by Susan Grant
She followed, mute and outwardly compliant, while her thoughts raced ahead at Mach three.
A bearded man sporting a glittering gold tooth hopped down from the rigging, blocking their path. “Where ya keepin’ our precious cargo?”
“Cap’n’s quarters.” Gibbons added pointedly, “Cap’n’s orders.”
The man with the black beard licked his lips, eyeing her hungrily. “Wants her close by, does he? How close? She’ll be worth nothin’ to us unless he keeps her in original condition.”
Carly recoiled. The man resembled a child’s make-believe pirate, from the sword dangling at his hip to the red bandanna on his head. But instinct warned her that he was no storybook character; he radiated as much malice as he did the odor of cheap booze.
Gibbons shoved past, and she was more than happy to follow him into the quarters she’d just fled.
He pointed to a shirt, pants, and shoes on the bedside table. “The trunks with your gowns went down with the ship. Young Theo lent you these.”
Silent, Carly shoved her hands into her pockets and flexed her tingling fingers. She would not change out of her flight suit. She was a captured pilot. She’d stay dressed as she was, the way she was taught in prisoner-of-war training.
Mistaking her reluctance for repugnance, Gibbons apologized.” ’Tis the best we can do, milady. We’re not accustomed to having ladies aboard the Phoenix.” The creases around his startling green eyes deepened. “No proper ladies, that is.”
Gibbons struck her as fatherly and friendly. Maybe he’d help her—if she played things right. “The captain and I have had a small misunderstanding,” she said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I used your radio. It’ll only take a minute.”
“Have you a fever? Aye, but I knew you’d sicken, dressed the way you are.” He covered her forehead with his huge cool, dry palm.
She jerked away. “Where’s your phone?”
His expression of concern dissolved into pity. “Once we’re underway, the cap’n will answer your questions. Sir Andrew’s a clever one, all right.”
His use of her captor’s title pricked her hatred of the wealthy and their vanity. “Ah, yes. Mr. Aristocrat.”
“Aye, he’s a duke’s son, all right. But the title he gained from the war, not blood.”
She perked up. Any information might help the navy with Andrew’s prosecution. “The Gulf War?”
Gibbons shook his head. “Not against your Jackson in the Gulf. Cap’n fought in the Atlantic, and not a battle lost. Get your rest now, milady. Good night.”
Gibbons slid the bolt into place.
So much for answers that made sense.
Shaky from exhaustion, Carly yanked off her combat boots and sodden wool socks, placing them in front of the brazier to dry. Two feet away from the stove the heat dwindled into biting dampness, cold enough to see her breath as she paced barefoot over the planked floor.
She’d bailed out of a jet two hundred miles off the coast of Spain, only to be rescued by a mob of seafaring Hell’s Angels. The bizarre interrogation by their eccentric, unpredictable, and incredibly good-looking captain was simply the icing on the cake. “This would be hilarious if it wasn’t so pitiful,” she muttered, pushing aside the curtains to peer outside. Distant lightning pulsed on the horizon, ribbons of blue sky twisting through the clouds. The weather was clearing, which meant she was running out of time.
Nobody could survive for long in these frigid waters. If search-and-rescue didn’t find her soon, they’d figure she had drowned and would call off the search. She’d become another statistic, her entire life reduced to a measly paragraph in the newspapers: Female aviator crashes in storm. Squadronmates mourn at memorial service. No surviving family. . . .
The door in the adjacent room banged open. Frosty air swept into the cabin along with the sound of stomping booted feet. Her heart thudded anew. The last thing she wanted was another round of questions with Mr. Egomaniac.
Carly hunkered down by her bolted door, peeking through the space between the door and the frame. The sour odor of perspiration and dirty, wet wool seeped through the narrow opening. Soundlessly, she unsnapped her thigh pocket, opened the waterproof pouch, and touched her fingertips to the handgun.
“We lost plenty in the storm, Cap’n. But we hauled most of her dowry aboard.”
Black Beard! It was the man from above who had asked where they were keeping her.
“Go on, Booth,” Andrew prompted.
“We’re rich men . . . for awhile,” the pirate boasted. “Gold coins, jewels—thar’s a sapphire the size of a robin’s egg. We tossed the china into the sea but kept the silver.”
“Continue.”
“Thar’s medicine, three crates of oranges—”
“How are our men, Mr. Egan?” Andrew interrupted.
The silver-haired man she guessed was the second-in-command spoke up. “A broken bone or two, bruises. As for the Merryweather, it was a small crew, under a dozen. All perished. If Lady Amanda hadn’t fallen overboard, we’d have lost her, too.”
Andrew’s mouth thinned. “Not how I prefer to do business, Cuddy.”
“Aye, I know.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Did you see what they had her wearin’?” another man asked, cleverly redirecting his captain’s wrath.
The men howled their laughter.
Carly’s cheeks grew hot.
“Why, ’tis the latest thing in Delhi,” the man added.
The pirates laughed harder.
“She was raised there, wasn’t she?”
“Nay,” Cuddy said. “She was born in London, raised in the colonies. America. She accompanied her father and sister to India seven years ago.”
Great. The others believed she was Lady Amanda, too.
“What I find perplexing is that I was told she was still a girl,” Andrew stated, thoughtful. “The chit is easily twenty.”
“A change of pace for the duke, I’d say.”
All but Andrew laughed at Cuddy’s remark. He rolled the handle of his dagger between his palms. “Keep an eye on her. She’s incapable of obeying orders.”
“I’ll watch her,” Cuddy offered. “She’s a pretty thing.”
Andrew frowned as he cleaned his fingernails with the knife. “I expected her to be dark-haired. She’s fair.”
There was a muffled remark and the men laughed.
“She’s warmin’ your sheets, sir?” Booth again. “Plannin’ on havin’ her, then? To see if the duke’s gettin’ his money’s worth?”
“Bed the wench?” Andrew roared with laughter. Wiping his eyes, he said huskily, “Good God. She resembles a drowned cat. Perhaps she’ll improve once dry.”
Carly let out a positively feline hiss, but none of them seemed to have heard. The men rose, said their good nights. Then the door slammed and all was quiet. Andrew exhaled noisily, combed his fingers through his wavy brown hair, and unbuttoned his pants. She caught a glimpse of a lean, muscled torso before averting her eyes.
When she peeked through the crack again, Andrew was dressed in the blue robe. As though he hadn’t a care in the world, he poured a drink from a crystal decanter and sat at his desk to read a book.
The gale continued to howl as the sea thundered against the sides of the ship. Daylight trickled through the curtains and a small dirty window opposite the bed.
Weak from fatigue, Carly crept back to the brazier, her arms heavy, her eyes throbbing. Gingerly, she unzipped her jacket and flight suit, peeling off the protective rubber suit she wore underneath. She had no choice. If she didn’t strip to her underwear, the seawater would rub her skin, giving her sores.
She dragged the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her, scooting close to the dying coals in the brazier.
A clock ticked softly, steadily.
A heartbeat.
Her throat tightened. The sorrow always caught up to her when she was tired, and today was no exception. Tenderly, she smoothed one palm over
her stomach as she curled onto her side, knees drawn to her chin. Oddly, she no longer felt frightened, only alone, very much alone.
“All hands ahoy!”
Shouts and bells woke her. Her eyes flew open. For a moment, her cheek pressed to the cold wood floor, she had no idea where she was. She stood too quickly. Her vision narrowed, and she nearly passed out. “Oh,” she moaned. Her throat was raw, her jaw and neck bruised from the ejection.
More shouts coaxed her to the cloudy, salt-crusted window. The sun was directly overhead. She must have slept for hours.
She spied Andrew, and her pulse quickened. Broad shoulders squared, back straight, he had the air of someone comfortable with command. The crew snapped to his every order as though they wanted to please him. A natural leader. She’d been around long enough to know that men like him were rare. For that, she grudgingly respected him.
A chill draft washed over her bare skin, dousing her with reality: She was dressed in lace underwear on an antique sailboat crewed by biker guys somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
“Oh, shoot.” Hastily, she donned her flight suit, still damp and caked with salt. Her boots were worse. Cold and wet, the leather abraded her blistered toes. She tried the door. Locked.
She perched on the edge of the bed until Gibbons lumbered in a short while later. One green eye was clouded over. Cataracts? The other twinkled with good humor. “Good day, Lady Amanda,” he cheerfully sang out. “Would you be hungry?”
Her stomach growled at the very suggestion. “Yes, I am. I’d like something to eat.”
“I haven’t decided whether I shall feed you or not.”
She jerked her attention to the doorway. Andrew’s imposing frame loomed there, blocking the outside light. Dressed in a blue cutaway coat worn over a vest and shirt with a stand-up collar, he was the image of a regal nineteenth-century sea captain. Though his face was impassive, his eyes glittered like blue ice.
Clasping his hands behind his back, he stepped into the cabin. “Do not feed her, Mr. Gibbons,” Andrew said quietly. “I want her to learn what hunger feels like.”
Incredulous, Carly glanced at Gibbons, desperate to gain some insight into this latest game. The man’s attention was riveted on his captain, something akin to fatherly disappointment on his face.
Andrew circled her in a silent, unnerving inspection, his powerful thigh muscles flexing beneath pants tucked into knee-high boots. The leather creaked with each step he took. “You haven’t known a day of hunger in your short, privileged life. And never will, I fear. Thus, I have taken it upon myself to treat you to the experience.”
The old resentment roared to the surface. The last thing she needed were hunger lessons. Andrew, on the other hand, could use a few. She’d bet he’d never worried whether his school lunch would be his one meal of the day, a meal donated by his classmates’ parents, choked down to the tune of their taunting chants.
She sucked in a steadying breath. “The international laws governing prisoners of war dictate that you supply me with food and water.”
“Prisoner of war? Is that what you think you are?”
Squaring her shoulders, she nodded curtly.
Andrew drew back in surprise. He’d expected tears but had seen none, only a fleeting, haunted vulnerability, now gone. In its place was the unflinching resolve of a fighter facing impossible odds. A position he knew all too well.
A rush of tenderness and respect for Richard’s betrothed caught him off-guard. Recoiling at the unaccustomed sensation, he snapped, “This is most disagreeable behavior, Lady Amanda. You are far too old to cry over milk and biscuits.”
Before she could fire off another volley of nonsense, he turned to his steward. “I’ll see you on the deck, Mr. Gibbons.”
Andrew strolled from the cabin to the deck and headed toward the bow, port side. He’d give the chit an hour or two to ponder her empty belly before having Willoughby prepare her meal. Halfway to his destination, a voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Sir!”
Andrew halted, one brow raised in question. “Yes, Mr. Gibbons?”
“’Tis not right to torture a high-born lady.” Gibbons’s voice carried clear across the deck. Andrew looked around to see who had heard.
“I—”
“The men will not stand for it,” Gibbons went on. “She’s a lady.”
“Mr. Gibbons—”
“No man on this ship shall torture any soul, highborn lady or no,” a voice said. It was Cuddy, who must have heard and come over to join the rather one-sided discussion. “Have you heard a man speak of doing so, Mr. Gibbons?”
“Aye.” Gibbons removed his hat, bowed his head. “The cap’n. He refuses to feed Lady Amanda, though the lass is hungry.”
Andrew rolled his eyes and rested his palm on the ivory hilt of his dagger.
Cuddy looked him over with a good deal of disbelief. “Now, where would Gibbons get such a notion, sir? That’s torture!”
Before Andrew had the chance to reply, a whoop of delight interrupted him. Theo, the cabin boy, shimmied down a mast and landed lightly before them.
“Torture? Have you sighted Lord Paxton’s other vessel?” the boy asked eagerly. “After we sink the ship, will we hang the men or feed them to the sharks?”
Andrew uttered a weary groan. “No one is to be hanged or tortured, Theodore.”
Gibbons brightened. “Ah, I knew you would come to your senses, sir.” He inclined his head toward Theo. “Cap’n intended to torture Lady Amanda.”
Theo’s eyes opened wide.
“Wasn’t going to give the lass any food,” Cuddy chimed in.
Andrew gripped the handle of his dagger with a white-knuckled fist. “I am merely administering discipline, which the chit sorely lacks.”
Gibbons brows drew together in anger. “The lady needs a meal more than she needs discipline.”
“She has eaten today, has she not?” Cuddy inquired.
“She’s a wee bit of a thing,” Gibbons added. “She needs meat on her bones else she’ll blow away with the trades.”
The entire matter had sailed out of control. His sole intent had been to goad the wench.
Andrew sauntered to the railing. From there, he turned and faced his men. “She’s too big for her breeches. A little hunger will do no more than whittle her down to size, so to speak.”
Cuddy threw his head back and laughed.
Unappreciative of his friend’s mirth, Andrew scowled. They’d served on the same ships, fought side by side, caroused and shared countless bottles of spirits. Their years together had given Cuddy the uncanny advantage of being able to read Andrew’s thoughts. He wondered what his friend thought he knew.
Cuddy joined him, standing shoulder to shoulder against the railing. With his thumb, he bumped his tarpaulin hat back on his head and scratched his thatch of prematurely silvered hair. “Go on, feed her, Andrew,” he said under his breath. “Why try to break her spirit? What will that gain you?”
Andrew had no answer. In the space of a single day, the woman had driven him half mad. When he wasn’t aching to shake sense into her daft little head, he was dying to kiss her soundly. “I can hardly wait to dump the infuriating wench in Richard’s lap.”
His steward, cabin boy, and first mate frowned at him.
Damnation. “Is this mutiny, then?”
Their expressions remained unchanged.
Andrew held up his hands in surrender. “Fetch some biscuits and salted beef from Willoughby and feed the woman, then.” Eyes narrowed, he glared at each man in turn. “However, do not forget that she is our cargo. Cargo, gentlemen. With no more rights than the crates of oranges belowdecks. Do I have your complete understanding?”
“Aye-aye,” the men chorused, aiming three crisp salutes in his direction. “Cargo.”
Carly shoved aside the curtains covering the large window that faced the stern. A long, lonely ribbon of foam unfurled to the horizon, a horizon empty of ships . . . below an equally
empty sky. She filled her lungs with sea air scented with wood smoke, exhaling with a groan. Nothing in her training had prepared her for this.
Instinct told her this was no ordinary imprisonment. It smacked of something personal, as though she’d stumbled into the middle of a long and bitter feud.
Between Andrew and someone else. Not her.
Gibbons trudged through the open door into the cabin and set a tray on the bedside table. “Milady, the cap’n wants you to eat.”
At the sight of the biscuits and dried meat, her stomach clenched with hunger. “Nice of him not to starve me.”
“That wasn’t his intent.”
She snorted. “Right.” Anchoring a strip of jerky with her teeth, she tore off a piece and chewed angrily. It tasted as though it had come close to spoiling but had been rescued in time by a heavy dose of salt. Regardless, she was too hungry to question the origins of her first meal in twenty-four hours.
She perched stiffly on the edge of the bed and took another bite. Gibbons watched her, his expression pleasant. A cutlass hung from a leather strap worn over his blue-and-white-striped shirt. Wide-legged canvas trousers covered his boots.
“Question for you, Mr. Gibbons.”
He nodded.
She cleared her throat. “Are you guys . . . pirates?”
“Aye, that’s the way of it, milady.”
She nearly choked. She’d been hoping for some other answer. Any other answer.
The big man’s good eye gleamed. “Cap’n snatched the Phoenix from under their very noses. They’ve been chasing him for three years.”
“Who has?”
“Why, the Royal Navy.”
A groan escaped her. Of all the ships in the Atlantic, she’d hitched a ride on a stolen maritime museum. “Tell Adonis that people are looking for me, and the first port I see, I’m swimming.”
Gibbons chuckled. “Is that what you call the cap’n?”
Oops, she thought, shrugging. Shouldn’t have let that slip.
“Adonis? Have I heard correctly?” asked an all-too-familiar deep voice.