Gripping her hand more tightly, he started off on a course roughly parallel to the inlet’s shore.
Aileen trooped more or less blindly behind Robert, placing her feet where his had been. Her vision was adjusting, yet he seemed able to see better than she could. She placed her trust in his experience, in his instincts and abilities, and followed.
She wondered what would happen back at the village—whether they’d left anything to suggest they’d been there. She didn’t think they had. She hoped Kale and his men simply searched and went on, and left the headman and his people unharmed.
They were a decent way north of the village and had started angling back toward the inlet’s shore when distant crashes and curses suggested that their sometime presence in the village had been discovered, and someone was attempting to follow their trail.
Robert said nothing, just increased his pace.
She kept up, raising her skirts so they wouldn’t tangle her feet.
It soon became apparent that the searchers had picked up their initial direction from the rear of the hut. The sounds of pursuit faded deeper into the jungle along that tack, in the general direction of the settlement.
Robert glanced back; he listened, then his teeth flashed in a swift grin. “That’s bought us a little time. Just pray the next village along has canoes.”
He faced forward, and they forged on, through a darkness that, to her at least, was only one step away from impenetrable.
Despite that, it was she who glimpsed the line of thatched huts through the forest of jungle palms. She tugged Robert’s hand; when he glanced at her, she pointed. He saw and changed course.
They entered the slumbering village from the rear. Silent as shadows, they picked their way between two huts and saw—thank God—a line of canoes overturned on a strip of grass above the sand.
They ran lightly across the open area before the huts, straight to one of the small craft. He picked up one end. She gripped the other. They lifted and carried the light craft down to the night-dark water, then flipped it and let it down into the gentle wavelets. Her boots in the water, her skirt hems soaking it up, she anchored the canoe as Robert raced back and grabbed two long-handled paddles.
He returned in an instant. He held the canoe as she hiked up her wet skirts and clambered in. He pushed off and jumped in, handed her a paddle, then settled and started to stroke.
They quickly found their rhythm and were soon smoothly slicing downriver toward the distant estuary.
Robert knew they had some way to go before they hit the estuary’s deeper waters and more definite waves. His instincts roared at him to go faster—to pour his all into spiriting Aileen as far away from Kale and his men as he could get her—but he had to balance speed with endurance. They had to last long enough to reach a location somewhere along the estuary where they could be sufficiently sure of being free of the slavers to put into shore and build a signal fire. If they couldn’t do that, they would have to make direct for The Trident.
Both options would require strength, stamina, and luck. Both held unforeseeable dangers—dangers he couldn’t plan for.
As he bent to the task of sending the canoe skimming over the waves, he was aware of the more coolly detached side of him pointing out that facing ridiculous, high-risk, no-sure-option tests like this was why he’d so long ago turned his back on such escapades.
But the wilder side of him, the part that simply being with Aileen brought so much closer to his surface—the part that exulted in a thudding heart and the exhilaration that fighting and the threat of imminent danger sent singing through his veins—gloried in the challenge.
In reality, the only blight on his current state of being was that she was with him—that she was facing the same dangers, the same trials.
His gaze touched the back of her brazenly brassy, stubborn, and beautiful head. He knew without asking that she wouldn’t have scripted her part in this adventure in any other way. His protectiveness was his burden to bear, and all in all, she’d accommodated him where she’d felt she could.
He knew that, acknowledged that.
In some deep inner place, he accepted that—that he had to allow her to be herself, just as she’d hauled him along, step by step deeper into this careening adventure, and shown him—revealed to him—the buccaneer that still lived inside him. And reminded him of the joys of embracing that side of himself and living life with his whole being.
She’d encouraged him to be the man he truly was, the man he was meant to be.
A shout echoed eerily over the water, coming from somewhere behind them.
He inwardly swore and picked up the pace.
Aileen glanced back, but only to match her pace to his.
They pushed on—but it was soon apparent that Kale had, indeed, thought as Robert had, and had sent men in canoes to patrol the inlet.
The only advantage they presently had was that Kale’s men were behind them and had yet to spot them. They were coming on quickly, but no alarm had yet been raised.
That wouldn’t last. The final stretch of the inlet was open water—and just as they arrowed into it, the moon sailed free.
Robert held to a course that would take them straight out of the river mouth into the gently rolling breakers of the estuary. The shoreline along that stretch was likely to harbor many submerged snags, and trying to hug its shadows and slip around the coast wouldn’t aid them now—now their pursuers were coming on.
Sure enough, a shout went up from behind. They still had perhaps three hundred yards to go to the line of breakers.
He upped his stroke rate, calling out to Aileen, “Stroke. Stroke.”
She quickly adjusted, and they forged ahead.
Two hundred yards.
One fifty.
He risked a swift glance behind.
Three canoes were bearing down on them, each powered by two heavily muscled slavers.
Looking farther back, he glimpsed a larger canoe carrying three men—two men paddling with Kale in the middle, barking orders, his cutlass in his hand.
Robert faced forward. He clenched his jaw and plowed his paddle through the water with as much efficient force as he could.
Efficiency was going to be the key.
Kale had clearly worked out what his quarry would do; Robert felt a moment of respect for the man’s intelligence—not least because Kale had respected his.
But there was one thing Kale hadn’t judged correctly—and she was sitting directly in front of Robert, paddling for all she was worth.
Two well-muscled men in a canoe should have been able to overhaul a gentleman and a lady in short order, no matter the expertise of the gentleman. But Aileen was a good deal lighter than any man, and she was paddling well enough to account for her weight and a bit more besides.
Kale’s men were still gaining, but they weren’t gaining fast enough.
Of course, Robert’s hope might yet be dashed—that once they hit the estuary with its currents and much choppier conditions more reminiscent of the open sea than the relative calm of the river, Kale’s slavers wouldn’t know how to handle the flimsy river craft and the advantage would tip Robert and Aileen’s way.
But they had hope.
“Keep going,” he yelled to Aileen. “We’re almost there!”
She tipped her head up and back to call, “There, where?”
“Trust me!” He couldn’t help but grin. “We’re going straight through that line of waves ahead.”
She might have muttered something, but the strengthening wind whipped her words away.
Twenty yards. Ten.
Robert yelled, “Stow your paddle and hang on!”
Aileen reacted immediately. She stuffed the paddle down by her feet and clutched the sides of the canoe with both hands.
The prow hit the first frothing wave and reared upward. She shrieked and turned her face away.
Spray drenched her, then the prow thudded back down and she felt Robert change his rhythm, then they were suddenly shooting along parallel to the line of the waves.
She didn’t wait to be told but hauled her paddle out and started stroking desperately again.
As Robert steered them over another wave, she cast a swift glance behind and saw no one.
But she could hear Kale swearing and cursing, verbally whipping his men on. She gripped her paddle tighter and pulled for all she was worth.
The visibility over the wide waters of the estuary was better than on the river. The moon had risen and cast a silver light over the scene, etching edges in brightness and turning every shadow darker in contrast.
They crested another wave—and this time she looked ahead. She desperately scanned the waters of the estuary, but saw no tall ship looming.
“It’s to the right,” Robert called as the canoe wallowed. Together, they bent and sent the craft skimming forward, taking advantage of the patch of smoother water that followed the crest.
When they topped the next crest, she swung her gaze further to the right—and saw the ship—the graceful, elegant ship she’d first sighted days ago—standing well out in the estuary, its stern angled their way.
“Pray they see us soon,” Robert yelled.
At least he’d had The Trident moved farther down the estuary; it was now anchored closer to the inlet’s mouth than it had been.
It was still, he suspected, too many yards away.
He put his back into forging ahead before the next wave lifted them high. He glanced back. As he’d expected, the rougher waters of the estuary had slowed the slavers. But none of the canoes had capsized—he buried that faint hope. And Kale wasn’t anywhere near giving up the chase.
Robert swallowed his curses; he didn’t have breath to spare to utter them. His back, arms, and legs burned, and they still had a significant distance to go.
He could read the currents, the wind, and the waves better than most experienced sailors, and certainly far better than any slave trader. He used every scrap of advantage he could wring from that knowledge and kept their craft in the lead as they forged closer and closer to The Trident.
Then a flare shot up from the stern—a signal that they’d been seen and identified.
Help would be scrambling to get under way, but would his men be in time?
The tender would be out on the estuary or even in the harbor; he doubted they could make it back in time to be of much help. The secondary tender would need to be launched, and that would take time...
He put aside all calculations and paddled.
Despite his focus, he couldn’t stop his mind from juggling the probabilities. He’d felt sure, earlier, that Kale would do his damnedest to capture them, to take them alive.
But faced with the prospect of them escaping... Kale would want them dead.
Dead men—and dead women—told no tales.
His grip on the paddle kept slipping, the handle wet, his palms sweating. The need to hold tighter made the muscles in his forearms scream; he gritted his teeth and, his gaze locked on Aileen’s brassy head, plowed on.
The tide had started to ebb. It drew them toward The Trident, adding just a touch of speed, but it added just as much to the canoes pursuing theirs, and to their disadvantage, with the turning of the tide, the waves started to abate, stripping away whatever small advantage they’d been able to seize from the rougher water.
He didn’t need to look to know that two of the canoes Kale’s men were driving forward were closing.
Boldly, Kale bellowed, “I don’t care how you do it, boys—just stop the buggers!”
Robert looked up. The Trident was still over a hundred yards away. He glanced back and knew they weren’t going to make it.
Even as he looked, a flight of arrows arced over his and Aileen’s heads and rained down, peppering the closest pursuing canoes.
Curses flew. Robert grinned grimly. He faced forward and picked up the rhythm. “Keep going!” he yelled to Aileen, who had belatedly glanced back; she hadn’t seen the arrows fly, just heard the commotion when they’d struck.
Like a well-drilled sailor, she fell to, but she was tiring, as was he. Every stroke, every yard, was hard won, increasingly painful, increasingly exhausting.
But neither he nor she eased back, much less were of a mind to surrender, to give up. In unwavering accord, they kept on, driving as hard as they could for the safety of The Trident’s steep side.
He reached to his hip and loosened his sword in its scabbard—just in time.
His fingers were still on the hilt when one of the slavers’ canoes—pushing hard—hove up on his left.
The slaver in the prow raised a club and brought it down.
Instinct took over. Robert twisted sharply, and the club barely grazed his left shoulder.
The slaver overbalanced, tipping toward Robert.
His sword already out, up, and swinging, Robert struck where the man’s tipping, bowing motion exposed the spot where shoulder met neck—a killing blow.
But the sudden shifting of his weight sent their own canoe pivoting, swinging the prow and Aileen toward the middle of the action—away from The Trident and toward Kale’s canoe as the slavers’ leader, his face contorted in a vicious snarl, drove hard toward them.
His heart thudding in his ears, Robert saw the two other slavers’ canoes, although now each with only a single injured man paddling—The Trident’s archers had hit their marks—angling to flank and ultimately surround them.
And there were more slavers in canoes coming up hard in support of Kale.
They were fifty yards from The Trident and were being hit by backwash from the ship; all the canoes and players in this drama were bobbing up and down to such an extent that The Trident’s archers couldn’t risk another salvo.
Pistols and rifles would be even more dangerous.
They were within sight of his crew, but his men could only watch.
To complicate everything, sea fog, which often hung about the mouth of the estuary and sometimes reached some way down it, chose that moment to send insubstantial ghostly fingers creeping stealthily over them.
Dimming the moon’s light.
The fog was not there one moment; in the next, it swirled and engulfed them.
Swearing, Robert seized the momentary distraction and battled to swing their craft around—to head toward The Trident again, but even more importantly to put his own back between Aileen and Kale. But the wallowing canoe with the dead slaver hanging over the side impeded even that much maneuvering; he had to grasp the other canoe’s prow and push it away—nearly overbalancing in the process.
Everyone in the increasingly constricting knot of canoes was still close enough to see each other through the enfolding fog. Kale’s gaze locked on Robert and Aileen; his lips curled in a ferocious snarl, then he thrust his cutlass in their direction, roared, and his canoe speared toward them.
The Trident’s tender shot out of the sea fog. Its prow rammed into one of the half-crippled canoes and overturned it.
Whoever was at the tender’s tiller adjusted course.
On a surge of power supplied by six trained oarsmen, the tender plowed toward Kale’s canoe.
Kale saw; he and the pair of slavers in his canoe switched their attention to the impending threat.
The tender and canoe both swung to come alongside each other.
The slaver in the front of Kale’s canoe suddenly reared and swung a machete toward the figure in the tender’s bow—Benson.
Stout, burly, and with his legs braced, Benson staved off the blow with his sword and countered with a thrust from his dagger. The slaver crumpled, top
pling overboard—but his sudden lurch tipped Benson forward, half over the tender’s side.
The shift of weight rocked Coleman, angled beside Benson in support, back on his heels, flailing and off balance.
Kale’s lips peeled back from his teeth, and he raised his cutlass high.
Robert caught his breath; he was already reaching for the throwing blade in his boot even though he knew he would be too late to save his long-time man.
Kale’s blade started its descent, angled to come down with force on the back of Benson’s exposed neck—
A shot rang out. The sound was hideously, ear-ringingly loud in the fog.
Kale screamed and dropped the cutlass.
He clutched his shoulder and half spun, half fell back into the canoe.
Coleman regained his balance and leapt forward; his cutlass in his hand, he dragged Benson back into the tender.
As had happened before, the shot had stunned everyone.
This time, Robert didn’t need to look to know who had fired it.
The second slaver in Kale’s canoe took one look at the armed and determined men crowding in the prow of the tender and frantically employed his paddle to turn and pull away.
The remaining slaver in the canoe closest to Robert and Aileen’s made haste to follow.
Benson, upright again and with Coleman at his shoulder, looked at Robert. “Should we give chase?”
Benson, Coleman, and the other men in the tender were all but straining at the leash discipline placed upon them, waiting expectantly for Robert’s order to pursue.
But he recalled the other canoes he’d spotted. He shook his head. “There are more of them out there.”
And if Kale had a blind bit of sense, he would mass his craft on the edge of the fog and wait to fall on the tender as she emerged from the disorientating murk.
As the men reluctantly stood down, and the tender got under way again, angling toward them, Robert leaned forward and closed a hand on Aileen’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
She was looking down, stuffing her pistol back into her reticule. She’d carried the heavy lump of black fabric throughout their adventure, clinging to it or having it dangling from her wrist through every moment, however fraught. He was intensely grateful that she had, but he still thought it the ugliest reticule he’d ever seen.
A Buccaneer at Heart Page 33