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“No, she’s very brave,” replied Graeme.
Jackie muttered a curse, clearly losing patience with the inane conversation. What he didn’t lose, unfortunately, was his focus on keeping his pistol pointed at Graeme.
“Dickie, where the hell are ye?”
The lad scuttled up, carrying a length of rope. “Ye needna yell, Jackie.”
“What took ye so long?”
“I can barely walk, ye ken.” He glared at Graeme.
“Sorry, lad. It was just a lucky shot,” Graeme said.
Dickie blinked, then gave Graeme a tentative smile.
Clearly, not all the Barrs were as bloodthirsty as Jackie. The poor lads actually seemed quite decent—a factor Graeme intended to exploit.
“Magnus, tie Kendrick up, good and tight, then get him into the shed,” Jackie ordered.
The big man followed his cousin’s instructions, tying the blasted ropes very tight. Graeme had no hope of wriggling free. He’d have to talk his way out of this one.
Fortunately, a plan was already taking shape in his brain.
Magnus steered him around to the front of the shed. Graeme mentally cursed when he saw two other men on the pier loading barrels into a second boat. It was now five against one.
“How’d you know I was here?” Graeme asked Jackie after Magnus led him to a bench inside.
“Saw your horse as we were comin’ in to meet the boat. Then the broken window.”
“Still running your rig on Lochnagar lands, obviously.”
“Nae,” Dickie earnestly replied. “We were evicted.”
“He knows we were evicted, ye twiddlepoop,” Jackie said. “He means now.”
Dickie brightened. “Oh. We been stayin’ with kin, just on the other side of the loch.”
“Aye,” said Magnus. “My mam’s family be crofters on the next estate.”
When Jackie shook his head in disgust, Graeme could almost sympathize.
Almost.
“So you were still able to run the rig by coming across the loch and avoiding most of the estate,” Graeme said. “Makes perfect sense.”
“Until ye showed up,” Jackie said. “We were just up and runnin’ again, but ye lot sent it all to hell.”
“The eviction must have hurt.”
“It was a pain in my arse, but we were managin’.” Jackie pulled a bottle down from the shelf and brought it back to the table. He poured a dram into a cloudy-looking glass and shot it down in one go.
“I could use one of them,” Magnus hopefully said.
“Ye’ll nae get anything until those casks are loaded,” Jackie said. “Get to work. Ye too, Dickie.”
The two men exchanged an aggrieved look, then started hauling the casks out the door.
“You’ve obviously been running this rig for some time,” Graeme said. “Since the death of Lady Sabrina’s grandfather, I imagine.”
