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Inhaling deeply, Fraser appeared to come to a decision. He took and dipped his quill, carefully writing something on a sheet of paper. “Let’s say I know where to find laborers. And, say the
y were held in a ship in Aberdeen harbor.
You’ll need”—he proffered the paper to Aidan—“word from me. ”
Aidan stared at the sheet. He made out the words Justice Port and a ship’s name—the Endeavor.
Fraser scoffed. “You can read this, right?”
He stared for one furious moment at the merchant’s hands. They were trembling—weak, spotted, and pale. Aidan would die before he let those hands touch Elspeth. He snatched the paper. “Aye, I can read your damned scrawl. ” He folded it and slipped it into his sporran, forcing a peremptory thank you from between his clenched teeth.
Fraser raised his brows. “And now I think you owe me something. ”
Aidan took his hand from his sporran. “You won’t see coin until I see laborers. ”
The merchant surprised him by laughing. “A man after my own inclinations. Now go to the harbor. It’s a new ship, with a new captain. ” He shook his head in disgust. “My last contact sank before he’d even left Aberdeen harbor. Man was naught but a careless pirate. ”
He could only be referring to one boat: the one he and Cormac had sunk. Aidan forced a cold smile. “Pirates might be skilled, but they’re not always smart. ”
Fraser appeared to like that assessment, and he nodded amiably. “True, true. This one got caught up with a woman, and there’s no good ever to come from such an arrangement. ”
“And yet I hear I’m to offer you felicitations on a recent engagement. ” The words were out of Aidan’s mouth before he had a chance to think them through.
The merchant looked puzzled for a moment, and then pleased. “Heard the news already, eh?”
The self-satisfied prig made Aidan long to punch something. “An eligible bachelor like yourself taken off the market? It’s no surprise word got around. ”
“Aye, it’s true. ” Fraser leaned back in his chair. “I’m to be married. At first, I thought her a plain-faced creature. But something about her appealed. ”
“Plain?” Aidan fisted his hands. There was an unassuming simplicity to Elspeth’s beauty, but she was hardly plain—Aidan just called it natural.
“Well, that was what I’d thought at first. ” He leaned on his desk, confiding, “I’d never marry an ugly girl, you see. ”
“I do see. ” Aidan nodded, barely seeing the man through the film of red that’d dropped before his eyes. He imagined the dozen different ways in which he could beat this swine to a pulp.
“But she struck me as a bright sort of girl,” Fraser continued in an annoyingly musing sort of tone. “Though very quiet. I imagine it indicates a biddable nature. ”
Aidan gritted his teeth in a smile. Biddable was the last word he’d used to describe Elspeth. “Found yourself a tractable girl, did you?”
“Indeed. Or so she’ll be, once I get her out from her father’s thumb and under mine. The man’s a doddering old fellow. ” Fraser tapped his head. “Bit dim in the upper works too, if you ask me. ”
“It’s remarkable how dim-witted some folk can be. ” Aidan forced his voice to be light, adopting his blithe mask to conceal what felt like a giant fist crushing his chest.
“Just so!” Fraser smiled, looking at ease now, nodding jovially. “You seem a bright lad. A man after my own heart. ” He began to turn his attention to the papers on his desk. Shooing Aidan toward the door, he said, “Now get yourself to the docks. ” He paused, giving Aidan an avuncular wink. “Tell them the Bishop sent you. ”
The Bishop. Aggravation fueled Aidan’s stride. Wealthy men and their ridiculous flights of fancy.
He smelled Aberdeen harbor before he saw it, the stench summoning a churn of emotions. The heavy scent of salt, oil casks, and decaying fish would forever remind him how it had felt to dock as a free man, returned to Scotland once more.
But it also recalled a darker, more distant time, when he’d been a young boy, torn from his homeland for what he thought would be forever. His captors had pulled the sack from his head, putting him face-to-face with the man he’d sworn as his enemy above all others.
As a lad, he’d heard stories of pirates, but never had he pictured them like that man. He’d always imagined they might be dashing, or handsome, or perhaps even grotesquely ugly. But the man who’d ordered his capture had been decidedly average, neither tall nor short, with only a black pearl in his ear to mark him as anything other than ordinary. And somehow it was his unremarkable looks that’d made him seem all the crueler.
Aidan turned onto one of the larger streets leading down to the harbor. He girded himself for the inevitable onslaught of memories. Forever, he’d carry a picture of the docks as they’d receded from his young view. Forever the sight of them would invoke the old heartbreak and terror as the spires of Aberdeen, and then the coast of Scotland itself, had faded into a vast gray nothing.
He’d girded himself, but there was nothing to prepare him for what he saw docked at King’s Quay. A wave of horror crippled him.
It was the ship, the one captained by the man with the pearl earring.
