Read The Wicked Ways of Alexander Kidd (The MacGregors: Highland Heirs) Online

Authors: Paula Quinn

Tags: #Fiction / Romance / Erotica, #Fiction / Romance / Historical / Medieval, #Fiction / Romance / Historical / Scottish, #Fiction / Sagas, #[email protected], #dpgroup.org

The Wicked Ways of Alexander Kidd (The MacGregors: Highland Heirs) (3 page)

It was only natural to want to fly away, wasn’t it?

She slowed, trying to concentrate on her task. She heard a sound and stopped. She remained silent, waiting… waiting. When no other sound came, she continued on. Reaching the crest, she paused again at the odd sound of creaking wood reaching her from what seemed another plane. She turned toward the loch and the mist rolling over it beneath her. She blinked at the sight of something dark drifting across the shallows, its high peaks—were they masts?—piercing the fragile mist.

A ship? What in blazes…? She inched forward. It couldn’t be what she thought it was. Ships didn’t come to Camlochlin without invitation, and never at night, unless they meant harm.

Whatever it was, it disappeared in the fog. Should she alert the others? To what? A shadow? They would tease her
and accuse her of creating a distraction because she hadn’t caught anything. She wanted to continue on and win but she should investigate. She began to descend the slope, doing her best to do so as quietly as possible. No reason to frighten away any potential game she could hunt later.

A movement along the shoreline caught her eye. Immediately, she nocked her arrow and raised her bow. Taking aim, she waited with a pounding heart. It could be a deer, or it could be something else. Her heavy breath thundered in her ears and she fought to control it. She kept her eyes on the shoreline and her ear inclined for any sound of her kin returning. She couldn’t lie; part of her wished they were there, at her back.

Being afraid caused her no shame. Acting on it would though.

She braced her legs and narrowed her eyes against the brisk wind. A moment passed with the parting of clouds and the full, milky moon spreading its light upon the darkness, and for an instant, on a man prowling along the rocks.

He was dressed in breeches and a long coat; she knew he was no inhabitant of Camlochlin. Neither did the long, curved cutlass dangling from his hand and catching light from the moon prove him a Highlander.

He looked up, but Trina didn’t have time to catch sight of his face beneath the wide brim of his hat. Heart pounding, she released her arrow, wishing she could look upon him and either recognize him or kill him.

His tricorn flew off his head, stabbed by her arrow and carried off into the loch. Mist shrouded him when Trina looked again. He disappeared. Her breath came hard and heavy. This was no deer she was hunting. Who was he? What should she do? Did he come by ship? Dear God,
her kin could be under attack right now and here she was wasting moments on questions.

She leaped a few feet down the slope and landed on bent knees and legs ready to fly her to where she wanted to go.

“What kind of coward seeks to kill at such a distance?” A deep, downy male voice called up to her. “Meet me on less foggy ground and let us draw swords on more equal footin’.”

His challenge was issued with arrogance, as if he feared nothing. Not even MacGregors. Fool.

She moved forward, nocking another arrow in place. “Who are ye?” she called out.

“Ah, a woman,” he said, his smile evident behind the silvery curtain that concealed him. She didn’t need to see him to feel the effect his rich voice had on her. He wasn’t Scottish. English perhaps. His clipped cadence was softened by a slow, deep drawl that coursed through her and down her spine like heat on a sultry summer night.

“A dead man,” she countered, ignoring how he sounded, “speaking but saying nothing that will convince me not to shoot him in the face this time.”

He laughed and the heat returned for a moment.

“We have a law at sea.” His warm breath fell against her lobe, causing her to twist around, stunned to find him right there behind her. She hadn’t sensed his movement. Now, he was so close she could see the contours of his face, the shape of his mouth over her as he came in close and took hold of her bow. “If ye’re goin’ to kill a man, look him in the eyes when ya do it.”

Trina tried not to show her fear, but that didn’t mean her knees weren’t knocking together. She’d never killed a man before and doing so at close range, close enough to look him in the eyes, would be difficult, mayhap impossible. She
was thankful for the mist. Getting a good, clear look at this man might slow her reflexes, but she had to do something. She blinked and rammed her knee into his groin, or rather, because of the blinding dimness, his upper thigh. She was about to run when a familiar voice stopped her.

“Back away from her or ye’ll suffer a dozen arrows. We never miss!”

Relief flooded through her at Kyle’s confident declaration breaking through the fog and the sound of rushing waves. No one
ever
saw Kyle coming.

“I surrender peacefully,” the intruder called out with a graceful sweep of his cutlass before him and a gallant bow.

“Who are ye?” Kyle demanded.

“I be Alexander Kidd, captain of
Poseidon’s Adventure
, and only son and heir of William Kidd, most infamous pirate to sail the high seas.”

A pirate? He was a pirate? Trina didn’t know whether to believe him or pick up a rock and smash it over his head. She’d never seen a pirate before. She wanted to take another look at him. He had to be lying. Why would a pirate come here? It was more likely that he was a captain in the Royal Navy come to arrest her uncles and brothers for something they did on one of their excursions to the Lowlands.

“We should shoot him,” she called out to her kin. “Set the dogs on him.”

She could feel his eyes on her, hard, dark eyes that cut through the moonlight.

“After I’ve surrendered?” he said in her direction, sounding disappointed.

“Caitrina, step away from him,” Cailean commanded, provoking a deep-throated growl from the wolfhounds at his feet.

“What d’ye want?” Kyle demanded, slowly moving closer.

“I want an audience with yar chief,” the intruder announced. “He has somethin’ that belongs to me.”

Trina laughed and began to step away from him. “Kill him and let us run home and warn—”

The remainder of her words was cut off by one arm coiling around her waist and another around her throat. The cool edge of a dagger against her throat set her heart to pounding against his hard angles.

“Ya’re beginnin’ to tempt me to take more than just me map.”

The husky timbre of his voice along her neck sent bolts of charged, fiery energy through her. Caitrina closed her eyes, hating her body for betraying her.

“Now, be a good little lady and call off yar lads or me men will open fire.”

She blinked at the mist as shadows began to appear, one after the other. He was telling the truth, at least about having a small army at his back. She opened her mouth to call to Kyle when her captor sank to the ground behind her, hit in the head by a rock from Braigh’s sling.

The shadows hurried forward. Hell, Trina had to think quickly! Her small troupe couldn’t fight the Royal Navy
or
a shipload of pirates. But there was a way to hold them off. She drew her dagger and reached down, taking the unconscious intruder by the hair.

“Stop!” she called out, holding the dagger to the captain’s throat. “Any one of ye takes another step and I’ll leave him to the seagulls!”

Chapter Three

T
he sun rose quickly, spilling light into one of the most cavernous great halls Alex had ever been in. The place had to be big in order to accompany the giants it housed. Even their dogs were huge, six in all. Ugly, scruffy looking beasts that growled under their breath if he all but looked at them. He didn’t remember other Highlanders being this tall and broad of shoulder. Even with his entire crew, Alex doubted any kind of victory over these men. Presently, he didn’t have his crew. None of his men were allowed entry into the castle save for Samuel and Hendrik Andersen.

Despite the growing knot on his head and the pounding that accompanied it, he managed a smile for a pretty red-haired lass who set a cup down on the table in front of him.

“The chief will see ye shortly,” she said, or rather sang.

One of the Highlanders seated at the table tugged on her skirt and she inclined her ear to him. She smiled behind a veil of sunset and fire curls and turned to Alex. She nodded at what the man was whispering to her. Alex
didn’t need to hear what the lad was saying. When one grew up at sea, sometimes with raging winds snatching voices from the air, one learned to read lips.

When the girl covered her mouth and giggled, Alex’s lips cocked to the left, as did his head. He didn’t mind folks thinking him a scoundrel, but he wouldn’t tolerate them thinking him lily livered. “I assure ya,” he corrected the lad at her ear, “I have not shit meself since I was a babe. Even if yer chief sports two heads and a bolt of lightnin’ shootin’ out of his arse, me streak will remain unblemished.”

Beside him, Samuel laughed softly and shoved at Alex’s shoulder. “Remember that wench in Tonga who pushed a snake out of her—”

Alex silenced him with a heel to Sam’s toe under the table, then softened his smile on the couple. “Pardon me quartermaster.”

“How did ye know what I told her?” the lad who’d whispered asked, a glint of steel, reflecting from the drawn dagger in his lap, lighting his blue-green eyes. “Did ye read my lips?”

“I did,” Alex confessed, recognizing this one’s voice from the hills. “’Tis a skill vital in me profession. Be ya the one who struck me?”

“That was my cousin, Braigh. I’m Kyle. This is Mailie. Mayhap ye could give me a lesson before ye leave?”

“If I get what I came fer then I don’t see why not. Only it will take more than one lesson to learn to read a person’s lips.”

“Well, my uncle Rob might kill ye tonight. One lesson is all I might be afforded.”

His uncle, the chief. The man his father trusted to guard his map. Alex looked the chief’s nephew over. Kyle
MacGregor appeared to be about a score years, perhaps a little younger, but he was every bit as arrogant as rumor claimed his kin to be.

He had no more time to contemplate the lad when the scent of wild heather and smoky peat filled his senses. He turned, remembering the fragrance of the archer who owed him a hat.

Caitrina.

“Bring them,” she told Kyle, who, with a dozen or so men, rose from the table and escorted him, Samuel, and Andersen out of the Hall.

“Ye have Kyle to thank fer yer life,” she slowed to tell Alex. “I thought we should have killed ye.”

Seeing her face through the delicate mist was one thing, seeing it clear and drenched in firelight was another thing entirely. If she was an example of Highland women, then what the hell had he been doing in other parts of the world all these years? He wanted her instantly, even before he paused his steps to take in the even sway of her hips and the roundness of her rump as she charged on ahead of him. He wanted to stare into her glacial blue eyes and watch while he set her afire and conquered her like the beast he’d become at sea all these months.

Someone behind him gave him a harsh shove forward.

Alex was no fool. She was a prize he wouldn’t win. In their fur-clad capes and long hair, the lot around him looked perfectly able, and, he’d go so far as to venture, a bit eager to cut him to pieces and question him later. The MacGregors. Every child growing up in the Lowlands heard of the MacGregors once or twice before bedtime, ensuring proper obedience to his parents.

Alex didn’t give a damn about tall tales. The chief had somehow earned his father’s trust. That said enough for
him. But the map belonged to Alex and he would have it. His father had gone through much trouble to see that he got it and he intended on seeing his father’s plan through. If it meant finding himself having to kiss the arse of a fine wench instead of dragging her to his bed, he’d be happy to do it.

He followed his escorts to the second landing and down a long corridor, then down another, lit by tall candle stands and flickering torches. He looked over his shoulder at Samuel and Andersen walking amid more of the tall, daunting-looking Highlanders who were escorting them. Were they being brought to the chief or to some far off room to be murdered?

They finally arrived at a heavy wooden door upon which Caitrina knocked.

Stepping inside the chief’s private solar was like walking into the embrace of a loved one. Fire from the great hearth bathed the chamber in warmth and soft, golden light. Thick, colorful tapestries hung from three of the four walls, adding to its coziness. Two ornately carved tables stretched out beneath the windows, each hosting an array of books, vases of bunched heather and orchids, a flagon of beaten bronze, and a polished chess set. It was a good room, as far as rooms on land went. The best things about it were the women, four of whom sat in a half circle around the fire. Alex couldn’t decide who was the most beautiful. The one in the third overstuffed chair, he told himself. With hair the same color of rich mahogany and eyes bluer than any charted body of water, she could only be Caitrina’s mother.

Hell, he could be happy here.

These people weren’t savages. He was glad. It would make getting his map easier.

“Captain.”

He turned to the deep voice and rethought his initial assessment. The man rising from his chair where he’d been relaxing with a number of others in the farthest corner of the room looked quite able to take on all of England if he wanted to.

“I am Robert MacGregor, clan chief of the MacGregors of Skye. I have taken the men who came ashore with ye captive. They will be killed and dumped in the loch if I’m no’ satisfied that ye are who ye claim to be. Yer ship also will be blown oot of the water.”

Alex found Kyle by the window and offered him a confident grin before turning back to the chief. He would admit the lad’s uncle could probably scare the piss from a man. Still, for Alex, that day hadn’t arrived.

“Then ’tis fortunate that I can prove me claim.” When he shoved his hand inside his coat, he found three daggers at his throat. He held up one hand to ward off the three men who had been sitting with the chief. “I mean to present a letter from me father.”

They waited while he produced the parchment and handed it to the chief, who surprised him again by sitting back in his chair and reading the letter with no help from anyone else.

When he was done, the MacGregor handed him back his letter and shook his head. “Anyone could have written it.”

“I bore witness to the penning of the letter by Captain Kidd.”

Everyone turned to Andersen, who hadn’t spoken a single word until then. The chief eyed him for a moment or two, then crooked his finger at him. Unruffled, Andersen stepped forward.

“I remember ye,” the chief said. “Ye were with the captain when last he visited.”

“I was,” Andersen told him. “Just as I was with him before he was arrested. His wish was for his son to have the map. Now that I’ve found him, I will fulfill his father’s wishes.”

“And how d’ye know this man is the captain’s son?”

Indeed, how did he?

“I have been searching for Alexander Kidd for some time and I’ve discovered much about him. For instance, he has many enemies in the Royal Navy and in many homes in New York City. If a man is going to live by a false name, surely he would choose one less notorious. Still, the best proof I can offer is Neptune’s trident,” Andersen said, then explained further when the chief quirked his dark brow. “A tattoo on his upper left arm. The trident is missing a point. His father told me of it…”

With nothing else to say while Andersen established his identity—and hell, but he knew a lot about Alex—Alex glanced around the solar. His gaze roved slowly over the faces staring back at him. He found Caitrina standing close to a pale-haired beauty of roughly the same age. He smiled at them. Neither smiled back.

“Captain Kidd,” the chief called to him, breaking the spell Caitrina’s gloriously big blue eyes had on him. “I would see the trident missing a point.”

Alex obliged. He would have stripped naked if it meant gaining possession of the map. He removed his coat and handed it over to Andersen. His shirt followed—to a symphony of little female gasps—as he turned his muscled arm toward the flickering light.

The chief nodded. “I’m convinced that ye are whom ye say and therefore will turn over yer map. Yer faither was
a good friend. Ye and yer companions here are welcome to stay and break fast with us. Fill yer bellies and then be on yer way.”

Alex bowed, then replaced his shirt. Liking a room was one thing, but he’d wanted to leave an hour ago. He wasn’t formed for land. His heart longed for the undulations of the bucking, surging beast beneath his bare feet, the spray of the ocean all over him. Someday though, if he lived long enough, he might want to settle down his feet. Camlochlin tempted.

But Alex didn’t have time to make friends now. He had a treasure to find. “That’s good of ya, my lord, but I wouldn’t risk the Royal Navy followin’ me here. We’ll be leavin’ once I have the map.”

“Stay and break fast with us,” one of the men seated with the chief said. He didn’t ask. He rose from his chair directly before Alex and fixed his level gaze at him.

“My brother, Colin MacGregor,” the chief introduced.

Kyle’s father, Alex knew right away, if resemblances meant anything. But for a harder cut to his eyes and a dash of salt at his temples, he could have been Kyle’s twin.

Colin tilted a corner of his mouth.

Only darker.

“The navy won’t follow ye here.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Alex wanted to know.

“Cannons,” Colin told him, then stepped around Alex and moved toward the center of the chamber, arm extended.

One of the four women around the hearth rose and met her husband, a blush stealing across her nose like a newly married maiden, fresh from their bed.

“My sons and nephews,” the chief continued, demanding the return of Alex’s attention, “will escort ye back
to the Hall. Adam, Edmund,” he motioned to the two men appearing at Alex’s shoulders. “Malcolm, Lucan, Patrick, take them back with the rest of ye. I’ll be there shortly.”

And just like that, Alex, Samuel, and Andersen were whisked away without another word.

“So what then?” Sam asked, eyeing the group encircling them. “Are ya all related? Married to each other?”

Alex tried to pay attention for as long as he could while they all explained who they were and what their relationship was. He lost track soon into the genealogy and turned while he walked to look Caitrina over.

Neptune take him, but she was beautiful. He let his gaze skim over her from head to foot. The milky mounds of her bosom drew his attention and ignited fire in his blood. The long column of her throat seduced his mind with thoughts of kissing it, biting it.

“Be there any hat makers here?” he asked her, lifting his eyes from her lips.

“Nae.” She swept a cheeky, gloriously dimpled smile over him, dashing to pieces his resolve not to sweep her off her feet and kiss her, and to hell with the consequences. He’d leaped out windows before to escape hounds on his arse. Kissing her might be worth it.

“We have nae hat makers, but we have a few trusted physicians. And since ’twas either yer heart or yer hat I needed to remove from yer body, I thought ye’d prefer to lose yer hat.” She stopped moving forward and set her cool gaze on him. “Was I mistaken?”

He shook his head, fired up by her saucy mouth.

“Good.” She continued on, pushing past him. “Ye can thank me fer my thoughtfulness some other time.”

“I will.” And he meant it. He’d love to stay and thank
her long into the night, but a kiss or two before he left would have to do. “That’s a promise.”

“So,” another voice said, as Kyle came to stand at Caitrina’s back, his sudden appearance jarring her a bit—or was it the interruption of their not so cool smiles that made her glare at Kyle when she looked over her shoulder at him? “What kind of treasure did yer faither hide?” he asked.

“If I told ya,” Alex said, swinging back to the forward direction, now at Caitrina’s side, “I would have to kill ya.”

“’Tis a ship,” Caitrina told her cousin, then proceeded to completely ignore Alex’s surprised gaze on her. “’Twas called
Quedagh Merchant
and later
Adventure Prize
.” She finally met Alex’s eyes and shrugged a shoulder. “I listened when yer faither visited and spoke of it.”

Why? he wanted to ask her. Women weren’t interested in the sea or in what pirates had to say about it. But what did it matter? He stopped himself from trying to work her out in his head. He’d be gone in a few hours and Miss Caitrina Grant would be forgotten.

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