“Over here.” The sudden yellow glow from an oil lantern burned through the misty fog a few yards away.
“Where is here?” Calum reached for the bulwark and pulled himself on board.
“In the aft, next to the mackerel tank.”
Calum felt his way along the deck, muttering to himself, “Mackerel? Since when did Eachann start fishing?”
He joined his brother, who stood there completely silent, but grinning that same wicked grin he got whenever he had bested someone or something, like when Eachann won the caber toss at the annual games or the time he short-sheeted Calum’s neat bed.
“I’ve brought something for you, brother. A gift.”
Calum suspected this was another one of Eachann’s sick jokes. “A gift?”
“Right in here is the answer to all our troubles of late. Something I decided we do need after all.” Eachann leaned down and lifted the latch cover.
There was a muffled noise that sounded like a loud cawing sea gull trapped in the middle of a haystack.
“Look for yourself.” Eachann handed him the lantern.
Calum held the lamp low over the holding tank and cast a glance inside. He stared down at what looked like some kind of monster—a huge lump. A wet bundle of rich silk and white skin, of four flailing arms and a kicking foot here and there.
It took a moment to see the lump wasn’t a loch monster, but two gagged, sopping wet women dressed in expensive silk evening gowns and wrapped up tightly in an ancient mackerel net. They were wiggling and elbowing one another, each fighting to try to sit upright.
Calum swore graphically and looked at Eachann. “Women? You broughtmorewomen?”
“Aye.” Eachann leaned against the railing with his arms crossed. “Not just more women, but something better.” He nodded at the women. “Those are our brides.”
Chapter Thirteen
To one who, journeying through the night and fog,
Is mired neck-deep in an unwelcoming bog,
Experience, like rising of the dawn,
Reveals the path that he should not have gone.
—Ambrose Bierce
The brunette came up fighting. The moment she was released her gag flew left. “You stupid idiot!”
Her fist flew right.
Calum stepped back, even though she was aiming for Eachann’s grinning face.
“Now George...” Eachann caught her fist easily in one hand. “You claimed you wanted a husband.”
“Not you, you lummox!” She tried to kick him.
He jerked her against him, then bent, and an instant later he’d flung her over one shoulder the same way he would a sack of his horses’ oats.
She shrieked like a banshee.
Calum winced. The woman was louder than those hellish honking geese that lived by the pond. He watched Eachann clamp one arm over her struggling legs. She pinched his back and grabbed at the back of his shirt. His brother swatted her on the butt. There was utter silence for one second, then just as Eachann grinned triumphantly, she arched upward, grabbed his hair in a fist and yanked, shrieking in outrage.
She scared the hell out of Calum. He suddenly remembered the existence of the other woman and whipped his head back around, half expecting her to be waiting and to come at him screeching and clawing.
She lay there perfectly still, the net tangled in her legs and her hands knotted against her stomach. He couldn’t see her face because her long damp blond hair covered it. He took a second to adjust his glasses.
