Chapter Fourteen
A HARRIED WOMAN appeared tableside and spoke to them in Danish.
“Ale,” the captain said, and held up two fingers.
“We’ve no coin,” Lottie sternly reminded him as the woman went off to fetch the ales.
He cast an impatient look at her as he reached into the pocket of his coat and withdrew a small purse.
Lottie flushed with shame and slumped back in her seat. Her first foray into the world at large had been an utter disaster, but she’d hoped—prayed—that at least she could sell the whisky. Unfortunately, the events of this day had nearly drained her of all heart.
She removed the blasted hat and rubbed her eyes. Strands of her hair fell down around her face.
“What’s the matter?” the captain asked, and reached across the little table to brush crumbs from her sleeve.
“What’s the matter? Everything.” She averted her gaze. “I’m ashamed,” she said bluntly. “It’s no’ always been like this for us.”
The captain did not speak, and when Lottie glanced at him, his attention was on something across the room. He didn’t want to hear her excuses, of course not. He’d never be brought so low as this. She didn’t want to hear her excuses, either—it made her feel weak, and she despised that feeling.
The woman returned with the ale, slapping down the tankards without care for how the ale slopped over the sides and spilled onto the crude wooden table. The captain handed her a pair of coins, which she quickly pocketed, then just as quickly disappeared.
Lottie had no appetite or thirst. She felt nothing but bone weariness. The captain, however, drank heartily from his tankard, draining at least half of it before he put it down. He looked curiously at her untouched tankard and gestured to it. “Do you no’ want it?”
She shrugged.
He leaned across the table and made her look him in the eye. “Drink,” he commanded her. “The Lord knows when you might have another opportunity this day.”
Lottie glanced at the tankard.
He pushed the tankard closer. “Drink, Lottie.”
She picked it up and sipped, but the ale tasted sour.
“Och, now is no’ the time to be petulant,” he said.
She put the tankard down. “Petulant,” she repeated irritably. “Should I leap for joy? Sing songs for you?” She shook her head. “You’ve no idea how hard it’s been.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “Perhaps you ought to tell me.”
She clucked her tongue. “You donna really want to hear it.”
He gestured for her to continue.
“Verra well,” she said. All at once, it felt inexplicably imperative that she explain to this man, of all men, why she had dragged him through this horrible, awful journey. “I love my father with all my heart.”
“Aye. We all love our fathers,” he said. He drank more ale and glanced absently about the room, studying the crowd, as if he expected this to be the whining of a female with no sense.
“No, I...” She found it difficult to put into words her complicated feelings about her father, about the role she’d assumed in her family, about the heavy responsibilities put on her shoulders at a very young age.
“I mean that I love my father, but he’s made life verra difficult.
He squandered everything, all of it! He has made us this desperate. ”
He turned his blue eyes back to her, curious now. “What do you mean, everything?”
“His inheritance, aye? It was quite generous, enough to have kept us all his life.”
Mackenzie looked baffled. Lottie was not surprised—the Livingstones did not present as a clan who had ever possessed more than a few coins to their name, when in fact, they had possessed quite a lot of them at one time.
“His grandfather was a Danish baron, a landowner. There was war with Sweden, and he escaped with his wealth and settled on Lismore Island. When my father came into his inheritance, he had many ideas of how to increase it. Wretched ideas.”
“Ah,” he said. “What ideas?”
She couldn’t possibly name them all, but one of her earliest memories was of an argument between her mother and father over his purchase of a carriage.
The island was only four or five miles long, and there was no need for a carriage, not to mention the expense of keeping horses to pull it those few miles.
“Many,” she said. “Many implausible ideas.”
The captain glanced down at his tankard.
He was probably imagining the many ways a man could waste an inheritance.
He was probably thinking how absurd was this clan, these Livingstones, squandering their fortune, stealing ships, believing liars.
He was probably right in all his assumptions, and Lottie wished she could disappear.
She didn’t really know the Mackenzies, but she knew of their reputation.
They were a powerful clan, a smart clan, who had weathered the rebellions and the economic troubles better than most. The very opposite of the Livingstones.
But when he lifted his gaze, Lottie was startled by the compassion she saw in his eyes.
She had not expected that. “I should have paid more heed,” she said.
The admission of guilt that constantly pricked at her conscience spilled out of her.
If only she’d not been so determined to ignore the sudden responsibilities she assumed after her mother’s death and live outside of it.
If only she’d stayed closer to home instead of running wild over the island, racing on her horse, taking up a lover.
If she’d not done any number of things, if she’d done other things, but above all, if she’d paid her father more attention, she might have stopped him from losing it all.
“Paid heed to what?” the captain asked.
“My mother died when I was just a wee lass. Mats was only just walking, and Dru, he needed quite a lot of minding and always will, and I...I didna want the responsibility of it,” she admitted. “God forgive me, but I didna want to be a mother or mistress of the house.”
“Of course no’,” he said, nodding as if he understood her. “As you said, you were a child.”
Yes...but even at that age, she’d understood how reckless her father was.
One winter, her father had come back from Port Appin with three geese.
He’d been convinced to purchase them by a stranger and was excited for his plans to fatten them for a Christmas Day feast. “We’ll feed the entire clan, we will, Lottie, and the flavor of it, you’ll no’ forget it,” he assured her.
He’d prepared his own concoction to fatten them, based on God only knew what.
For a full fortnight, the geese had wandered about among the rabbits.
But then something began to change. They began to wobble like three drunken sailors.
Their feathers molted. The first goose died a few days before Christmas and the other two were dead by Christmas Eve.
It was much later that Lottie discovered her father had included gooseberries in his concoction. Morven’s grandmother, upon hearing this, had cried for the poor geese. Gooseberries, it seemed, were poisonous to fowl.
There had been many other instances like that in Lottie’s life.
“I was a child, but I knew him,” she said darkly. “I knew how he thought, and still, so many times I turned a blind eye and let the consequences fall where they would.”
Captain Mackenzie put his arms on the table and leaned across them, his eyes piercing hers. “You are no’ responsible for your father, lass—he is responsible for you, aye? Why have you no’ married? A good man would provide for you and your brothers.”
Because the men who had tried to court her through the years had never earned her esteem?
Because she dreamed of something bigger and better than that life on that tiny little island, of towns like Edinburgh and London, which she’d only heard about, but imagined so vividly?
Because she was aware of the burden of her father and brothers that would accompany her into any marriage?
Or was it perhaps because she liked being the one in charge when it suited her?
The one whom everyone sought for answers?
“Surely you’ve been courted,” the captain said.
“Aye,” she sheepishly admitted. “But none of them ever really saw past my appearance. Verra much tongue-tied and...and stupid,” she said with some dismay.
The captain surprised her with a laugh. She’d never said these things aloud to anyone, and his charming, sincere smile buoyed her.
“I’ve no doubt of that. You’re a beguiling woman, you are.
Look at me—I’m your captive now, all because I was tongue-tied and a wee bit stupid.
” He touched his tankard to hers and drank.
A wave of pleasure at his smile spun through her and curved on her lips. “Aye, but you didna trust me, it was obvious.”
“I trusted you enough, apparently.”
Lottie laughed. It felt strange in her chest, and to her ears. How long had it been since she’d laughed? She picked up her tankard and drank. The ale didn’t seem so sour now.
The captain’s gaze was sultry. “Aye, but you’re bonny when you smile, Lottie Livingstone, that you are,” he said softly, and her smile deepened. His gaze slipped to her mouth.
“Such flattery, Captain Mackenzie. Is it possible you’ve warmed to your captor?”
His eyes sparkled with amusement. “Warmed to her, aye. But no’ forgiven her.”
“I’d be disappointed if you had.”
He held her gaze. Lottie felt warmth spreading in her chest, felt the depth of his gaze slipping into her person.
“Now you must confess to me, aye? Why have you never married? You’re verra handsome,” she said, and he inclined his head in acceptance of the compliment.
“And a sea captain. I should think that would bring mothers and their unmarried daughters flocking to Balhaire. I believe you’re verra honorable when you’re no’ complaining about your circumstances. ”
One of his dark brows rose. “My circumstances are no’ fit for a dog.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “Why have you no’ married?”
He shrugged. “I suppose I never met a woman that would tempt me to surrender the sea.”