Chapter One
Late 16th century, on a ship to the Hebrides
The merchant from Ayr had been droning on about rates for the better part of an hour.
“Ye’re brave, I’ll give ye that,” he said, mopping his brow with a gray kerchief. “Or perhaps foolish. Hard tae tell the difference, with a woman sailing alone tae MacKay lands.”
Lilian kept her eyes on the horizon and her hands wrapped around her teacup. “I’m nae alone. I have a crew.”
“Hired men.” He waved a dismissive hand. “It’s nae the same. The MacKays dinnae dae business with strangers. Certainly nae with—” he paused, searching for tact and apparently failing to find it, “—women merchants.”
“Then it’s fortunate I’m nae a stranger. Me faither has dealt with them before.” She took a measured sip. “And I intend tae continue that relationship.”
The merchant made a sound that was not quite a laugh. “Yer faither sent ye in his place and ye think that’ll sit well with a Highland laird?” He shook his head. “MacKay’s a hard man, they say. Fair, but hard. He’ll nae—”
The cannonball tore through the mainmast with a crack that split the sky.
Lilian’s teacup shattered against the deck as the ship lurched violently to starboard. She grabbed the rail, salt spray stinging her eyes, while screams erupted around her. Beside her, the merchant from Ayr scrambled toward the companionway, his wig flying off into the churning sea.
Another explosion. The foremast splintered, canvas and rigging cascading down in a tangle of rope and wood. Through the smoke, Lilian spotted three low-slung vessels closing fast, their dark sails cutting through the mist like shark fins.
Pirates.
Her eyes swept the deck frantically. She’d hired four guards in Lochaline, good men her father had vouched for. She spotted two of them already fighting near the foremast, outnumbered and losing fast. The other two she couldn’t find at all.
Her fingers found the small knife tucked into her belt, the blade her father had given her before she’d left Lochaline. Fer emergencies, he’d said, his voice weak from whatever illness was eating him from the inside. She’d thought he meant for cutting purse strings or threatening dishonest merchants. Not this.
A grappling hook sailed over the rail and bit into the wood beside her head. She jerked back as more followed, iron claws latching onto the ship’s sides with sickening thuds. Men swarmed up the ropes, faces wrapped in dark cloth, blades gleaming in the weak Scottish sunlight.
The first one came at her fast.
Lilian didn’t think. She twisted away from his reaching hands and drove her knife toward his ribs. The blade caught his forearm instead, slicing through leather and flesh. Blood bloomed hot across her knuckles. He cursed and stumbled back, eyes wide with surprise above his mask.
She’d actually hurt him.
The shock lasted exactly one heartbeat before his expression hardened. He blocked her next strike with brutal efficiency, catching her wrist and wrenching it sideways. Pain shot up her arm. He shoved her backward, and she hit the rail hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs. The knife clattered from her grip, skittering across the blood-slicked deck.
He raised his sword.
Lilian’s mind went blank with terror. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, could only watch the blade arc downward toward her throat. This was it. She was going to die on a nameless patch of sea, and her father would lose everything because she’d been too stubborn to hire proper guards.
Then the entire ship bucked like a spooked horse.
A birlinn, sleek and deadly, slammed into the starboard side with enough force to snap timber. The impact threw her attacker sideways, his sword clattering across the deck. Lilian grabbed the rail to keep from falling as the world tilted at an impossible angle.
A figure leaped from the birlinn onto the deck, landing in a crouch that would’ve made a cat jealous. He rose slowly, and despite the chaos, despite the screaming and the blood and the smoke, Lilian’s breath caught in her throat.
He was tall. That was her first coherent thought. Tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair that fell past his collar. A sword hung at his hip, longer and heavier than the raiders’ blades, and he moved with the kind of fluid grace that spoke of a man who knew exactly how dangerous he was.
He didn’t hesitate. Her attacker was still scrambling to his feet when the stranger’s blade found him. The raider dropped without a sound, and the stranger was already turning, already moving toward the next threat.
“Stay behind me,” he said, his voice rough with a Highland accent that made something low in her stomach tighten despite the terror still coursing through her veins.
Then he was fighting, and Lilian forgot how to breathe for an entirely different reason.
He moved like violence set to music. Each strike flowed seamlessly into the next, his blade singing through the air as it met steel and flesh with no less skill. Two more raiders came at him together, coordinating their attacks, but he spun between them like smoke, his plaid flaring out to reveal powerful thighs and calves that flexed with each movement. One raider fell clutching his side. The other lost his weapon and stumbled back, hands raised in surrender.
The stranger kicked the weapon over the rail and moved on.
Sweat gleamed on his neck where his plaid had shifted, revealing the strong column of his throat and the edge of a collarbone that shouldn’t have been distracting but absolutely was. His jaw was tight with concentration, a muscle jumping beneath the stubble that shadowed his cheeks. When he struck, the muscles in his forearms corded beneath tanned skin, and Lilian had the wholly inappropriate thought that she’d never seen anyone make killing look so effortlessly graceful.
Focus. Men are dying.
But her body didn’t seem to care about propriety or timing. Her pulse hammered in her throat, and not entirely from fear anymore. When he glanced back at her, just for a moment, to make sure she was still behind him, his eyes were warm brown of hazelnuts, fierce and utterly unreadable.
A thin scar cut through his left eyebrow, disappearing into his hairline. She wondered how he’d gotten it. Wondered what those hands would feel like if they weren’t wrapped around a sword hilt.
Then he was moving again, and she shook herself hard. What the hell was wrong with her? Her entire future hung in the balance. And there she was cataloguing the way a stranger’s plaid clung to his backside when he moved.
The fight lasted maybe three minutes, though it felt like hours. The remaining raiders, realizing they were outmatched, scrambled back to their vessels and pushed away from the damaged ship. Within moments, they’d disappeared back into the mist, leaving behind bodies and blood and the acrid smell of cannon smoke.
The stranger turned back to her, breathing hard but not winded. Up close, he was even more devastating. His face was all sharp angles and harsh lines, saved from severity by a mouth that looked like it knew how to smile even if it wasn’t smiling. His eyes were warm in color but guarded in expression. Blood spattered his cheek, though she didn’t think it was his.
“Are ye hurt?” he asked.
Lilian realized she was still pressed against the rail, her fingers aching from gripping the wood so hard. She forced herself to straighten, to meet his eyes without flinching. “Nay. I’m… nae.”
His gaze dropped to her hands, then traveled slowly up her arms, her shoulders, her face. It wasn’t lecherous. More like he was cataloguing injuries, checking for damage. But the intensity of that gray-eyed stare made heat bloom in her cheeks anyway.
“Ye’re bleeding,” he said, nodding toward her hands.
She looked down. Blood covered her knuckles, though whether it was hers or the raider’s, she couldn’t tell. Her hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t make them stop.
“I had a knife,” she said stupidly. “I cut him.”
One dark eyebrow rose. “Aye, I saw. Ye fight like a cornered cat.”
“Is that a compliment or an insult?”
“Havenae decided yet.” He moved past her to the rail, scanning the water where the pirate ships had vanished. The movement brought him close enough that she could smell salt and leather and something darker underneath, something that made her pulse kick into an unsteady rhythm. “They’ll be back once they realize we’re still afloat. We need tae get ye off this wreck.”
“We?” Lilian’s voice came out sharper than she’d intended, but panic was starting to claw at her throat again. The merchant from Ayr was nowhere to be seen. Half the crew was dead or dying. And she was standing there having wholly inappropriate thoughts about a stranger who’d just killed three men without breaking a sweat. “Who are ye?”
He glanced back at her, and something that might’ve been amusement flickered in those storm-gray eyes. “Someone who just saved yer life, lass.”
“I had it under control.”
His laugh was short and rough. “Aye, I could see that. Another few seconds and ye’d have introduced yer throat tae his blade. Very controlled.”
Heat flooded her face, equal parts anger and embarrassment. “I loosened him up fer ye.”
This time his smile was real, just a quick flash of white teeth that transformed his entire face from forbidding to unfairly charming. “Is that what ye call it?”
Before Lilian could form a cutting response, he turned back to the rail and called out in Gaelic to the men on the birlinn. The orders were clipped and efficient: secure the lines, check the wounded, watch the water to the north. They responded immediately, tossing up ropes and securing the two vessels together.
More men began boarding the damaged ship, moving with the seasoned grace of sailors who knew their business. They checked the wounded, secured the deck, and began assessing the damage to the sails and masts. Through it all, the stranger stood at the rail like he owned the sea itself, giving orders in that Highland accent that made Lilian’s stomach do complicated things.
She watched the way his shoulders moved, the way he gestured with one calloused hand while the other rested casually on his sword hilt. Watched and told herself she was simply trying to understand who he was, what authority he commanded. That was all.
Not that she was noticing the way the wind caught his dark hair, or how the fading light caught the sharp line of his jaw, or the way his plaid rode up slightly when he leaned over the rail to speak to someone below.
Absolutely not.
***
Ewan had seen plenty of people get themselves killed through sheer stubbornness, but this one took the prize.
She stood by the rail like a storm-tossed kitten, all bristling pride and shaking hands, trying her damnedest to look brave while blood dripped from her knuckles and her dress hung in tatters around her ankles. She’d actually fought back against a man twice her size with nothing but a wee knife that wouldn’t have troubled a particularly aggressive rabbit.
Brave. Stupid as hell, but brave.
He should’ve been irritated. Should’ve been focused on the raiders who’d been hitting merchant ships with increasing frequency, on the pattern he still couldn’t quite pin down, on the fact that this made four attacks in as many weeks.
Instead, he was trying very hard not to notice the way her wet dress clung to curves that had no business distracting him during a crisis. Or the way her eyes, wide and green as spring grass, kept darting to his face and then away like she couldn’t quite decide if she wanted to thank him or stab him.
Or the way she’d called his backside attractive without saying a word, just with that quick glance when she thought he wasn’t looking.
Aye, he’d noticed. He noticed everything. It was what kept him alive.
“Secure the deck,” he called to Callum, his second. “Check fer survivors. Any who can walk, bring them aboard the birlinn.”
“Aye, Ewan.”
The girl stiffened upon hearing his name. He could practically see her mind working, putting together pieces she probably should’ve figured out when he’d crashed a birlinn into a merchant vessel and started giving orders.
But she didn’t say anything. Maybe she didn’t recognize his name. She just stood there with her bleeding hands and her ruined dress and her chin lifted like she was daring the world to knock her down again.
Ewan had to respect that, even if she was going to be a complication he didn’t need.
“Come on,” he said, gentling his voice slightly. “Let’s get ye somewhere safe.”
She opened her mouth, probably to argue, and he prepared himself for whatever sharp-tongued response she was about to deliver.
To his surprise, she closed it again and simply nodded.
Chapter Two
The port rose from the mist like something conjured from old stories.
Lilian stood at the rail of the birlinn, watching gray stone buildings materialize along the shore, their roofs slick with rain and sea spray. Fishing boats crowded the harbor, their masts bobbing like reeds in the swell. Beyond the port, she could just make out the dark shape of a castle perched on the cliffs, its towers stark against the clouded sky.
MacKay lands. It had to be.
The merchant from Ayr had warned her about him. She understood now what he’d meant.
Well, she supposed being rescued by one of them counted as an introduction of sorts.
The birlinn glided into the harbor with smooth confidence, the oarsmen working in perfect synchronization. Lilian’s rescuer stood at the prow, one hand on the mast, his dark hair whipping in the wind. Even now, watching him give quiet orders to his crew, she couldn’t stop noticing things she had no business noticing. The strength in his forearms as he helped secure the lines. That scar through his eyebrow again, that made him look dangerous even when he wasn’t actively killing people.
She forced herself to look away, focusing instead on the port growing closer. Wooden docks stretched into the water like fingers and people were already gathering to watch their arrival. News of the attack must’ve spread quickly.
The birlinn bumped gently against the dock, and sailors scrambled to secure it. Lilian’s legs felt unsteady as she prepared to disembark, though whether from the fight or from being at sea for hours, she couldn’t tell.
Her rescuer appeared at her elbow so quietly she nearly jumped. “Easy,” he said, offering his hand. “The dock’s slippery.”
“I’m well enough.” But even as she said it, she stumbled slightly on the gangplank, and his hand shot out to steady her. His fingers closed around her elbow, warm and solid, and for one breathless moment she was acutely aware of how close he was standing. Close enough to see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes.
He helped her onto the dock, and only then did he release her. “Are ye all right, lass?”
Lilian’s throat felt tight. The terror of the attack was starting to catch up with her now that the immediate danger had passed. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking and her knees felt like water, and she desperately wanted to sit down somewhere quiet and cry until the tightness in her chest eased.
Instead, she lifted her chin and met his eyes. “Me injuries are naething serious. Though the experience was…” She swallowed hard. “Terrifying.”
Something softened in his expression. “Aye. It would be.”
“Thank ye,” she added, the words coming out more quietly than she’d intended. “Fer saving me. I’d be dead if ye hadnae arrived when ye did.”
He tilted his head slightly, studying her. Then he turned to one a man with graying hair and a scar across his nose. “Callum, fetch a blanket from below deck.”
“A blanket?” Lilian frowned. “I dinnae need—”
“Ye’re soaked through,” he interrupted gently. “And ye’re shaking. Shock or cold or both, I cannae tell. But I’ll nae have ye catching yer death after I went tae the trouble of saving ye.”
Lilian glanced down and realized he was right. Her dress clung to her body, heavy with seawater and blood, and now that she was standing still, she could feel the wind cutting through the wet fabric like knives. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop the shivering.
The stranger moved closer, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. His gaze traveled over her face, down her throat, across her shoulders. Not lecherous, she told herself. Just checking for injuries. Making sure she was truly unharmed.
But the intensity of his attention made heat bloom beneath her skin anyway.
“Where are ye hurt?” he asked quietly.
“I’m nae—”
“Dinnae lie tae me, lass. I saw ye fighting. I saw ye get thrown against the rail.” His hand lifted, hovering near her shoulder but not quite touching. “Where?”
Lilian’s breath caught. Up close like that, he was overwhelming. Tall enough that she had to crane her neck, broad enough that he blocked out half the harbor behind him, and those storm-gray eyes saw entirely too much. “Me ribs,” she admitted. “And me wrist. But it’s naething serious.”
His jaw tightened. He reached for her wrist with surprising gentleness, turning her hand over to examine the angry red marks where the raider had grabbed her. His thumb brushed across her palm, and she had to bite back a sharp inhale at the touch.
“Naethin’ serious,” he repeated, his voice gone flat. “Ye’ve bruises forming already. And these cuts on yer hands need cleaning before they fester.”
“I’ll survive.”
“Aye, ye will. Because I’m going tae make sure of it.”
Before she could respond, Callum returned with a thick woolen blanket. Her rescuer took it and draped it around her shoulders, his hands lingering for just a moment longer than necessary. The blanket smelled like salt and peat smoke, and the warmth of it made her realize just how cold she’d been.
“Better?” he asked.
“Aye. Thank ye.”
He nodded once, then stepped back, putting a more respectable distance between them. But his eyes never left her face. “I should introduce meself properly. I’m Ewan MacKay, laird of these lands.”
The name hit her like a physical blow. MacKay. The laird himself. The man she’d sailed halfway across Scotland to negotiate with, and she’d been standing here having wholly inappropriate thoughts about him while covered in blood and seawater.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
“Lilian Fairfield,” she managed, trying to inject some dignity into her voice despite the blanket and the shaking and the disaster of her appearance. “I’m… I’m the merchant that was expected tae arrive. Tae negotiate the wool and salt contract.”
Ewan’s expression shifted, something flickering across his face too quickly to read. “Are ye now?”
“Aye.” She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Me faither was meant tae come himself, but he’s ill, so he sent me instead.”
“Ye came all this way alone?”
“I had guards. Good men.” She glanced back toward the harbor mouth, where the damaged merchant ship was just now limping into view, towed by another birlinn. “I dinnae ken if they made it.”
Ewan followed her gaze, his jaw tight. “We’ll find out soon enough.” He turned back to her, and his voice gentled slightly. “Ye’ve had a hard day, Miss Fairfield. But I need tae ask ye some questions.”
Lilian’s stomach sank. “Questions?”
“Aye. I was patrolling the coast when I saw the smoke from the fighting. Several merchant ships have been attacked in recent weeks,” he explained. “This one follows the same pattern. Coordinated strikes, professional raiders, specific targets.” His hazelnut eyes studied her intently. “Ye may be able tae help identify who was behind it.”
“I scarcely saw anything,” Lilian protested. “We were talking, and then the cannons fired, and then they were boarding. I was too busy trying nae tae die tae take notes.”
“Even so. Ye’re an important witness, lass.”
The endearment made something flutter in her chest, which was absurd. He probably called every woman lass. It didn’t mean anything. “And the contract?”
“Will have tae wait.”
“Wait?” Desperation sharpened her voice. “I cannae wait. I dinnae have time fer delays.”
Ewan’s expression remained implacable. “I understand yer urgency—”
“Dae ye?” Lilian let the blanket slip slightly as she straightened, anger giving her strength. “Me faither made a bad business decision years ago. A very bad decision. We’ve been paying fer it ever since. Creditors have been circling like vultures, and this contract is the only thing that might save us from ruin.” Her voice cracked slightly, but she pushed on. “So nay, me laird, ye dinnae understand me urgency. Every day I delay is another day closer tae losing everything.”
Something shifted in his expression. Not pity, exactly. More like… understanding. “I dae ken what it’s like tae carry a family’s future on yer shoulders, Miss Fairfield. More than ye might think.” He moved closer again, and despite her anger, despite everything, she couldn’t stop her pulse from quickening. “But this is the fourth attack in as many weeks. Good men have died. More will die if I cannae find the pattern, if I cannae stop whoever’s behind this.” His voice dropped lower. “So aye, I acknowledge yer urgency. But until ye’ve given me a full account of what ye saw, there’ll be nay negotiations.”
“Ye’re holding me contract hostage.”
“I’m protecting me people.” He didn’t flinch from her glare. “And whether ye like it or nae, lass, ye’re a piece of a larger puzzle. One I need tae solve before more ships burn.”
Lilian wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him exactly what he could do with his questions and his protection and his bloody puzzle. But she looked at his face, at the grim set of his mouth and the weight of responsibility in those gray eyes, and realized he meant every word.
It wasn’t negotiable.
“How long?” she asked finally.
“As long as it takes tae get the truth.”
“That’s nae an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.” He gestured toward the castle on the cliff, dark and imposing against the evening sky. “Ye’ll stay there while we sort this. Ye’ll be safe, fed, and warm. And once ye’ve told me everything ye remember, we’ll discuss yer wool and salt routes.”
“I’m a prisoner, then.”
“Ye’re a guest under me protection.” His mouth curved slightly. “Though if ye prefer tae think of yerself as a captive, that is yer choice.”
“How generous.”
“I thought so.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, and Lilian became uncomfortably aware of how close he was standing again. Close enough that she could see the faint pulse at his throat, the way his chest rose and fell with each breath, the hint of dark hair visible where his plaid had shifted slightly.
Close enough that when the wind changed direction, she caught his scent again. Salt and leather and something earthier underneath that made her thoughts scatter like leaves.
She forced herself to look away first. “Fine. I’ll answer yer questions. But I want yer word that once I’ve told ye everything I ken, we’ll negotiate immediately.”
“Ye have it.”
“Yer word, laird Ewan MacKay. Say it.”
His eyes glinted with something that might’ve been approval or amusement or both. “Ye have me word, Lilian Fairfield. Once ye’ve given yer account, we’ll discuss terms.”
It wasn’t much. But it was something.
Lilian pulled the blanket tighter and nodded stiffly.
Ewan stepped back and offered his arm like a gentleman, though the gesture felt absurd given that he was holding her future ransom and she was covered in blood and seawater. “Shall we?”
She ignored his arm and started walking toward the castle path. Behind her, she heard his low chuckle, rough and warm.
“Stubborn lass,” he murmured, probably not meant for her to hear.
She smiled grimly to herself. He had no idea.
