For a moment, he lost his stern look. “Some say Atlantis was utopia, Lady Sara. And that’s what we hope to create. Utopia.”
“A utopia where men have all the choices and women have none.”
“I’m offering them a choice.”
“Could we have two weeks, perhaps?”
His expression hardened. “One week. Take it or leave it. Either way, your women will take husbands. I’m giving up a great deal by letting the women make the choice instead of the men. The men will grumble about it.”
“And what if a woman chooses not to marry?”
“That’s not a choice.” He tucked his thumbs under his wide leather belt with its strange-looking buckle. “At the end of one week, if a woman hasn’t chosen a husband, one will be chosen for her.”
“Thank goodness we’re not bargaining over anything important,” she snapped. “I’ll have to speak to the women first, of course. I can’t make such a decision for them.”
“Of course.” Moving to the desk, he settled his hips against it and crossed his legs at the ankles. “I hope this means an end to the ladies’ caterwauling.”
The words were a command. She shrugged. “If they agree to your terms, I suppose it does.” Smoothing her skirts down with a clammy hand, she said, “May I go now, Captain Horn, and present your offer to them?”
“Certainly. I’ll give you an hour. Then I’ll send Barnaby for your answer.”
She turned to the door, relieved to finally escape his disturbing presence.
But as she opened it, he said, “One more thing, Lady Sara.”
She twisted her head to look at him. “Yes?”
“In case you thought otherwise, this offer refers to all the women on this ship. That includes you. You have one week to choose a husband from among my men.” He paused, a wicked grin crossing his face as he swept his gaze down over her lips, her throat…her waist and hips. “Or I’ll take great delight in choosing one for you.”
Chapter 6
Oh, I command a sturdy band
Of pirates bold and free.
No laws I own, my ship’s my throne,
My kingdom is the sea.
—R. B. DAWSON
“THE PIRATE OF THE ISLE”
Captain Horn’s words rang in Sara’s ears as she hurried through the saloon and out onto the deck. That includes you. What a beast! She’d avoided marriage for five years because she couldn’t find the right man, and now he thought he could hand her over to any old scoundrel he picked for her!
Squinting in the brilliant sunshine, she hastened across the deck to the hatch that led down to the hold. He could just forget it! She would never let him shackle her to some foul pirate simply because he ordained it!
She bent to open the hatch, and a young pirate with cropped hair rushed to her side. “Let me help you, miss,” he said as he unlatched it, then opened it for her.
The courtly action took her completely aback. When she stared at him in astonishment, he added, “I hope the ladies are comfortable below. If they need anything, anything at all, you tell me and I’ll see that they get it.”
Although it was hard to stay irate in the face of such cordiality, she was still smarting from her encounter with Captain Horn. Such appearances of concern didn’t fool her. “The only thing the ladies need right now is to be set free. Will you do that for us?” When he colored and mumbled that only the captain could do that, she snapped, “Then you’re of no help to us at all,” and descended the stairs, leaving him to close the hatch above her.
The air of the hold was thick with the sounds and smells of frightened women and children. Although the pirate ship was smaller than the Chastity, the hold was bigger and there were no constraining bars. Still, without berths stacked up along the walls, the women were forced to share the bedrolls that had apparently been laid on the floor for the “cargo” the pirates had expected to accumulate in the Cape Verde Islands. At least there was more light in the hold of the Satyr than there had been in the Chastity, thanks to the lanterns lining the walls and filling the ship’s belly with the acrid smell of burning oil.
As soon as the women spotted her, they leapt off their bedrolls and rushed to the stairs.
“What’re they goin’ to do with us?” Queenie demanded.
“How long do we have to stay down here?” asked another woman, while one of the children clamored to be fed and another cried about being thirsty.
“I don’t know when they’re going to let us above decks,” she answered as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “But I do know what they’re planning to do with us. That’s what the captain wants me to speak to all of you about.”
Amid the shuffling of feet and the complaints of the children, she described the bargain she’d made with the captain, explaining about Atlantis Island and what the pirates wanted. By the time she finished, the women had fallen completely silent. Clearly they didn’t know what to make of the captain’s offer. She certainly didn’t.
After a few moments, Louisa pushed her way through the crowd. Her blond hair hung in a tangled mass and her face was white as bleached ivory. “Do you mean to say that those men plan to force us to marry and then keep us captive on some remote island for the rest of our lives?” There was a note of panic in her voice. “We can never return to England?”
“Who gives a bloody farthing about returning to England?” Queenie retorted before Sara could answer. “Ain’t nothin’ for any of us back there. Besides, if we’d made it to New South Wales, we’d have been stranded there, too. You got to pay yer own passage back to England once yer sentence is up, and that ain’t likely to happen, seein’ as how it costs a bloody fortune to get back.”
“But I have family in England, Queenie,” one of the younger women cried. “I’ve got my ma to worry about. She’s all alone—”
Sara clapped her hands for silence. “I know this sounds as dreadful to you as it does to me. But Captain Horn is quite determined to keep us, I’m afraid. He’s already made his only concession by allowing us to pick the men we agree to marry.”
“Us?” Louisa clipped out. A disbelieving expression crossed her face. “He says you must marry as well, and you a lady?”
“I’m not a lady. The Earl of Blackmore is only my stepbrother. But yes, he says I must marry, too.” Catching onto the stairs as the ship dipped, Sara added, “We’re all in this together. At the end of one week, either we choose husbands from among the pirates, or Captain Horn will choose husbands for us. We can make Atlantis our home or let it be our prison. It’s up to us. He will give us no other alternative.”
“It don’t sound so awful,” Ann piped up. “We’ll have a man to care for and maybe children—”
“Not all of us crave a man and children to care for, Annie,” Louisa snapped. “Some of us would just as soon do without.”
“What about those of us who don’t attract a husband?” a voice called out from behind the rest. Sara looked to where Jillian, a woman of about sixty, sat resting on a sealed barrel of drinking water. “We ain’t all young, y’know,” she added. “There’s some of us as won’t be much of an attraction for them pirates.”
“That’s true.” Sara frowned. She hadn’t thought of that. There were three women among them who were well beyond child-bearing age. Somehow she didn’t think the pirates, most of whom seemed no older than forty, would want to take a grandmother for a wife.
“And what if we ain’t so pretty?” asked a young woman whose face had been scarred by smallpox. “What if no man wants us?”
Sara’s frown deepened. Curse Captain Horn and his blithe assumptions. His beastly plan had a number of large holes in it. He’d said that the men would court the women, but if she knew anything about men, they would compete for the affections of the prettiest ones and ignore the others. Then what? After the pretty ones had chosen husbands, would he force the rest of the men to marry women they didn’t want? And what about the women with two or three children? Did he expect his pirates to t
ake whole families on? What if they refused? What would become of the children?
“I think Captain Horn hasn’t considered all the possibilities,” she told them. He might rail against England’s class system, but he obviously knew nothing about planning a society himself. “It appears I must have another discussion with our good captain about all these things. Perhaps when he understands the complexity of the situation, he’ll realize he can’t expect us to agree to his plan.”
Everyone nodded their assent, though some muttered that they’d just as soon have a pirate for a husband as a colonist. It was clear the women were divided on the subject of choosing husbands.
“For my own part,” Queenie said, “I don’t want to be tied down to just one man when there’s an island full for the takin’.”
When the others burst into laughter, Sara bit back a smile. It would be interesting to see how Captain Horn would handle incorrigible “soiled doves” like Queenie. An island full of convicts and pirates wasn’t likely to be the utopia he envisioned. And maybe once the scoundrel realized that matters could hardly work out to his satisfaction, he’d be reasonable.
But somehow she doubted it.
Gideon sat at his desk with a whetstone, sharpening his saber. His hand slipped and he nicked a finger. Cursing, he wiped the blood on his leather vest. It was dangerous to have a blade in his hand when Sara Willis was on his mind.
Laying the saber in his lap, he stared blankly at the door. He couldn’t believe he’d let her rattle him so badly. Confound the woman! She was an albatross about his neck. If it weren’t for her, his conscience would be easy about taking the convict women from the Chastity. The women would be happy, he and his men would be happy, and everything would be just fine.
If it weren’t for Miss Willis. Barnaby was right: they should have left the blasted woman on the Chastity. Then her brother—no, her stepbrother—could have dealt with her as he saw fit.
With a curse, Gideon tossed the whetstone onto his desk. What kind of brother was the man, anyway, to let a woman like her go to sea with a lot of convict women? The Earl of Blackmore ought to be horsewhipped. Gideon would never have let any sister of his—or even a stepsister, for that matter—do such a fool thing, and certainly not one who was gently bred.
He groaned. Now she had him thinking like a blasted Englishman. It didn’t matter that she was gently bred. She was no better than any of those convict women, and she deserved no better treatment than the rest.
Besides, it wasn’t as if she were defenseless, not with that sharp tongue of hers. But he’d make her toe the line, even if he had to stop up her mouth with a gag to quiet her.
Her mouth. God help him, he could think of better ways to stop up that one’s mouth…more pleasurable ways. For just a second, he let himself imagine what it would be like to kiss those impudent lips, to feel them part beneath his and—
There was a knock at the door, and he started, dragging his thoughts away from the delectable Miss Willis with a groan. “Come in,” he growled as he took up the whetstone once more.
Barnaby entered with another of Gideon’s men, and between them they dragged a mouse of a seaman whom he didn’t recognize. “We found this one hiding in the longboat, captain.” Barnaby thrust the man forward none too gently. “We think he came from the Chastity.”
Gideon cast the man a stern glance. Without saying anything, he began once more to sharpen his saber, watching as the man paled. He stroked the saber’s already razor-sharp blade with the whetstone, letting the snick of stone against steel echo in the cabin several times before he spoke. “Pray tell me,” he said calmly, “who are you, and what are you doing aboard my ship?”
Although the man’s hands shook, his gaze didn’t waver from Gideon’s. “My name’s Peter Hargraves, sir. I sneaked aboard while you were havin’ the women moved to the Satyr. I…I want to be a pirate sir.”
Another seeker for riches. “And why would you want that? It’s not an easy life, you know. You have to work hard for the gold, and do some unsavory things.”
Hargraves looked a little ill, but he stood straighter. “Well, sir…um…the truth is, I got little choice. I’d been plannin’ to go to New South Wales to make my fortune, but you put a stop to that. I can’t return to England, so I stowed away.”
At least he was forthright. Gideon continued to sharpen his blade. “And why can’t you return to England?”
The tips of Hargraves’s prominent ears reddened. “I ran away to sea to escape the hangman, sir. I killed a man. I can’t go back there now.”
I can’t go back there now. There was a ring of truth to those words. But the rest of it…could the man be lying? Although his story seemed likely enough, there was something in Hargraves’s manner that made Gideon think he wasn’t telling the whole truth.
Then again, most of Gideon’s men had secrets. That was why they’d taken their chances with piracy. And no seaman would stow away aboard a pirate ship unless he were desperate.
Gideon paused in sharpening his blade to survey the man with a critical eye. So he wanted to join the pirates, did he? He was small, but looked sturdy enough. He’d probably be good at climbing the rigging. But that skill wouldn’t help Gideon, not anymore. “Tell me, Peter Hargraves, what do you know about farming?”
Hargraves stared at Gideon as if he’d gone mad. “Farmin’, sir?”
“Yes, farming,” Gideon retorted impatiently. “Or carpentry, or brickmaking. What do you know of those things?”
Hargraves glanced at Barnaby, who merely said, “Answer the captain, man.”
“I…I don’t know nothin’ about them. I’m a sailor, sir, and a good one, too.” When Gideon scowled, he hastened to add, “And I’m a right fierce fighter. I don’t look it, I know, but I can put a man down who’s twice my size.”
Gideon’s scowl only deepened. “I won’t need good fighters or sailors once we reach our destination, so you’re of no use to me. Barnaby, put him in chains until—”
“I know how to butcher and dress an animal!” Hargraves burst out.
Gideon set down the saber and the whetstone and cast the sailor a skeptical look. “Do you? Could you skin a pig and preserve it?”
“Aye.” Hargraves was breathing heavily now. “My father was a butcher. Taught me everythin’ he knew. I went to sea after he lost his shop.”
A butcher. They could use a butcher on Atlantis. If the man was telling the truth. Still, it was worth the gamble to have a competent butcher in their midst. “I tell you what, Englishman. You may join my crew for as long as it takes us to sail to our destination.” When Hargraves started to thank him, he held up a hand. “But you’ll have to prove you’re worth keeping beyond that. I’ll tolerate no laziness. If you’ve got some fool idea that pirates are sluggards, you’re wrong. If we don’t get a good day’s work out of you, we’ll maroon you.”
He ignored Barnaby’s raised eyebrow. They’d never marooned anybody before, even the English nobles they hated, but Gideon meant to put the fear of God into the man. Maybe Hargraves would think twice the next time he thought to stow away aboard a pirate ship.
“Put him to sanding the deck,” Gideon ordered, then picked up his saber once more.
But his first mate didn’t move. “Captain?”
“Yes?” Gideon retorted without looking up.
“It’s nearing mealtime. What are we to do about feeding the women?”
The women. They’d been so quiet for the past hour, Gideon had almost forgotten about them. “We brought on enough food to feed them. Have Silas prepare a meal for them and the children, of course.”
“But shall we let them up on deck to eat?” Barnaby asked.
When Gideon glanced up, he noticed that Hargraves was listening intently to their conversation. Perhaps the man hadn’t been quite honest about his reasons for stowing away. Perhaps he had a sweetheart among the women. Well, that was an innocuous enough reason for his coming aboard, and Gideon couldn’t blame him for it.
/> “No, not just yet. I have some things to discuss with the men before the women are allowed on deck.”
“What sort of things?” Barnaby asked.
Gideon glared at his first mate. “You’ll find out soon enough.” He drew out his pocket watch and looked at it. An hour had passed since he’d last spoken to Miss Willis. It was time to hear whether the women had accepted his offer or not. “But bring Miss Willis back here. She and I have to finish our discussion.”
Though Barnaby cast him a questioning look, he ignored it. He hadn’t yet told the others about the offer he’d made the women. He didn’t want to endure his men’s groans and complaints until he was sure the women were agreeable.
Barnaby and his fellow pirate left, taking Hargraves with them, but still Gideon sat staring into space. He hadn’t considered how difficult it would be to tell the men that he was giving the women a choice. What demon had come over him to let him suggest such a thing? It wasn’t as if these women expected such privileges. In New South Wales, they’d have had no choices at all, or very little.
Opening a desk drawer, he dug around in the bottom until he found a little-used flask of rum he kept there for when he had the ague. He seldom drank hard liquor for any reason, but today it was warranted. He took a sip, coughed, then took another. A few more sips and his anger evened out a fraction.
So what if he’d given the women a choice? He wanted them to be happy. If they were happy, they’d do as they were told and add their skills to those of his men. Women were needed on Atlantis, not just to provide an outlet for the men’s sexual urges, but to perform other tasks as well—cooking and weaving and gardening, things his men knew nothing about. And if giving the women a little freedom of choice made them more amenable to their situation, he’d do it. The men would understand once he explained it to them that way. Certainly he’d prefer that his own wife, whomever he chose, married him of her own free will.
A brief knock sounded at the door. Thrusting the rum flask into the drawer, he settled back in his seat and called out, “Come in.”
The Pirate Lord Page 8