Fortune's Bride

by French, Judith E.

  “Caroline, I wish it could be otherwise with us.” His gray eyes beseeched her.

  “No,” she said firmly, pulling her hand back. “It’s better for us both, if we—”

  “Have it your way,” he answered frostily. Turning on his heel he walked away, leaving her to ascend the wide staircase alone.

  The sound of splintering wood and the shrill terror of Pilar’s screams woke Caroline from her sleep. She sat up in the wide poster bed, heart thudding wildly. Jeremy was whimpering. By moonlight, she could see that he was sitting up in the cradle with his arms outstretched for someone to pick him up.

  “Amanda? Amanda, are you here?” she called.

  Glass shattered downstairs, and she heard the heavy tread of men’s boots in the entrance hall. Pilar shrieked again. Her cry was cut short by the unmistakable roar of a musket.

  Caroline’s door banged open, and terror spilled through her body. She leaped out of bed and stood between the cradle and the shadowy male figure in the doorway.

  “Caroline!”

  Her knees went weak with relief. “Garrett. I’m here.”

  “We’re under attack. Come with me. Now!”

  Grabbing up Jeremy, she dashed to the hearth and took down a fencing foil that hung over the mantel. “Where do we go?” she asked. From below came the crash of overturned furniture, the sounds of breaking china, and men’s coarse laughter.

  “Quick! Our room,” Garrett said. “We can’t use the stairs.”

  He grabbed her arm and dragged her into the hall. Pounding feet on the steps made her twist around. The window at the head of the staircase illuminated the face of a bare-chested stranger with an upraised cutlass in his hand. Garrett whirled and fired his pistol. The explosion momentarily deafened Caroline. The baby began to howl and kick. She didn’t wait to see if Garrett had hit his target, but kept running down the passageway with the terrified baby.

  Garrett tore open the door to their room. “Inside, quick,” he said. She obeyed without question, and he pushed an upright chest-on-chest in front of the door and went to the corner of the room for his musket. Jeremy wailed in total panic.

  Caroline put the baby on her shoulder and began to pat his back. “Shhh,” she soothed. “Shhh.”

  “Can’t you keep him quiet?” Garrett hissed as he dumped a measure of powder into his pistol barrel and tamped down wadding and a ball.

  Jeremy shrieked louder.

  “He’s scared. If you think you can do any better than me, you take him,” she replied hotly. A door crashed open down the hall. She heard a shout, then another shot, much closer.

  “The balcony,” Garrett whispered. “We can’t let them trap us in here.”

  “I can’t jump two stories with a baby.”

  “I didn’t say you had to. Get out on the damned balcony.” He slung a powder horn over one shoulder and strapped on a sword.

  She stumbled over a footstool in the darkness.

  “Caroline!”

  Her hand closed on one of Garrett’s shirts, hanging over the back of a chair. Quickly, she knotted the shirt around the squirming baby’s chest, then tied the arms together to make a sling.

  “In here!” a man shouted. Something heavy struck the bedroom door. Wood cracked and the door buckled.

  “Caroline, go!” Garrett ordered.

  She turned the handle on the French doors.

  “Careful,” Garrett warned. “I don’t know how many of them are outside.” Then he raised his musket and fired through the splintered doorway. A man trying to force his way in screamed and fell.

  Caroline dropped to her hands and knees and crawled out onto the porch as she heard a lead ball pierce the paneled door and ricochet around the room. There was more shouting and an ax split the door.

  Garrett fired his pistol in the general direction of the pirates, then followed her onto the balcony. “Put your arms around my neck,” he said. “I’m going to lower myself from the porch and drop.”

  “You’re crazy,” she said.

  “Got any better ideas?”

  “We could go up on the roof.”

  “And be trapped up there if they fire the house?”

  “Who is it?”

  “How the hell do I know? Now shut up and put your arms around my neck and hold on.”

  “Can’t you jump to a tree?”

  “With you and that squalling brat on my back? What do you think I am?”

  “If I was a man—”

  “Well, you’re not. So shut up and do as I tell you!”

  The chest-on-chest toppled to the floor with a crash, and Caroline flung herself onto Garrett’s back and held on with a death grip. Jeremy dangled from her side, sobbing loudly and struggling to get free.

  “Get rid of that foil,” Garrett said. “You’ll kill us both.” She tossed it over the porch railing.

  “Great! Now I’ll land on the friggin’ thing,” he said as he lowered himself down over the decorative woodwork with Caroline clinging to his back.

  Her heart rose in her throat as Garrett swung from the landing, then dropped. They hit the ground hard, and she and Jeremy rolled away. Almost instantly, even before she’d had time to catch her breath, a barrel-chested man with a beard ran toward them from the trees. A flintlock flared in his hand.

  She staggered up and began to run, snatching up her foil as she fled. She saw Garrett launch himself at the bearded man. He raised his empty pistol and brought the long barrel down to smash against Garrett’s head. Garrett grabbed his wrist and the two began to struggle.

  Caroline saw two men coming over the railing of the second-floor porch. She dodged a sailor rushing at her from the front entrance steps, ran toward Garrett, and drove the point of her foil into his assailant’s shoulder.

  The bearded man howled and fell back, and she and Garrett dashed for the trees with musket balls flying over their heads. They ran a few hundred yards into the jungle, changed direction, and crawled into a thicket of overgrown vines. Garrett pushed her down flat on the ground. “Keep Jeremy quiet,” he warned. He began to load his pistol again.

  She put her hand over the baby’s mouth, but he continued to whimper. “I can’t,” she said.

  “I’ll distract them. I want you to crawl out and—”

  “No. They’ll kill you. They won’t kill me. I’m a woman with a baby.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Caroline. There are worse things for a woman than death.” His hand closed around her shoulder and gripped so tightly that she felt his fingers dig into her flesh. “I want you to back out of this thicket and run like hell. Hide in the jungle, far enough from the house that they can’t find you. Find water and follow it up the mountain. Now go!” He gave her a shove, and he crawled out and ran in the opposite direction.

  She heard Garrett’s flintlock go off, and she dug her way out from under a vine and ran as fast as she could with Jeremy clutched against her breasts. Suddenly, a man blocked her path.

  “What ’ave we here?” he cried.

  Caroline shifted the sling to her shoulder. Ignoring the baby’s howling, she grasped her foil in her hand and backed up a few steps into the shadows of the trees.

  “Where to so fast, wench?” He fumbled with the button fly of his wide-legged trousers. “’Ow’d ye like to ’ave a taste of ripe beef afore the crew—”

  She lunged forward and executed a perfect direct riposte, plunging the point of the foil into the left side of the scoundrel’s chest. He grabbed the naked blade with both hands and fell back onto the ground. An awful bubbling sound came from his throat, and his death cry was drowned in a tide of blood.

  Caroline seized the hilt and tugged, but the foil was caught between muscle and bone. She shuddered, then shut her eyes, put her foot on the dying man’s chest, and yanked the sword free.

  “What’s this?” another man shouted. He burst out of the trees and ran toward her swinging a boarding ax. She gasped in fear as the moonlight glinted on the steel blade.

  A branch s
napped behind her, and she whipped her head around to see a second attacker in the shadows—a giant of a man—carrying a machete. She raised her weapon to defend herself, knowing full well that against two of them she had no chance. “Stay back!” she warned.

  The ax man laughed and lifted his terrible weapon over his head. The giant took one great leap forward and brought his machete down across the other man’s neck. He fell mortally wounded. The baby whimpered and Caroline turned to run.

  “Wait! Miss Caroline! It’s me, Noah,” came the frantic whisper from the big man with the machete.

  She sagged with relief at the familiar voice. “Thank God, it’s you.” She was numb with fright, too terrified for tears. “Where’s Amanda? Is she safe?”

  “Aye. I hid her in the cave. She’s hell-bent on gettin’ to this babe of hers.” Noah wiped his machete on the grass and reached for Jeremy. “Give me the boy. He’s heavy for you to carry.”

  “Garrett’s back there somewhere,” Caroline said. “We climbed down from the porch and—”

  “Shhh,” Noah warned.

  Harsh voices came from the direction of the house.

  “I don’t know who they are,” Caroline whispered.

  “Pirates, most likely,” he said. He nudged the first dead man with his foot. “You kill this one by yourself?”

  Caroline nodded.

  Noah laughed softly. “Guess he didn’t know what kinda woman he was facin’.”

  “I think they killed Pilar and Angus,” she said.

  “We got to go. There’s no time for weepin’ over the dead.”

  “But Garrett—”

  “Garrett will give good account of hisself—never you fear, miss. I’d be more worried about what I’d say to him, did I let you come to harm, now that I found ye.”

  “Caroline Talbot!” Her name echoed through the trees. “Caroline Talbot! Come out or you’ll carry your husband’s head to his grave in a basket!”

  “What’s that?” she asked Noah. The voice was strange, almost inhuman.

  “Speakin’ trumpet,” the black man replied. “Masters use ’em on ships. They carry a man’s voice in the wind.”

  Or through the jungle, she thought. What had he said? They had Garrett?

  “Come out, woman! This is your last chance!”

  Noah tugged at her arm. “Don’t listen to them. It’s a trick. Garrett will be all right.”

  Caroline handed him her foil. “Take this,” she said. “Take it, and get Jeremy safely away from here. You look after Jeremy and Amanda.”

  “I won’t let ye give yourself over to them,” Noah said. “Don’t be a fool. He may be hidin’, or he may be dead. You surrenderin’ yourself won’t help him.”

  “Caroline Talbot!”

  Jeremy began to cry.

  “Run!” Caroline said to Noah. “Quick, before they catch you.” She pulled free and darted back toward the house and Garrett.

  Chapter 22

  Caroline froze for a moment at the edge of the clearing. The jungle was strangely quiet. No night birds shrieked; no small mammals rustled through the undergrowth. The slight breeze was from the mountain, and it carried with the heavy scents of exotic flowers and rotting leaves. She had never felt more alive than she did at this moment—or so dose to dying.

  Kutii’s voice came faintly from the far recesses of her mind. Do you know what you risk?

  “I have to do this—don’t you see?” she whispered. She desperately wanted to protect the spark of life within her womb, but she couldn’t leave Garrett to the mercy of these raiders.

  “Caroline! Don’t listen to him! Run—” Garrett’s shouted warning was cut off abruptly.

  “Don’t hurt him!” she called out. “I’m giving myself cup.”

  Furnishings from the house had been dragged outside onto the lawn and set aflame. The light from the fire illuminated the black-bearded captain standing on the front steps of the manor and his motley band of hard-faced followers. There was no doubt in Caroline’s mind as to who the leader was—or that the swarthy devil in the red and gold coat and cocked hat was the man she’d run through with her foil.

  Heart in her throat, she searched frantically for Garrett with her eyes. Then she saw him near the corner of the house, held fast by two burly pirates. “I’m here,” she said. Stepping out of the tangled vines, she stiffened her spine and walked toward the corsair captain with her chin high.

  “Caroline, run!” Garrett cried. One of his captors struck him brutally across the head with the hilt of his sword and he slumped forward, unconscious.

  Caroline held her breath and kept her eyes focused on the commander. He looked as broad as he was tall; the seams of his coat strained with every breath, and the backs of his hands were covered with curling black hair. No doubt he had cloven hooves as well, Caroline thought as she drew closer. His was the evil face of Lucifer himself.

  The thick smoke from the bonfire made her eyes water. The heat from the flames scorched her skin, but the leering stares of the pirate crew seared hotter still. They closed in around her, laughing coarsely and taunting her with filthy, unspeakable threats. She could smell the sour odors of unwashed flesh and stale beer; she could see their bloodshot eyes and green-scummed teeth. She kept walking, determined not to give them the satisfaction of seeing how terrified she was—hoping her thudding heart wouldn’t burst through the bodice of her torn shift.

  They hemmed her in, jeering, bullying. She bit the inside of her mouth until she tasted blood, but she didn’t flinch. Then one wraith of a man with a twisted scar where his nose should have been grabbed her arm and spun her around. She screamed and beat at his face with her fists as he groped for her breasts with blood-encrusted hands. His foul mouth descended on hers, and she nearly fainted from the overwhelming stench. With unbelievable strength in his bony arms, he threw her to the ground and seized the neck of her shift to rip it away.

  Suddenly, her assailant was gone. Through waves of dizziness, she heard an inhuman howl of pain. She struck out at the weight on her chest, realized that it was a hand and six inches of arm, and went cold with shock. She blinked, trying to maintain her grip on sanity, as she realized that the captain stood straddle-legged over her—a bloody cutlass in his hand.

  The hollow-cheeked brigand who’d attacked her was standing six feet away, staring gape-mouthed at the stump of his severed arm.

  “Blast ye for witless dogs!” the black-bearded captain shouted. “Will ye let a fellow crewman bleed to death?”

  Some of the men began to mutter among themselves. One, a Carib Indian, wrenched a flaming chair leg from the fire, while two sailors took hold of the injured man and wrested him to the ground. Caroline turned away as the Indian lowered his glowing torch toward the hemorrhaging wound, but nothing could block out the sound of the injured sailor’s screams.

  Determined not to look at the tortured victim, Caroline concentrated on the small tuft behind the captain’s feet and noticed a gleam of white almost hidden by the tall grass. It was the bone-handled knife she’d seen tucked in the gaunt pirate’s belt, just before he’d pushed her down. Cautiously, her fingers closed around it and pulled it close to the folds of her shift.

  “On your feet!” The captain leaned over Caroline. “Will ye miss the fun?” He took hold of her arm and dragged her up. “Gordo offended ye, did he not?” He raised his voice to a bellow and turned back to his crew. “This crotch-festered hulkscraping laid hands on what is mine,” he bellowed. “He dared to disobey my direct orders.”

  His touch made Caroline’s skin crawl. She shrugged off his grip, keeping her hand holding the knife hidden from sight. Her stomach was turning inside out. Any moment she’d disgrace herself by retching all over his boots. “Hell spawn,” she accused.

  He roared with laughter. “Hell spawn, am I?” He swept off his velvet cocked hat and executed an exaggerated bow, to the delight of his audience. “Captain Matthew Kay, at your service, madame,” he shouted above their raucous catcalls. He
rocked from one foot to the other, still chuckling. “Hell spawn, she calls me. Bold talk for a bride-to-be.”

  Bride-to-be? What in God’s name was he talking about? she wondered. But God had nothing to do with this abomination. He was a lunatic. She glanced back to where she’d last seen Garrett, but he was hidden from view by two ugly brutes.

  Like a pack of stray dogs circling prey, the ruffians drew closer. Their scarred faces were not so much amused as wary, Caroline decided. They studied their captain with the eyes of men who expected random violence and had seen it many times before.

  Kay ran a hairy hand possessively down her arm and she shuddered with revulsion. Once, in the stable at Fortune’s Gift, she had reached into a barrel for grain and a large black rat had run across her hand. She felt the same way now. “Keep your hands off me,” she snapped. “And release my husband at once.”

  “Your husband?” Kay flashed crooked yellow teeth as he smiled. Then he laughed. “Not for long. Osprey will be gelded and gutted by sunrise, and you’ll be a widow again.” He winked at her. “But not for long.”

  “What do you want of us?” she demanded. “We haven’t done anything to you.” She wondered if she had the strength to drive the small knife into his black heart before they killed her.

  “Haven’t you?” Kay answered. “Haven’t you? But first things first.” His scowling gaze moved over his follower. “Gordo disobeyed his captain,” Kay continued mockingly. “He tried to take what was mine. Thus, I struck off the offending hand that tried to steal from me.” He smiled, then the piggish eyes narrowed slyly. “But he touched my bride-to-be with both hands, did he not?”

  “Aye!” shouted a wiry mulatto in knee-high boots and Scots kilt. “Both hands!”

  Caroline’s throat constricted. This was a nightmare of hell—it must be. She’d wake in her own bed and find Amanda and the baby beside her. “No . . .” she uttered softly. “Don’t do this.”

  “Shall one hand pay the price of mutiny and the other go free?” Kay demanded. “Or shall we teach him the cost of disobeying Red Hands Kay?”

  “Both hands! Both hands!” cried a villain in a striped bandanna.