by Grace Walton
“Young man.” She eyed McLeod sternly. “I said, release my niece.”
“I will gladly release Sister St. John,” he drawled cynically. “As soon as she releases me.”
Jess had the grace to blush. She loosened her hold on his waist. “You have the most difficulty with names and titles, don’t you Captain McLeod?” she lectured him with her hands on her hips again.
“I never have, until now,” he replied coldly.
“Well, you’re having the devil of a time with mine.” She sniffed.
“An excellent reason to terminate our acquaintance,” he added sarcastically.
She ignored that jibe and continued, “My name is Miss Jess St. John, not sister, or Sister St. John, or Your Grace. Do you think you can manage to hold onto that truth, this time?”
“I can’t imagine why I would care to remember your name at all.” It was supremely condescending and certainly had a lowering effect on all the others in the cell, but not Jess.
“You must try to remember how to address me correctly, Captain McLeod.” She gave him a victor’s smile as she moved in for the coup de gras. “You must remember how to address me correctly because, you see, we are to be married.”
“Bloody Satan and all his black imps, we are not!” he roared.
“Jessamine!” her aunt squealed.
It took all the fortitude she possessed not to cower from the big man’s wrath. She stood her ground. She waited as he spewed forth a streak of obscenities that turned the air blue. When he finally stopped and glared down at her, she continued, “We have to get married because we shared that bed last night.” Jess pointed dramatically to the little cot.
“Aye, they did,” chortled Asa. “Aye, they surely did. That’s the God’s honest truth.”
“Shut up Horace!” Finn roared again. “You wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit you on the backside.”
Dorcas started to fan herself weakly with one wrinkled hand. For the life of her, she didn’t have an inkling what her scatterbrain niece was about. But she prayed the girl really wasn’t set on marrying the captain. Granted, he was a fine figure of a man, almost as handsome as her darling nephews. But he was little more than a pirate. Lady Jessamine St. John was not going to marry a pirate. Not if her aunt had anything to say about the matter. No, Jess would marry a title, if Dorcas could arrange it. And she knew without conceit that she could. She’d gotten her own sister married off to a duke’s son, hadn’t she? What she needed, for Jess, was some man with a nice tidy title. One that wasn’t too grand. Since he’d have to give it up to come in live in America with her niece. That kind of man would be easy to come by in London, the woman was sure. Jess’s dowry was enormous, thanks to her doting brothers. And the lass was stunning, when she wasn’t plotting mischief. If only Dorcas could get the chit to London, everything would fall nicely into place. Getting to London, now that was the hard part.
Finn leaned down until he was on eye level with the little nun. He gritted the words through his teeth, “We did not share a bed last night. We did not share anything. I did not sleep in the same bed as this little, scheming witch. If I had, I’d be frozen dead.”
Jess blinked. She suddenly had a few second thoughts about her scheme. Finn McLeod shared many qualities with her oldest brother, she decided. The first of which was the fact that he could be very intimidating, extremely intimidating. Also, he was angry, well not just angry, she qualified to herself. He was caught up in a very impressive rage. Captain McLeod was probably going to begin breathing fire, like a medieval dragon, any second now. It wasn’t a good thing to have big powerful men angry at you. She’d learned that from all her brothers. But, said her conscience, you promised the Reverend Mother. And promises of that sort can never, ever be broken. And so Jess recklessly plunged ahead.
“But that’s what you told me.” Jess widened her eyes and blinked like an innocent baby owl.
“I lied,” he ground out. “I told you before, I always lie. Get a doctor in here, he can examine you and settle this. You’re still a virgin, if that is what you truly were last night when you arrived in this godforsaken hole. A leech will prove that fact.”
All color drained from the girl’s face. She had not counted on this turn of events. And she was not about to let some unknown country sawbones go poking and prodding at her body. She turned. She let her eyes silently beg her aunt to come to her rescue. Dorcas was at point non plus. The old woman cleared her throat and stared up at the ceiling.
“That ain’t gonna work,” said the magistrate at the door. “We ain’t got a doctor.”
“I am not going to marry you,” Finn promised the girl harshly. “If you were the only female on the planet and humankind was facing extinction, I would not marry you.”
“You have to marry me.” Her lip poked out stubbornly. “You have compromised me, and you will marry me.”
“Listen you little limb of Satan, I am not going to marry you!” His loud deep voice shook the low rafters.
“I am not a limb of Satan, you arrogant bully. I’m a meek and mild child of God and you will marry me!” she shrieked back. A pistol shot caused her to squeak and throw herself at the angry man. Finn automatically pulled her into his arms. He shielded her with his body, cursing the whole time.
The tired night watch held the smoking gun. “I don’t know who slept with who last night. I don’t care much either. I didn’t hardly sleep at all. I just want everyone of you out of here. I’m tired of your goings on. Now git.” He used the pistol to point to the open door. “Git on out of here.”
“What about the damages I still need to pay?” Finn pushed the girl out of his arms. She glared up at him. “You can’t let me out of gaol. I owe the tavern keeper money.”
He decided it was safer to be behind bars than to be out in the world with Jess St. John. Sooner or later, he could get himself out of gaol. He’d done it too many times to count before. His older brother was constantly up to some plot to get him in prison and keep him there. That’s why Finn had an intense hatred for lawyers along with clergymen. But he’d always gotten out. He could do it again, and without spending any of his hard-won coin. Marriage on the other hand, well, marriage was permanent.
“The old lady here, uh...,” the magistrate touched his hat in Dorcas’s direction. He cleared his throat. “No disrespect intended, ma’am. Mrs. Moore here paid all your fines and she paid Stark for the damage you did to his tavern when you was accidentally killing that no count piece of sh...” The tired man suddenly realized there were ladies present. He stopped. He took off his dusty old hat. He slapped it against his britches before starting over. “The fact is, Captain McLeod, you’re free to go. And truth be told, I wish you and your sailors would just get gone from here. You are a heap of trouble, and that’s a fact. What with you tearing up Stark’s place and your boys hootin’ and hollerin’ and standing in line down at the sporting house all hours of the day and night. It just don’t look good, no it just don’t look good atall.”
Finn scowled. With one hand he kneaded the back off his neck. “Fine, I’ll leave.” he was out the door before any of them realized he was moving.
Jess chased him into the startling sunshine. She couldn’t let him get away now. Not when she almost had him. With one hand she shaded her eyes until they were accustomed to the blinding light. Then she saw McLeod. He was already halfway down the only street of the village. Taking long, deliberate strides he was making his way to the dock.
“Captain McLeod!” Jess yelled to stop him. It didn’t work. He didn’t even slow down. “Beast,” she muttered sourly under her breath.
Jess blew the hair away from her eyes where it had fallen. “Cap-tain Mc-Cloud!” she bellowed out every syllable.
People in the street stopped to stare and whisper behind their hands. Jess didn’t notice or give a whit. Her ticket to London and Arthur Bassett had started up the gangplank to a sleek and modern ship, cursed man. She knew he would leave her without a backwa
rd glance. Unless she had the good fortune to catch up with him and stop him.
Jess hauled up the black skirts of her habit giving the town a nice view of her shapely legs. She began running as fast as she could after her quarry, screaming like a demented banshee the whole way, “McLeod stop! Stop!” Her braid came completely loose. Riotous honey-colored curls bobbed and dipped around her like the sea in an angry storm.
The big man ignored her as he strode onto the deck of his ship. He began shouting out orders. Bare feet slapped the hot, fresh-sanded decks as sailors sprang to life from every nook and cranny of the great vessel. Friendly obscene greetings flew out from every quarter.
“Got tired of town life, did you Captn’?”
“He wore their puny women out, more like,” cackled a dirty one-eyed man with brown teeth.
“He’s been in the lock-up, ye fool. They ain’t no women in a lock-up,” said a fat man with a grimy apron wrapped around his prodigious waist.
The first man winked his one good eye and smirked. “Shows what you know. We had to break the Captn’ out of The Fleet last year just so the poor man could get a rest. Why a crowd of wailing females chased us all the way to Brighton. I heard the gaoler sold chances on the Captn’ to the quality ladies who visit The Fleet,” he named London’s most notorious prison again. “You know that kind of woman, always curious like a bloody cat.” He stopped. He relished the wide-eyed wonder of the cook. “Well, once those quality ladies got a look at our Captn’ well..., they decided lookin’ warn’t hardly enough. Oh no, not even nowhere near close to enough. So they paid the gaoler for a chance to meet him, in his cell, alone.” The man stopped again, smacked his lips, and savored the moment.
The other man waited, mouth a-gape. “They did?” he whispered in reverent tones.
“They did.” One Eye nodded solemnly.
“And?” the cook asked breathlessly.
“Well, naturally word spread about how good the Captn’ could…,” A hard slap on the back stopped his words. The force of the hand behind the gesture almost sent the one-eyed man to the deck. McLeod had walked over to where the two men were talking without them noticing.
“Saul, quit your lying and go get Hellwise for me,” Finn ordered sternly. Since he expected to be obeyed instantly and without question, he turned back to the other sailors.
One-eyed Saul motioned to the cook to come with him to find the first mate. “I swear, I ain’t lying about this. God strike me dead if I am.”
The cook nodded his agreement. So Saul kept on spinning his tale. “Fact is, I heard the gaoler made enough blunt off the women who kept company with the Captn’ that he retired from The Fleet and bought a tavern in Cornwall. Called it The Maitland Stud, he did, in honor of the Captain don-cha know.” They both cackled in glee before a woman’s stern voice stopped them.
Chapter 5
“Captain McLeod!” The voice was loud and it was determined. The woman it belonged to was at the foot of the gangplank with her hands balled up on her hips. “Captain McLeod!”
The crew, to a man, turned and walked to the rails to peer over.
“Captain McLeod, you are not leaving without me.” Jess tilted up her chin rebelliously. She glared at the men staring at her. “Where is your captain?”
The two sailors who’d just come back from fetching the first mate, Hellwise, watched the proceedings with a particular fascination. They stood on one end of the line of sailors watching the agitated woman. Saul poked a knowing elbow into his friend’s side.
“What did I tell you? It’s like London all over again.” He snickered.
“Captain McLeod! Where are you?” Jess started up the gangplank.
“Were the women in London as pretty as this one?” asked the short cook.
“I don’t know,” admitted Saul, as he leaned down to get a better look. “This one’s a looker for sure. All that curly yellow hair. And I’ll wager she’s got a neat pair of ankles too.”
The woman on the dock frowned at the hoots and obscene suggestions coming her way from the men on the ship. Sailors were much the same all over the world, she told herself. The only difference between these men and the ones of her brothers’ crews was that they boldly yelled what the others had merely whispered. None of their caterwauling softened her resolve. She cleared her throat before making another attempt to get what she wanted.
“You can’t hide behind your men forever, Captain McLeod,” she announced as she marched militantly to the top of the gangplank, ready to board the ship.
Up till now, the sailors had enjoyed the show she put on. She was feisty and beautiful. Two things most men liked in a woman. But when Jessamine St. John accused their captain of hiding from her, actually implying he was a coward, the crowd lining the rail got quiet. Deathly and unnaturally quiet. The group of men split in half to surround her as she stepped onto the deck of the ship.
At that moment, Jess realized she might have made a mistake. Just a wee, inconsequential one, to be sure. But a mistake had been made. It might not have been the best decision she’d ever made to plow her way onto McLeod’s vessel. The motley group of men staring at her, looked none too pleased with her being there. She knew their captain would feel the same way. But drat it all, she had to get to London. She’d made the Mother Superior a promise. Jess always kept her word. She must find Captain McLeod and somehow convince him to take her there.
His sailors didn’t know or care about her good intentions. All they knew was that a woman had just called their captain a coward. They couldn’t believe she’d dared such. Why it was the same as blasphemy. Imagine calling the Finn McLeod a coward. The man was a bloody legend on three continents and all the oceans in-between. And here stood this yellow-haired, badly dressed tart calling him a coward.
Jess tried to look around the deck for McLeod. But she was a petite woman and the sailors were all bigger than she was, Jess couldn’t spot the man she was seeking. It seemed, in her mind at least, that the rough looking men were all inching slowly closer to her. She was starting to feel the heat from their collective bodies. An assorted unfortunate mixture of odors was beginning to assail her nose.
The odors were familiar. After all, she’d spent time on her brothers’ ships. Some things never change, like the smell of salt water, bilge, and unwashed bodies. Those aromas didn’t bother her. The looks the men were giving her did bother her. A lot. None of her brothers’ crews had ever looked at her like these men were looking at her now. They wouldn’t have dared. But these men dared. And their faces were hard and angry. The hot morning sun was directly overhead. The crew moved closer to her. Slowly, slowly the men began to crowd her. The heat and the fear and the lack of food since the noon before made her feel light-headed. But she refused to give in. At the top of her voice she yelled one last time.
“Captain McLeod!”
In the periphery of her vision she began to see tiny, dancing lights. They looked like delicate fairy lights. Dylan had ordered those pretty little lights set up in the garden at Richmond the night of her sixteenth birthday ball. She smiled weakly at the memory. She shook her head and tried to concentrate on her present circumstances.
Then she was sorry she’d expended the effort to focus. Because the crowd of sailors was very close now. In fact, she could make out startling and singular features on every rough face. There was a man to her left who wore a garish red eye patch. One to her right had an intriguing scar that traveled down the length of his face and disappeared under a torn and filthy lace cravat he’d knotted at his throat. Some of the men were old. A scattered few looked to be her age. But they all had their hands balled up into fists. And they all looked irritated with her.
The circle of men began to spin and wobble. Jess took a huge gulp of air. She fought against sinking to the rough deck. Now was not the time to do something silly like losing consciousness.
“Finn!” Saul bellowed in a gruff worried voice. “She’s startin’ to swoon.”
They all backed away
terrified. Nothing scared a man more than a fainting woman. Jesse realized they didn’t look so fierce anymore, but it didn’t matter, because her legs had turned to pudding.
“Finn, she’s going down!”
McLeod stood back by the ship’s wheel hoping the sight of the crew would send the little nun packing. But she had more grit than he’d thought. More grit, it seemed, than his sailors possessed at the moment. Curse her impudent soul, he liked that about the chit. A lazy smile inched along his handsome features.
Muttering a nice variety of imprecations under his breath, he shouldered his way through the motley group. He managed to catch the woman just before she hit the deck. Hoisting her up easily in his arms, he looked down into her pale, still face. McLeod cursed again, he’d been right. The little chit was beautiful. Especially now that her mouth was shut. He turned to take her to the only cabin on his ship, his own. How was he ever going to explain this to her brother? A crisp voice from the dock stopped him.
“Just where do you think you’re taking my niece, you brigand.” It was the old woman from the gaol with the magistrate following closely on her heels. McLeod stopped.
“Captain McLeod, now hold on here just a mite.” The stubby man skidded to a stop behind the old lady. He hauled up his sagging britches, and tried to catch his breath before he continued, “You hold up just a second now.” His mouth hung wide open as he gasped for air. “You owe Missus Moore for gitting you out of my gaol. Fact is, you owe her a right smart bit. I’ve got the feeling a man like you don’t run away from his debts. Your brother being a fancy lord and all. Nope, the way I figger it, a man like you don’t like being beholden to nobody, especially not a passel of women.” He rocked back on his worn heels. He watched the broad back of the man cradling the little nun in his arms.