Cutter touched her arm. “Go with your father.” He gave her a reassuring wink. “I promise, I’ll find you.”
“You will do no such thing, sir.” Morris plucked his pistol from his brace and aimed it at Cutter’s head. “My daughter is off limits to the likes of you. Why, I ought to shoot you where you stand just for laying a finger on her.”
Hann gasped and pressed a hand to her side. “No, Father. Don’t hurt him. I’ll do whatever you say.”
Morris’s eyes twinkled as he looked at his daughter. “Will you come with me willingly then, if I leave this monster alive?”
Hann gazed at Cutter then faced her father. “Aye.”
Morris took her arm, pulled her away from the doctor, and led her across the deck. “You’ll thank me later, girl. But for now, I’ll have a real doctor attend to you.”
Cutter leveled his stormy eyes on Morris’s back.
Stopping before Sawkins, Morris sneered. “The ship is yours, your lordship.” He doffed his hat in a mocking bow. “Do take care of her. You’re not likely to see another in your lifetime.”
“I beg you one last time to leave Lady Ashton.” Sawkins’s voice held a slight quiver. “She was not part of the bargain.” His blue eyes shifted to Isabel, concern flickering in them. Concern for her? No, she would not be made a fool of again—not for the likes of him.
“And I beg you, Captain,” Morris said through gritted teeth, “to be content that I have the courtesy to honor your half of our bargain—a man who would betray his own brother!”
Darla skirted the crowd and approached the plank, followed by several pirates.
“Allow me at least to carry my son,” Isabel pleaded.
Donning his hat, he sighed. “Very well, give the child to her.” He motioned with his fingers, and Darla stopped and turned around. Lifting Frederick from her shoulder, she smiled shyly and held him out to Isabel.
Isabel rushed toward her son. Gently taking him from Darla, she drew him against her chest, wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him. Tears of joy streamed down her cheeks. “Oh Frederick, it’s Mother, Frederick. I’m here.” His innocent, baby scent filled her nostrils like a bouquet of flowers. Oh thank you, Lord. Thank you. Showering his forehead with kisses, she leaned back to get a good look at him and ran her fingers over his soft cheeks.
Frederick lifted his gaze to hers, and a giggle passed through his lips before they broke into a beaming smile. He reached his chubby hand up to touch her face as if he didn’t believe she were real. Grinning, Isabel kissed his fingers.
“How touching.” Morris declared. “Now come along.” He led Hann through the throng of pirates, bellowing orders before he leapt up onto the plank. Hann glanced at Cutter before she yanked her pain-filled gaze away and followed her father.
Prodded from behind, Isabel trudged forward, casting one last glance at the doctor, whose sorrowful eyes were fixed upon Hann. As she halted before the plank, Sawkins’s gaze caught hers for a moment. Pain seeped from his eyes. But hadn’t he caused this? Wasn’t this what he wanted?
Holding Frederick with one hand, she raised her chin away from Sawkins. A pirate extended a hand to her from the plank. Rejecting it, she tried to hoist herself up, but the ship swayed and she nearly fell.
A glowing spire shot across the darkening sky, followed almost instantly by another one. Isabel quivered.
Thunder roared in the distance as if God Himself protested the happenings He witnessed below. Lord, please help us. Please do not allow Frederick and me to be taken by this pirate.
Hann retreated over the plank and offered her hand to Isabel. Isabel gave her a weak smile as she climbed onto the wooden bridge and gazed over at Morris’s ship. Hordes of ill-kempt pirates buzzed across the deck, curses spewing from their foul mouths, as they prepared the ship to sail. Swallowing hard, she drew Frederick tighter to her chest. He whimpered.
It would seem that yet another pirate ship awaited her. But this time, its captain harbored no infatuation for her that would aid her safety. In fact, he wished only to harm her and her son. Hann gave Isabel’s hand a comforting squeeze as if she could read her mind. At least she’d have a friend on board—or would she? Isabel released Hann and wondered how deep her friend’s treachery went. She was Morris’s daughter, after all.
As Isabel inched over the plank, she gazed at the black sea swirling below her. Frederick would have drowned in minutes in that treacherous water. Even if someone had dived in after him, they would have never found him. She clung to her son and quelled a rising sob, then glanced over at Kent’s still form lying on the deck. Surprising grief overcame her. Would she ever see him again? Oh Lord, help him. Please be with him.
“Throw him in the hold,” Isabel heard Sawkins order. Two pirates lumbered over to Kent and hoisted his limp body.
Taking the final steps across the plank, Isabel kissed Frederick’s forehead and stepped down onto the main deck of the Johnny’s Revenge.
Biting pain gnawed through Kent’s head, springing from one spot, then spreading out in waves. Grating squeals flew at him from all around, luring him from his dark repose. But he didn’t want to come out. Something terrible had happened. He couldn’t remember what, but he knew it was so horrible, he didn’t wish to face it again. Then the cutting pain struck him once more as if someone poked a knife into his skull. Something warm and furry scurried across his chest, and Kent raised his arm to his forehead, sending a hundred little feet pattering away.
He pried his eyes open to the same charcoal void that had existed behind them, but slowly, as his sight adjusted to the darkness, a rake of iron bars stood out like black spires against the dim light of a distant lantern. That and the rush and gurgle of water against the hull told him he was imprisoned in the hold.
The tap of little feet sounded, and another sharp pain dove into his head. Kent sprang to his feet. The room spun, and he grabbed onto the rusty bars lest he tumble back down to the rats and the sludge. Leaning his head against the hard, cold iron, he waited for the timbers to stop swirling while he tried to remember how he came to this place.
Isabel. He pictured the beautiful features of her face twisted in concern as she’d rammed into him. Why had she done that? He’d been trying to save her and their son! Kent reached up and slid his fingers over his hair. A slick, wet blotch covered a swollen mound on the top of his head. Drawing his finger to his nose, he took a whiff. Blood. He could smell it even over the fetid stench of the bilge. Now he remembered. His precious Isabel—that infuriating woman—had struck him. Why?
The ship lurched to port and Kent clung to the bars, hearing the rats squealing as they slid across the floor. The hull creaked and groaned under the strain. The lantern flickered, and Kent prayed it would not go out and leave him alone in this ebony hell. He’d been locked in a hold before, and he knew this darkness well. It was the kind of black slime that could swallow a man whole if he allowed it to seep within him.
Terror sliced through him as more of his memory returned. Sawkins had taken over the ship. Why had he been so daft as to let his brother come on board? Kent pounded his head against the bars, not caring when the chipped metal bit into his skin. And Isabel. She was either dead or in Captain Morris’s hands, along with their son. Frederick. What would become of them now? “Oh God.” He rattled the cage until flakes of rust rained down on him. “I gave my life to You. Was it only so You could torture me?”
Jerking away from the rods, Kent paced his cell, his boots sinking into the sodden wood. His son’s face loomed before him, that tiny chubby face with the shock of curly brown hair. His wide, dark eyes had sparkled when they locked on Kent’s. And at that moment the boy had stolen his heart. His son, his blood. For the first time, Kent began to understand Captain Morris’s agony.
The grating of a latch and the thump of boots alerted Kent that someone approached. The burgeoning lantern light cast shadows of deformed creatures over crates and barrels and onto the dark hull of the ship.
�
�Get on wit’ ye now,” A sinister voice echoed off the walls.
A dark figure emerged down the ladder. Lantern light shone over his gray waistcoat and sandy hair—Cutter. The pirate behind the doctor shoved him, sending him toppling down the final steps. “I said hurry, ye spineless toad.”
Righting himself, Cutter brushed the dirt from his jacket before he rounded a stack of barrels and headed toward the cells.
Kent dashed to the bars.
“I daresay, you’re looking well, Captain.” Cutter’s woeful eyes flashed as Gibbons ambled behind him.
The light struck Cutter’s face, revealing a swollen purple eye. “I’d like to say the same for you, Doctor.” Kent grimaced. “But it appears your face has collided with something—something quite hard from the looks of it.”
“Ah yes. A fist.”
“That’ll be enough chatterin’ out of ye both.” Gibbons pushed Cutter toward the cell next to Kent’s, grabbed a set of keys from his belt, unlocked the door, and shoved the doctor inside. After he slammed and locked the door, Gibbons held the lantern up beside his face and sneered at them through brown teeth.
Kent thrust his hand in between the bars and nearly snagged Gibbons’s sleeve. The pirate jumped back, his grin tumbling from his lips.
“When I get out of here, Gibbons,” Kent hissed, “you’ll wish you’d never seen this ship or the ocean it sails upon.”
Cutter cleared his throat and gave Kent a disapproving glance, then faced Gibbons, who had continued to retreat, his wide eyes riveted on Kent. “Gibbons,” Cutter started, drawing the man’s attention to him. “We’d like our supper served promptly at seven, if you please.”
Gibbons scratched the hair on his chest and raised his bushy eyebrows. Then, chuckling, he turned and plodded toward the ladder. “Supper. Ha. Crazy as a sun-baked turtle, the both of ye.”
As soon as Gibbons and his lantern were gone, darkness folded over them, and if not for Cutter’s deep breathing, Kent would have thought he’d just had a vivid dream. But soon, with the aid of the distant lantern, he made out the doctor’s tall frame in the cell next to him.
“What news of Isabel?” Kent was afraid to ask, but he had to know. Even so, his heart teetered on the edge of a cliff, waiting for Cutter’s reply.
“Captain Morris took her.” Cutter sighed. “And Hann as well.”
“Does my son still live?” Fear coiled through him as he pictured Morris holding the child over the water.
“Yes, never fear, Captain. He’s with his mother. Hann may be able to save them both.” Cutter said. “The lady astounds me.”
Kent shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. “How long have you known?”
“About Hann? Only a few days. I discovered her secret while attending her injury.”
“Yes, of course.” Kent envisioned the scene of Hann’s surgery. “That would account for your strange behavior when I came down to inquire after him…her. Egad, I still can’t grasp the idea.” Kent uttered a harsh chuckle. “And her father, did you know who he was as well?”
Cutter shook his head and patted his pockets. “Blast! They took my pipe. Barbarians!” He glanced up at Kent. “No. I assure you, Captain, I had no idea.”
“Yet you don’t fault Hann in this treachery?”
“Nay, Captain. I’ll admit to being surprised, but I cannot believe she meant any deception other than what she stated. You saw Morris’s face as clearly as I did. He did not know she was on board. Nor did Sawkins know who she was. Therefore she could not have been privy to their agreement.” A rat climbed onto Cutter’s boot, and he kicked it aside. “Besides, if it weren’t for her, your son would be at the bottom of the sea right now.”
The ship pitched, throwing Kent against the bars and sending the dim lantern light undulating over the dismal scene. Indeed. Hann had no reason to come on deck and reveal herself to her father. In fact, she had every reason not to. Had she done it just to save Frederick?
“You place much confidence in this would-be pirate lady who has deceived everyone on board this ship.”
“I have confidence in her character. A character I have become well acquainted with these past months, both as the man and the woman.” Even in the shadows, Kent saw the gleam in Cutter’s eyes.
“What is it between you two?”
“I fear I love her.”
Love? Kent rubbed the sweat from the back of his neck and couldn’t help the bitter chuckle that spilled from his lips. “That you fear it leads me to believe you are indeed in love, for I have found it to be a terrifying thing.”
“But also as sweet as fine wine.” Cutter grinned.
Kent fingered the bump on his head. “I have yet to experience that side of it.”
“Ah yes, how is your head, Captain?”
Kent gave him a peevish look. “Sore and bloody.”
“She was trying to save you, you know.”
“Save me? Egad. I’m not so daft as to believe that.”
“She thought Morris’s pirates were going to shoot you.”
The crack of sails and the groan of masts and yards under strain filtered down from above. Bracing himself against the heaving ship, Kent paced the cell. “Why wouldn’t she just let them?” Isabel no longer needed Kent’s ship to find Frederick, and she’d made her feelings toward him plain from the beginning.
Cutter snorted. “’Tis obvious to me, even if you cannot see it—or even if she cannot see it, for that matter.”
“And what, pray tell, are you referring to?”
“She cares for you.”
“Hmm.” Yet Cutter’s words sparked a glimmer of hope in Kent. “At least she finally knows Sawkins for the rat that he is.” He booted one of the furry devils across his cell, imagining with glee that it was his brother.
The ship pitched, then bolted in a violent shudder. Grabbing the bars, Kent clung to them as his feet nearly left the floor. Cutter did not fare as well as his large body tumbled across the cell. What caused the ship to careen so sharply? A storm? It didn’t feel like a storm. No, it was the speed—they sailed at full speed. “Did Sawkins indicate his heading?”
“He intends to rendezvous with Morgan at Panama.” Cutter picked himself up from the floor and brushed off his coat.
Alarm spired through Kent. “We must break out of here before then.” He had to reach Isabel and Frederick before Morris could put into action whatever dreadful plans he had for them.
Cutter grunted. “I am of the same mind, Captain.”
The Restitution lunged to starboard, and the lantern light flickered, then disappeared. Darkness fell on them like a death shroud.
“Perhaps we should pray.” Cutter’s voice was naught but a whisper, but the impact of his words struck Kent like a cannon blast.
Pray? Of course. That’s what people did who believed in God. Hadn’t he given his life to the Almighty just last night? Now, in the roasting stench and murky blackness, it seemed like a glorious dream—that feeling of worth, approval, and love. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how.”
“Allow me, then,” Cutter said.
Kent shuffled closer to Cutter’s voice and bowed his head against the bars.
Cutter cleared his throat. “Lord, please hear the prayer of two pirates who deserve neither Your time nor an inkling of Your regard. We do, however, come in the name of Your Son, Jesus, and ask that You protect Hann, Lady Ashton, and Frederick and that You free us from this prison in order that we may rescue them. Amen.”
“Amen.” Kent added the only thing he knew to say, and then stood in the darkness listening to Cutter’s breathing and the scampering of the rats.
A deep, pulsating boom shook the sea around the hull and sent a tremble through the keel. Despite the heat, a chill raised the hairs on Kent’s arms. A ghostly silence consumed them.
BAM! An enormous crash split the darkness with the cracking of wood and clanking of metal.
Saltwater blasted over Kent. He crashed to the floor, arms and legs
flailing under the force of the ocean. Grabbing the bars, he clawed his way upward, gasping for air. Water gorged his mouth and lungs.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Double Cross
Sea water blasted over Kent. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t breathe. His fingers ached from their tight grip on the iron rods. Cutter’s muffled shout bounced over the hold, but Kent could not respond, could barely move against the force of the surge. Inching his fingers up the bars, he struggled to stand, and finally pulled himself up beneath the cascade of water that flattened him against his cage. He gasped for air and inched his way out from the center of the torrent.
The ship lunged to port and Kent hung on as he tried to focus on the cell next to his. “Cutter!” he shouted above the mad rush of water, praying the doctor had not been injured. No response. Muted light shone through the ocean gushing through a breach in the hull. It was still day.
Who had fired upon them? What, in the name of Davy Jones, was Sawkins doing? Anger pumped through Kent at the thought of his ship in the hands of that pompous incompetent.
Following the direction of the deluge, he saw where the shot had blasted a hole through the bars of his cell. Bracing himself, he leaned his shoulder into the gushing spray and fingered the opening to see if it was large enough to pass through. The water pummeled his shoulder like a hundred fists, the pain only matched by the sting that shot through his hand as the slivered iron sliced his skin.
The opening wasn’t big enough. He’d be skewered if he tried to squeeze through. Wrenching himself out of the water’s path, he stood, panting and watched as the Caribbean spit its briny water into his ship. Water pooled at his feet. If the hole wasn’t patched soon, they would sink, and he and Cutter would drown in these iron tombs.
God, if You’re there. I could use some help.
“Captain.” Cutter’s faint voice drifted to Kent.
“Yes. I’m here!” Kent yelled over the din and sloshed through the water to the edge of the cell. He peered into the shadows, where he could barely see Cutter lumbering to his feet. Water dripped from his coat and slid down his face and neck.
The Restitution Page 28