.

Alana blinked, forcing several even breaths, coughing with the smoke. She used her legs to push up out of her crouch and unhooked her heavy skirt. I am not trapped. I am outside. She looked up at the sky through the smoke. Granted, she was on a boat that had pulled away from the dock, the water was frigid, and she had a newborn babe to keep warm. “But I am not trapped,” she told herself out loud. She gasped, jumping back, her hands over Rose’s head, as a large section of sail dropped, showering sparks of burning cloth on them. She lowered her lips to the baby’s covered head, kissing it through the blanket. “I will get you out of here, Rose.”

Shaw. The name pressed through her mind like a prayer. Shaw. If he were with her, he could help. They could work together again to save Rose. Had he left the docks when she boarded? Would she never have a chance to accept his apology, because she knew he would apologize again? For what? For doing whatever he could to save his remaining sister and clan? He’d told her that from the beginning. Maybe he had been knocked unconscious when he decided not to help the English. The desperate need to hear his story reverberated through Alana. To look into his beautiful gray eyes, to feel the stroke of his finger over her cheek. She didn’t want to die not knowing the truth…or telling Shaw that…none of it mattered. “I love you,” she whispered. She didn’t want to die without telling him that.

Alana’s gaze jerked left and then right. From the quick destruction of the flames, she could tell that there was no saving the ship. She tucked Rose’s little hand back inside the blanket. “We have to get off,” Alana whispered, her arms hugging around the baby as she ran down the narrow path made by the barrels. The smoke made it difficult to see, but then the wind reached in dispersing it but also feeding the growing flames.

Darting around the end of the barrels, she tried to run for the rail closest to the docks. She dodged two men running by and heard the cry of one of the wet nurses farther down the rail. “Help!” the woman called. “Help us!”

Alana ran to her where she cradled her charge who was crying. “Where is the other babe?” Alana asked.

“Here!” called the older woman, running up, thankfully with her baby with her. The woman’s eyes were wild, her hair singed, making Alana wonder if part of the sail had fallen on her. “We will die if we do not get off,” she said, desperation in her face making Alana think she might jump into the freezing water.

Alana grabbed her arm. “The babe will not survive it.” For a second, she thought the woman might just drop the babe and leap over the edge, but she nodded quickly, like a nervous bird.

Beside them two sailors climbed over the rail, the splash of their descent sending spray upward. Alana looked over the rail, and her breath caught.

The two sailors were swimming the twenty feet to the dock, but passing them on the way over was Shaw. His powerful arms cut through the freezing water as if he were born to the sea. Head down, bare feet kicking, his strokes pulled him across the distance. On the dock behind him, Alana saw Alistair dive in, followed by Mungo and Logan. Kirstin jumped up and down, ripping her skirt away to dive in after the men, her legs encased in the wool trousers. Kerrick waved his hands at Rabbie and then followed Kirstin, all six of them in the dark, frigid water between the dock and the ship.

Tears flooded Alana’s burning eyes, and she caught Bess’s sleeve, shaking her arm. “They are coming to help us.” She ran over to a coil of rope that had held the vessel to the dock, the end being tied to the ship. Squatting down to lift with her legs, she heaved. “Help me get this over the rail,” she yelled, and the other two women ran over, the three of them struggling, babies tied to them, to lift and drop the thick rope over the side.

Crash! Alana spun to see one of the heavy sails having dropped down from up high, its flames dancing across the wooden barrels. The relief from seeing Shaw squeezed into panic again in her chest, and she struggled to draw breath. She turned back to the rail, her fingers curling into the polished wood. Another man jumped overboard next to them.

“Isn’t there a little boat off the side somewhere?” Bess asked.

Alana leaned over, looking left and right. “Where is it?” Above her, Captain LeFevre yelled orders in French, soot and fury making him look like an avenging demon, as his arms worked to send his remaining men scurrying with buckets that they’d hauled up from the bay. But he must be able to tell that the wind and dry cargo was too much for the crew to battle.

Shaw climbed the rope that they had dropped. Alana watched him pull his dripping body up from the water, hand over hand.

“Shaw,” she called. He didn’t look, but his climb grew faster, and he used his bare toes to catch the edges of the portholes, propelling himself to the top. She backed up as he threw a leg over, jumping aboard.

He spun toward her, his face red, water dripping from his hair into his face. He’d never looked so beautiful. “I love you,” she yelled, the knot inside her unfurling. “Even if I die, you know,” she said. “I love you.” Relief at getting the words out made her feel weak.

He grabbed her to him, careful of Rose between. “Ye are absolutely not dying today,” he said, his words sharp, but he reached to cup her cheek, sliding a cold thumb across her skin. It gave her strength.

She nodded. “Then let us get off this boat.”

“Blasted hell,” Alistair cursed as Mungo, who’d just climbed aboard, helped him over the side. “The whole bloody shore is swimming to a burning ship.”

Logan climbed over the rail then, his bare feet hitting the boards hard. “The horses. They were loading horses below.”

“Mo chreach,” Shaw cursed. “Go on.” Logan and Mungo ran into the smoke, toward the hull full of trapped horses.

“We can swim the women over, lower them down,” Alistair said, gesturing to the rope.

“The babes cannot withstand such cold water,” Alana yelled, shaking her head. “There must be a boat.”

“Find it,” Shaw ordered, and Alistair dodged men through the shifting smoke to the far side of the boat.

“Look out,” came a shout from the smoke, and large bodies ran up from the decks below, snorting. “Lower the gangplank so they can jump in,” Logan yelled. Shaw and Mungo threw open the gate so that the side was open, backing up. The horses wouldn’t jump in until there was no other choice.

Alistair emerged from the chaos. “There is a rowboat off the port quarter,” he said.

Shaw grabbed Alana’s arm. “Wait,” she yelled. “Kirstin.”

He tipped his head toward the side. “Kerrick caught her,” he said, and a glance showed the two of them drenched and watching from the dock with the rest of the Roses and her mother. A sob threatened Alana, but she turned away. Her mother hated her, but she didn’t know everything, didn’t know what Alana had realized when she thought she’d die. She loved Shaw Sinclair. And love was stronger than revenge and hate.

His hand was warm around her own as he led her through the maze of smoke-filled paths, dodging burning crates. “Wendall gave LeFevre crates of dry hay instead of goods,” Shaw yelled back to her as they jumped over one barrel that had broken open to show the hay. “So it would burn quickly.”

Colonel Wendall? He was responsible for the ship catching on fire? She glanced behind her where Alistair helped the other two women follow, both clutching their babies. Racing to the far end, Shaw let go of her to grab one of the two crew members who was climbing into the small boat to be lowered. “The ladies and bairns get the boat,” he said.

The one he grabbed threw up his hands, eyes wide. “I no swim,” he said in broken English.

Idiots! Sailors who never learned to swim. “Fool,” he said and motioned to the boat. “Ye will make room for the women and bairns.” The man nodded vigorously, and he turned to the second sailor. “And ye?” The sailor held up two fingers pinched together and rattled off something in French. She didn’t know if Shaw understood him, but he cursed again. “The two of ye will row them to shore,” he said, pointing to the land. They both nodded like chickens pecking on scattered corn.

Shaw helped Alana climb aboard the raised rowboat, his strong arm under hers as she lifted her leg over the gunwale. “I will lower ye down slowly,” he said.

Alana rubbed Rose’s back. She’d grown quiet in all the commotion, and Alana hoped she was well. “Then you will follow?” she asked, scooting over as Alistair helped the other two ladies into the boat, the Frenchman taking up the oars and nodding.

Shaw met her gaze as he and Alistair began to lower the boat to the choppy water of the bay below them. Her fingers clutched the side of the little boat. “Shaw?”

“Aye,” he yelled down, bracing his legs. “I will follow. I have a need to hear what ye said when I boarded without flames roaring around ye.”

She kept her gaze on him as they lowered, the muscles of his arms bulging as he slowly gave the rope out little by little. A cold spray of water misted off the bay, but it was the fire roaring up like a furious, greedy monster behind him that made a shudder spread through her. With the ship packed full of hay and made entirely of wood, it would go quickly.

The older woman was praying loudly opposite her while Bess just stared at Alana. “Will it explode when the fire reaches the gunpowder below?” she asked.

Alana’s gaze snapped back up to Shaw, and she waved her hand, almost rising out of her seat. “Jump in!”