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She’d looked so forlorn at the mention of his departure, her guileless expression so unlike anything any other woman had ever shown him. It’d flooded him with sensations—yearning, comfort, desire, belonging—each feeling so novel, but familiar too, as though he bore the heart of a regular man, as susceptible as any other, his sentiments merely rusted from disuse.
For a moment, he’d forgotten his pain and his anger. For a moment, all he’d wanted was to kiss her.
Shaking the thoughts from his head, he boarded his ship, climbing straight up the rigging. It wasn’t good to be back in Aberdeen—the place held too many memories— but it was good to be back aboard the Journeyman.
A few months had passed since he’d commandeered the boat and made his escape, yet he still found it hard to view himself as a free man. But back on the water like this,
with one shoulder to the endless horizon, he didn’t feel so hemmed in. The rocking waves promised freedom. Feeling the sea’s lurch and roll, Aidan could actually believe he was his own man, unchained and unfettered.
He’d fallen in love with the boat the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Aidan was no cheat, but he’d felt no qualms about liberating her from Nash, his fool of a master. Caribbean sailors favored one-mast Jamaican sloops, and this craft was no different. Constructed of cedar not oak, Jamaican sloops rode famously faster and lighter in the water.
When he’d taken her over, the tub had sailed under the name Providential, and as there’d been naught about his life thus far that he considered particularly blessed, he’d changed it at once. Besides, he couldn’t risk being recognized. Even though Nash had run a tin-pot enterprise, new Caribbean money tended to have deep familial roots in unexpected places, and Aidan couldn’t risk questions upon docking back in Scotland.
He swung his legs over the edge of the crow’s nest, grateful that he’d worn simple breeches in lieu of the Scots breacan feile that still felt foreign on his body. Opening his coat, he fingered the coin pouch tied at his belt. He hoped it’d be enough for his ruse, for it marked all he owned in the world. A sack of gold jealously saved through the years thanks to the largesse of grateful plantation wives.
Largesse. He scowled and buttoned back up. Its only cost had been his soul.
He leaned his head back and thought of Elspeth. Hers was a soul miraculously untouched by the world’s vanity and greed.
What a strange creature his tutor was, but refreshing too. Sincere and artless, like no other woman he’d ever met. Her gentleness was an unexpected balm to his befouled spirit.
And though she wasn’t what the world would call beautiful, he couldn’t erase the memory of her eyes. He found he woke thinking about that pale blue gaze, flecked with a yellow to match her long, pin-straight hair. The uncommon combination made her resemble one of the fey, somehow both wary and all-knowing.
She’d felt so lean in his arms, but with a tensile strength too, like the last of some dying breed of bird, fluttering alone through the world. He wondered if her spirit was as fragile as her body looked—he suspected not.
There was a distant commotion on the quay below, and scrubbing a hand over his face, Aidan remembered himself. He was in Aberdeen for one purpose alone, and it wasn’t to ponder some peculiarly bookish farm girl.
The yeoman. He needed to find the man with the pearl earring, and with no clues to hand, he’d start at the bot-tom, and at the bottom lurked the yeoman.
Logically, he knew that it wouldn’t be the same strongarm who’d nabbed him from Humphrey Keith’s home so many years past, but even so, he stifled a shudder when he finally tracked the man down in a seedy tavern off Justice Port.
Bluebeard’s Ghost was a hole like any other, with all manner of foulness littering the floor, a smoking chimney, and the reek of ale and bodies within. He’d been told merely that the yeoman was “the bald one,” and he knew the man at once, beefy arms, fat neck, and a pate as shining as a cue ball.
“I have a boat,” Aidan said, diving straight to the heart of the matter.
The yeoman put his tankard down and looked up slowly. “Bully for you, laddie. Now you’ll be wanting to move along. This here’s a table for men only. Or are you the new alewife?” His table erupted in laughter.
Aidan had expected just that sort of a response, and smiled wide. “A merry andrew, I see. I look forward to passing your jest along to your boss. ” He put an easy hand on his hip, crooking his thumb in his jacket just enough to reveal the sack of coin at his belt. He wasn’t so foolish as to bring his entire savings, but with the help of a bit of sand and some well-situated coin, the bag was full and clinked enough to catch the attention of any criminal worth his salt. “Or should I tell him instead that you stood in the way of new business?”
The yeoman’s laughing eyes hardened. “You’re a braw one, coming in here, flashing your wee purse about. What if I’ve a mind just to take it from you?”
A dagger appeared in Aidan’s hand and he plunged it hard and fast, stabbing the yeoman’s sleeve to the table before the man realized what was happening. “And what if I’ve a mind just to take your hand from you?”
The yeoman tugged at his arm, but the knife was planted too deeply in the wood. He rested his hands back on the table as though being affixed to pub furniture were an everyday occurrence. “Leave us,” he snapped to his companions.
The other men scattered. Retrieving his blade, Aidan plopped onto a stool, kicking his feet out in front of him. “As I was saying before you so unwisely interrupted, I’ve a ship, and I’ve a mind to fill her hold with able-bodied men and have a sail to the Indies. ”
The yeoman fingered the hole in his sleeve, scowling. “And what’s this ship to me?”
“Don’t play dim with me. ” Aidan’s patience was flagging. He knew in his heart the man with the pearl earring was out there somewhere. Plantations in the Indies and Americas were booming, which meant the slave trade was too, and his enemy wouldn’t walk away from such potential profits.
Assuming he was still alive. But Aidan had spent thirteen long years living for this moment—he refused to entertain the notion that his enemy had up and died on him.
No, he’d tease the man out of hiding, and how better to do so than by applying pressure where his enemy would feel it most: on his purse.
“I know you’re the muscle who gathers the slaves. But I’m not a patient man. I want a fast start out of the gate, and will raise the stakes if it fills my hold the sooner. ” It was a game of economics. He’d pose as a big spender, eager for slaves and ready to pay double the current rate.
The yeoman sucked on his teeth, looking thoughtful. “If you want to set up a collection, you’ll need to talk to the boss. He’s our benefactor, like. No business happens without his saying so. ”
