Highland Lover: Book 3 Scottish Knights Trilogy Read Free

one he sought. When it dropped anchors off the massive, nearly unapproachable formation known as the Bass Rock, he was sure of it.
    The wind blew from the northeast quarter. The merchantman had anchored well away from the rock and with its prow facing southeastward. Thus its leeward length sheltered its steerboard side when it lowered a boat.
    “Be that our quarry, sir?” his helmsman, Coll, asked in Gaelic.
    “It must be, aye,” Jake replied in that language.
    Although born in Nithsdale, near the Borders, Jake had spent two-thirds of his life on ships. Much of it he’d spent in the Isles, so he believed he was nearly as much a Highlander as his helmsman was. Moreover, most of his men spoke only Gaelic, so most conversation aboard was in that language.
    “I cannot make out her flag in this darkness,” Coll said.
    “She is the
Maryenknyght
out of Danzig,” Jake said. “She was flying a French flag when she entered Leith Harbor, and I’d wager she flew that flag when she departed. However, it could be some other flag now.”
    He did not add that the
Maryenknyght
belonged to young Henry Sinclair, second Earl of Orkney. Nor did he mention that Henry had ordered the ship to Edinburgh for this particular, hopefully secret, purpose.
    Orkney owned more ships than anyone else in Scotland. But he had not wanted to use one that others would easily recognize as his. Thus had the
Maryenknyght
made what Jake knew was her first voyage to Scotland.
    For a fortnight, he’d kept a man posted at Leith to watch for the ship, harboring his
Sea Wolf
at a smaller, less frequented site on the firth’s north coast. However, he had learned the
Maryenknyght
’
s
name and intended time of departure only that afternoon. Glancing at his helmsman, he knew that Coll was bursting with curiosity, although his expression revealed none.
    Looking back at the
Maryenknyght
, Jake said, “The coble’s returning.”
    “I don’t envy them climbing up that hulk in these seas,” Coll muttered.
    Jake realized he was holding his breath as he watchedthe first of the coble’s occupants, clearly its steersman, prepare to climb a rope ladder to the ship’s deck.
    Exhaling, Jake forced himself to breathe normally.
    One of the six oarsmen caught the ladder’s end while his two comrades on that side did their best to keep the coble from banging against the ship. Meanwhile, fierce winds and incoming waves tried to push ship and coble back to Edinburgh.
    “By my soul,” Coll muttered when the steersman had reached the deck and a second, much smaller passenger gripped the ladder. “That be a bairn, Cap’n Jake! What madness goes on here?”
    Jake did not answer. His attention riveted to the lad, he felt his pulse hammering in his neck, as if his heart had leaped into his throat.
    “Sakes, look at him,” Coll breathed. “He’s going up that ladder as deftly as ye might yourself, sir.”
    “I suspect that after being lowered in a basket to a plunging boat from halfway up the sheerest face of Bass Rock, as I heard they would be, climbing a rope ladder must seem easy,” Jake said.
    “On a night like this?” Coll exclaimed. “Who the devil would be crazy enough to order such a thing?”
    “His grace, the King,” Jake replied.
    Aware of Coll’s stunned silence, Jake watched the second lad climb the ladder as lithely as the first. Returning his gaze to the coble to see a tall, slender man grab the ladder next, he felt his jaw tighten again.
    Having counted the men in the boat, he knew that this one had to be Henry of Orkney. Jake had known him almost from Henry’s birth and liked him. He did not want the wicked weather to plunge the earl into theice-cold sea, where he might drown before others could reach him.
    However, Henry could swim. And Henry was not Jake’s first priority.
    “Am I to know who those lads be, sir?” Coll asked.
    Jake hesitated. But he had known Coll for over a decade and trusted him. Moreover, they’d be following