Free Highland Lover: Book 3 Scottish Knights Trilogy by Amanda Scott Page B

had to learn all that she could. Otherwise, her imagination would exhaust itself, and her, suggesting increasingly horrible answers to her questions. “Did you see him or Sir Kentigern?”
    “Aye,” the boy replied. “We saw them straightaway when them louts what captured us in your cabin took us topside. Niall and Mungo boarded the lead ship—the biggest one—with Orkney. He were a-talking tae the captain o’ that ship when them louts hustled me and Jamie on tae the deck from the ladder. They pushed us right tae that ship. And when their captain saw us…”
    He paused and glanced back at Alyson.
    Jake said, “What did the captain do, Will?”
    In the brief second before Will replied, Alyson felt the tingling shiver again.
    Will said, “Their captain said…” Clearing his throat, he added in a gruffer voice, “ ‘Nah then, what ha’ ye got there, lads? Be that no the young heir tae the Scottish crown? Ye do be Jamie Stewart, d’ye no, laddie?’ ” Looking back again but past Alyson at Jake this time, the boy added in his customary voice, “Ye dinna think Orkney told him about our Jamie, do ye, sir?”
    “I do not,” Jake said grimly.
    Alyson agreed. No Sinclair Earl of Orkney would betray his prince.

    Jake knew that he had spoken harshly, but Will seemed to accept his words as assurance. And so they were where Orkney was concerned. Jake was certain that while the young earl might identify himself as one who could gain the pirates an enormous ransom, he would not identify James for any reason other than to save the boy’s life. If the captain of that so-called pirate fleet had known Jamie on sight, then that captain must have
expected
to find Scotland’s prince aboard the
Maryenknyght
.
    Silence prevailed until they reached the top of the harbor path and as they followed it up a gentler slope in the deepening darkness. The wind had eased, but when they reached the crest, Jake saw from the village lights that Flamborough was larger than he’d expected. He recalled another detail from his rutter that he’d barely heeded at the time but which now seemed much more important.
    “Mace,” he said, “the Danes dug a dyke hereabouts to divide this headland from the mainland. It is west of the village and runs all the way across the headland north to south, and boasts only two crossings. One lies nearby. I want to know where it is before full darkness and before we risk entering the village.”
    “It looks as if there may be a crossroad o’ sorts ahead,” Mace replied.
    It proved to be no more than a cart path, but they followed it. Although Jake feared they might find themselves without light before they found the dyke, they soon saw widely scattered lights in the distance. Shortly afterward, they came to a wooden bridge over a chasm of a depth thatastonished him. The thing was at least fifteen or twenty feet deep, its sides far too steep to scale easily.
    “That looks to me like an alehouse across the way, sir,” Mace said. “I’m thinking we’d be wiser tae stop there than tae turn back tae the village from here. I can hear her ladyship’s teeth a-chattering.”
    Jake said, “ ’Tis a good notion, Mace. It does occur to me, though, that anyone inside is likely to know us for Scots straightaway from our speech if nowt else. Truce or no truce, I distrust the English.”
    “Aye, sir, but if them pirates release the
Maryenknyght
’s crew or her passengers in Bridlington and they try to head back toward Scotland, they’ll likely pass by on the other side o’ this dyke, will they no?”
    “They will, aye,” Jake agreed.
    “Then nae one in that alehouse now be likely tae know us or do us harm.”
    Alyson said quietly, “If I might add something, sir…”
    “Aye, sure, lass.”
    “I’ve heard that Borderers’ accents are similar whether English or Scots.”
    “That is also true,” he said, feeling his usual confidence surge back.
    Accordingly, they crossed the bridge and entered the