The Last Broken Promise

by Grace Walton

  Dorcas frowned. Her one sterling opportunity to see her niece honorably wed was slipping from her grasp. She had to do something fast. So she spoke without thinking, “I disagree.”

  Every person on the deck turned to stare at her. It was widely known in Virginia that Dorcas had married to suit herself. She’d been adamant in her pursuit of her wealthy, placid husband. The man had been rich, but no hero. Of course, as they’d both matured, he’d gained wisdom and stature in the community. No man could remain close to the St. Johns and not prosper in such ways. From its odd beginnings, it had blossomed into an agreeable union. And everyone knew it had not started as a love match.

  “You disagree?” Griffin asked politely.

  Dorcas nodded. She’d plastered a very odd toothy smile across her broad face. It didn’t take the skill of this nest of spies to know she was up to something shady.

  Jess muttered under her breath. “Aunt Dorcas, you’ve lectured me for years about finding the right man,” she said. “You’ve gone on and on about how important family, wealth, and respectability are in the hunt. This man,” Jess jabbed her finger towards Finn. “This man has none of those things. So why would you further his suit?”

  Dorcas thought fast. “It’s true, family connections are paramount. But Jess, you must have forgotten. Dear Captain McLeod’s brother is a duke,” she answered with a nervous twitter of laughter.

  “What about wealth and respectability?” Jess pressed.

  “I wish you St. Johns would stop inferring that I’m some kind of bloody fortune hunter,” Finn goaded.

  He was enjoying himself immensely. As long as he’d secured the young woman’s hand, he honestly didn’t care what the others thought of him. Now that they were betrothed, he had all the time he needed to charm her. She would love him, eventually. He made himself that vow.

  “It wouldn’t do you any good, if that’s your game, McLeod,” Griffin said darkly. “I’d not let you live long enough to enjoy anything you might wheedle out of her.”

  “Wheedle?” Finn’s low malicious laugh sent chills up more than one spine on the deck. “You sound like an old woman, or a high-strung virgin, Griff.” He intentionally used the diminutive. The one he’d called the man since they’d both been budding spies fifteen years hence.

  “Both of you, cease,” Dylan ordered. He’d had more than enough of their verbal jousting. He pointed a steady finger at McLeod. “If you hurt her, I’ll see you dead.” He turned to his brothers. “Get back on our ship. Make ready to sail for Savannah. Jess, you and Aunt Dorcas will come with us. Finn, you will follow.”

  “She sails with me,” McLeod contradicted him.

  There was no way he wanted Jess to be under the influence of her brothers for the several days it would take for them to make it to the southern port. Her aunt might be his ally, at the moment. But Finn knew just how persuasive the St. Johns could be. They were an impressive, manipulative lot. If he let Jess get away from him now, who knew what they’d convince her of before they all made landfall?

  “I beg your pardon?” Dylan’s words were cold.

  Everyone on the deck stilled. They all felt the undercurrents of danger running between the two dominant men who faced each other.

  “I said, Jess will sail with me. We are betrothed. It is my right to protect her,” Finn said. He could have been speaking of the weather. He seemed that unconcerned.

  “That’s precisely why she’ll be traveling to Savannah on a St. John ship. We will keep her safe, from everything that might harm her,” His inference was clear. The Duke of MacAllister did not trust his maiden sister to the man who’d spent his entire adult life posing as a rapacious pirate.

  “It might be better,” Dorcas chose that moment to give her opinion once again. “If we did sail with my nephews,” she said apologetically to McLeod. “There’s still her reputation to consider. And arriving in your company in Savannah, without a chaperone, would be socially fatal.”

  “You can accompany us,” Finn said by way of a counter offer. Though, he’d hoped to have Jess all to himself on the short journey. He wanted to further cement their relationship.

  Dorcas tittered once again. It was a high grating sound. “My dear boy, I think you’re too anxious for Jess’s company. A few days apart can be nothing but helpful. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or so they say. Besides, she and I have a wedding to plan. We will use the days wisely towards that goal, I promise you. Once we meet in Savannah, your nuptials will be plotted.”

  Jess didn’t like the sound of that. She’d been hoping to put off any talk of an actual wedding. But it seemed her aunt intended to see her married quickly. The girl needed a plan. She needed solitude and time for prayer and reflection. She knew she would not find it in Finn’s company. For every time she was near the big man it seemed her wits, along with her good intentions, went fleeing.

  “I’ll go with my family,” Jess said.

  If Finn was surprised because of her earlier opposite assertions, he gave no sign of it. Jess watched him carefully. If he’d give her some kind of sign that what he felt for her was more than lust, she’d be tempted to stay with him. But he didn’t. And she told herself that was a good thing. Because, if ever she chanced to fall to the temptation of letting the love she felt budding for this man gain its full flower, she’d be lost. He was a charming rake. A man who used women with no compunction. He made no pretense to having a faith, Christian or otherwise. He was all wrong for her.

  “This storm is only going to get stronger,” Finn said.

  “I agree,” said Griffin. “We need to try and sail around it. I say let’s make for deep water. Then, once we skirt the worst of the squall, we can hug the coast from Charleston to Savannah.”

  “I’ll lead,” Finn said as he looked out over the angry horizon.

  “I’ll guard your back,” Griffin nodded.

  They both knew Finn was the better navigator. If anyone could steer a course away from the worst part of the storm, it would be McLeod.

  “Connor, get the women settled on our ship. I’ll stay with McLeod a moment to finish nailing down the details,” Dylan ordered.

  Since it was the plan they had all set upon, no one offered argument. Connor retrieved the thick rope he and his brothers had used to swing over to Finn’s craft with. He fashioned a large loop in it.

  Jess stood in the loop and pulled it up. The loop made a rough seat. She’d done this very same thing many, many times. She was as familiar with this kind of transport between vessels as she was with riding in the family carriage. She rather liked the feeling of being suspended in midair as the makeshift seat swung over the side of the boat and lurched towards her brother’s craft. It was the nearest thing to flying she’d ever experienced.

  Soon the rope swung within arm’s reach of Griffin’s ship. Burly seamen leaned out to grab the line and haul her safely aboard. She gave a jaunty wave to her aunt across the roiling sea, as she set foot on the pitching deck.

  A sailor threw the rope back over so Dorcas could make the same precarious trip. The older woman was not so enamored of this mode of travel, as was her young niece. She despised the vertigo of being dangled over the rough ocean. So it was with no small amount of trepidation that she allowed herself to be hoisted aloft and over the side. But for all her fears and tight-shut eyes, she made the transition with no problem.

  Connor and Griffin disdained the seat. They merely looped the rope, in their turn, around their strong wrists and swung easily across the abyss.

  As his family watched from the deck of the far ship, Dylan turned his back to them. He had no intention of letting them see what he was about to do. With no warning, his fist arched out and caught Finn squarely on the jaw. The big man tumbled to the listing, wet deck.

  Dylan pointed at him. “Curse you, stay down,” he ordered as Finn started to rise. “Betrothed or no, you earned that. She was an innocent, you bloody son of a Satan. Stay down so I’m not forced to end you where you lay.”


  Finn wiped the smear of blood from his lip. “She’s still virginal, I swear. And you are a fool if you think I would hurt her in any way.” He spat onto the weathered boards of the deck.

  “You would have me believe you took one look at Jess and fell in love with her?” Dylan mocked. “I know you Finn. I know you. You’re the one Arthur sends when he’s bent on seducing some light-skirted aristocratic matron into divulging all she knows about her husband’s dealings with the government. You’re nothing but the male equivalent of a street-walking tart.”

  “Nice sentiments from the one who showed me the way of turning up a woman sweet,” Finn drawled. “Does your pretty young wife know who you used to be and what?”

  Dylan’s face turned deadly. “My wife knows everything about my past, everything. And she loves me still. She firmly believes God can change even the foulest sinner.”

  “And what do you believe, Heartless St. John?” the man jeered up at him. “Are you a believer now as well? Do you subscribe to the myth of a Savior, a benevolent God who cares for the downtrodden and desperate? If you are so deluded, let me tell you about the man who tried to save me in Edinburgh. He was a man of God. He claimed he’d come to help me, to save me. His kind of salvation came with a riding crop and manacles that chained me to a cellar wall.” Again Finn spat on the deck. “If that is what your God offers, I want none of it.”

  Dylan softened. “I am a Christian, though it’s clear by my recent behavior, I’m still not a very good one. And I remember, in just what squalid circumstances Arthur and I found you.” He reached down to lend the prone man a hand up.

  McLeod refused his help. He gracefully got to his feet. He stood in the gathering sunlight, strong and resolute against the punishing gale. “To answer your rude inquiry, I don’t know if I love your sister. I only know I can’t let her out of my sight and would kill anyone, anyone who looked to hurt her. And yes, I am fully aware that my life heretofore does not qualify me to even be in her company. Much less to exchange marriage vows with her. But I want the chance to woo and win her, Dylan. You were able to change for your wife. Give me the same opportunity.”

  “I wasn’t capable of changing myself, Finn. No man truly is. God did that in me and for me. I am different only by His grace.”

  The younger man scowled. “Let us have no more nattering on about your precious God. I’m not interested in tales of fictional redemption. I’ve the stripes on my back to prove how well your God loves his children.”

  “You know only the ramblings of a perverted madman,” St. John disputed.

  “That wasn’t what you were saying when you and Arthur found me in that pit under the church,” Finn argued.

  The older man sighed. “I was as lost then as you are now. I lived only for carnality and revenge. But now I know differently. I live differently.”

  “So you say,” McLeod countered.

  “So I am,” St. John added. “Does she know anything about you? The real man, not the façade?”

  He loved this tortured young man as a brother. They’d fought at each other’s side in the heat of battle too many times to count. But he would not have Finn McLeod for his sister. Not if there was any other way to salvage her reputation. The man was too dangerous, and too damaged.

  “I’ve told her as much as I dared.”

  “Why?” Dylan asked, puzzled. Surely, if a man wanted to gain a woman’s trust, he’d do everything within his power to keep the seedier sides of his nature from her.

  Finn scowled. “I can’t seem to lie to her,” he admitted.

  “What?”

  “I. Can’t Lie. To. Jess.” The younger man punctuated each word.

  Dylan fought the smile that tried to form upon his lips. He did. But it, along with the devilish twinkle in his eyes conquered all his self-control.

  “Curse you, St. John, for finding this so vastly amusing,” groused the other man. He wiped at the blood on his lip once more.

  “I find it more than merely amusing,” Dylan hooted.

  “Shut up, you mule,” Finn growled. “You should stay on my ship, all of you. It’s more seaworthy than that flashy punt Griffin sails. The storm we’re sailing into isn’t just a Sunday squall.”

  “Jess goes with us,” Dylan said in a way that brooked no argument.”

  “It isn’t safe,” Finn answered in a hard, rough voice. He didn’t like the idea of his future wife being in danger.

  “The great Finn McLeod, scourge of the seas, is terrified of a simple storm? He’s afraid for a little slip of a girl who grew up on ships of all descriptions? Jess is like a monkey up in the rigging. And she’ll be guarded by all three of her brothers on a short trip to a city with an acclaimed safe harbor. On the swiftest, most modern vessel to master the Atlantic. For your sake, I will not tell Griffin your opinion of his ship. But I do find this whole conversation hilarious. It is also truly and entirely ironic,” Dylan snickered.

  He strolled towards the rope Connor had tossed to a waiting sailor. With a graceful twist of his wrist, the Duke of MacAllister secured the thing in his fist.

  “I think you may make an acceptable brother-in-law, given time and sufficient instruction,” he said. With his powerful legs, he pushed over the side of the swaying ship. “Of course, you’ll never have the upper hand with my sister. And she will, no doubt, lead you on a merry chase the whole of your life. All of which should be very entertaining to witness. I have to say, I’m not at all opposed to the match. Now that I know precisely how smitten you are.”

  “I should have killed you in Paris last year when I had the chance,” Finn yelled after the man.

  Dylan gracefully rode the rope to the other ship. At the last possible second, he shouted back, “But how would you have explained that to your wife?”

  His laughter was long and loud. It drifted back to Finn on the whipping wind. If the women had not been watching so avidly, Finn would have responded with a hand gesture universal among the lower orders. But they were watching. And Jess had such a sad, but hopeful look on her lovely face. Finn could do no more than bow to her across the expanse of the raging ocean. His reward was a careless wave from the young woman and a condescending look from each of the St. John males.

  “Captain?”

  His former first mate demanded his attention. The man sported impressive bruising on his face. Which was as it should be. Finn had not let the slight to his lady go unpunished. Every man on board now had a firm understanding as to how much Miss St. John meant to their master. And they were fully instructed upon how they should treat her, with great respect and instant obedience. No one was idiotic nor reckless enough to cross Captain McLeod.

  Finn inclined his head to the sailor indicating the man could speak.

  “We’ve a problem below decks, sir,” Hellwise’s tone was entirely submissive.

  He’d been reduced in rank to the lowest of the sailors. Now he would answer to them all. It was an awful come-down in the nautical world. His title on board was now cook’s boy. Essentially that meant he would be forced to fetch and carry for any man who demanded it of him. He’d also have to slaughter the animals on board in their turn. He’d need to tend the galley fire, night and day. For the threat of fire was the most feared danger aboard a sailing vessel. And, of course, his portion of any treasure they obtained was severely limited now.

  Once the word got out, no other ship would sign him on as anything other than a cook’s boy. He’d made a very bad mistake when he’d chosen to sell his services, such as they were, to Finn’s older brother. His orders from the man had been to harm the captain in any way that presented itself. Slow, painful death was preferable.

  But getting the captain into a situation that would lead to his demise was proving far more difficult than the former first mate had anticipated. McLeod was a cagey rogue. One with an especially violent skill set. As was illustrated by Hellwise’s present cascade of bruises and ailments. With that fact in mind, Hellwise had come up with another way to forc
e the big sea captain to his will.

  “What’s amiss?” Finn said, not taking his narrowed eyes off the other ship. Jess waved and smiled to him from its lurching deck.

  “Captain?” Hellwise needed his superior to turn and face him.

  “What?”

  McLeod did turn the. And the scowl upon his face was fearful to see. The sailor took a few steps back.

  “The cargo’s shifted, Captain.” The man gulped down his fear. It was imperative to get McLeod below decks.

  Finn cursed under his breath. He knew the seas were very rough. Apparently the barrels and wooden chests in the hold had broken free of their moorings. In the kind of storm they were facing, he didn’t need the added risk of the whole ship toppling in a rogue wave, if the cargo wasn’t secured in place. He took one long, last look at the swiftly disappearing figure of the girl.

  Griffin, ever reckless, had turned his craft so his billowing sails would take full advantage of the building wind. He must think he could outrun the worst of the gale. It was a fool’s choice. For Finn was convinced they faced the fury of a hurricane. One that was, most likely, wide and dangerous.

  When the churning waves and lowering clouds totally obscured the fleeing vessel, Finn, with no conscious thought, uttered a desperate prayer to the deity he refused to acknowledge. “Save her, Lord.”

  “What, Captain?” asked a puzzled Hellwise.

  The taller man didn’t answer. He just sprinted towards the steep, narrow steps that led to the ship’s hold. Finn frowned when he got to the cavernous, dark belly of the vessel. There was no one there trying to tie down loose cargo. For the simple reason that each barrel and chest was still held fast by a webbing of ropes. Before he could unleash his fury at being led on a fool’s errand, Finn was struck from behind. His head snapped forward with the strength of the massive blow. He blinked once, twice, and then he was engulfed in blackness.

  He didn’t know Hellwise spat upon him as he lay there on the mildewed and stinking floor of the hold. He didn’t hear his demoted first mate cackle with malicious glee. He didn’t register the man’s ugly threat.