Chapter Twenty-Four

Friday

Aaron jumped to his feet the moment Laird Arthur MacLeod sauntered into his office in Parliament Hall, not because he had any intention of bowing to the miscreant but because he wanted to thump him, such was his fury. He signaled to his constable to stay, and Aaron composed himself.

He left the list of names the constable had given him on his desk. Jenny MacLeod’s kin who hadn’t been taken and other inhabitants of Sky, many of them poor crofters who only spoke Gaelic, were only too happy to give information. “Sit, MacLeod. You have a lot to answer for,” he said. “Did you really think you could get away with selling his majesty’s subjects for profit?”

MacLeod sat back, his feet stretched out in front of him. “Criminals all. Thieves and beggars, lewd women.”

Aaron put his hands on the sides of MacLeod’s chair and bent over him, inches from his face. “Not one has been convicted of a transportable offence. Aye, MacLeod, I have a list here of the people you’ve kidnapped. Fifty of them. One of the children is ten years old, another twelve. What crime could they possibly have committed?”

“Do you expect me to look after the useless poor?” MacLeod snapped.

“You dinnae deserve to be a laird,” Aaron roared.

MacLeod’s head jerked back.

Stepping backward, Aaron sucked in a deep breath as he thought of Jenny’s pleas for her family and Crystal’s tears. This was personal. It sickened him that he was being forced into marriage, yet these desperate, innocent, poor people made his problems seem insignificant. He had to save them. “Not one of the people on this list is guilty of anything. I had the constable check with the magistrate.”

MacLeod blanched, pushing himself back into his chair. “What do you want from me?”

“The name of the ship, the captain, and where he is heading.” It didn’t matter that the government had officially abolished the slave trade; there were still many who profited illegally from the misery of others.

“And if I give you this information, will you let me go?” MacLeod asked, his voice shaking like a trapped rat.

“I’ll inform the magistrate you cooperated so you do not hang.” But Aaron would do everything in his power to have this evil man transported when he’d finished questioning him, so he, too, became a slave until he’d served out his time.