Highland Lover: Book 3 Scottish Knights Trilogy Read Online Free PDF

would go,” she said. “Whatever else they may do, they’ll surely take what stores we carry and our cargo of hides and wool. Can you think of anywhere else to hide?”
    “We’ve a big kist in our cabin like them two yonder,” Will said, pointing to two wooden chests by the wall opposite the shelf bed. “If we climbed in and ye threw a dress or two over us—I’ve me doots any pirate would touch a dress.”
    “Aye, sure,” Jamie said. “We might both fit inside ours if we take our things out and scatter them about.”
    “Go and do that, then,” Alyson said. “Do you need help?”
    “Nay, we’ll do it,” Jamie said, dashing out with Will right behind him.
    “Ciara will throw clothing over you and latch the kist,” Alyson shouted.
    “I’ll be right along,” Ciara added. She had opened one of Alyson’s kists and was flinging clothing from it onto the bed. As she did, the whole ship shuddered.
    “What was that?” Alyson said.
    “I been hearing more o’ them booms. Mayhap a cannonball hit the ship.”
    “I doubt they’d risk damaging the ship,” Alyson said.“They must want its cargo, after all. Why else would pirates attack us?”
    Ciara glanced toward the door that the boys had gone through.
    Following her thoughts, Alyson felt a shiver. Nevertheless, she said firmly, “Don’t be daft, Ciara. English pirates could not possibly know who is aboard this ship. I would remind you that it sailed to Edinburgh from France and that we are still flying a French flag. Moreover, England and France are enjoying a truce.”
    “France is our ally, m’lady. But for most o’ my life and surely all o’ yours, the French have been at war with England. We should never have got so close to shore.”
    “In such awful weather as we’ve had, the captain surely thought it safer,” Alyson said. “You know as well as I do that he could arrange only hasty repairs after the great storm that damaged this ship on its journey to Scotland. He dared not fight the force of the heavy winds and inflowing tides any more than necessary.”
    “Get into this kist, m’lady,” Ciara said. “I’ve left a few things at the bottom so ye’ll no be lying on hard wood, and I’ll drape summat over ye. Then I’ll see to the two lads afore I climb into that other kist.”
    Alyson nearly protested. But, again, common sense intervened. She and Ciara would be no safer than the boys were if enemies boarded the ship.

    Thanks to the
Sea Wolf
’s rutter, the invaluable record in which Jake noted details learned from experience or from other seamen about every mile of coastline that he or they had sailed, he had identified the outcropping from behindwhich the five ships had come as Flamborough Head. It jutted from England’s Yorkshire coast some twenty miles south of Scarborough.
    He wished he could know what was happening aboard the
Maryenknyght
. That the merchantman had submitted after the lead English ship fired its cannon told him only that the merchantman was as unarmed as the
Sea Wolf
was.
    He knew Henry of Orkney well enough to be certain that the young earl was reacting strongly to this turn of events. But Henry was no fool and would do nowt to endanger his charge. He and Jamie would be traveling as ordinary passengers, not as a great nobleman and a prince of the Scottish realm.
    Even if Henry should so far forget himself as to think of declaring his identity, he would surely realize before he did so that even the powerful Earl of Orkney could not fight off five shiploads of greedy pirates, if that’s what they were. Henry would also understand that identifying himself would suggest to pirates or anyone else that the Almighty had sent them a wealthy earl they could hold for ransom.
    Jake also wished he could be sure that the English attackers
were
just pirates. No one would care for the loss of hides and wool, least of all Henry. Nor would he care if pirates stole the ship’s stores or anything else aboard, as long as they