The Highlander’s Lady of Loch and Sea (Brotherhood of Solway Moss #3)

Prologue

The Forest Above Girvan Point

Coast Of Southwest Scotland

“Charm a lass?” Cyrus Mackinnon asked, his brows raised high.

“Aye,” Kenan Macdonald said. “Find a lass in town and ask her about Captain Bunch and his ship Renegade. Ye can’t just go up to the docks asking outright, or the locals might tell those guards walking about.

” Kenan pointed down the hill where guards patrolled.

“This close to the border, some of them are bound to be English.”

“We don’t even know if the bloody captain is still here,” Rory MacLeod said.

“It’s been weeks since the blankets were sent to us.

” Each of the four Highlanders had received a blanket at Beltane, anonymous gifts from home, and each had had a helpful tool sewn into the seams. A sgian dubh, coins, a skeleton key, and information about a ship that could take them home.

The men had escaped the cell and prison.

Now they just had to find the ship as quickly as possible so that they could at last escape England and return to the Isle of Skye.

“Ye want me to charm a lass looking like this?” Cyrus indicated his torn tunic and the ragged breeches that were more grime than wool.

His Scottish plaid had been stripped away when he’d been thrown into Carlisle Dungeon a year and a half ago, and these clothes had been all he’d worn since.

He scratched his full beard and ran fingers through his long, shaggy hair.

“Yer smell is worse,” Rory said, looking down into the valley at the seaside town of Girvan Point.

Cyrus glared at him. “Ye don’t smell any better.”

“We all need a bath,” Kenan said, nodding to the small loch surrounded by reeds beside them. They’d run on and off for the last two nights once they’d escaped Carlisle Dungeon, toward the docks of Girvan Point on the west coast over the border into Scotland.

Cyrus turned to the lake. “I’ll need more than a bath to charm—” Splash. Gurgle.

The cold of the water hit Cyrus like a charging bull. Bubbles flew up before his eyes as he huffed out a breath, using his arms to rise. He broke the surface, whipping his unclipped hair out of his eyes to glare at Asher MacNicol, who stood on the bank.

“Get clean, and we’ll find some fresh clothes,” Asher said. Stoic and hard as granite, the large MacNicol nodded to the village. “Fresh laundry. From different lines so as not to be immediately noticed.”

“Bloody hell, Ash,” Cyrus called up, but he was quickly stripping off the filth-ridden uniform underwater.

“I would have jumped in on my own.” He would have cursed the man, but Asher MacNicol didn’t need further curses placed upon him.

He’d suffered the worst in prison, his back being flayed so severely that it had taken a fortnight of nursing to enable him to walk out of the prison with them.

And after the last year and a half, they wouldn’t leave him behind. He looked pale this morn.

Kenan set a hand on Asher’s shoulder. “Ye need to wash, too. It will help yer back. Rory and I will find the clothes.” Before the stubborn man could muster a lie about not needing to rest, Kenan and Rory jogged off toward the waking village.

Cyrus scrubbed his body with his hands. Lord, he wished he had some of the pine-scented soap his mother made.

He sank underwater to scrub his overgrown hair.

When he rose, Ash was walking into the water with his clothing on.

The scabs on his back had adhered to his tunic, so it was best to loosen them with water before trying to remove the soiled linen.

Cyrus swam about, letting the fresh, clear water work away at the grime embedded in his skin and under his nails. Then he stroked over to Asher and stood. “Turn around. I’ll work the cloth off.”

“I can do it on my own.”

“Hold yer tongue and bloody turn around. None of us need ye tainted.” Asher only understood harshness, making Cyrus wonder about his past with the MacNicols. The man turned in the water, and Cyrus worked to coax the linen away from the half-healed slashes over his back.

Kenan returned first, breathing hard from an obvious run.

He tossed two sets of clothes on a boulder beside the loch.

“Might be a bit snug,” he said. “They’re English infantry trews I found drying behind the inn.

” He shrugged. “Englishmen are puny.” He stripped off his own clothes and dived into the water.

Rory returned soon after with two more sets of tunics, breeches, and hose. “There’s an English troop in the village. A lad said they rode in two days ago.”

Cyrus walked out of the loch, letting the spring breeze dry his body. He was too thin after the sparse food they’d been sharing in the prison. His mouth watered at the aroma of roasting meat caught in the breeze, blowing toward them from the town below.

“Take half the coins, Cy,” Kenan said, pointing to a small bag he’d tossed onto the pile of rags he’d stripped out of. “Buy someone an ale for information and bring back some food.”

“Charm a lass,” Rory said. “Find the Renegade.”

Cyrus pulled on the stiff clothing and ran fingers through his hair.

His beard had grown thick over the last year, hiding his square jaw.

His own mother wouldn’t recognize him, but English soldiers would.

Even with clean clothes, he had the look of an escaped prisoner.

“I’ll find the Renegade and Bunch,” he said, and jogged off toward town. But first he’d find a barber.

…

The lass, Ida, was clearly looking for a husband.

“How many cows do you have on your farm, Peter Fullam?” she asked, standing close to Cyrus by the pile of peat stacked behind the tavern.

Her pale curls were stuffed under a cap, and her ripe breasts pushed upward to test the lace edging her smock.

Ida set her palm on his chest as she pulled in closer and inhaled.

She’s bloody sniffing me. Cyrus’s eyes widened, but he didn’t back away.

“Twenty-five head,” Cyrus answered. “And I’m looking to sail back north to them soon.

” He claimed her hand, ignoring the stickiness of it, and looked down into her eyes.

His gaze spoke of taking her with him, although he’d never be so cruel as to ask outright only to leave her standing alone at the dock.

“Do ye know of the ship called the Renegade? Or a Captain Bunch?”

She stiffened. “That rascal is a surly, beetle-headed old barnacle.”

He leaned toward her broad face and skimmed his thumb over her cheek as he frowned. “Was he rude to ye, Ida lass?”

“Aye, he was. Thought I was a whore just ’cuz I asked how much coin he carried.” Her eyes widened. “I was merely warning him against local cutthroats.”

“Of course ye were,” Cyrus said with earnestness.

Ida smiled and rubbed her cheek against his palm as if she were a cat. “He was a foul man who will never find a wife if he keeps thinking every woman with a smile is a whore.”

“I’ll set him straight right away. No one should besmirch yer fine name.” He glanced toward the opening to the alley where they stood. “He’s down at the docks now?”

“I don’t know,” she said, also glancing toward the docks in the distance.

“I’ll find out,” Cyrus said. “What’s the bastard look like? And his ship?”

Her face opened with her smile. She was a bonny lass when she released some of her cloying desperation. “You’re a right decent gentleman, Peter Fullam.”

She curled her arm through his and tugged him down to the alley opening. “Down at the far end of the docks. Has been there since Beltane while the captain trades and makes repairs.”

A galleon sat at the deepwater dock in the distance, three masts poking up into the sky. His relief at seeing the ship that could take them to freedom scattered as he saw English soldiers stationed at intervals along the dock, scrutinizing the men walking by and stopping each one boarding.

He patted Ida’s hand where it rested on his arm. “I’ll be sure to discuss etiquette with Captain Bunch.” He handed her a coin. “To soothe his distasteful words.”

She pulled him around by his tunic and kissed him hard and fast. Pulling back, she offered him a huge smile. “Thank you, Peter love.”

But Cyrus’s focus had already returned to the Renegade. How the foking hell would they get around King Henry’s men?