Something stirred in the fathomless depths of his eyes, something hot and inviting, and Cassandra’s pulse quickened. Lowering her head, she placed it on his chest. ‘I believe I told you once that I can swim,’ she reminded him gently, amazed and deeply touched by his concern. She sighed, aware of a pleasurable drift of happiness seeping into her heart.
‘So you did. But I doubt even the strongest swimmer could survive the sea the way it is tonight.’
‘Why are you here? Aren’t you needed on deck?’
‘I was concerned about you.’ Without knowing how it happened, Stuart found himself lying rather than sitting beside her on the bed as her weeping ceased.
Cassandra’s eyes were closed but she could feel him breathing hard against her. His arms were around her and her head was close to his chest where she could feel his heart beating hard. She lay quite still, praying he wouldn’t get up and leave her, as she felt all the demons that he’d aroused inside her when they had first made love hungrily demanding to be satisfied. Her breathing quickened and slowly she raised her face, feeling his lips and breath warm against her wet cheek.
Knowing what would happen if he stayed a moment longer, Stuart thrust her away and stood up, combing his fingers through his hair. ‘This is madness. I must go.’
Quickly Cassandra rose from the bed and stood, blocking his way to the door. Stuart stared at her shimmering form. Fully intending to leave, he tried to slide past her, touching her. It was as though a bolt of lightning had struck them both, a shock that spread through their bodies like ripples on a pond. Stuart could do nothing to avoid their closeness. The fragrance from her body, her hair, drifted about him, settling on his senses, and he knew he was lost.
Cassandra’s restraint broke before Stuart’s did. With a quiet moan she slid her slender arms around his neck and kissed him with all the passion building inside her, pressing herself against him, glorying in the shudder that racked his body as her mouth opened over his, and their lives, already so irretrievably entwined, streamed together in a never-ending tide. Her hold was weak and could have been broken in a second, but Stuart’s heart had been invisibly seduced, making her hold as strong as any of the iron links in the anchor chain.
The roar of the tempest outside went on and was deafening and the body of the ship shuddered and creaked as it was tossed about on the turbulent sea, but, having dragged his beautiful wife on to the bed, Stuart was deaf and insensible to it now, impervious to the consequences should he stay too long.
There was so much loveliness and appeal in the face so close to his that he knew he could not leave her yet. He was impelled by a desire stronger than himself, a desire that had sprung up inside him the moment he had opened the cabin door and seen Cassandra lying on her bed weeping.
Breathing hard, his heart beating wildly against her own as his mouth closed over hers, he was half demented with desire. Cassandra’s slender arms clung to him. His lips were warm and firm on hers, and they became fused together as their bodies were drawn closer by a mutual need.
With all reason slipping away and his control beginning to deteriorate, Stuart was possessed of one thought only: to satisfy his aching need for his wife, a need that had almost driven him insane over the many weeks of separation—a separation of his own making. Quickly he tore away her shift before removing his own clothes and lying beside her, his strong arms holding her to him as his lips devoured her, kissing every inch of her beautiful body stretched beside him, his fingers caressing, stroking and burning her flesh.
Moaning with absolute pleasure at his tender assault on her body, Cassandra threw back her head, closing her eyes and yielding to all the aching pleasures vibrating inside her, pleasures that spread and swelled so much that she thought she would die of them. When his urgent and desperate need became too strong for him to control, when his weight pressed down on her and she found herself crushed beneath his powerful body, she clung to him, the heat of his naked flesh and unconcealed, unbridled passion, overwhelming her.
However briefly he was to be hers, she clasped him to her, loving him with her body, with all her heart and all her soul, yielding willingly, slowly, to the overwhelming crescendo of her love that went surging through her limbs, which were wrapped around him in a frenzy of passion. Their bodies became moulded together, straining, becoming one.
The noise of the storm was challenged by sighs and moans of ecstasy, violent and wonderful, lifting the lovers to heights of indescribable pleasure neither had dreamed of, until at last they felt a bright, shattering bliss and lay spent in each other’s arms.
Cassandra felt Stuart’s body tremble against hers and, opening her eyes, she could see he was looking at her as one awakening from a trance.
Propped on his elbow, he was staring at her stretched out in languid repose beside him, the lingering signs of their lovemaking evident on every inch of her glorious body. How achingly lovely she looked in the dim light, her breasts firm and thrusting and darkly tipped, her skin as soft and smooth as the finest silk. He allowed his eyes a moment to devour her as she lay, relaxed and glowing, with the wild tangle of her hair spilling over the pillows, and her eyes heavy lidded and soft in the gloom of the cabin. Quickly he tore his gaze from her, recollecting himself and the peril his ship was in.
Slipping from the bed, he dressed with haste and, without a word, left her.
Cassandra sighed heavily as she watched him go. With her arms above her head she stretched her naked body, which still throbbed from his touch. Utterly fulfilled, she closed her eyes and, with warmth spreading through her veins, fell to sleep, and not even the ferocity of the storm that continued to rage throughout the night could wake her from the happiness that temporarily freed her from her wretchedness.
When Stuart came up on deck it was as if all hell had broke loose. The night was pitch black and the wind screamed through the rigging. He’d experienced many storms in the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic and the tropical storms in the Caribbean, but nothing like this.
The sea was an angry, heaving mass of white creamy froth, whipped up to a frenzy by hurricane-force winds, the crests and troughs enormous, the circling peaks of the crests crashing and breaking against the ship and falling on to its decks in an avalanche of water. The whole ship was awash and completely exposed to the full blast of the wind. Stuart’s main worry was keeping the vessel afloat, his next the cargo. He prayed the water would not seep into the holds, although, if the storm continued for much longer, he would have to consider throwing overboard some of the heavier guns and provisions to lighten the ship.
Filled with apprehension, he yelled orders through a hatchway to the helmsman controlling the whipstaff on the deck below to hold course, and shouted orders to the crew, who were adjusting ropes with their usual diligence, manning the pumps and baling out the water with buckets.
Nobly the Sea Hawk fought to stay afloat. Each time the huge bulk of the ship went down into a trough, everyone on board thought the huge wall of water all around them would swallow them up. But still they came sweeping up to the top, the forecastle disappearing beneath the black water as she dipped and rose again, spouting water like a gigantic whale from her decks.
At one point there was a loud crack and everyone looked up in absolute dismay to see the top of the foremast come crashing down. Immediately the ship began to steer off course and every man was united in a silent prayer. They battled their way and gallantly fought to keep her afloat and stay before the wind—and to stay alive.
It was not until the faint glimmer of dawn broke on the horizon that the storm abated and the wind died down to a low buffeting. In the silence that ensued, in absolute dismay everyone assessed the colossal damage that had been done to the ship, and it soon became evident that, being forced to run before the wind, they had been driven to the southwest and over a hundred miles off course. In fact, the storm had so completely dispersed the convoy that none of the Sea Hawk’s companions was in sight.
‘How many men have we
lost?’ Stuart enquired of James Randell when he came to stand beside him as he surveyed the damage on the quarterdeck.
‘Four. They must have gone overboard during the storm.’
‘Poor devils.’ Stuart sighed wearily, shoving his hair from his face. ‘Even had they been able to swim they would not have survived in those waters. Order the bosun to hoist what sail is possible, James. With the foremast and the mizzen damaged we won’t be going far until they’ve been repaired. But one thing’s for certain,’ he said, casting an uneasy eye over the large, empty expanse of water towards the distant horizon, ‘we can’t languish in these waters. Without the protection of the convoy it won’t be long before we have every pirate ship in the mid-Atlantic bearing down on us.’
Chapter Ten
Unaware of the ferocity of the storm that had raged throughout the night, Cassandra washed and brushed her hair until it shone before going up on deck, totally unprepared for the devastation that met her eyes. She saw Stuart immediately, bare headed and unshaven. His white shirt and black breeches were somewhat wilted, having been wet and dried on his body several times during the past twenty-four hours. With his hands on his hips, he stood looking up at the damaged foremast with extreme annoyance and consternation.
Seeing Cassandra, he strode towards her. Her face was fresh from a night’s sleep—a night’s sleep that he hadn’t had. He observed there was a strange serenity about her as she came to meet him in a swirl of bright green silk, moving with unconscious grace and a soft smile curving her lips—the time they had spent together at the height of the storm responsible for this transformation. Gazing up at him, she was an innocent temptress, a delight to see after the wretched experiences of the night, but when Stuart remembered how eager he had been to bow to her charms, to forget so easily all that stood between them, he was furious with himself.
Their eyes met and Cassandra flushed beneath his searching gaze, her smile fading as she beheld the hardness on her husband’s taut jaw and the cold glitter in his eyes. This was not the welcome she had hoped for, and the light that had entered her eyes on seeing him went out, for it told her that nothing had changed, despite his moment of weakness earlier, which he clearly regretted.
‘I see you suffer no after-effects of the storm.’ Stuart fixed his stony gaze on the shimmering expanse of water to escape the bewitchment of her wonderful deep blue eyes.
‘No. It must have been severe,’ Cassandra replied, surveying the deck littered with all manner of debris, from buckets and ropes to overturned barrels of tar and torn sheets of canvas.
Stuart jerked his head around and looked at her in absolute amazement. ‘You mean you slept through it?’
She nodded, fighting to hide a wayward smile. ‘I think your visit to my cabin gave me a much-needed tonic, Stuart,’ she said softly, summoning up all her courage to refer to the incident uppermost in both their minds, determined not to let him behave as though nothing had happened.
Stuart’s eyes glared a warning at her gentle reminder, the muscles of his face clenched so tight a nerve in his cheek began to pulse. ‘Forgive me. I quite lost my head, for which I have reproached myself severely. It was a mistake, and I would be grateful not to be reminded of it, Cassandra. You can rest assured that I will not allow my desire for you get the better of me again.’
Dismayed, Cassandra sighed, but she would rather die than admit to him how much their brief reunion had meant to her, and that she had foolishly allowed herself to hope he might have decided to put the past behind them. ‘Very well. But you cannot blame me for thinking your attitude towards me might be softening.’ She expected him to utter some sarcastic jibe, but instead he frowned and looked about him.
‘Forgive me if I don’t indulge in conversation just now. As you can see, there is much to be done. The storm has blown us a hundred miles off course so it’s imperative that we get underway with whatever sail we can hoist. Pirates infest these waters. It’s dangerous to languish too long without the protection of the convoy.’
‘Then at least let me help tend the wounded,’ Cassandra offered, seeing men who had been injured during the storm lying about the deck.
He nodded. ‘Go ahead. I’m sure Mr Patterson will be glad of it.’
Cassandra had just finished tending a young seaman with a broken leg when her attention was drawn to another matter. As usual lookouts were posted fore and aft of the now crippled ship, but it was from the watch at the masthead that the cry of ‘sail on the horizon’ came.
A ship was sighted coming out of the sun on the port bow. All eyes became focused on it and tension was evident in every member of the crew. The distant ship, clear on the horizon, was too far away for them to make out whether it was friend or foe, but all on board the Sea Hawk prayed it was a vessel in the convoy coming to their assistance. Only as it came closer under a full spread of canvas did they see that it was accompanied by two more ships following close in her wake. None of them was a merchantman, and they held their breaths collectively as the evil fate in the shape of a pirate ship moved steadily closer to menace them.
Standing at the port rail watching the approaching vessels become clearer with each mile, Cassandra felt the blood run cold in her veins. The leading vessel she recognised immediately. It was one she had never thought to see again—the Dolphin, her father’s ship, now Drum O’Leary’s, and she had no doubt he would be at the helm.
Instead of feeling a rush of warmth at the impending meeting with her father’s long-time friend, after all that had transpired since their parting at Trinidad, and the change she had undergone with regard to his indefensible profession, Cassandra now regarded him as an enemy.
Recognising the beautifully carved and gilded shape of the Dolphin’s low hull, and the spread and curve of her white canvas, she tried not to let the sentimental memories the ship evoked weaken her resolve to stand firm against its owner. The pirate ship had her colours flying brazenly, a blood-red ensign emblazoned with a death’s head above two cutlasses at the topmast head. Blood red was the preferred colour for pirate flags, its purpose being to instil terror into the hearts of its victims. The white winged ship raced gracefully through the water in a cloud of white foam, running down the wind towards the stricken Sea Hawk as bold and easy as a thoroughbred.
Cassandra shivered, her eyes riveted on the ship. Turning her head, her eyes searched for Stuart. He was close, his body ramrod straight, his expression hard and set, but he wasn’t looking at the ship, he was looking at her, watching her reaction closely, and she realised with a sinking heart that he too had recognised her father’s ship. He approached her slowly, and she felt his presence as menacing as that of the Dolphin’s. His eyes, locked on hers, were mocking and cold.
‘Well, well. Who would have thought it? What a coincidence. Out of the countless predators that roam the world’s oceans it has to be Mr Drum O’Leary who comes upon us in our moment of weakness.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Why the stricken look, Cassandra? Can you not try to look more cheerful on seeing an old friend? Behold, your ship,’ he jeered, with an elaborate flourish of his arm in the Dolphin’s direction, ‘if I am not mistaken.’
‘She is not my ship, Stuart. She belongs to Drum O’Leary, as well you know. I’m surprised—shocked, for I never imagined I would see the Dolphin again. I never wanted to. You must believe that.’
‘I do. But now I think you are about to get a taste of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a pirate ship.’
Cassandra blanched. ‘You mean there will be trouble?’
‘I’m certain of it. To be captured by a pirate ship is a terrifying thing to experience. Prepare yourself to see ruthless savagery. After all, she’s hardly likely to insist on escorting us back to the convoy now, is she?’ he said with grim irony. ‘But worry not, my dear. I’m sure that when the Dolphin overpowers us you will be treated with the utmost chivalry by its captain. As for the rest of us—from past experience we know we cannot expect such leniency.’
As Stua
rt spoke he could see by Cassandra’s deathly pallor that she was afraid of what the outcome might be if there was a fight—and not least for the fact that she was the only woman on board. In all truth, this worried him also. If the ship was captured and boarded he would not be able to save her if the pirate captain turned out to be other than Drum O’Leary—and he had no illusions of what they would do to her. She would be given over to the pirate crew and raped and only death would release her from her pain.
When Stuart thought of his lovely young wife being handed from one filthy pirate to the next he was conscious of a hideous, impotent anger searing through him like hot iron. If he had any reason to suspect that O’Leary was not the captain of the Dolphin, then he would be tempted to finish her here and now to save her from such a terrible fate—but then again, he thought with bitter cynicism, perhaps when she told them who she was, Nathaniel Wylde’s daughter would gain their respect in time to save her.
Cassandra knew nothing of Stuart’s thoughts and would have been surprised and elated to learn his concern was as much for her safety as it was for his ship and crew.
‘But the Sea Hawk is equipped to outgun the Dolphin, isn’t she?’ she asked.
‘Yes, she is. But would you approve of seeing Wylde’s ship blown to smithereens?’
‘I told you, it’s Drum’s ship now—and, yes, I think that would be a fitting end for a ship that has been used as a tool for so much evil.’
‘The Dolphin is nowhere near as powerful as the Sea Hawk, but combined with the force of her cohorts,’ Stuart explained, referring to the two ships following in her wake, ‘and with a full complement of men—for the pirates will total more than three times our number and will be armed to the teeth—it gives her an overwhelming, formidable superiority.
‘Because of the Sea Hawk’s weakened state, the Dolphin is more than a match for us and strong enough to inflict serious damage. Crippled as we are we cannot sail with any great speed. We are not manoeuvrable and cannot hold our lead sufficiently to stave off the Dolphin. In fact, you could say we are a sitting target,’ he said quietly, his expression grim. ‘When the time comes we will either have to surrender or fight.’
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