Sea of Ruin

by Pam Godwin

  The missing extremities had been treated to thwart infection. Ipswich was a master at that. Many men on my crew hobbled around just fine with wooden limbs after Ipswich’s care.

  The rest of Madwulf appeared intact. Covered in bruises, old and fresh, his filthy skin crusted with blood. Someone had shaved his head and face, depriving him of that which he cherished.

  “All this time…” I heaved through a smothering fog of black memories. “I thought he was dead.”

  “We let you think that.” Priest leaned against the far wall and crossed his arms. “We didn’t want his survival to tax or distract you while you worked so hard to heal.”

  “You brought me severed feet and other body parts that he clearly still retains.” I rubbed my head, trying to remember. “Did I imagine that?”

  “No. Those belonged to the men involved in your torture. Ashley and I collected their souls with the very plank of wood they used upon your body.”

  I shivered. Shuddered. Then I smiled. “This is my gift?”

  “Aye.” Priest tipped his head at Madwulf. “Show him how utterly fierce you are, my love.”

  Ashley circled me, lifting the cutlass from my shaking hand and passing it to Priest.

  “Madwulf knows nothing.” He leaned in and cupped my face. “He’s been rotting down here for two months with no answers as to how you outsmarted him. Tell him.” A shadow passed over his expression, threatening, deadly. “Make him feel the pain he inflicted upon you when he destroyed your father’s letter.”

  My mind ran amok with bloodthirsty plans, my veins sizzling with the depravity of my thoughts.

  From my waist, Ashley removed a dagger and pressed it against my hand. Then he lifted my hat from my head, kissed my lips, and joined Priest, Jobah, and Reynolds along the far wall, settling in to watch.

  Oh, where to start?

  “Syphilis.” I prowled toward the Highlander, casually paring a fingernail with the knife. When I reached him, I put my face in his, slanting him my most disturbing look from beneath my lashes. “Priest and I have no infections or disease.”

  As I told Madwulf about Priest’s reaction to oranges, Jade’s location on Harbour Island, and my bait with the island of the birds, I flayed the flesh from his body, strip by despicable strip. I cut and diced until bones glistened in the lantern light. I removed his nose, carved out his eyes, and relieved him of the shriveled rotten meat between his legs.

  I gloried in the flow of blood. It wouldn’t bring back my father’s letter, but I felt vindicated for ridding the earth of an evil that would never again threaten a farmer’s daughter or separate a lady pirate from those she loved.

  As he expelled his final breath, I felt purged.

  “I didn’t rush it, did I?” I wiped the bloody blade on a rag.

  “You’ve been at it for nigh two hours.” Reynolds pushed up from his position on the floor and ambled toward the ladder. “I think I’ll go vomit now.”

  “In my homeland,” Jobah said, “we lashed our enemies to poles and held them over a fire, just above the lick of the flames, cooking them alive from the inside out for days.” He grinned, all teeth and savage loyalty.

  “I believe Jobah just volunteered to clean up the gore.” Priest clapped the helmsman on the shoulder, chuckling.

  In the end, we all carried out Madwulf’s remains. The gift, as it was, was fed to the gulls and cold-blooded vertebrates that lived in the bay.

  That night, I slept peacefully in the arms of a pirate and pirate hunter. But when I woke, it was still dark, and the arms were gone.

  I raised my head, listening to the hushed tones trickling from across the room.

  “When?” Priest paced in front of the fireplace.

  “Next week.” Ashley sprawled in a nearby armchair, sipping from a dram of amber liqueur.

  “You’re not going through with it.” Priest spun, his accent thick and hushed. “I won’t allow it.”

  “Take it up with my parents.” Ashley stared at his drink. “It can’t be helped.”

  “You’re weak.”

  “And you’re naive. You always have been with your goddamned whimsical ideals.” Ashley swilled the rest of his glass. “It’s like you never grew up. Never left this room. We’re not careless boys anymore, Priest. This is life. The strife of being an adult. We always knew what we had…” He straightened. “We knew it would end eventually.”

  “Happiness. That’s what you speak of.”

  “Yes. We were happy.” Ashley set the empty glass aside and sighed. “That sentiment doesn’t fit into my life.”

  My muscles gathered and tensed, my breaths rushing out. But I held still, feigning sleep, waiting.

  “So what’s your plan.” Priest whirled toward him, his whisper seething. “Are you going to leave her a letter and slink away like the coward you’ve become?”

  “It’s different this time.” Ashley dragged a hand down his face, his voice crestfallen. “She has you.”

  “She wants both of us. Don’t underestimate her pertinacity, my friend. She’ll cut your pretty rosebud before the nuptials are over.”

  Nuptials? Was that what Ashley referred to as next week?

  I set my jaw, fingers twitching.

  “Did she tell you the story about the Marquess of Grisdale?” Priest laughed hollowly. “She was only fourteen and—”

  “Yes, I know.” Ashley stood, his gaze darting in my direction. “I’m going for a walk.”

  Priest followed him out of the bedchamber.

  Had Ashley seen me awake? I didn’t think so. Either way, I wasn’t about to let the conversation drift away from me.

  I pulled on a nightgown and followed the sounds of their voices through the manor. A maze of corridors led me past torches and gilded paintings. The hour was late, and all the servants were asleep in their quarters at the opposite end of the estate.

  Through parlors and great rooms, I trailed undetected. When I found them in the kitchen, I slipped into a shadowed alcove across the hall.

  “While I was in London, they hanged another couple for sodomy.” Ashley stood at the long wooden table, his hands braced on the scarred surface. “The conviction of the two men rested entirely on the hearsay of a landlord and his wife, who claimed to have witnessed the crime through the keyhole of a door. Their testimony described anatomically impossible acts, and there were no other witnesses or evidence.” With his eyes starkly staring before him, he seemed to be unconsciously fascinated by the scratches on the table. “The gaoler escorted the alleged lovers to the gallows with twelve other men.”

  “Stop this.” Priest leaned in and got in his face. “That won’t be us.”

  “They were hanged alongside thieves, rapists, and murderers. I read the newspaper report. The crowd of spectators hissed and jeered. Not at the other criminals. No, their loathing disapproval was directed at the two men who committed a crime where there was no injury done to anyone.” He straightened and stepped away from Priest, his expression empty. “I’m returning to London on the morrow. I have my wedding and obligations to attend—”

  “You fell in love with two pirates.” I charged into the kitchen, my hands fisting at my sides. “I know that comes with a slew of concerns and difficulties, so we’re going to hash it out right now.”

  Neither man looked surprised by my abrupt presence. They must have known I was eavesdropping. Ashley moved to put distance between us. But Priest grabbed him and slammed him face-down on the table.

  “Concern number one.” I stood beside them and bent down to meet Ashley’s angry eyes. “Neither Priest nor I can give you children. No heir means your father, the first Viscount Warshire, will be the last viscount.”

  “I don’t care about that.” With his cheek pressed on the table and held in place by Priest’s hand, the candlelight flickered upon him and communicated to his hard, tense features and rumpled hair. It was the appearance of a man desperately trying to control that which could not be tamed.

  I’d alr
eady gleaned his indifference about children. He never mentioned a desire to be a father. Never showed interest in the matter.

  Reaching down, I cupped his crotch, where he stooped over the table, pinned beneath Priest’s immovable body. He wasn’t hard, but the intimate touch seemed to calm his thrashing. I needed his attention.

  “Two.” I stroked him with my thumb, making him groan. “You love your career, and to be with us, you must give it up, along with your esteemed position in the beau monde. You will become a Royal Navy deserter, a lowly status so far removed from your stalwart character. I understand the quandary, and I’m not making light of it.”

  “It’s a difficult decision,” Priest said, his voice a low growl. “But not an impossible one.”

  Ashley slid his arm onto the table and sank his head upon it. “You’re wasting your time.”

  Priest watched me steadily, his eyes burning with the same ire I felt. But there was something else there. Beneath the anger lay years of disappointment. A man could only be rejected so many times before parts of him started chipping away. He’d lost this fight with Ashley again and again, and he didn’t expect this time to be any different.

  But it was two against one now. Priest wasn’t alone.

  “The third concern,” I said to Ashley, “is the one that troubles you the most. Choosing us comes with grave danger. Priest and I are wanted for many crimes, sodomy being the least of our offenses.”

  “Your concern about the gallows doesn’t go away if you leave us.” Priest shored up his hold on Ashley’s flexing arms, driving his point home with the intensity of his breaths. “Bennett and I will be hunted for the rest of our lives.”

  Ashley stopped struggling and stared at nothing, his eyes unfocused as he absorbed our words.

  “I told you my parents’ story.” I removed my hand from his groin and bent over the table beside him, mirroring his pose. “In my mother’s stubborn sense of duty, she forsook my father and left him desolate and forlorn. She thought she was protecting him, that if he stayed with her, she would make him weak and distracted. She believed their relationship would lead to his ultimate execution.” My voice broke on a pained whorl of breath. “In the end, my father hanged anyway, and she followed him.”

  “We’re not your parents.” With his face inches from mine, his blue eyes pierced, sharp and unyielding. “This manor is isolated, secure, and the staff is loyal. Priest and I have been meeting here for fourteen years without discovery.”

  “So that’s your plan?” I pushed away from the table, my shoulders quaking with rage. “You intend to marry the virgin and keep your immoral lovers on the side?”

  Pain burrowed into Priest’s features. “He’ll expect us to meet him here, in his stronghold of debauchery and filthy secrets, year after year.” He leaned down, seething in Ashley’s face. “Meanwhile, your viscountess will be oblivious to your unseemly manners while she remains in London and breeds your heirs. Is that your solution?”

  “Yes.” One syllable, issued with the unrelenting chill of propriety. “It’s all I can offer.”

  I saw red, forced myself to blink, and slowly reined in my temper.

  “When you chose the Royal Navy over Priest, you fucked him and left him.” Pacing along the back wall, I eyed a row of kitchen knives and plucked a heavy one from its hanger. “I’ll be honest, Ashley. I charged in here a moment ago with visions of Priest fucking you over this table and leaving with me afterward. Perhaps a dose of your own medicine would send you running after us. But we don’t need any more hurt in this relationship. The three of us have experienced enough pain and loneliness to last a lifetime, don’t you think?” I looked at Priest. “Let him up.”

  They rose at the same time. Ashley straightened his shirt and retreated a few steps, putting his back against the wall. Priest lowered his hands to the table, slightly bent, watching us both from beneath his dark brow.

  Ashley wasn’t even trying to argue or state his case. His English nobility and fealty to his king were so deeply ingrained he wouldn’t turn against it to fight for his own dreams. He would let Priest and me walk out of his life because he genuinely believed he wasn’t allowed to have us.

  In a way, I was equally narrow-minded and stubborn, for I saw no other plausible future than living on my ship with him and Priest at my side. I would threaten Ashley, and if that didn’t work, I would capture him the same way he’d captured me. But first, I would try to reach him with my voice.

  Standing beside Priest, I gripped his fingers with one hand and held the knife at my side with the other. Across the kitchen, Ashley regarded me, wearing that starched, impassive mask I loathed so much.

  “The great purpose of life is love.” I met him stare for stare, my heart beating loudly and clearly behind every word. “To know with certainty that we exist, we must love and be loved, even through the pain. It’s the inexplicable fever inside us, which drives us to battle, to sacrifice, and to surrender. Deny it, Ashley, and all you have left is a starving emptiness.”

  Priest tightened his hand around mine, his fingers hot and shaking. His emotional investment in Ashley was palpable.

  “If you leave for London on the morrow,” I said, “and marry a woman for whom you feel nothing, you’re choosing loneliness. I can’t let you do that. Because I love you. I will not let you end up like my mother. Fear drove her from my father. Fear for his safety and survival. She chose loneliness over danger and love. In the fourteen years that I knew her, there was no light in her eyes. No smile. She wore a stately mask just like you, but I keenly felt what she hid beneath it. Do you know what that was?”

  “A starving emptiness.” His wooden voice was an attempt at apathy. Counterarguments loomed on the far side of it. But closer, right there in his eyes, was the man I loved clinging to every word.

  Because his heart knew I was right. His thick head just needed time to come to terms with it.

  “You will break off the betrothal.” I rotated the hilt of the knife in my hand, calculating the weight and length of the blade. “Desert the Royal Navy. Make whatever arrangements you must with your parents to transfer your obligations. I know it’s a staggering hell of a lot to give up while I stand here, sacrificing nothing. But I swear to God, if the roles were reversed, if giving up my life—Jade, my crew, the sea, my father’s treasure—meant we could be openly together in your life, I would do it. I would relinquish it all and choose you and Priest, no mistake.”

  “This is intolerable.” He exuded the bearing of a commodore, his voice layered in steel. “You cannot ask me to—”

  “I’m not asking you to choose us, Ashley. I’m demanding it. If you forsake us, I will hunt you down like an animal.”

  He straightened, teeth bared and eyes blazing. “Don’t you dare threaten—”

  I flung the knife. It spun, end over end, across the kitchen and landed with a thunk in the wall beside his head. He froze, breathless, his gaze cutting to the side and narrowing on the blade that protruded no farther than the width of a whisker from his cheek.

  He yanked the knife away as Priest strode toward him. Their eyes connected, their postures hard and combative. But as Priest raised his hand, it wasn’t to hurl a punch. His fingers curled around the back of Ashley’s neck and dragged their foreheads together.

  “Perhaps I should have said this years ago.” Priest closed his eyes and released a breath. “I didn’t know how to put it into words.”

  “Don’t.” Ashley gripped Priest’s shoulders, neither pushing nor pulling, as he gritted his teeth. “Don’t do this.”

  “I don’t know what to call it…this invisible thing that wraps so tightly around us. All I know is that I want to protect it, guard it with my life, and never let it go. This isn’t something that needs mending or burying. It’s raw and honest and perfect, and you damn well know it.” Priest leaned back enough to hold Ashley’s gaze. “I love you.”

  Ashley’s chest hitched, his expression so unguarded I felt his longing in my bon
es.

  “You like hearing me say that to you?” Priest tangled his hands in Ashley’s hair, holding their faces together. “I love you, and I will keep fighting for us. But this time, we’re doing it Bennett’s way. And a word of warning. The last time I crossed her, I woke shackled in the bilge of her ship with a vicious bump on my head.”

  My chest squeezed as Priest released him and joined my side.

  “Jade will leave at dawn on the day of your wedding.” I squared my shoulders and raised my chin. “All three of us will be on that ship.”

  Ashley glared so hard a vein bulged in his brow.

  Without another word, Priest gripped my hand and led me into the corridor.

  We took to the stairs and tunnels beneath the manor. Then, in the pitch of night, we rowed the jolly boat to Jade. Our weapons, the compass and map, everything that mattered to us was on the ship.

  Except Ashley.

  But he would come. I’d never been more confident of anything in my life.

  One week later, I stood at the balcony of my private cabin on Jade, squinting at the dock that led to Ashley’s manor. The crisp twilight breeze kissed my skin, chilling my nude body. But it didn’t persuade my mood. I felt hot, restless, anxious to weigh.

  Today was Ashley’s wedding.

  The sun crowned the distant horizon, burning the underbelly of the dark sky in shades of rose and gray amber. As dawn approached, the shadows shifted around the dock. I narrowed my eyes, telling myself a nobleman was standing there as if that could actually make one materialize.

  “Come back to bed.” Priest’s husky baritone floated from the mattress behind me.

  I chewed my thumbnail, my eyes glued to the dock.

  The ship creaked. Footsteps sounded. Arms came around me from behind, and his warm physique, naked as I was, pressed against my back.

  “Too much time has passed between raids.” He pulled my hand from my mouth and inspected my fingernails. “You’ve chewed them down to the quicks.”

  “I miss the open sea. I need to sail.”

  “Soon.” He leaned his hips against my backside, letting me feel the state of his morning hardness.