Heart of Gold Read online

  “They were thieves!”

  “No, my dear. Even today this is considered a legitimate—even noble—profession, and the practice is continued by every king in Europe. English, Spaniards, French—they all do it. It is part of the shipping business. To trade in these dangerous waters, you have to protect your vessels and your merchandise. And the best way to do this is to be a pirate yourself. If you are not, then you’d better be prepared to pay large sums of gold and hope they will work on your side.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes found Ambrose where he stood talking with the ship’s captain on the stone quay. “Then he’s one, too?”

  “A pirate?” Joseph followed the direction of Elizabeth’s gaze. “No one knows for sure. Alexander Macpherson eldest son, Alec, now leads the Macpherson clan and, the word is, being married to the Scottish king’s sister, he finds little time to sail the high seas. That leaves Ambrose and the youngest brother, John. Both these men have lived on the sea from the time they were children. They both could take up the father’s trade. But now, I find that Ambrose is now the Baron of Roxburgh, as well. And from what I hear, the baron is known to have more castles—and more gold in them—than any king in Europe. So for him to continue in the family piracy business is a bit unlikely, although there are a few of us that hope he would.”

  “You hope he would?” she asked, turning to him in surprise. “Why?”

  “The mystery. The adventure.” Joseph smiled. “Macphersons have long been heroes. They are part of history. They’re a tradition. No one wants to see the legends disappear. What man wouldn’t want to tell his children of sailing with the Macphersons across the open seas? And, like everyone else, sailors are intrigued with legends. Particularly living ones.”

  Elizabeth shuddered involuntarily as she gazed at Ambrose across the dock. Once again he wore his kilt and his tartan, but now a black cloak was fastened around his shoulders. A long sword hung from the leather belt. His blond hair fluttered loosely about his face in the gentle breeze. He was tall, powerful, free. He was the very image of what she would have thought a pirate might be.

  Even more.

  Chapter 18

  The body lying in the small bunk shook with silent tears.

  Elizabeth stepped inside one of the darkened cabins and looked about her in alarm. She had just left the stern deck and her companions, going in search of her sister Mary. No one had even seen the young woman since they had stepped aboard the vessel hours earlier. The oily taper that lay propped up in a tin box gave off a smoky light and filled one side of the room with a dim haze. Elizabeth peered into the darkness and then spotted her.

  Mary lay facedown, wrapped in a rough, wool blanket. Even from where she stood, Elizabeth could see the young woman’s small shoulders trembling with barely perceptible sobs that occasionally escaped her.

  Elizabeth moved to the bunk and sat quietly on the edge. Her hands moved gently on her sister’s shoulders, caressing her, trying to ease the pain the younger woman was feeling. Mary turned immediately and threw herself into the Elizabeth’s arms.

  Now, once again safe in Elizabeth’s familiar embrace, she wept openly. Elizabeth listened, unable to console her with anything more than the soft touch and the gentle rocking motion that had been part of them since childhood.

  “I’ve never hated myself as I do now,” Mary whispered bitterly, clutching her sister as tight as she could. “My name is a demon that precedes me. I am not a human being, but a disease. One to be avoided. To be cast off and shunned.”

  Elizabeth pulled her sister’s face away from her shoulder and gazed into her tearful eyes.

  “Did someone say something to you?” The painter’s voice shook with emotion. “I’ll not allow anyone offend you in this way.”

  Mary just simply shook her head. “It is not what someone else does to me, Elizabeth. It is what I do to myself.”

  The tears fell down her pale skin as she continued. “And it is not up to you to right what I continue to bring on myself.”

  Elizabeth stared at her sister in disbelief. She had never heard Mary speak words such as these. Something must have happened. “Tell me what has happened, Mary. Talk to me.”

  “Oh, how I wish I could just be a simple little girl again. Pure, untainted. Living again at a stage in my life when worldly possessions mean little. Then I would be free to choose...for love.” She paused, staring at the shadows that flickered across the walls.

  Mary’s face became nearly trancelike as her eyes locked on the far wall. Elizabeth reached over gently and touched her brow. But there was no fevered heat on the skin, only cold. She was ice-cold. Elizabeth picked a blanket lying on the bunk and wrapped it around her sister, wondering if Mary was about to have another of her attacks. She had been so good for so long that they’d thought she had beaten the pox. Elizabeth wondered if her hasty decision to go to Scotland was the reason Mary was going through this right now. She winced at the thought that she may have put the young woman’s life in jeopardy by dragging her along. Elizabeth ran her hands over her sister’s arms, trying to bring back some of the warmth in her chilled body.

  “You should have seen me. I was so foolish. I was standing at the pier with my heart in my hand.”

  Elizabeth listened in silence.

  “He approached me. He was coming toward me. I saw his eyes, as large as life, were on me. His tartan whipped about in the wind, but he charged on. My heart stopped beating. I knew what he was about to say. He was about to...” Mary looked down at her hands.

  Elizabeth felt a knot form in her own heart. It was pain. Dull and heavy.

  “He stopped. He stopped just a breath away. I looked up, and I was lost in what I saw. Once again, here I was—a young girl, blushing madly, my breath caught in my chest and my temples pounding with the excitement. It was like...first love. Though I’m sure now that I’ve never loved any man, still I knew.”

  Elizabeth looked down at her own fingers as they clutched the blanket in her palms. She felt a burning ache in the back of her throat.

  “He just stood there, looking at me with a half smile tugging at his full lips. I felt whole, cared for, sought after. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that when a man looked at me. He was like a dream creature that God had at last sent down to me. To awaken something in my soul. Something that has been sleeping. Or dead. Then...”

  Elizabeth couldn’t look up. She sat where she was, silent, waiting.

  “Then his friend called him. Lord Macpherson called him away.”

  Elizabeth clutched her hands as she took a small breath. “Gavin Kerr!”

  Mary looked up dreamily. “It was he. The man never spoke a word. But I...” The tears once again took control. She wept silently.

  As Elizabeth pulled her into her arms, she thought back over all the time Mary had spent in the company of so many courtiers in France and in Florence. But she had never seen her so broken, not even when she’d discovered that her newborn child had been a baby girl and not a male as she’d hoped.

  “This is the first time we’ve met, but I know him. He is the man of my dreams, Elizabeth. He is the one that I have waited...” Mary paused and looked questioningly at her sister. “But I haven’t waited, have I, sister? I gave myself away in the first bed that I fell into. I was impatient. I was spoiled. Selfish. I didn’t wait, did I? And now. Now I have found him, but now...I’m being punished.”

  Mary’s eyes were glazed and unseeing. Elizabeth took hold of hands that reached out and clutched at the air. That scratched at invisible enemies. She didn’t know how to calm her sister’s fears, how to undo the torment she was bringing on herself. Mary’s breaths were coming in short, quick pants. Her voice was thickening, as if someone had her by the throat.

  “His friend called him. Took him away. Probably to tell him to stay away from the pox-ridden wench. They all know me. They know my reputation. And what they say is not even a lie. I know it. It is the god-awful truth that I am nothing more than a diseased wench. A use
d-up old whore.”

  “Stop it, Mary,” Elizabeth ordered, as she tried to hold on to her sister’s hands. The young woman jerked them away and hid them behind her.

  “You know it’s true. And Gavin...he went by me again, later, while we were boarding the ship. But he never looked. Not once. Aye, he has been told, warned, reprimanded. For looking. Just for looking.” Mary rocked back and forth on the bunk, her words coming out in moans now. “I want to wash myself. I want to get rid of this grime that I’ve accumulated over the years. I want to be wanted. By him. Is that so much? But I can’t. I was no innocent, Elizabeth. I know. I knew. Standing there, I lost it. My dream! I searched for him, and then, after finding him, I lost him. I was dirty. I am dirty! Oh, God...so dirty!”

  Mary began to rub her hands hard on the blanket, but Elizabeth caught her wrists and held them tight.

  “Then I saw me. I saw my life. God helped me see. I never knew, for all this time. It was I. All this time. I sought out this fate, this destiny. After the first time, after Henry got me with child, I could have stopped. You told me it wasn’t my fault. You said that. The blame was father’s. But he tried it on you, and you didn’t let him. No. You were strong. I was weak. I was greedy. And then, after that, I still didn’t stop. Always I knew someday I’d find him, but I was impatient. I still didn’t...” Mary folded over and cried. She cried into the blanket. “I don’t deserve him.”

  Elizabeth leaned over and held her. That’s all she could do. Just hold her.

  There was darkness and nothing else. Elizabeth clutched the side of the bunk and swung her legs over the edge, but the floor seemed to open under her. There was a lurching motion, and she was thrown into the air, rolling as she fell. And then she landed. She felt her skull crack hard against the rough wooden floor. From the above her, Elizabeth heard a sliding, screeching sound of metal against wood, and then the weight of the chest was on her. She flinched with a sharp pain that shot through her shoulder as she tried to push it away. But the ship lurched again, and the chest dropped onto her wrist.

  She could hear the muffled, heavy, rattling sound of boxes being thrown about around her. The ship’s cabin continued to rock, and Elizabeth, completely disoriented, began to crawl helplessly forward. Around her the darkness was deathly.

  “Mary!” she called. “Mary! Are you here?”

  Elizabeth had fallen sleep holding her sister. The troubled young woman at last had settled quietly to rest, and Elizabeth had stayed beside her.

  Suddenly the cabin floor seemed to drop away below her, and Elizabeth heard the crash of another box a foot from her head. Her hands flew up instinctively, and she rolled away from the spot. She dragged herself quickly to her hands and knees, and scrambled in the direction she thought she’d come. But the wild motion of the ship fought to thwart her attempts.

  “Mary!” she called loudly. But the hollow sound against the walls was answered only by the roar of the wind beating against the ship’s sides.

  So dark. There was no glimmer of light, no hint of which direction the door could be. And the storm. Panic began to crawl up from the small of her back. She had to open the door. Where was Mary? Where were Jaime and the others? She had to get out.

  Elizabeth moved, pushed hard as she struggled to her feet. Her hand reached a wall. Good. The cabin was not that large. But then the boat shuddered and dipped and rolled her once more, downward and into the wall.

  She heard the noise from above and behind her. The sound of more trunks and boxes ready to crush her.

  As they reached the crest of another mountainous wave, Gavin scanned the rolling seascape for some sign of land, but there was nothing to be seen beyond the wind-whipped foam of a gray-green sea and the blackness of the low-hanging clouds.

  “Damn the sky,” the Scot cursed into the stinging salt spray. “It was blue not two hours ago.”

  As the galley slid uncontrollably into the trough between the waves, Gavin gripped the railing of the high stern deck. This is a lunatic’s life, he thought. Give me a good battle and firm ground to stand on. He looked forward at the troop of Scottish warriors huddled in the bow and guessed more than a few of those brave men were thinking the same thing. Around the place where he stood, groups of travelers were sitting on the wooden deck, and the prayers of a number of them were as audible as the weeping of the old couple sitting directly at his feet.

  Ambrose had just gone below again, having herded most of his own charges out of the tiny cabins. Gavin couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the seamen’s expression when the baron had so emphatically made his intention clear. Crowded deck or not, those in Ambrose’s care were not going to be below decks if the ship went down.

  Gavin glanced downward over the short rail in front of him at the painter’s sister. She had been standing there looking out over the wild and frothy sea for some time now.

  The Scot’s gaze lingered on her as she clung to the railing on the far side of the ship and began slowly making her way forward. She was a bonny lass, and Gavin had heard her name was Mary.

  Always uncomfortable in the company of women anyway, Gavin could only wonder now what could possibly be going through the young woman’s mind. So unlike others, who needed a group of people to keep their company, this one was such a loner. So much like him.

  Gavin had first seen her on the pier. From a distance, it had looked as if she were standing there waiting...waiting just for him. Her eyes, her smiles had seemingly been directed solely at him. He had turned around—actually looked about—to make certain there was no one else she was looking at. But there wasn’t. And then Gavin had strode toward her. She must know me, he thought. Perhaps we’ve met somewhere before. No, that would be impossible. Gavin was certain he would remember.

  A step away, he had stopped. No, he had never spoken with her before, but he knew she was indeed waiting for him. Before he could even speak, it occurred to him that she seemed to need something—something from him.

  But she was so beautiful, and his tongue had knotted up in his head. He thought for a moment that she was about to speak. And whatever she had to say, Gavin was willing to hear.

  Then Ambrose had called. They needed to finalize their agreement with the captain of the ship before they departed.

  He had not seen her again before the galley sailed in the gray predawn light.

  The ship heeled over slightly as it began its ascent up the side of the next watery mountain, and suddenly a crossing wave crashed over the gunwales, hammering free the great wood casks of olive oil that had been lined up and secured with such orderly precision. The galley’s crew scrambled about, attempting to secure the huge barrels that now floated as free as twigs upon the flood. The shouts and curses came back to Gavin in snatches as the howling wind and the roaring sea overwhelmed all other sounds that struggled so feebly before them.

  One of the wooden casks tumbled through the midsection of the ship, now awash with the deluge. All eyes in the stern were upon the barrel, but from the corner of his eye, the Scot saw another smaller wave break over the starboard bow, and the water swept aft, engulfing the black-haired lass.

  As he watched in horror, the wave knocked the woman flat, submerging her momentarily before she reappeared, floating with terrifying speed across the deck toward an opening where the water was draining overboard.

  Without a second thought, Gavin vaulted the short railing before him as the flood carried the woman ever nearer her certain doom.

  The warrior waded powerfully against the surging current, driving his brawny legs against the thigh-high water. Gavin’s black hair whipped across his face, blinding him for an instant with brine as Mary neared the gaping hole.

  The giant was still a half dozen steps away, lunging wildly ahead, when the woman’s body reached the side of the ship. The vessel tipped again, and the seawater rushed with even more force through the opening.

  As the young woman’s head disappeared, Gavin dived into the swirling foam. For a moment the giant
thought the lass was gone, but then his fingers closed over one of her trailing ankles.

  Driving his knees under him, Gavin Kerr struggled to his feet, dragging with all his strength the unconscious woman back into the ship. With a mighty heave, the giant hauled the young woman up into his arms and tossed her over his shoulder. Then, working his way back through the receding water to the short ladder to the stern deck, the Scot climbed quickly and lay the sputtering lass in the waiting arms of the huddled travelers.

  Below, Ambrose kicked open the first door. There was no sign of her. After bringing the others up to the stern deck, he had realized she was the only one missing. Why doesn’t this surprise me? he thought to himself. Holding the wick lamp in one hand, the baron held the door open with one foot and peered in. The room lit up slightly, but even in this light, he could see she was not there. He stepped backward into the narrow corridor and moved deeper into the bowels of the ship.

  Ambrose’s wide shoulders nearly scraped the sides of the passageway and he needed to keep his head low as he moved toward next cabin—the cabin he’d seen Elizabeth’s sister Mary come lurching out of when he’d come below earlier.

  Before he could reach it, though, the ship shuddered with the impact of a wave, and the hatch door behind him slammed open. A gust of wind and spray swept into the passage, killing the flickering light, and Ambrose was left cursing in the darkness.

  Feeling his way toward the cabin door, the baron found himself thrown into one bulwark as the galley lurched again, seemingly dropping a yard as it did. Steadying himself, Ambrose found the wooden latch and shoved the cabin door open.

  “Uh...Phillipe!” he called into the pitch-blackness of the room. “Are you in here?”

  Straining to listen through the sound of the gale and the waves, Ambrose pushed farther into the cabin.

  “Here.” The reply was weak and small.

  Ambrose stepped in, clear of the door, only to slam his hip squarely into the corner of a large chest directly before him.