The Wicked Ways of Alexander Kidd (The MacGregors: Highland Heirs) (30 page)

H
is map turned out to be of little help in finding the
Quedagh Merchant
, but, rather, the locations of twenty or so villages. Each village, David Pierce told him, held a clue as to the whereabouts of the treasure. If found in the correct order, the clues would lead to the ship. His father had made certain that if the map had fallen into the wrong hands it would still be near impossible to understand.

But the search to find it was worth it. With a unique blend of African and Asian landscapes, Madagascar was still the most beautiful place on the earth in Alex’s estimation. The enormous island boasted more types of palm trees than anyplace else, along with baobab trees, orchids, and herbs. Thankfully they’d arrived in the dry season, otherwise they would have to contend with overbearing heat, monsoons, and tropical cyclones. Trina and Kyle enjoyed watching ring-tailed lemurs leaping through trees and hanging on branches from their tails and chameleons of every size, shape, and color.

The Malagasy people were friendly and quite beautiful
and very sympathetic to the pirate way of life. Such sympathy, along with fresh water, an abundance of food, the absence of any type of military, and no rules, made it a particularly popular pirate hideaway. On this trip, Alex avoided the most popular spots, like St. Mary’s Island and Ranter Bay, in an effort to keep attention off him and his hunt.

It took almost a month of searching through mangrove swamps and villages, living with the locals, and learning about the rumors surrounding the famous ship
Adventure’s Prize
, as they knew it. One family remembered William Kidd and the crew that brought the coveted ship to the island. They directed him to another family, and then to another, each family knowing a different fact about a certain man from the crew.

In the second-to-last village on the map, they found Josoa. Josoa had never met David Pierce or Hendrik Andersen, or any of William Kidd’s crew. He’d sailed across the waters with his brothers, his father, and his uncles. They were paid handsomely in gold to leave the ship in the cove and that was what they did. But the gold became a curse and their neighbors robbed them and forced his family to leave their village with nothing. But Josoa knew Captain Kidd had a son. William had spoken highly of him and told them Alexander would be coming for the ship. Josoa had remained in the village, waiting for him to come. He wanted gold to help his family. He wanted it, or he wouldn’t give Alex the location.

Alex promised him all the gold he wanted.

Josoa brought them to a secluded cove, one among hundreds of coves along the coast. There, hidden quite well within the dense mangroves, noisy birds, and mosquitoes was the five-hundred-ton ship. She stood tall and,
despite the overgrowth of vines along her masts and her sails stripped, the
Quedagh Merchant
was beautiful. His father’s prize. He would have liked to keep the Armenian brigantine. But it was impossible. She was too recognizable. He’d have to leave her after he took the treasure she carried. Alex could live a good life and leave enough for his children. His crew need never pillage again. They would be rich for two lifetimes.

But that wouldn’t stop them from seeking more adventures on the high seas. Pirating was in their blood.

But with every treasure comes the worry that someone can take it from you. So, after dividing their shares, Alex decided to bring his back to Camlochlin.

“We’ll stay fer as long as ya want,” he told Caitrina while they sat around a fire after a delicious meal of fresh meat and fruit. “A year, perhaps. Long enough to wed ya.”

She smiled and at least four of the men around the fire beamed at her even as she clasped her hand in Alex’s.

“Will ya be stayin’ with us then, Gustaaf?” Alex asked him, grinning at the Dutchman’s obvious fondness for his beloved.

“If the captain would have me, Captain.”

“Of course, he will have ye, Gustaaf,” Caitrina promised him. “We love ye. Dinna’ we, Alex?”

His smile didn’t falter. Besides Sam and Kyle, Gustaaf was the only man whose loyalty Alex completely trusted. “We do.”

“I’ll be sailin’, too,” Mr. Bonnet announced. “I have no family but this.”

Alex raised his cup to that and pulled Caitrina closer. She smelled good, like lavender with a hint of salt underneath. He caught Sam watching them and raised his cup again.

“Where should we sail next, Quartermaster?” he asked his friend.

Sam smiled and then looked at Caitrina in a way he never had before, with adoration. “I won’t be sailin’ with ya again, Captain.”

Alex lowered his cup and his smile faded. Sam loved her. Did he love her enough to leave everything he’d known for eight years?

“How long has this been decided, Sam?”

His friend shrugged. “Fer a time now. I need to go.”

Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing with his ears. Sam was in love with Caitrina and had to leave because of it? Once they parted and… “What do ya plan on doin’ then?”

“David,” Sam told him. “I’m goin’ with David to take me place among his men.”

“As a naval soldier?” Hell, no, this wasn’t what he was hearing. “Don’t be a fool, Sam. I can live with yar feelins’ fer me wife. Ya’re not the only one who feels them.”

“I can’t live with them,” Sam told him. “I’ll be yar ally in the navy, Alex, watchin’ yar back from another angle.”

He was serious. He was sailing back with his brother. Alex wanted to be angry with him for choosing the life of a soldier over being a pirate. But he loved and admired Sam for his steadfast allegiance, even over his own heart. This was the man he’d come to trust after his father was hanged.

“’Twas an honor to sail with ya, Sam. I’ll miss ya, brother.”

“Aye.” Sam nodded. “I’ll miss ya, too. I suggest we elect Kyle MacGregor to succeed me.”

Everyone nodded. No one smiled.

Trina knew Alex’s heart was heavy because of Sam’s leaving. She certainly wouldn’t rush his mourning over the loss of his friend. But she could help ease his pain by offering him comfort. He found it each night in her arms, and in return he gave her his passion, unrestrained and a bit wicked. He showered her with jewels and the finest skeins of silk and she showered him with love and with praise for the man in full that he was. By the time they sailed for Camlochlin, his heaviness had lifted and at night, sometimes at the helm, he thanked her for it.

She didn’t care anymore about living a risky, adventurous life. She just wanted a life with Alex.

She woke on the third day of the journey home to a wet tongue and foul breath.

A life with Alex and his dog.

New York Times
bestselling author Paula Quinn lives in New York with her three beautiful children, three overprotective Chihuahuas, and a loud umbrella cockatoo. She loves to read romance and science fiction and has been writing since she was eleven. She loves all things medieval, but it is her love for Scotland that pulls at her heartstrings.

You can learn more at:

PaulaQuinn.com

Twitter @Paula_Quinn

Facebook.com/Paula.Quinn.Romance

S
KYE
, S
COTLAND
E
ARLY
E
IGHTEENTH
C
ENTURY

F
aither! A letter was waitin’ fer us in Broadford. ’Tis from London!”

Abigail MacGregor looked up from her embroidery and watched her twin brothers, Tamhas and Braigh, cut across her father’s private solar and hand him the folded parchment.

“Who is it from, Faither?” She set her embroidery down and rose up out of her chair. She smiled at her mother, convalescing in her settee by the window, and pulled her blanket up to her chin.

“Lads,” he said to his sons instead of answering her. “Go fetch yer brother and yer uncles.”

“Which ones?” Braigh asked.

“All of ’em.”

“Robbie, who is it from?” his wife asked softly when the boys were gone.

“’Tis from… the queen.”

Abby turned to her father. Her mother sat straight up. Very few people in England knew Davina MacGregor was the true firstborn daughter of King James and Ann Hyde. She’d been secluded in an abbey her whole life, unknown
to her sisters or anyone else, to ensure a Catholic successor should James die without a son. Those who suspected her existence didn’t know she lived with the MacGregors somewhere on Skye. So why was the queen, her mother’s sister, penning them a letter?

“What does she say?” her mother asked, her voice shaken.

Her father read the letter. She hadn’t seen his face drain of so much color since his beloved wife came down with the fever three months ago.

“She says…” He stopped and looked up from the parchment, his blue eyes startlingly vivid. “She says she knows of ye and she commands yer attendance in London. She wants assurances that ye have nae plans to challenge her for the throne.”

Abby shook her head. Her mother couldn’t leave Camlochlin. The exceptionally longer winter had struck her sleight body like a plague. She was just beginning to recover and it was still brisk outside.

Her father shared her thoughts, proving it when he held up his palm to stop her mother from speaking. “Ye’re not goin’, Davina. My mind is set.”

Thank God. Abby gave a soft sigh of relief. When her father set his mind one way, he rarely moved it again.

“Robbie, my love, how do ye know I was going to suggest anything of the sort?”

He looked at the letter clutched in his hands and then at her. “Ye will when ye hear the rest. But wait a moment fer the others. ’Tis something everyone should hear.”

Abby swallowed and sat down beside her mother. What was it? What was so important that everyone needed to hear? She worried that life here would change now that the monarchy knew of her mother’s existence.

She and her mother didn’t have to wait too long before her uncles arrived. Her brother wasn’t with them.

“Where’s Adam?” her father asked the twins.

“He was with Murron MacDonald,” Tamhas said.

“He said he’d be here shortly,” Braigh added.

Her father didn’t wait. When he told them who’d penned the letter, Abby’s uncle Tristan poured them all whisky from her father’s decanter.

“She threatens to send her full army to Skye to come get her if Davina refuses to go to England.” He stopped when his wife gasped. He looked around at his brothers and his brother-in-law to gauge their reactions. He’d already decided Davina wasn’t going. That meant the army would come. Their lives and their family’s lives were at risk. Robert MacGregor was chief to his clan but he still discussed his decisions with them. If they all didn’t agree with this one, what would he do? “She also commands,” he continued without looking at the parchment again, “that my wife go with no Highlander to accompany her, but with the queen’s personal guards only.”

Everyone remained silent and still while his words settled on them.

“I must go.” Her mother broke the silence and swept her blanket off. Abby held it in place in her lap.

“Are ye mad to think we’d let ye go, Davina?” her uncle Colin asked.

“Mayhap the fever has returned,” said her uncle Connor Grant.

“Should I get Isobel?” her uncle Tristan asked, bringing more relief to Abby, knowing that they agreed with her father.

“I can’t let people I love die because of me. Not again.”

“We need to alert the other clans.”

“Aye, Tristan,” her father agreed. “I dinna’ think the queen knows where in Skye we are. She’ll send her army throughout.”

“Robbie,” her mother pleaded woefully. “Please. I can make it to London and stop any fighting from taking place. Let me do it.”

Abby had heard tales of St. Christopher’s Abbey, where her mother grew up, and how her royal family was responsible for hiring a madman to burn it down with the more than twenty nuns who raised her inside. She would have died as well if Abby’s father hadn’t rescued her from the flames. Her mother didn’t want to be responsible for more deaths.

How had Anne found out about her? Had she always known? Did she really just want assurances that the firstborn heir to England’s throne didn’t want the seat?

“Davina,” her father said softly. “My mind is set, my love.”

“What of our kin?” her mother insisted. “Our bairns, Rob. What if they are killed?”

“I will go in her stead, Faither!”

Hell, Abby wasn’t afraid to go to England. Her mother was happy just where she was. Abby would make her aunt see that. She would win her favor for her mother’s sake and try to guarantee some kind of protection for the clan. Protection against the loss of their name and their beliefs. She wasn’t afraid. What was the worst that could happen? It wasn’t like her pistol-swinging brothers were coming with her. Mayhap she might even meet a handsome knight like the ones from her grandmother’s books. She’d be escorted by the queen’s personal guards, so nothing… She blinked at her father, who was staring at her like she’d just sprouted a second head.

“Abigail, d’ye sincerely think I’d let ye go to England alone?”

Her eyes glittered like the frost on the mountaintops outside the castle, but there was nothing cold about her. Like her mother, everyone at Camlochlin loved Abby. She fit in with everyone—whether in the kitchen, in the sewing chamber, or on the practice field. The chief’s only daughter won every heart, especially her father’s.

“Ye dinna’ have a choice, Faither. Our clan depends on it. I will do whatever I must to keep us safe. The royal army would do much damage and eventually they would find us. I’m not going to sit back while my beloved faither and uncles fight and possibly die in a battle. I’m going. My mind is set.”

Colin was the only uncle who smiled. It was slight, but Abby caught it.

“Ye will go over my dead body, Abby,” her mother told her sternly.

“And ’twill be dead indeed if
ye
try to go, Mother.” She shook her head and turned to the men again. “Ye all know that one day I want to be the chief. Though I’m a woman, I want to prove to ye that I’m worthy of the title.”

Colin raised his cup to her and smiled. “Ye’re braw, lass. Ye’ll have my ‘aye’ when the times comes fer the next chief to be chosen.” He turned to her father and winked at him. “Not that I want that day to come any time soon, brother. I just think she’s a better choice than Adam—”

“I dinna’ give a damn about that,” her father shouted. “Ye think my only daughter should go to meet our enemy alone?”

“Nae, of course not,” Colin insisted. “Why the hell would ye think that? We’ll stay a day behind her.”

Tristan smiled. So did Connor. Abby loved them all.

Looking at them, she understood why she waited for a certain kind of man.

“I canna’ let her go.” Her father turned to her. “Ye ask the impossible.”

She smiled softly and went to him, taking his arm in hers. “Faither, I love ye with all my heart, but I didna’ ask.”

Abby penned her reply to the queen herself and without waiting for her father’s approval, she rode to Broadford and made arrangements to have the letter delivered to St. James’s Palace. Upon her return to Camlochlin, she met up with her brother, who was returning from Torrin.

“Where were ye today, Adam?” she asked her eldest brother, riding her surefooted mount around his appropriately named dog, Goliath. “Faither sent fer ye and ye didna’ come.”

Adam exhaled a long breath and turned his eyes toward Camas Fhionnairigh. Abby knew where he’d been and what he’d been doing instead of seeing to his duty. She didn’t blame Murron MacDonald. Adam was striking, with raven hair, pale skin like their mother’s, and even lighter blue-gray eyes. He was a spectacular blend of both her parents.

“Aye, a letter from London. The twins told me.” He swung his cool gaze to her. “Ye know I have nae interest in anything English.”

“It seems ye have nae interest in anything that doesna’ come in a skirt.”

He smiled and Abby thought it a pity that he was so arrogant and flippant about his life.

“Ye are practically handing me yer birthright, Adam.”

He shrugged. “Who says I want it?”

He didn’t. He’d made it clear on more occasions than
one. He didn’t want to rule. He wanted to raid, women mostly. That was fine with her. Less opposition later. She smiled.

“Give it to me then.” She waited for his answer. If he handed his birthright over to her, no one would contest it. “Why wait?”

He laughed, infuriating her that he found his birthright a matter of jest.

“Why d’ye want the weight of our clan’s survival on yer shoulders?” he asked her. “Find a husband and have babies, sister.”

Oh, she wanted to punch him in the face. She never wanted to punch anyone so badly. “Adam, ye—”

“I say that because I love ye,” he cut her off. “I dinna’ want to see ye carry such responsibility on yer back. Ye dinna’ understand how crushing being chief will be.”

“And ye do?”

“I’ve been groomed fer it my whole life. I have a better idea than ye have aboot it.”

She didn’t care. It didn’t matter how hard it was to be chief. It was all she wanted. And she almost always got what she wanted. She was strong, independent, and loyal to her clan. Her father knew she was as stubborn as him, and that was why she remained unwed. She wasn’t opposed to marriage. She was opposed to marriage to a man who wasn’t right for her. She would know her future husband when she met him, and until then she would remain unwed.

“’Twas a letter from the queen,” she told her brother, wanting him to hear her decision from her own lips. “She knows of Mother’s existence.” Ah, finally, a reaction other than a glib smile. “Queen Anne has commanded Mother to travel to London with English guards.”

“She canna’ go.”

“She isna’ going. I am.”

He laughed again and she smiled with him but there was no humor in her eyes. Let them all think she was mad or foolish. This was her clan and she wasn’t going to let harm come to them because of a queen’s command.

“And Faither has agreed to this?” her brother asked.

“He will. If I dinna’ go, the queen has promised to send an army here.”

They discussed it more, with Adam finally taking the matter more seriously. The thought of him leading the clan someday riled her. Thank God that she came from a line of strong, fearless women who knew what they wanted and took it. They would support her. They had to.

She was going to England with or without her father’s permission, and one day she was going to be chief.