“It’s too late, Boss,” Dominique said quietly.
“Not too late for me to hang Browne from his own yardarm! Come on. He’s had his fun; now we’ll have ours!”
The dying merchantman had drifted toward shore, riding the incoming tide. Not waiting to board and set sail in one of the larger vessels, Laffite leaped aboard a long boat near shore. Dominique Youx, Reyne Beluche, and several others rushed to join him. All were silent as muscled arms plied oars, stroking their way toward the crippled ship. Soon they were bumping through flotsam—bits of torn deck, smashed wine barrels, shredded sail, a waterlogged Paris gown.
“At least we haven’t sighted any bodies,” Laffite mumbled, as much to himself as to the others.
The words had hardly passed his tight-drawn lips when he saw a white turban bob above the water some ten yards to starboard. A dark hand groped skyward, then the figure sank beneath the waves again.
Not bothering to remove his boots, Laffite dived overboard and pulled with strong strokes to the place the victim had surfaced.
He circled in the turquoise water for a moment, drawing great drafts of air into his lungs before he plunged under the waves. The salt water stung his eyes, but eerie sunlight penetrated the clear depths, allowing him fair vision for his search.
Down and down he swam, letting a fine trail of bubbles surface from his flared nostrils. In no time, it seemed, his air was almost used up. He would have to go to the top in another few seconds. His lungs ached. His eyes and throat were on fire. Then he spotted her, thanks to the white tignon about her head. She hung suspended like a limp puppet in the water. With forceful kicks and amazing will, he coerced himself to stay under long enough to capture the body and drag it through the water to air and life.
His men, sure of their Boss’s ability to catch up, even with a drowning victim in tow, had rowed the short distance away to the jacob’s ladder hanging over the side of the disabled ship.
When Laffite hoisted the woman’s head above water, he spotted Dominique starting up the rope ladder, his dagger clenched between his teeth. The others were preparing to follow him. Laffite felt a certain pride that these well-trained buccaneers needed no direct orders from him to know what to do.
The mulatto woman in his arms began coming around. She coughed several times before her eyes fluttered open, wide and staring. Taking him for one of the pirates who had attacked the Fleur de Lis and unceremoniously dumped her overboard, laughing at her protests, she now flailed her arms, frantically trying to escape.
Her elbow hit him a glancing blow to the temple and Laffite gripped her tighter, saying, “God in heaven, woman! You’ll drown us both! Be still. I’m trying to help you, dammit!”
“Never mind me,” she whimpered. “You got to save my mistress and Madame Gabrielle. They still on that ship. And those terrible men, they say they going to… they say they mean to…” but her words broke off in coughing sobs.
“How many passengers are onboard?” Laffite asked the servant as he and the oarsman settled her in the bottom of the longboat.
“Only my Nicolette and her Tante Gabi, m’sieu. The ship belong to my master, M’sieu Vernet of N’Orleans. Captain D’Orsay brought us from France. A safe passage. But now… Mon Dieu!” Another sob cracked her voice. “You got to save them, please!” Sukey begged.
He stared down for a moment at the hysterical woman, remembering her only vaguely. He hadn’t paid much attention to the servant that night. His eyes had been for the girl alone. So the desolate little refugee who had been shipped off to Paris was home again. She’d been a sweet thing, if he recalled correctly, and so lovely she made his heart ache. Made more than that ache! he thought, reliving her innocent, but urgent, kisses in his mind.
A woman’s scream from above told him Nicolette Vernet was still alive. Browne and his men—Gambi’s men, he corrected in his mind—were notorious womanizers. Without help, the girl’s fate was as certain as the next tide.
Jean Laffite, his long, dark hair plastered back by the sea, his bare chest glistening in the hard glare of the sun, and his britches clinging to every muscled bulge of his thighs, looked like the terror he was called. His mustachioed lip curled back from his teeth in an angry snarl as he grabbed up a rapier in one hand, a cutlass in the other.
When they neared the ship, he leaped to catch hold of the rope ladder. His men waited above, gripping the outer sides of the ship’s railing, ready to spring at his command.
“Ready, lads?” Laffite whispered with the gruff voice of a man not used to speaking softly. “Mind you, leave Browne to me. We have a score to settle.”
Laffite hurled himself over the rail without further conversation, springing with the ease of a hunting panther and a snarl to match. The yells and whoops of his six men filled the air, freezing Browne’s half-dozen pirates where they stood, but only momentarily. Sabers and cutlasses flashed like fire, sending sparks over the smoldering deck.
Laffite spied Browne, taunting the bound girl, and made a dash for him. The other woman—her aunt-was nowhere in sight.
Another scream tore itself from Nicolette’s throat.
“Your time’s up, Browne!” Laffite growled through clenched teeth, brandishing the cutlass dangerously close to the pirate’s midsection. “Throw down your weapon and tell your men to do the same.”
Browne backed away, circling the dark-haired girl tied to the mast. He smiled through gaping teeth, but made no move to toss his saber aside.
“Have a heart, mate,” Browne wheedled. “I’ll split the booty with you. Even this bit of fluff I’ve taken prisoner.” He jerked his head toward Nicolette Vernet. “Ain’t been a bad morning’s work!”
“Your last morning’s work, Browne!” Laffite replied, closing in. “My orders were that no American ships were to be molested.”
“Ah, there, you see, boy, that’s where our problem lies. I take me orders from Vincent Gambi and none other. Had Gambi passed them words on to me, this here ship would be sailing smooth as you please on her way to New Orleans. But Gambi, he says, ‘Loot’s for the taking, lads. A pirate shows no allegiance.’ I go by Gambi’s word alone.”
“Then you’ll pay the penalty for your crimes,” Laffite answered, positioning himself to lunge.
Silas Browne moved quickly for a man of his age and weight. Before Laffite’s blade could contact flesh, he leaped for the girl, putting her and the mast between himself and Jean Laffite.
“Please,” Nicolette whimpered. “No more.”
Laffite backed off, taking in her torn gown, bruised mouth, and the glaze of torment in her blue eyes.
“You’ve sunk low enough to hide behind a woman’s skirts, Browne?” Laffite taunted. “I might have guessed as much from one of your kind.”
“My kind, is it?” Browne sneered. “And what might you mean by that?”
“One who would take orders from the likes of Vincent Gambi, then whine over his punishment. What’s he getting out of this raid? Half? Or is he talking all the cargo and the women?”
Browne squinched up his colorless eyes and stared hard at Jean Laffite. “Women?” he said. “There ain’t but this one. If you mean the nigger wench, Hernandez throwed her to the sharks.”
“Never mind!” Laffite snapped. “You know Gambi won’t divide equally. You’ll come away with your tail between your legs and your wounds to lick… if you come away at all!”
“In a pig’s eye!” Browne spat, his face distorting with rage, showing Laffite that his words hit near the mark. “I’ll take the captain’s share and the woman, if I want her. Puny thing, though. I like my chippies with more ass and tits to ’em!” As he said this, Browne slipped his big hands around to cup Nicolette’s breasts.
She cried out, her eyes wide with fright.
Laffite recognized both his advantage of the moment and the further terror his action would cause Nicolette, but there was no help for it.
“Don’t be afraid, Nikki,” he said, but saw that his words had little ef
fect as he lunged his rapier point-blank for her breast.
Sure of his aim and timing, Jean Laffite thrust his arm and body forward, stabbing Browne through the back of his sword hand.
The pirate howled in pain, letting go of Nicolette’s torso in a convulsive jerk. He unleashed a stream of gutter words as he spun away, crouching his body over his wounded hand.
Nicolette’s still form hung heavily against the ropes binding her to the mast, mercifully released from her terror for the time by a sudden faint.
She was spared the sight of the bloody battle being waged around her. She didn’t have to view Browne’s death or the hoisting of his body to be tied by the ankles from the jib boom of the Sea Raven. This universal form of punishment served as a warning to other would-be offenders of the harshness and swiftness of Laffite’s Law of the Gulf.
Chapter Two
Nicolette, though dead weight in his arms, felt light as a feather to Jean Laffite. He lowered her gently to the deck, all the while wondering what the past hours had been for her. Would she survive Browne’s harsh treatment and return to her old self? Or would she awake a dead-eyed shell of the woman she had been?
He had seen that sort of reaction once before in Bianca, the mere child he’d rescued and married to restore some semblance of her honor after these same pirates had taken her by force.
“Poor Bianca. I never knew her as a whole and vital woman. She died, in spirit, long before that stray bullet pierced her tiny breast.”
Laffite realized suddenly that he’d spoken aloud. He cleared his throat self-consciously and glanced about the ship’s deck. No one was close enough to have heard. Only Nikki, and she remained still… silent… pale as death. He quickly erased that thought from his mind.
“Hey, Boss! Look here!” Reyne Beluche, Laffite’s uncle, called out in a jubilant voice.
Reyne, the first of the family to take up privateering as an occupation, had put in twelve years at sea before teaching his nephews the family trade. But Reyne had long since recognized the leadership qualities of his dead sister’s youngest son and addressed Jean Laffite as “Boss,” the same as all the others on Grande Terre did.
Laffite looked up to see his tall uncle escorting a Creole beauty on his arm. She might have just stepped out of a carriage a moment earlier for an evening at the St. Peter Street Theater in New Orleans. Reyne’s large, sun-bronzed frame, his craggy features, and his flamboyant seaman’s costume contrasted violently with the woman’s statuesque perfection and her gown of Paris design.
“So this is your infamous nephew, Reyne?” she said with a smile, not yet aware that her niece lay unconscious just out of her view. “If half the tales that have reached Paris are true, I’m sure I should be fairly quaking in my slippers at this moment!” She turned flirtatious, brandy-colored eyes to Beluche, then gave Laffite a sweetly wicked smile.
Reyne Beluche bellowed his delight and squeezed her ungloved hand affectionately. “You have nothing to fear from this nephew, my dear Gabrielle, but watch out for his brothers.”
“And their uncle!” Madame DelaCroix added.
Beluche laughed aloud again and beamed at her.
“Well, Uncle Reyne, are you going to continue this flirtation interminably or are you going to introduce me to the lady?”
“Ah, Jean boy, you’ve heard me speak fondly of the fabulous Gabrielle Dubois often enough. Now she’s the Widow DelaCroix, but the same charming girl I remember from my courting days. When I was a younger man with hotter blood and a shorter fuse, I fought more than one duel trying to win her favor. She could break a heart with the flicker of an eye or fire a man’s passions past the boiling point with half a smile. Nothing changes, eh, Gabrielle?”
“Everything changes, my dear Reyne,” she said cynically, then softened her tone and added, “except our friendship.”
Jean Laffite felt almost embarrassed watching them, as if he were a guilty voyeur peeking in on some private and very intimate reunion. So this was the love of his uncle’s life—the woman who had fled New Orleans when another man she loved married someone else. The very woman Reyne blamed for his lifelong bachelorhood. Laffite and his brothers had always thought Uncle Reyne made up the romantic tale to amuse them and himself. But it must be true.
“Mon Dieu! Nikki!” Gabrielle gave a sudden, shrill cry when she spied her unconscious niece. “What’s happened to her?”
She dropped to the deck and cradled Nicolette’s head against the soft mauve silk of her bosom.
“Browne and his men had her; then in trying to save her, I’m afraid I frightened her half to death, ma’am. She should come around soon. Right now, the best thing would be to get her off this hot deck and back to shelter on the island. I’ll take her in one of the lifeboats. Reyne, lend a hand.”
The two men lifted Nicolette gently and placed her in one of the small craft on deck, before lowering it to the lapping waves. Sukey had gone ahead to shore in Dominique’s boat. Laffite was sure Gabrielle DelaCroix would find safe keeping in Reyne’s care.
“Monsieur Laffite?” Gabrielle’s call delayed the casting off.
“Madame?” he answered, looking up at the strained but beautiful face peering down from the railing.
“My niece… They didn’t… you got here in time, I pray. Why did I lock myself in my cabin? I might have helped her.”
Laffite shared the woman’s concern, though he couldn’t answer her question. He chose his words diplomatically. “I don’t think she’s suffered any lasting damage, Madame DelaCroix. But whatever has happened, I take full responsibility. And I promise you Nicolette has endured all she’ll have to.”
“She was to be married, you know. As soon as we reached New Orleans. But now…”
Laffite made an instant decision. “She will be married, madame. You have my word on it.”
He gave a signal to his oarsmen and the sleek boat flew across the water toward shore.
Nicolette awoke in a strange bed, in a strange room, out of a strange dream. Or had it been a dream? Some of it seemed so real. She had been taunted by rough-faced men, but a shadowy figure tried to save her. At first, she’d feared him, but as he came closer, she understood that his presence held no menace. During the dream, she had watched her own ghost-white arms stretch out to the man, touch him at last. He had caressed her so tenderly, kissed her with a fire that warmed her soul. When he pressed her body down, she’d known no pain, only a flooding sweetness. She had writhed through the haze-dimmed corridors of this illusion, aflame with her longing for him. She had become lost in a misty world of uncharted passages, warm and cold, bright and dark, finally surfacing into the shocking light of reality.
“Come back… please,” she moaned as she stirred out of sleep. Then she shivered, though the air was close and hot. The boom of cannon fire startled her into hysterical wakefulness. She screamed and arms reached out to protect her.
“Hush now! It’s only thunder, Nikki.”
For a moment she accepted his comfort, snuggling deeper into his embrace. His warm breath against her damp hair felt reassuring. Then she drew away, frightened and confused. “Who are you?”
The pit of her stomach contracted with dread. Her dreams came back more vividly. And the remembered horror of the pirate attack made her shudder.
Her companion smoothed a gentling hand down the length of her bare arm and said softly, “Don’t you remember me, Nikki? I saw you off to Paris. Today I brought you home. I’m Jean Laffite.”
She pulled farther away, staring hard at him, and said, “You are not! Laffite has red hair—as bright as the sunset over the Gulf!”
And gentle lips, she remembered, much like the man in my dream.
He chuckled softly, happy to hear from the caustic tone in her voice that her ordeal hadn’t killed her spirit.
“You’re right. My hair was red the night we first met. You see, women aren’t the only vain creatures in the world. I rather enjoy changing my hair color from time to time. Besides, it keeps
my enemies guessing. I’ll show you my secret—gunpowder and potash—when you’re feeling like yourself again.” He fingered a stray tendril of her dark hair, where it lay curled on her cheek. “You’d be something with flaming hair and those deep blue eyes.”
“I’m not staying here! I have to get home—to New Orleans. My fiancé is waiting.”
“And who is the lucky man this time?” Laffite recognized the sharp tone in his words and could have bitten off his tongue. Who was he to question her plans or the outdated manner in which young Creole women were handed over by their families to the best prospect? But he couldn’t deny the jealousy he felt.
Nicolette’s answer came timidly, as if she were ashamed to admit it to him. “I don’t know yet.”
“Then it won’t break your heart if you don’t see him right away.”
Her temper flared. “And what am I supposed to do that’s going to keep me occupied in the meantime?”
“This!” He pressed her back on the pillows and captured her lips so quickly and expertly that she had no time to protest. The fires from her dream rekindled—liquid flames that flowed with her blood, consuming her whole body with delicious, forbidden feelings. She fought against her desire to respond. She lost the battle.
He pulled away suddenly, leaving her shocked and breathless.
“I’m sorry if I startled you. But you do have a way of provoking me, Nikki!”
“You haven’t any right to…”
“I have every right, but we won’t discuss that now. I’ll be back shortly. You rest.”
She watched him go out the door, feeling relief at the same time that she experienced a curious twinge of disappointment that she didn’t understand. She pushed him from her thoughts with a determined effort.
Suddenly, she caught her breath. Nicolette realized for the first time that she was entirely naked under the satin sheet. Who had undressed her and for what purpose? She felt totally vulnerable. Was that what Laffite meant when he said he had every right? To do what? Or had he already done it?
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