Page 67 of Go, Rogue

He closes his eyes, trying to think, but his mind circles back to The Elphame. His ship—his and Crawford’s dream—is in shambles. All but destroyed. And worse, Esmee’s dream is gone with it.

They’d needed the new markets in New York and Boston to sell the whisky she distills up North. The whisky that keeps Nowhere in business as the one place in London where a Scot can belong. Without those markets, the distillery will fail. Barclay, bastard that he is, will raise the rents, and that will be the end of it. The distillery, the tavern, every dream gone.

He and Esmee had never had an easy relationship. He’d resented her for leaving him, too blind to see that she’d been little more than a child herself. Now he knew she’d done what she could—marrying young in the hope of giving him shelter—but he’d been too angry, too proud to see it then. So instead of staying close, he’d joined the East India Company.

Now, fourteen years later, both their hopes are bound to this voyage. But the first sailing of The Elphame is a failure, and all of them will pay the price.

If he even survives whatever the bloody hell is going on. He opens his eyes and glances around again. James is giving some kind of signal.

McGann eyes the crew. All are present but for McNeil.

Where’s the lad?

He doesn’t have time to ponder the question, as James directs two of his men toward McGann, and they heave him up between them, the ropes harsh against his wrists and ankles as they traverse the length of The Elphame’s deck. He half expects them to dump him straight over the railing and into the cold water of the Atlantic below.

But they don’t. They manhandle him over to the rope ladders instead. They’re taking him on the schooner.

Oh, bloody hell, he thinks as the two men grunt beneath his weight. Crossing a rope ladder between ships is precarious enough on one’s own, but these two are doing it in tandem with the weight of him strung out between them like he’s a trussed pig on a spit.

He tries to keep his breathing easy and his body loose as they take the first of the rope rungs and then the second and third, until they’re out over the open sea. Any sudden movements from him now and he’s certain to be facing a cold, watery grave. He closes his eyes but then opens them again.

Better to watch. Better to know.

The two ships roll on the waves and the men take each rung more slowly now, the rope ladders swinging beneath their feet as they carefully crawl their way forward. McGann tilts his head. They’re halfway across when another set of waves crash into them, bigger than the last. He holds his breath as they rock and the men go still, clinging to the lines with him strung out between them.

McGann’s face is wet and salty from the ocean spray and his own sweat. His limbs are trembling as much from tension as from physical fatigue. He hates this, being at their mercy. Knowing without a doubt they’ll drop him into the water if they have to and there’s nothing he can do with his hands still bound.

They inch forward again and he wonders if they drop him, how long it will take him to drown. The schooner rolls on the waves beneath them and the men stop moving once more. They wait, and McGann, with no other choice, waits with them, until finally, finally, the water settles and they scramble on.

He braces himself against the pain in his thigh when they begin to move, faster this time, trying to get to the other side before the ocean comes crashing down on them again. He knows as well as they do that one monster wave is all it will take to pitch the three of them to their deaths.

Hurry, he urges them in his mind. Another tilt of his head shows him the next set of waves is coming in. Hurry.

“Heave!” one of the two men yells, the last of the rope rungs beneath their feet.

McGann feels them brace their weight and push. His body flies through the air for a brief moment before it lands with a thwomp on the deck of the schooner. He barely has time to breathe out a sigh of relief before they’re beside him again, picking him up and carrying him down a series of ladders until they reach the damp hold of the ship. And then they throw him in the brig.