Chapter Fourteen

"The loutish beast," Tessa said over the sound of her boots cracking on the wooden floor as she paced.

She'd been led to Eagan's bedchamber of all places. Despite being inside the hulking stone fortification of Gylin Castle, the room was full of light from two large windows paned with glass. A fire had been started in the stone hearth, and rugs lay about the wooden floors, keeping the room warm. Gylin wasn't Versailles with its gilt trim and priceless furnishings, but it was strong and solid like the Highlanders who inhabited it.

She stopped at the large bed, which had obviously been built to accommodate the dratted man's large form. All that muscle made it easy for him to pluck her off the ground and throw her over his shoulder, running her away from the shoreline while his brothers battled her father.

Mon Dieu! She picked up one of the plump pillows and yelled foul curses into the feathers under the linen casing. A feather poked her in retaliation, making her inhale briskly. Putain! She could smell Eagan on it. He smelled of a certain garden spice, mixed with leather and fresh air. It was damnably alluring.

She huffed, narrowing her eyes at the offending pillow in her hands, and threw it hard at the bed. It rolled off the soft plaid blanket onto the floor on the opposite side. She paced back to the fire, then the window, then the bed, making a triangular path. Her boots clacked on the hard wood and then became muffled as she traversed the scattered floor rugs.

Eagan had grabbed her away from her father without hearing what she wanted to do. Her mother had loved the French naval captain, had wed him, and waited in France for his return like Tessa had been waiting for him to return to Wolf Isle. He'd saved her from the gutters, clothed her, and left her safely with Grissell.

No one had been willing to talk. Lia, Drostan's cheerful wife who'd saved Sia as a kitten, had started the battle by shooting one of her father's men. She'd killed the man without a single sword strike or gunshot as if she sought revenge. And after Tessa's father had just stabbed Gleeb through the heart and then signaled his crewmen to attack the royal soldiers.

She frowned, her hand sliding along the line of dried blood across her throat. "He'd been saving me," she whispered in the room. But then… He held me before him like a shield.

She shook her head and strode to the window, pushing it open to breathe in the crisp air coming from inland. Had her father been protecting himself, using her as cover? His men had two firearms to the Macquaries' one. Although, her father had apparently known that he was the Macquaries' target.

Tessa continued to pace a triangle across the room over a thick rug. Crack, crack, crack, muffle, muffle, crack, crack. She flopped unceremoniously onto the bed. All she wanted was to bury her face and forget that day. She inhaled and drew in Eagan's essence. Her body responded immediately with an ache through her abdomen to the crux of her legs.

"Bloody hell." She used his favorite curse and rolled onto her back, pressing the ache through her petticoat to push it away.

She turned her mind to her father. What had he said exactly when he'd rowed her over to Wolf Isle in the middle of the night over a year ago? "I haven't the permission to dock," she murmured, repeating his words when she'd asked why her landing was so clandestine.

Remain with Grissell, the old woman who lives in one of those huts . Be a good girl, but if you get pregnant, make sure 'tis by a Macquarie. He'd spoken in soft French. Before she could assure him she wouldn't get pregnant, he'd touched her cheek and continued.

Await my return, and I will take you to France . And then he turned and pushed the small craft off the shore, rowing quickly back to his ship in the darkness.

"Pregnant by a Macquarie?" she murmured, staring up at the canopy over the bed. Did her father believe the curse Grissell told her had been placed on Eagan's clan a century ago by her ancestor? Did her father hate the Macquaries as much as it seemed Eagan's family hated Captain Claude Lemaire, whom they called Jandeau?

Tessa fingered the golden birdcage locket that was warm from sitting against her skin. If only her mother were still alive, because Rebecca Ainsworth, despite her flirtations and rash behavior, always answered Tessa truthfully. At least that's what Tessa had always thought.

Rebecca hadn't mentioned anything about what her father did on the sea for the king, but Tessa had never asked. And now she didn't have anyone to ask who she knew would tell the truth.

In the silence, Tessa heard light footsteps in the hallway. One set and then another, firmer set. She stood, not wanting to be caught in such an undignified sprawl on the bed. But no one knocked on the door.

She moved closer to it and heard low voices, so she laid her ear against the wood.

"I was Jandeau's prisoner," the woman whispered. "He raped and killed my mother and killed my father and gave my baby brother to a brothel."

Tessa stopped breathing, her stomach turning sour. He'd raped and killed? It couldn't be the same man.

"If ye tell her all his sins right away like that…'tis too much, Eliza." Eagan's voice was low as he spoke rapidly with concern.

"She deserves to know the truth."

"She doesn't deserve to be hit over the head with it."

"There's no easy way to tell someone that their father is a beast," Eliza said, "but it must be done."

"Maybe he's not even her father," Eagan said. "Either way, I'm not letting him take her on his ship."

Indignation over Eagan's authoritative tone blew on the sparks alit inside Tessa. A fiery anger grew within, and she laid her fist against the solid wood door.

The words, which were coming faster and faster between them, slid around in Tessa's belly, making it boil. "I can hear everything you're whispering out there," Tessa said, her voice at a normal volume but her tone terse.

Silence. Then, rap, rap . "May we come in?" 'Twas Eagan.

Tessa pressed the latch and swung the door inward to find both Eagan and Eliza standing there. Eliza held a tray with some biscuits and a decanter of what looked like whisky.

Worry pinched Eagan's ruggedly handsome face. She pivoted and strode to the hearth. If she was going to be hit over the head with her father's alleged sins, she wanted to be warm. It was also better to put some distance between herself and her lover, for that's what Eagan Macquarie was, merely her lover, a very masterful lover, but nothing more than that.

Her mother had taken lovers but had never loved them. She used them for pleasure and prestige. It had upset Tessa that she could be intimate with another man while she was waiting for her husband to return from sea, but with each letter Rebecca received from Captain Lemaire she became rasher, her smile and laughter more brittle. 'Twas as if she knew he would never return.

Eliza walked into the room wearing trousers. She looked much more in command with her legs free to run and kick than in the tiresome layers of petticoats. If Tessa was going to sail with her father, she'd need to acquire a few pairs. The thought of sailing away with him didn't feel as comforting now.

Setting the tray down, Eliza poured a cup of amber liquid.

Eagan closed the door behind him. "I was helping bury Walter Gleeb and his men. No one will reveal that they were here in case anyone from Edinburgh comes asking questions."

"Do the Macquaries have enemies in Edinburgh, too?" Tessa asked, her eyebrow arching as she frowned. A look of disdain was stronger than glaring.

"We get some interference from the crown, and sometimes English soldiers come north to cause trouble," Eagan said. "They harass the Scots mainly on the border."

"I mean the Macquaries, not other Scotsmen."

"Nay." He frowned. "We don't have enemies. Except for Jandeau."

"Drink this," Eliza said, handing her a cup. "You'll be better with a sip of whisky."

"Better?" Tessa said, taking the cup. "Better from having my father, whom I've been waiting to see again for over a year, attacked by the people I thought were my friends?" She stared at Eagan. "By the man who was my lover." She emphasized the past tense.

Eliza tipped her head left to right. "Perhaps you should do more than sip. Drink the whole cup down."

Tessa swallowed a mouthful of the smooth, fiery liquid and breathed out the sharp essence on a long exhale. Her gaze slid across both of them and landed on Eagan. "You call my father Jandeau," Tessa said. "His name is Claude Lemaire, and he works for the French Navy under King Henri."

The whisky had wound down to Tessa's stomach, and she felt a flush suffuse her, rising to her neck. She placed her cool hand across it.

"Did Lark give ye ointment for the cut across yer throat?" Eagan asked, fury edging his words.

"Oui," Tessa answered in French but kept going in sharp English. "Claude Lemaire is my father. He was married to my mother. She was English." She waved a hand. "And somehow came to this isle to live with Grissell. But then my father rescued her, taking her to France when she became pregnant with me. He sailed throughout my life, only stopping in to visit us once a year. When my mother was…murdered at court, he rescued me from the life of a beggar in Paris."

"Yer mother was murdered?" Eagan asked.

Tessa stared at him. "Because she trusted when she shouldn't have."

"Why did he leave you on Wolf Isle?" Eliza asked.

"His men are rough, and mon père didn't want me to sail with him until he could find sailors with more integrity for his ship. Then he would return."

Eliza passed a glance to Eagan and then back to Tessa. "His men still seem pretty rough."

"Did you kill them all?" Tessa asked Eliza. Eagan had run Tessa back to Gylin Castle without pausing to rest, explain, or respond to the curses she hurled at him in French, English, and even Latin.

"A few were dispatched," Eliza said cooly. "Jandeau and the rest got away into their rowboats."

"Jandeau!" Tessa threw up her one hand that wasn't holding the whisky. "That's not his name."

Eliza met her glare, her own eyes narrowing. "If you could hear me through the door then you already know that he has raped and killed innocent women and sold children into slavery."

Tessa shook her head. "Perhaps that is your Jandeau, but Claude Lemaire is an honorable captain in the French Navy."

Eagan's hands fisted and slid over the top of his head to the back of his neck as if it ached. "If ye say that man standing on our shore today, the man who without any conversation killed Walter Gleeb, the man who used ye as a human shield… If ye say that is yer father, Tessa, then they are one and the same. He calls himself Captain Claude Jandeau when he's sailing the seas, destroying, torturing, and cruelly using people."

"Now who's hitting her over the head," Eliza murmured. She looked between them. "I think I'll leave you two alone to discuss…" She moved her hand in a circle like she were stirring a tempest. "Discuss this bloody mess."

She turned and traipsed out of the room while Eagan and Tessa stared at one another. The door closed.

Eagan exhaled. "I'm sorry I picked ye up like a sack of barley, but I've seen Jandeau take women right off our shores. Lark, for one. I didn't want ye within his reach, and there wasn't time to convince ye that he was dangerous."

"If they are the same person…" She couldn't meet his gaze. "Then he is dangerous to you perhaps, but not to me, his daughter." Her cheeks burned at how that sounded. She couldn't imagine her father doing such terrible things. There must be a mistake.

Eagan shook his head, his open hands landing on her shoulders as if to hold her there so he could hammer his version of the truth into her. "That man today, standing on our shore, holding ye before him…he's a bad man, Tessa."

Her brow rose. "So am I a bad woman for having his blood in me?"

"Of course not," he said, letting his hands slide off her shoulders and down her arms. "But ye can't go with him. He will… Well, I don't know what he has planned for ye. Maybe he'd be kinder to a daughter. But ye'd be exposed to his men, to his slavery business and murder."

She'd planned to petition her father to remain with Grissell for a time, but she hadn't been given the opportunity with daggers, arrows, and gunshot flying around. But she wasn't going to tell Eagan that. He'd assume it was because she wanted to stay with him. I do. Merde . She couldn't say that. Not when she was spitting furious.

"Has he left Wolf Isle?" she asked. "Abandoned me here again?"

The word "abandon" sunk into her gut like a rock tossed off a dock into the sea.

"His ship has sailed away from the isle, but we're watching for it."

"So you can fire upon it and scare him away if he tries to return to see me?"

"Jandeau cannot be scared away," Eagan said, his face grim.

Her eyes narrowed. "Then you watch for him so you can kill him."

Eagan didn't answer, which was answer enough. The Macquaries would kill her father the moment they had the chance, the man she'd prayed for all her life.

Eagan tried to take her hand, but she snatched it behind her so he couldn't. "I've been abandoned my whole life," she said quietly and tried to strengthen her voice. She leveled her gaze with his. "I was raised by my mother, knowing I had a father who would always sail away. And even though Mama did not say it, the money he'd sent at first dwindled away. She'd been a guest to the French court, and I would sing. But once we had no funds…" Her words trailed off. "Mama would leave me for a time, going to the court. I never knew when she'd return, and then one day she didn't." Tessa was certain that Rebecca had resorted to taking lovers who could pay her for her talent in bed.

"Do ye know what happened to her?" Eagan asked.

Tessa crossed her arms. "I went to Fontainebleau, which was where she'd said she would be. A servant led me down into the cellar where…" Tessa's body stiffened at the memory. The dank cold penetrated her cloak and wet seeped up through her slippers. It smelled of dirt and decay, and the sound of dripping water in the dark would forever haunt her nightmares. "Where her body was wrapped for burial. She lay on the cold stone floor." She swallowed against the constriction in her throat.

"I'm sorry, Tessa."

"She'd had her throat slashed." She said the words quickly as if that would make the memory less horrifying, as if speaking briskly would give her only a peek at what she remembered.

He tried to pull her into his chest, but she turned away. "Do they know who…?" he asked.

She gave a brief shake of her head and walked to the window, looking out at the trees beyond. "I was told she was found in the gardens that way. Her petticoats torn. They hadn't even washed the blood from her skin." It had dried down her throat and chest like dark crimson paint, staining her lily-white skin. "I think the king's powerful mistress hired an assassin because King Henri still called my mother to his bed."

"What did ye do?" Eagan's voice was close behind her, but he didn't touch her.

Tessa could lean back and knew his strong, warm arms would go around her. How she'd longed for someone to comfort her back then when she had little money, a mother to bury, and no way to avenge her.

"I…I sent word through the court to my father telling him his wife, my mother, was killed by an unknown assailant. I left directions to my apartment even though I wasn't sure how long I would be able to live there without income. I used the coins I had left to bury her."

Eagan stepped to the side of the window so he could see her face. "No one helped ye?"

She shook her head, the anger licking up inside her. "They said she was…" Her gaze flicked to him. "A whore." The slurs had come from members of the court, jealous wives and their daughters who used to be Tessa's friends and students when she taught dance there. And each word had cut Tessa a little more until she felt weak with blood loss.

To Eagan's credit, he didn't ask if the slurs were true.

"I sold off the few pieces of furniture we had and my mother's clothes, keeping only this." She clasped the golden birdcage and slid her finger between the layers of the locket. Inside were miniatures of her parents.

With an exhale, she held it open so Eagan could see them. "Mama in this one, and my father is the other. Mama had left it home when she went to court as if she worried someone would take it."

Eagan bent to study the portraits. Tessa knew that he'd come to the same conclusion. The man was a younger version of his pirate, Jandeau.

"Yer mother was lovely."

"And funny and graceful and full of joy and love." Tessa felt her tears gather. "She didn't deserve to be abandoned in France by my father, then the court. Even justice deserted her."

Tessa lifted her gaze to his. "I prayed for my father to come, and he did. It took a year, but he found me selling flowers and surviving on the pittance I earned away from court. I managed…" She swallowed hard, hoping he would believe this truth. "I managed to earn enough to live without selling my body."

Eagan bent so his eyes were level with hers. "Honor in the face of starvation and extreme neglect is as useless as gold when there's no food to buy." He set his hand on her shoulder, and she remained still. "Whatever ye did or didn't do doesn't matter, Tessa. All that matters is that ye survived."

She wiped at a stray tear. "Father returned and saved me. Bought me new clothes and boots and food. He said he wouldn't have a gutter rat for a daughter." His tone had been brisk, but Tessa was so relieved that there was someone else she could trust that she didn't mind. "He took me away from France on his ship after visiting Mama's grave."

"They were married."

She nodded. "When they were young, and she became pregnant with me. Her family disowned her, and Claude Lemaire brought her here to Grissell's. He returned to take us to France."

Eagan rubbed a hand over his mouth. "'Tis a lot," he said. "What ye've been through."

"And my father finally returns to rescue me for good, and you chase him away." Tessa's words grew in strength as the return of her anger buoyed her. "He is all I have left!"

Eagan shook his head. "Nay. Tessa, ye have me and my clan. Ye have Grissell and Orphy and Sia and all the children."

She snorted. "After they hear my father is your infamous pirate, and my mother was a murdered whore?" She shook her head. "My blood is tainted."

Eagan grabbed her shoulders. "Nay, Tessa. Ye belong…with me."

Was he asking her to wed? Tessa wasn't certain, and the disappointment if he wasn't proposing marriage was too painful right then. Tessa's heart thrummed in her chest, making her breaths come too shallow. "I want to return to Grissell's. She must worry over where I am, and I need to feed Sia."

"I'll send someone to tell her and feed yer cat," Eagan said, "but I don't want ye left alone there where Jand—yer father could return and take ye."

"Take me? Steal me away? He may have a reasonable explanation for what you say he's done. He may promise to take me to his family estate in France." Her hand wrapped again around her birdcage locket, remembering the assurances of her mother. "You don't even want me talking to him? My father? Someone who may be able to take me to the only family I have?"

Eagan released a long breath but didn't answer.

"I'm going back to Grissell's. Now," she said and met his gaze. "Unless I'm your prisoner, Eagan Macquarie."