by Julia Knight
“And Paul?”
At least she could keep his name out of the mud. “If there was an informant, do you think I’d have been here when you came? He knew nothing, told me nothing. I tricked him as I tricked you.”
“Yes, you did.” Paul’s voice was by her ear, but she didn’t dare turn. Matthew looked far too ready to pull that trigger, and Paul’s appearance did nothing to lessen that.
“Stand away! Stand away, Paul. I mean to end her here and now. The bitch tricked the pair of us, made fools of us.”
Paul stood half in front of her. “Wagstaff wants her alive to be tried, to set an example. Clap her in irons and take her to the admiral. Don’t let her turn you into a murderer.”
“Keep out if it! She’s had me fooled for months. I loved her, for God’s sake. Or rather, I loved a figment of her imagination.”
“Matthew—”
“You knew, didn’t you? I can see it on your face. You knew!” The gun turned on Paul. “All those questions, all that talk about how it wasn’t Cecily you were after, and you knew the whole time it was her. You betrayed me too.”
“All I wanted was my ship, Matthew. That’s all. It still is. Can’t you understand? Once I found out Cecily was a…a puppet, how could I tell you? Let’s take her to Wagstaff. You’ll see her hang. I’ll have the Newquay.”
Catherine’s stomach sank to the seabed. He would too, would see her hang because she wouldn’t give up everything for him. Just like Jeremiah, who couldn’t see past what he wanted her to be. She bit back a sharp retort, one that would have shown him her hurt. He’d not have that satisfaction from her. She’d spit in his face before she was hanged.
Matthew screwed his eyes up and turned his face away for a moment, but when he looked back, his gaze was hard with hate and a kind of madness. Paul barreled into Catherine before Matthew could squeeze the trigger. What on earth was he doing? Catherine fell to the deck and gasped as her injured chest smacked against the hard wood. Paul leapt up and grabbed at Matthew, at the pistol, trying to wrest it from him.
Matthew brought the gun down and round, and cracked it across Paul’s face with a sickening slap that sent him to his knees. The end of the barrel pressed into Paul’s throat. Blood dripped from Paul’s brow as he looked at her, and back to Matthew, maybe best calculating what he’d just lost.
His words had been a bluff, an expansion of her own lie. Her heart twisted painfully. He could have been safe, could have found a way through, if only he’d let Matthew shoot her. Now he’d just thrown everything away. For her. Unless she could do something. There was only one thing to do. She pulled herself to her feet. “Matthew, I—”
“Shut up, you fucking bitch. He’s right. Wagstaff wants you alive, but I think he’ll be happy enough to have found the traitor in his camp not to be overly sad that you’re dead.”
The gun whipped round toward her, but Paul thrust out an arm and deflected the barrel. He drove his shoulder into Matthew’s gut, and the pair of them fell to the deck, the gun clattering off somewhere. Catherine groped for her own gun, just in time to us the butt of it to smack Matthew’s man across the nose as he came for her. He staggered back and dropped to the deck with a thump. The two ratings who had come aboard with Paul hung back, likely not wanting to get involved with a fight between two captains. If they picked the wrong side, they’d be flogged for sure. She readied her gun with a shaking hand. Matthew managed to get on top of Paul and raised his fist. She shoved the pistol’s barrel into his nape. “Get off him.”
Matthew stood slowly and turned to face her with wild eyes in a white face. Paul got to his feet. “You can’t kill him.”
“Watch me,” she said. “What did you go and do that for anyway? I thought you’d made your position clear enough.” She couldn’t make him out. He’d lied about the raid, but saved her when he should be helping to kill her. Don’t trust him. Remember, don’t trust any man with your heart.
Paul’s hand was on her arm, the heat from his fingers radiating up. She ignored it, and the itch in her belly, but his voice was insistent. “He was going to kill you. You thought I’d let him?”
She took her gaze off Matthew, flicked it over Paul’s face and back again. He’d made it clear on that last night that if she couldn’t give this up, then he’d treat her the same as he would any other pirate. She thanked her stars she’d had the foresight to keep her heart aloof. Not aloof enough—his rejection still stung her, still wrung her heart like a damp rag. She’d thought…what? A load of soppy nonsense, that was what. “You’re a navy man, aren’t you? That’s what you do.”
Paul looked between the two of them and shook his head slowly. “I can’t kill him, or let you kill him.” He laughed mirthlessly and ran a hand over his face. “All I wanted was my ship, and maybe another night with you, or all that you’d give me. But it was the Newquay I wanted most—no, what I thought was more likely I could have—my ship, my life. You know that, how that feels, don’t you?”
The cannon on the hill roared once more, not at the Wicked Lady this time, but at the navy frigate that stood to the other side of the burning ship that blocked the inlet. Her men had recaptured it, and shot flew across the bay to tangle in the rigging of the navy frigate. Farther down the bay, the Newquay sliced toward the Lady, getting into position to blast Matthew’s ship from the water. More of Catherine’s crew were rowing towards the Lady, reinforcements in the nick of time.
Catherine pushed the gun more snugly into Matthew’s neck. “Yes, I know that—but you won’t have it if you’re dead. And if he gets back, tells the admiral what you’ve been up to, you’re as dead as I am.” It was all she could give him. A chance.
She looked up at him, expecting to see guile there, that this was some ploy of his to catch her, but his eyes were steadfast and he wasn’t judging her. He didn’t look at her and think less of her for who, or rather what, she was. He already knew the worst of her, and still he’d saved her from Matthew’s gun. Why? It didn’t matter. He wanted her to change, and she couldn’t, wouldn’t. Neither could he.
“Catherine…” Paul watched her, his head spinning, with her gun at Matthew’s head. The battle for the Lady was over, at least for now. More of Catherine’s crew clambered aboard from the longboats. The Newquay’s guns roared and took the rear mast of Matthew’s ship. Even now the sound of those guns, his guns, stirred pride in his breast.
Most of Matthew’s crew were dead or trying to scramble to their own guns. Two of Catherine’s crew came and grabbed Matthew, dragged him away to the brig, to be held for ransom no doubt. More headed for Paul and the two men with him. The Newquay—that was all he wanted, he’d told himself. His ship, his life. Did it matter whether he was with the navy or not, so long as he had the ship? He shut his eyes. That had been his and Matthew’s dream, ever since he could remember, to be pirates or to chase them. There’d never seemed much difference when he was a child, except the pirates went where they pleased. It seemed the same to him now. He wanted his ship, to go wherever the wind took him, but that wasn’t all.
Catherine watched him, an oddly vulnerable look to her. As though, tough as she was, one wrong word from him would crush her and then she might turn the gun on him. She held her hand up to her crewmen, and they hesitated.
“What?” she snapped. “Tell me, Paul, what is it that you want? Your ship? Take it. After all the grief I’ve put you through, it only seems fair. What else? Me to give this up, become the respectable woman, the good little wife? I tried it once. I tried, and a man I loved is dead because I couldn’t do it. I won’t try again. Yet you saved me from Matthew. So, what is it that you want? Name your price.”
He stepped forward, and now she did turn the gun on him, but it didn’t matter. He barely even saw it. All he could see was her face in the light of the ship that burnt merrily across the water. The sharp cheekbones, the soft hollows of her face, her eyes, wary and mistrustful. Afraid, but mastering it. He reached out and pushed the gun away, and she barely even tr
ied to stop him. Her eyes were wide, like a rabbit’s in a trap, but watchful. Maybe he had her, finally. Maybe. Or maybe she could still shoot him. He could never tell what she might do or say next. The excitement of her surged through him, finer than the best brandy, sharper than the cleanest wind. She was no simpering brainless idiot, no clinging ivy, no predictable lady.
“I want everything.” He took another step, and they were almost touching. “I’m greedy, Catherine. I want a ship, my ship. I want a horizon to aim for and a good wind to get me there. And I want you, Catherine. All of you, as you are. Not just the part you’re willing to share for a night. All of you.” He laid his arm around her waist, still not sure whether she’d kiss him or kill him.
She did neither, but shook her head and laughed under her breath, wriggling away from him. “Don’t be stupid. You came here to hang me. You’re a navy—”
“Fuck the navy,” he said. “I want my ship and you. I intend to have both.”
Her laugh was ragged, incredulous. “No, you—”
He’d had enough of this, enough of her pushing him away, enough of games and lies and masks. Another step and she had her back hard against a door. She brought the gun round, but it was a half-hearted gesture, and he pushed it away easily. He’d seen her in all her naked glory, he’d bedded her, made her scream with pleasure, but there was one thing she’d never let him have, and he wanted it, now. More than his ship, more than the navy, maybe even more than getting out of this damn cove alive. He’d meant to catch her, make her want him, make her his, and he knew now that maybe that was impossible. She was nobody’s but her own. Nothing he did would ever change that, but if he could have a part of her heart, he could live with that.
He slid a hand round the back of her neck, raised the other to her cheek. Her body was warm and trembling against his as he bent his head, took in the scent of her and breathed in her ear, “I want—”
A whistling boom echoed across the bay, a hefty splash in the water not two feet from the keel of the Wicked Lady. What he wanted would have to wait. Catherine wrenched free of him and swore viciously. “Nice attempt to keep me busy till it’s too late. You should’ve been a pirate.” The gun tracked him. “But it won’t work.”
Shit! He’d almost had her, she’d almost been as much his as he could ever hope for. Maybe she still could be. Maybe there was a way out of this, for both of them. “Get me to the Newquay and I’ll fire the signal. They’ll stop.”
“Then what?” She glared at him suspiciously, and her finger tightened on the trigger, but she hesitated, and he took heart from that.
“Then you’re the poor, frightened captive of the pirates that kidnapped you, and we get you a hostage against your safe passage.”
“I already have two. You and Matthew.”
“We won’t get you far. Wagstaff won’t give two shits if he gets your head. What you need is an admiral. Play the lady one more time and you can have him. Safe passage, maybe even a hefty ransom.”
“I don’t think—” Another roar, and this time part of the figurehead blew into splinters. She looked round wildly. She couldn’t be sure who to trust, he could see that plain on her face.
“You have to trust me.” Though he’d hardly earned it.
Her lips twisted bitterly. “I did. That’s why we’re in this bloody mess. Why trust you now? I’d be better off putting you in the brig.”
“Because I’m sunk—as much as you, maybe even more. If this doesn’t work, we’re both dead.” Cannon roared, close enough that they both ducked against the sound, against the blast of splinters. “There’s no time, Catherine. Give me the Newquay. Let me fire the signal. I’ll get you out of here. Safe, you and yours.”
Another navy frigate drifted out of the smoke. Catherine’s gaze darted to and fro as she thought, then she nodded tersely to two of her crew. “Get him over there, quick smart. Now! Have him fire that signal, or shoot him dead.” She turned to Paul. “If you get us out safe, you’ll get your precious Newquay back. I owe you that.” Her jaw tightened, and she stared at him intently, looking for regret, perhaps. Or wondering just how far to trust him. “If not, I’ll shoot you myself. I owe you that too, for this slaughter. What happened to the three days grace you promised me?”
“Wagstaff changed his—”
“It doesn’t matter. My men are dead. Keeping the rest alive, that’s what matters.” She turned away and began shouting orders as her crew hustled him toward the rail and the Newquay that lay in grappling range off the port rail.
Catherine shouted out her orders to her crew and tried to revel in the danger, but her mind was only half on it. The other half listened for the signal shot, wondering whether she could trust Paul. Oh, she’d given her crew orders to shoot him, but there was plenty he could do. If he didn’t signal, they were lost, caught like rats in a pipe. The navy frigate was firing all guns now, and she couldn’t return fire, not if they were to believe the signal “All pirates dead or captured”. She was sunk. Far outgunned, out-manoeuvred. Out of time. And she’d thought she could trust what he’d said.
The Newquay fired her signal. Catherine couldn’t suppress a cautious smile. The navy ship stopped firing, but the ratings were ready at the rail. She’d best get below. Her smile faded as she ran down the stairs. His plan, whatever it was, might save her and her crewmates’ lives, but she and Paul would still be on opposite sides. There was no way to reconcile his life with hers, no way she could allow herself to feel for him. Now, though she was loath to admit it, she wanted to. She just dared not risk all that had happened before.
A series of thuds above told her she didn’t have much time. The navy were aboard. Aboard her ship. She’d long ago set up a plan for such an eventuality, and the crew knew what to do. The plan she’d drilled them in was for the open sea though, not for quite this situation. Some of them might get away with pretending they were hostages like her, or making to be ratings. She’d had the foresight to make sure they all dressed in a similar fashion to navy lads, in clothes she’d ransacked from the ships they’d stolen, but some would have to play pirate, and if Paul didn’t follow through, they were all dead.
It was a big risk she took, a huge one. So why was she taking it? She flew into her quarters and grabbed for the bloodied shift, the one with the torn hem. It smelled of him, of Paul. She couldn’t think of that now. She got herself changed and ran for the brig. With a curt order to the crew to take Matthew out and gag him somewhere, she shut the brig door after her. Lady Harcourt. That’s who she was. Lady Harcourt, who’d been a prisoner all this time. Who’d known who knew what indignities. Another series of thuds, this time from the Newquay side.
Paul’s voice boomed out above the others. “The admiral wants them all alive, to hang them as example. Put them all in the brig. I’ve enough men here to take these ships in.”
Was this his plan to save them? Or to save his own neck, and maybe his career in the navy? She straightened the shift and tried not to hope too much.
Paul stood on the deck of the Newquay as dawn made grey ghosts of the crew, the pirates dressed in clothes they’d stashed for just such a thing. Smoke still clung to the waves, but the light was clear enough as they moved out of the narrow mouth of the bay.
“Run up a signal. Pirates dead or captured, one prisoner rescued. Admiral’s presence requested urgently.”
“Aye, sir.” The rating eyed him warily and ran to run up the signal. It wasn’t long before the answering signal came: “Stand by for admiral”.
Paul smiled to himself and went forward to meet Wagstaff’s longboat. His bellow floated up from the water as he puffed his way aboard.
“So, you got them, eh? Might go a long way toward seeing that court-martial isn’t such a bad affair for you. A long way. So, what’s the urgency?”
“Lady Harcourt, sir. She’s, well, not so good, to be honest, sir. And she was asking for you. I thought it best to—”
“Ah, the delectable Lady Harcourt. Amazing she’s still
alive. Must have been a terrible time for her. Of course I’ll see her, of course. Can’t expect her to come to me, after that. Was she—?”
“Couldn’t say, sir,” Paul said, leading the way to his quarters. “Shocked, of course, and quite drunk I’m afraid, poor woman. I didn’t stop her. I thought it might help calm her, a shot or two of brandy.”
“Calm us all, after this night.”
Paul opened the door, ushered Wagstaff through and shut it in the face of the officer the admiral had brought with him. “I expect I’ve some left, if you’d care for one?”
Wagstaff stared at Catherine, who sat hunched in a chair at the far end of the room, still in the bloodied shift. She’d barely spoken to Paul, aloof and wary. When he’d tried to speak to her, she’d glared at him with such ferocity he’d kept quiet for now. He couldn’t blame her. She didn’t trust him, and with good reason. Or she didn’t trust him yet. He aimed to change that, to do everything he could to show her he’d meant every word he’d said on the deck of the Wicked Lady.
Paul handed Wagstaff a glass of brandy and watched attentively as the admiral took a good mouthful and went to Catherine.
“My dear Catherine, this must have been awful for you. Not to worry, you can watch them all hang once we’re home. Paul, they tell me you captured the pirate captain? And Catherine—couldn’t you have found the poor woman some clothes? She’s half decent, and cold as the grave.”