Pleasing the Pirate: A Loveswept Historical Romance (22 page)

She was making noises, small grunts as her chest rose and fell in labored breaths. Phin’s skin went cold and clammy as he looked behind his sister for Mairi. He lowered Ezra to the floor. The man was breathing and the blood was coming from what looked like a broken nose.

Phin stood and shook Susan’s shoulders, yelling her name even though she couldn’t hear him. Annabelle clung to Susan’s skirts.

Mrs. Horton came rushing in. “What is all this ruckus?” she asked above the din then noticed Ezra lying on the ground. Immediately she dropped down beside him and began to look him over.

“Susan.” He bent his knees to better look into her eyes and so she could see his lips. But her eyes were glazed, shocked, and she was trembling from head to toe.

What the bloody hell happened? Where the hell was Mairi?

“Mairi.” The word was uttered in her usual monotone voice and Phin’s heart fell to his toes.

“What about Mairi? Where is she?”

But Susan only looked at him blankly. Phin shook her until her head wobbled.
“What happened to Mairi?”
he yelled.

As if sensing the vibration from his voice she winced and drew in a ragged breath. “A man. Took her.” She moved her hands, creating words with hand motions, something they’d taught each other in the early days and that she fell back upon in times of stress. “He punched Ezra.”

His hands fell from her shoulders and he cursed. “Where?”

Her brow creased as she concentrated on his lips. “The square.” She pointed out the door in no particular direction.

“How long ago?”

Again she looked at him blankly. Bloody,
bloody
hell. He turned on his heel and headed for his office, where he snatched up a piece of paper and a pencil. When he returned to the entryway they were all still standing there, Mrs. Horton pressing Annabelle against her legs, Susan blinking, blinking, blinking, her face a mask of shock, the color all but drained from her, and her hair a wild mess around her shoulders. Ezra was beginning to move and moan. He
opened an eye, groaned and closed it.

Phin shoved the pencil and paper at Susan. “Write down everything you remember,” he said, mouthing the words with deliberation.

She nodded and headed as if in a trance to the drawing room where she sat at a small desk and began writing.

Phin turned to Ezra and knelt on one knee beside him. “What happened?”

Ezra licked his lips. “ ’Twas a large black carriage. Hired hack. Monstrous man came out. Punched me. Took Mairi.”

Hell and damnation.

“I’m sorry, Cap’n.”

“What about the other men, Ezra? Where were my other men?” He’d had men stationed all around his house and the square. Where the hell were they?

“Happened too fast, sir. Nothin’ we could do.”

Men took Mairi. That’s all he knew. Not how nor why nor where. Just that she was gone.

Gone. Taken from him.

Good God.

When Mairi had first arrived in London she’d thought nothing could be as bad as the room at the Coxswain. Oh how wrong she had been. The Coxswain looked like a palace compared to this.

She didn’t dare sit on the bed, which was nothing but a moldy straw-filled mattress thrown on the floor and crawling with vermin. Instead she sat in a rickety chair in the corner of the dark and dingy room, close to a window that let in feeble air and almost no light. She could reach out and touch the building next to them but at least she was breathing semi-fresh air and not the fetid air of whatever building she’d been brought to.

She tried to listen to outside noises to determine where she was, but she didn’t know London well enough to distinguish one area from the other. She was almost positive she was still in London. They hadn’t driven far enough to leave the city and besides, she could still smell it.

As soon as she’d been tossed into the carriage her hands and feet had been tied, her mouth bound and her eyes blindfolded. The carriage had swayed and clattered for what seemed like eternity. Her stomach protested the movement and she feared she would lose the contents of her stomach, which wouldn’t have been bad if she hadn’t been gagged. In fact she would like nothing better than to vomit on the boots of the man who had taken her.

After an indeterminate amount of time the carriage finally stopped and she was yanked out and set upon her feet. Rough hands grabbed her arm, steering her up a short flight of steps. Five steps. She counted. A door squeaked open and she entered a building. She could tell because there was a hollowness about it as if it were abandoned.

Fingers poked into her back and she slid her foot forward, encountering another step. This time she climbed a flight—twelve steps—before they proceeded down a long hallway. Another squeaky door and she was pushed forward. Her bindings were released, her blindfold removed. And the large man stood before her.

Mairi took a step back at the immensity of him and the cold, lethal look in his dark eyes.

“Ye’ll not scream,” he said in a scratchy voice. He didn’t have to tell her what would happen if she did scream.

She shook her head and the gag was removed.

“Who are you?” She’d promised not to scream. She’d not promised to keep completely silent.

He grunted.

“Where am I?”

He shot her an exasperated look.

“Why did you snatch me off the street?”

He rolled his eyes. Any other time it would have been quite comical to see such a large brute of a man roll his eyes.

He grabbed the doorknob and stepped out.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“Where no one asks questions.” He pointed at her with a stubby finger. “You escape. We’ll find you. The door will be locked.”

“Wait.” She rushed forward, but he had already closed and locked the door. She turned around to look at her new lodgings, but there wasn’t much to see.

She’d been sitting in the chair ever since. By the sun she surmised it was evening because it seemed to be setting. She’d heard people move about. And even a few times heard people speak in what she thought might be French, but they were talking quietly.

And she had a good idea why she was here.

Her suspicions were confirmed when the door opened just as the last light faded and her small room was nearly plunged into darkness.

Her anger boiled over and she stepped closer to the man who entered holding a lantern in one hand and a plate of food in the other. His face was shadowed with a few days’ worth of beard. His clothes were loose, his breeches hanging on only by the jut of his hipbones. His cheeks were gaunt and he looked exhausted, but that didn’t stop her fury.

“I should have known,” she said with disgust. “Do you think you could have retrieved me by means any more demeaning or frightening?”

Grant placed the food and the lantern on the small table.

“It was necessary.”

“It was not necessary. All you had to do was send a note to meet you somewhere.”

He snorted. “I did that once.”

She plunked her hands on her hips. “And I spent a long time waiting for you. Where were
you?”

“He had men all around the house and he was waiting in the shadows for me.”

Her hands fell from her waist. “He what?”

Grant leaned forward. “He knew I was coming. Did you tell him?”

“Of course not.” Phin had been hiding in the shadows the night she went outside to speak to Grant? Another new anger took hold of her but quickly vanished. Oh, what did it matter at this point? Grant had her. Phin wasn’t here.

“Well, he knew. So this was the only way to see you.” He nudged the plate he’d placed on the small table. “I brought food.”

“I’m not hungry.”

He shrugged and walked around the room. It wasn’t a long walk by any means. A few paces one way then the other.

“The last we spoke you agreed to aid our cause,” he said.

“No. The last we spoke you agreed to return to Scotland with me if I spied for you.”

He leaned against the wall. “And did you?”

“Spy?” She thought of her halfhearted attempt at looking through Sebastian’s desk. Even though she hadn’t found anything she felt dirty just thinking about what she’d done.

“Yes, Mairi. Did you spy for me?”

She looked away. “I found nothing.”

“And where did you look?”

“In his desk. Is that what you wanted me to do? Is that sufficient enough for you? I stooped so low as to look into a friend’s private matters for you.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “A friend? Sebastian Addison is now a
friend
?”

“He was kind to me and I rifled through his papers because you asked me to. I’m not proud of what I’ve done.”

He sneered. “You’ve been with the English too long. You’re sympathizing with them.”

“No.” But the word was weak. She didn’t sympathize, but she understood them. They were no different from her, living their lives the best they could. “You can’t topple England, Grant.”

“I can and I will.”

“You’re only one person.” There was a plea in her voice, a desperation she refused to
mask.

“But backed by France.”

“France cares nothing for you. You are but a pawn in their ill-advised scheme.”

“You sound like the English. Da would be disappointed in you.”

She winced at the jab. “I don’t know you anymore, Grant.”

He shrugged. “War changes everyone. Priorities change. Fighting our enemy is far more important than our land.”

“You are all that’s left. You are all that we have. Da wouldn’t be disappointed in me; he would be disappointed in you if he knew you were turning your back on everyone who needs you. We’re
losing
our
land
, Grant.”

His back went rigid. “Da always taught us to fight for what is right. It’s what he died for and what I’m willing to die for.”

Her stomach curled at the thought of Grant dying. If he died, all would be lost—her land, her people. She didn’t care so much for her freedom anymore. She would marry MacGowan if that would save her people, but she knew MacGowan couldn’t care less about the women she had taken under her wing.

“You don’t see it,” Grant said. “I’m fighting for something far more important.”

“More important than our land and the home that’s been in our family for hundreds of years?”

“Yes, Mairi, more important than all of that.”

He was filled with passion, wholly believing that what he was doing was right. She didn’t know how to argue against that.

“You will lose,” she said.

“You don’t know that.”

She lifted her chin, more hurt than she’d ever been before. “I’ve done what you asked. Now you must do what you promised.”

He looked at her for a long time, but she held her ground and stared back. To look away now would be tantamount to admitting defeat and she was not defeated. Not yet.

“Why do I doubt your story?” he suddenly asked.

“Oh, no. You’ll not get off that easily. I did what you asked and I hated every moment of it.”

“How many times did you look?”

“Once. It was all I had before Ph—Lockwood brought me to his home. I’ve not been back since.”

“It’s interesting that he brought you to his home right after I asked you to help me.”

“You believe I told him about your nocturnal visit in the garden?”

He tilted his head. “Did you?”

“No.” Never. It was too humiliating.

Grant pushed away from the wall. “Your food is getting cold.”

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Damn the desperation and fear in her voice. She did not want to spend one night in this disgusting room.

Grant paused. There was a stillness about him that hadn’t been there before, a predatory nature that was new and different. “You are safe here.”

“Then why lock the door?”

“We didn’t want you to run until you knew it was me who orchestrated your escape.”

For a moment she didn’t understand what he meant by “escape” until she realized he thought he saved her from Phin. And maybe in a way he had, but not in the ways he thought.

What was Phin thinking now? Was he frantically searching for her or would he assume she was with Grant and be glad to be rid of her?

No doubt she’d been a thorn in his side from the very beginning, but she hoped he would at least miss her a wee bit.

And poor Susan and Annabelle. And Ezra. Was he terribly injured? She hoped not. She prayed they weren’t too traumatized by the events of this afternoon. She wished she’d had a chance to explain. If Grant had approached her in the square like a gentleman instead of stealing her away like a thief, she would have been able to explain.

“So the door will remain unlocked?” she asked.

He hesitated. If she did not know him as well as she did she might not have even noticed the hesitation but he was her brother and they’d grown up together and she did know him well.

“Of course.”

“And when do we leave for Scotland?”

Another hesitation. This one longer and there was no pretense of hiding it. “When I can.”

“Damn you, Grant. That was not the agreement.”

“Things change.”

“In other words you lied.”

“No, Mairi. Circumstances have changed and I find I’m unable to accompany you back to Scotland at the moment.”

“Accompany me? You’re sending me on without you?” She truly was shocked now and she had believed nothing he said or did could shock her anymore.

“It’s for the best that you aren’t in England in the near future.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“This is war.”

“No, it’s not. It’s only war to you now. The war ended a few years ago.”

“It’s a new world, Mairi. New warfare.”

There was no convincing Grant that his actions were not only foolish but deadly. And to her extreme disappointment there was no convincing him that their clan was more important. She saw that now.

She pictured the women and children anxiously awaiting her, convinced she would succeed. How did she face them and announce her defeat? How did she look into their faces and tell them she’d done all she could and still it wasn’t enough?

Even marrying MacGowan was no guarantee that they would remain safe with her. She couldn’t possibly turn them away and ask them to find other places to live. There were no other places for them. They were the abandoned. The forgotten. But they were still people with hopes and dreams.