‘If you think you can turn me from sniffing out the truth with this beautiful capitulation, lass, then you are wrong. I am going back to Balloch to find out who and what you were back there.’
She swallowed hard. ‘Why do you need to know?’ Her voice was almost a sob. ‘This arrangement is only for a few months so that you can satisfy your need to wed and keep your inheritance.’
He put a thumb to her pink mouth, swollen from his rough kiss. ‘I am not ready to relinquish you so soon, Maren. It will damn my soul for certain, but I have fallen under some ruinous spell. Whatever you are and whatever you have done matters not to me now. I am doomed to care for you, to want you with an insatiable hunger. Poor fool that I am. I think I was doomed the moment I laid eyes on you in that jail, lass, and I didn’t even know it.’
‘Please don’t say you are doomed, Bryce.’
‘Tis the truth, lass.’
With those bitter words, he walked out, taking one last glance at Maren. She looked infinitely lovely, yet melancholy, and loneliness seemed to have settled on her shoulders like a cloak. But he would not be turned from his task.
He was going to Balloch to discover the truth about Maren McEwen.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The wharf was crowded with ships, the shouts of men loading and unloading, the roll of casks and the flap of sails, and all of it vying with the constant screech of gulls circling. But the one thing he most wanted to see was missing – the Jezebel.
Bryce beckoned a wharf hand, a bedraggled fellow with the cunning look of an idler about him. ‘Do you know the ships that dock here?’ he said.
‘Aye, well enough,’ replied the man, chewing on tobacco with jaundiced teeth.
‘I need information about the Jezebel and her captain.’
The ruffian held his hand out, and Bryce placed a coin in it. ‘What is it you want to know?’ said the man.
‘Everything.’
‘Sailed yesterday, she did, and in great haste, by all accounts.’
‘Damn,’ said Bryce. ‘Tell me, do you know ought about the man who commands her, a black-bearded fellow?’
‘Captain Lawson?’ The man chuckled. ‘Aye, there’s always folk asking about him, and many as knows him too, lasses especially.’
Bryce’s heart sank. His implication was obvious. Through gritted teeth, he bid the man continue.
‘Are you a wronged husband looking for vengeance, for you’ll not get it? He is a marksman, that captain. He’ll slit your throat or skewer your liver if you so much as look at him the wrong way. Probably end me if he knew I was wagging my tongue about him.’ The hand was held out again.
Bryce filled it with coin, and the man continued. ‘I see men coming and going, a disreputable lot. One was ugly as a whore’s arse, red hair and a scar-mangled face.’
‘Redhaired, you say. And scarred? How so?’
‘Big ugly welt, here,’ said the man, jabbing at his temple. ‘He came a lot, and I remember because him and the captain argued, and there was a scuffle. The ugly one went off with a bloody nose and a deal of cursing, fit to wake the dead.’
‘Who else?’
‘I’ve seen him entertain the ladies from time to time. Envy the bastard, if truth be told. They sneak aboard at night so as not to be seen while he cuckolds their husbands, except for the wild little filly. She came by day, bold as brass.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘Bonnie enough for me to notice, brown hair, ripe, if you know what I mean. I’ve seen her around here many times. She worked at The Groggy Mare tavern.’
‘What did she do there?’
‘Same as all of them whores - served up her cunny along with the ale.’
Bryce grabbed the wretch by the collar and shook him. ‘Tell me what you know of her and only what you know for certain.’
The man wriggled free. ‘No need for rough handling. I remember her well – a touch of fire in her hair and character, too, I’d wager. She’d take no nonsense from folk and gave as good as she got with the seafarers and ne’er do wells around here. And the Groggy Mare is a rough old hole but good ale to be had. Not that I’ll darken its doors any more since it has become the haunt of redcoats.’ The man spat at his feet. ‘I’ll not sup nor drink with those English dogs, good ale or no.’
