by Shana Galen
“Well, at least I understand that warning.”
As he expected, she did not want to stay behind.
“I don’t understand why I can’t go ashore. You can’t keep me prisoner on this ship forever.”
Nick pulled a clean shirt over his head and turned to face her while he fastened the buttons at his throat. “I told you. I gave orders for you to be brought on shore with the second boat.”
“And when does that sail?”
“As soon as it’s safe.”
She exhaled loudly. “That might be days!”
He shrugged. “If we encounter trouble, I don’t want you in danger.”
“What trouble?” she asked, her gaze on his fingers as he deftly closed the buttons. Her gaze had been on his chest too. She’d drunk him in, and he had to clench his fists to keep from taking her in his arms and finishing what they’d begun the night before.
“Focus on the lion,” he murmured and started on his cravat. His dress might be a bit formal for Isla de las Riquezas, but he never knew when it might pay to look wealthy and powerful.
“Why do you keep saying that? Are there lions on the island?”
“I don’t know what we’ll find on the island,” he answered. “It looks quiet, but I would be certain before I leave my ship undefended or bring you ashore.” He stepped toward her and notched her chin up with a finger. She yanked her head away, obviously not appreciating the gesture. “I’m protecting you, even if you don’t want to be protected.”
“How very much like every other man I’ve ever met.” She waved a hand. “Go. I’ll be here. On the ship. With no choice but to wait.”
“If I’m killed, you may be sorry to end it this way.” One kiss. He had time for one kiss.
“If you’re not killed on shore, you’d best hope I don’t decide to kill you when you come back on board.”
“Charming to the last.” And with that he made a quick departure. He closed the cabin door and something crashed against it. He flinched and stilled, trying to decide whether or not to go back and make certain his belongings were still intact, but Chante stepped into the companionway. He held out his arms as though they were spider’s legs and pretended to take a large bite.
Nick sighed and climbed the ladder to the deck. His men were assembled, and the ship was at anchor. Now they would see what destruction Yussef had wreaked.
The short voyage from the ship to the island had never seemed so long or so grueling. The men rowed with their usual efficiency and speed, but Nick felt as though the boat treaded water. His heart thumped from fear and anticipation, and he kept his hand on his pistol. Red, who had accompanied him and who stood in the stern, also held a pistol at the ready. Every man was armed, and Nick trusted all of them with his life.
As the island neared, Nick felt a strange sense of wrongness. He heard birds and monkeys calling to each other and insects buzzing. The wind rustled the branches of the stubby palm trees, and the sound of waves lapping the shore was familiar and soothing. But Nick could not remember the last time he’d come to the island and Rissa hadn’t run to greet him, her dark hair flying out behind him. He couldn’t remember a time when the Robin Hood had dropped anchor, and the beach hadn’t been filled with the vibrant colors of the women’s skirts and blouses, the air ringing with their happy laughter and chatter.
Now all was far too silent. Nick’s gut clenched. Please. He did not even know what he prayed for—a miracle perhaps.
As soon as he felt the jolt of land beneath the boat’s hull, he jumped in the water and started for shore. Heedless of the wet soaking through the leather of his fine boots, he tromped to the beach. Red stayed behind, directing the men to pull the boat ashore. Nick, pistol at the ready, studied the barren beach. The village was to the right, up a small rise and set back from the beach. It wasn’t visible from the water, hidden by the rise and a layer of thick vegetation, and was protected by the hills and the cannon. At least, that’s what he’d told himself when he sailed away. Rissa was safe.
But she wasn’t safe. Yussef had been here. It was too quiet. Too still. His eyes narrowed as he studied the path to the village. Vines and weeds had overgrown it so the usually well-worn walk was all but hidden.
He felt rather than heard his crew move into position behind him. “I don’t like it, Captain,” Red murmured, his voice hushed and eerie on the deserted beach they all remembered being so full of life.
“I don’t either.”
“Could be an ambush.”
Nick shook his head. “I heard too many birds and insects as we rowed ashore. If Yussef lies in wait, it isn’t nearby.” He turned and his gaze swept his men. “Are you ready?”
One by one, the men nodded in assent. Nick looked at their faces. Many of them were so young, barely men. He did not want to think what they’d see, what they’d find on the other side of the rise. He’d willingly sent them into battle, asked them to risk their lives for him. But he did not want to send them into this, into the grief that surely awaited them all.
“Then follow me. Have your weapons at the ready.”
Nick led the men over the sand and into the sparse trees where the island took over from the sea. The trees and vegetation became thick and difficult to traverse the farther into the island one ventured. Halfway up the rise, the land was dark and almost cool from the shade of nettle and carob trees. He started up the rise, following the usual path, and that was when he smelled it. He paused, lifting his chin to scent the air.
“Smoke,” he murmured. “Old smoke.” Something had burned here. He walked on, steeling himself for the sight of the village below. He’d almost reached the top of the rise, a few inches from seeing what lay below, when his foot struck something soft and pliant. He looked down, expecting to see a rotting branch. Instead, he stared at a dried-out, blackish limb that had once been an arm.
He closed his eyes and lifted his hand, signaling those following him to stop. Now he knew why he’d felt so uneasy. The scent of death was here as well. He put a handkerchief over his nose and bent to clear the undergrowth.
He recognized the necklace lying beside her at once, but what he saw of the rest of the once lovely and kind woman made Nick glad he had not eaten breakfast nor imbibed in rum. He had seen death before. He had witnessed it first-hand, but Death was never so cruel as when it dealt a blow to a loved one—a wife or…mother.
He steadied himself and rose. His gaze searched and met that of Josè Silva, a Portuguese sailor who’d been with the crew of the Robin Hood almost from the start. “Mr. Silva,” Nick said, his voice raspy. “I’m sorry. It’s Maria.” And then, though his first instinct was to cover her with his coat, to hide her from view, he also understood Silva’s need to see her. To know she was really gone.
Nick moved aside, and Silva, face stricken, moved forward. “Maria?” His intake of breath was sudden and sharp. “No!”
Nick moved away as the man bent and murmured in quiet Portuguese. Nick had his own demons to confront now. He moved forward, higher up the rise. Several of the men followed him, terror shining in the whites of their eyes. Nick was certain he looked no better, no braver. He pushed the last branch aside and moved into the sunlight at the peak of the hillock they’d crested.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Red, who was behind him, breathed.
Nick closed his eyes but no prayers would come.
Ashley paced the bow of the ship, her gaze never leaving the barren beach of Isla de las Riquezas. Nick had disappeared and nothing but the leaves on the palm trees moved now. All was silent. Mr. Chante stood with his spyglass to his eye, but he neither moved nor spoke. The rest of the men were at their battle stations, tense and silent.
“Mrs. Cap’n,” Chante said without turning to look at her. “I gave orders for you to go below.”
“And I told you I’m ignoring those orders.” She paused, turned, paced the length of the bow again. “I also told you to call me Ashley.”
“I too can ignore,” he said
. He lowered the spyglass, wiped his brow, and stared at the beach. She stopped pacing, pausing beside him in hopes that he would offer to allow her to look through it. She’d asked and been rebuffed three times already. Perhaps the fourth time would persuade him.
“Doan ask again,” he said. “There’s nothing to see. Not yet.”
“Surely if the Barbary pirate’s men were on the island we would have heard something by now, wouldn’t we? Shouts or the sound of a pistol firing?”
Chante nodded.
“Then what is taking so long? They’ve been gone hours.”
“Not so long,” he said, spyglass to his eye again. “It may be Yussef is not the worst thing they find.”
Ashley swallowed. “The captain told me that women and children live on the island. What would Yussef do to them if he found them?”
Chante shrugged. “Kill dem. Take dem prisoner. He can sell the women and children in the slave markets at Gibraltar. Get a good price too.”
Ashley shuddered. “I imagine death is preferable to that.”
Chante lowered the glass and looked directly at her. His dark eyes were hard, those of a canny hunter. “You doan know nothing about it.”
Ashley lowered her gaze, but she could not allow the moment to pass. Chante was speaking to her. This was her chance. “Do you have anyone on the island?”
“Why doan you ask me the question you really want?”
She rolled her eyes. And she’d always thought she valued directness. “Fine. Who does Nick have on the island? Who is he worried about?”
“Why doan you ask him? Oh, but I know the likes of you.” He folded his arms over his chest. “You asked and he won’t say.”
Ashley turned away from him and began her pacing again. “I do not know why I even bother.”
“You can’t help it, little gazelle.”
She scrunched her nose at him. “Oh, how sweet—endearments.” She studied the land again, staring so hard she felt she could almost make Nick appear.
“A gazelle is the favorite food of lions. You have no patience to hunt. You are no lion. That is hardly a compliment.”
Ashley bit her lip and stared at the island. Her throat was dry and her lips chapped. She should go below and drink a half pitcher of water, but she did not want to leave the bow. “But gazelles must be fast or else the lion would always win the day.” She looked at Chante. “Even we prey have our tricks.”
“Doan I know it.”
She opened her mouth to ask what he meant when a man clinging to the bowsprit like a monkey called down. Chante lifted the spyglass to his eye in a fluid motion and Ashley moved to the ship’s rail. Nothing. Nothing…there!
“It’s the Cap’n,” Chante said.
She could tell by his walk it was Nick. Chante only confirmed what she already knew, but he appeared to be carrying something—a sack of flour? No it was brightly colored. A bundle of clothing?
Chante let out a breath of air, seeming relieved. He looked at the mate on his right. “He has Rissa. Is she alive?”
The mate shook his head. “She ain’t moving.”
“Rissa?” Ashley said. “Who is that?”
Chante lowered the glass and looked at her with that lion-like predatory gaze. “His daughter.”
TEN
It all felt like a dream to him. Nick heard the cries of the monkeys, the buzzing of the insects, the low rush of the wind in the trees, but the sounds were muted by the screaming in his head. He stood at the top of the hillock and stared at the charred ruins of what had once been a village. What had once been his home. Rissa’s home. The huts he’d labored with his men to build were black ashes on the ground. The well-trodden paths frequented by laughing children and singing women were littered with the detritus of attack—a solitary shoe, a smashed cup, the back of a chair someone had lovingly carved. Except the weeds that had already taken root in the untended ground, nothing moved. All was silent and still. Nick’s blood seemed to freeze in his veins, and he wanted to collapse at the sheer weight of helplessness and vulnerability crashing over him.
For a moment he was a small child again, frozen in terror in that dark alley where his mother had been raped and killed.
He rarely thought of that awful day in the rookery of Whitechapel. Later he’d come to learn his mother was a great benefactress of the poor. She’d brought her sons with her that day, and while she visited with a widow, he had run outside to play. Jack had found him playing dice with some other boys and dragged him back to the widow’s hovel. But their mother had also gone to look for him, and they hadn’t been able to find her. Nick could remember the sheer terror of thinking she’d left them. He’d held tight to Jack who pulled him along until they came across their mother.
It might have been better if they hadn’t. Jack shoved him behind a pile of refuse, where the two hid while their mother was attacked by three men. Jack had covered Nick’s eyes, but he’d never forget the sound of his mother’s screams or the smell of her blood. And he’d never forget the feeling of helplessness, wanting to do something and being powerless to stop the attack or save his mother.
That was the feeling he’d had now, that same dizzy, paralyzing helplessness.
“Captain?” Red was speaking to him, and Nick turned abruptly, realizing his bos’n must have been trying to rouse him from his trance for several minutes.
Nick clenched his fists and kept his voice level. “What is it?”
“Should we keep on going, Captain?” He gestured to the village. Nick wanted to shake his head and order them all back to the ship, but that was the coward’s way.
“Order one of the men to stay with Mr. Silva. The rest with me.” He waited for Red to relay his orders and then, with his men at his back, he started down the hill. It was only sheer force of will that propelled him forward. His traitorous legs wanted to turn and run, but he moved forward. His men deserved to know what had happened to their families. Silently, reverently, they entered the skeleton of what had once been their home on the island.
The fires had cooled and the corpses no longer smoked, but he recognized the bones amidst the blackness of the frames that had once comprised simple dwellings. Nothing moved in the village. Not even ghosts. Were there any survivors? If so, they must have been taken as slaves because they had not come back to bury their dead.
Rage and anguish burned through him in equal measure. He wanted to weep and at the same time he wanted to destroy something—anything—with his fists. He wanted to return to the ship and sail as fast as the wind would take him to Yussef. He would kill that bastard. Watching him and his vessel sink was too good. He’d gut the man slowly, listen to him scream and plead for mercy.
But Nick had not survived by being a man of impulse and recklessness. Even in the midst of his grief, he knew his limitations. His ship needed repairs. It would have to be careened and the hole in the waterline addressed. That would take days, perhaps even a week. His rage would have to wait.
The men behind him had not uttered a word. Their silence was testament to their shock and anger. This village was a grave, and all seemed to understand the respect it deserved. Nick did not relish the next few days when they would dig graves and bury their loved ones. Would he find Rissa’s body amidst the debris? As much as he wanted her to have survived, he could not wish a life of slavery on her. He almost prayed to find her remains.
“Captain!” one of his men called, disturbing the heavy silence. Nick swung around and followed where the mate pointed. The village had been built in a valley, hiding it from view on all sides. Now he watched as a man made slow progress down a hill on the far side.
“It’s Locke!” Red called.
More ice slid through Nick. Locke had been a friend, one of the men he trusted with his life—with the life of Rissa. Locke shouldn’t be alive if the village was in ruins. Some of the men rushed to help the older man, and as he neared, Nick noted his beard was caked with mud and his clothing stained with what appeared to be old blood an
d gunpowder. He was thin, almost gaunt, and he favored his right leg. Nick’s gaze dropped to the man’s ankle, where a crude bandage had been tied.
“Captain.” Locke saluted when he finally stood before Nick. Nick stood immobile, seemingly heedless of the extra yards the man had to cross to reach him. Nick’s gaze swept over the burnt village, and Locke looked at the ground. “I’m sorry, Captain.”
Nick clenched his fists, barely resisting the impulse to strike the already wounded man. “I should kill you.”
“After what I seen, I welcome death, Captain. You want to hit me?” He glanced at Nick’s curled fists. “Go ahead. I deserve it and more. It won’t change it, though.”
“Give me a full and detailed report, and then, only then, I’ll—we’ll—decide”—he gestured to the men—”whether you live or die.”
Locke nodded. “Fair enough, but first I’ll take you to the others.”
“Others?” Red said behind Nick. His voice was hoarse with the same emotion coursing through Nick. Hope flared, and Nick stubbornly pushed it down. He could not afford to hope. He could not afford the plunge into despair when his hope proved false. He was already teetering on the edge of that dark, icy precipice. One false step and he would plunge down and down and down, never to emerge again. He had his ship, his men, his revenge. He could not afford hope or despair.
“Lead the way,” Nick said, his voice even. He saw nothing, felt nothing as they marched through the blackened village. Images of the dead during their last struggles hovered on the periphery of his vision. He glimpsed a twisted form and imagined her last moments as her fists pounding on a door barricaded from the outside while fire swept through the hut. Her screams in his mind all but deafened him as the fire reached her and claimed her.
At the edge of the village the remains of a man with a burnt rifle lay in the path. Nick moved around him, tamping down the visions of the man shooting and recoiling from the force of a pistol ball as Yussef’s men swarmed, thick and bloodthirsty as fleas.