Island Flame

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  “Yes, sir!” Harry saluted again, then gestured to Quincy and O’Halloran, who followed him glumly through the shattered door.

  Cathy listened to their retreating footsteps with mixed feelings. She was glad of course, to be free of Quincy and his friend, but she didn’t like being left at this man’s mercy. There was an air of ruthlessness about him that told her plainly that if he’d been her attacker, nothing and nobody could have stopped him.

  “I must apologize to you for the conduct of my men,” he said, turning to her as she knelt beside Martha and bowing with what seemed like great politeness. “Captain Jonathan Hale, entirely at your service.”

  “Your apology is accepted, Captain,” Cathy replied with dignity, pulling the front of her gown together and getting to her feet as she spoke. She looked at the man distrustfully. His unexpected courtesy was vaguely alarming. She felt as though he was testing her in some way. She decided that her best course of action was to simply follow his lead, and extended one small hand to him accordingly.

  “I am Lady Catherine Aldley, daughter of the Earl of Badstoke.”

  “I am honored to make your acquaintance, ma’am.” He took her hand with just the right degree of gallantry and pressed it to his lips. The feel of his hard mouth on the back of her hand made her skin tingle. At his apparent gentlemanliness her fright and wrath ebbed somewhat, and she felt safe enough to dare a faintly imperious tone.

  “My maid has been injured by your ruffians. She needs immediate attention.”

  “I will see to it at once, ma’am,” he promised gravely, then laughed out loud, flinging her hand back at her.

  “So it’s ‘my lady,’ is it?” He grinned, surveying her from head to toe. He strolled toward her until he stood directly in front of her. She had to tilt her head way back to see his eyes.

  “And just how old are you, my lady?”

  He flicked her chin playfully with one finger. Her eyes shot bullets of blue fire at him, and he laughed again, as though she was the most amusing thing he had ever encountered.

  “Best answer me, sweeting, before I begin to wonder if perhaps you’re older than you look, and act accordingly.”

  His mocking words enraged her, and she kicked out at him, her daintily shod foot coming in contact with the hard muscles of his lower leg. He winced, caught her by the shoulders, and pulled her hard up against him. When she tried to claw his face, he easily caught both of her flailing hands in one of his and held them pinioned behind her back. He smiled lazily down into her contorted face, then lifted his free hand and ran it casually over the soft mounds of her breasts.

  Her skin felt as though it were on fire! The nipples hardened abruptly under the intimate caress, and the physical sensation made Cathy gasp. She writhed, trying with all her strength to break free, but he held her easily. He continued to caress her breasts, looking down at her with something that was not quite a smile in his eyes.

  “How old are you, sweeting?” he asked again. His voice was very soft, but the grooves in his face had deepened with amusement. At her continued silence, he brushed the tips of his fingers ever so gently across her nipples. Cathy felt what was almost a pain deep in her belly. She was horrified by what was happening to her. She was a lady, a virgin, daughter of one of England’s most distinguished families. And when this animal, this canaille, dared to put his hands on her bare flesh, instead of screaming or fainting dead away as a lady should, she was actually standing quietly in front of him while he did it! A wave of fury and shame, stronger than anything she had ever felt before, swept over her, and, before thinking further, she spat into his mocking face.

  After a stunned instant his brows rushed together ominously and his eyes began to glitter in a way that frightened her. He wiped the spittle very deliberately from his face. Cathy was truly terrified by the look in his eyes, and was almost as startled by her action as he was.

  “Oh, dear God, he will surely murder me now!” she thought.

  He looked at her for a long moment without speaking, and Cathy felt what little courage she had managed to hang on to leave her. She began to tremble with fright. At her obvious terror, the tense muscles around his mouth relaxed slightly and some of the anger left his face.

  “What you need is schooling, my lady,” he drawled, and pulled her roughly into his arms. His mouth came down over hers, hard and hot and demanding, and he kissed her as she had never been kissed before. The chaste pecks she had had bestowed on her once or twice in the past had been nothing like this, and had in fact left her feeling faintly contemptuous of the boys who had been reduced to trembling incoherence because of them. But she was being kissed now by a man, not a boy, and it was she who was on the verge of trembling incoherence.

  His tongue parted her lips and probed deeply inside. Cathy nearly swooned as she felt its scalding heat enter her mouth. She pushed vainly at his chest, feeling both hot and cold at the same time. He twined one hand in her long hair and held her, tugging cruelly at the roots when she moved. At last she lay against him quietly, submitting to his embrace. He caressed her trembling breasts with expert hands, gently titillating the nipples, and Cathy felt a scalding heat pulsating upward from the very center of her being. Horrified, she made one last convulsive effort to escape. He jerked on her hair so viciously she cried out.

  His mouth was stopping her breath and she felt as though she would faint. The cabin swam before her eyes in a sickening swirl. She closed them, leaning heavily against him as the only solid thing in a swaying, unsteady world. She could feel the hardness between his legs as he pressed her closely against him.

  His touch, his primitive male nearness, awoke something equally primitive in her. She felt strange, unlike herself. She hated and feared him, but his hands on her body made her burn as though she had a fever. She shivered, and without conscious thought her arms slid up around his neck. She was kissing him back.

  When he drew away at last, she was shaking so badly she could hardly stand. He stared down at her, his expression unreadable. Cathy blushed hotly under his steady gaze, and hastily dropped her eyes.

  “So you’re not quite as young as I thought,” he said slowly, and her whole body felt on fire with embarassment.

  “I hate him, I hate him,” she thought wretchedly. “Whatever possessed me to behave like that?”

  He stood looking down at her a moment longer, then swooped her up in his arms. The movement was so unexpected that she was temporarily shocked into silence. He held her cradled against his chest as he stepped through what was left of the cabin door. Outside in the hallway, Cathy saw the still body of what had once been a member of the Anna Greer’s crew. His head had been cleanly separated from his shoulders, and he lay in a pool of drying blood. Cathy shuddered, and turned her face away from the horrible sight. The captain’s arms around her were oddly comforting.

  “He did this!” she thought, stiffening. “And now he’s carrying me away to do God knows what with me!”

  She wriggled violently in his grasp.

  “You put me down, you murderer!” she hissed, trying vainly to throw herself from his arms. He ignored her struggles, which did not seem to hamper him in the slightest. Desperately, Cathy raked her long fingernails down the side of his face, drawing tiny drops of blood. The raw anger that blazed in his eyes made her suddenly go limp, but he made no attempt to avenge her violence. Instead, he swung her up over his shoulder where she was left to dangle head down like a sack of meal. This ignominious position infuriated her, and she screamed at the top of her lungs. His hand came down in a hard wallop against her conveniently placed backside. Cathy gasped with pain and shock. No one had ever dared to hit her before!

  She kicked at him viciously. The hard toe of her pointed little shoe caught him squarely in the stomach, and she smiled with satisfaction when he grunted. The next instant his hand whacked down against her bottom with a stinging slap that made the first seem like a mere love-pat.

  A whimper of pain escaped her. She writhed, try
ing to throw herself to the floor. He smacked her bottom again, and she screamed with fury and pain, calling him all the filthy names she had ever heard. When at last she ran out of breath, she pounded her fists against his back for emphasis. He spanked her bottom again, hard, and continued spanking as he climbed the narrow stairs.

  By the time they reached the main deck, Cathy was lying across his shoulder quietly. Tears poured down her cheeks and her bottom felt as though it were on fire. She closed her eyes at the sight of mutilated bodies sprawled where they had fallen, and, with a supreme effort of will, managed to bite back a sob. With all the strength that was left in her she hated the man who had done this to her, to all of them. Her mind seethed with impotent hatred and rage and shame.

  Two

  Jonathan Hale carried his burden easily. He took the narrow stairs two at a time, and then strode along the deck to where half a dozen of his men were standing guard over the assembled passengers and crew of the Anna Greer. The girl was a dead weight over his shoulder. She seemed to be subdued at last. Jon grinned to himself with wry amusement. He wanted her more than he cared to admit, even to himself. If circumstances had been different he would have greatly enjoyed taming her. But he had managed to elude capture during his eight years under the black flag partly by following one guiding principle: never take prisoners. They were more trouble than they were worth. Maybe, though, he would make an exception regarding this girl.

  Jon stopped abruptly, heaving the slight body off his shoulder and dumping it unceremoniously on the hard boards of the deck. She struggled to a sitting position, raising her tear-drenched eyes to his face and glaring at him defiantly. Her hair was dishevelled from the rough treatment she had endured, and hung in a coppery tangle down her back. Tears had traced dirty paths down either side of her face, and she pressed her lips tightly together to keep them from trembling. The lush swell of her breasts was clearly visible even though she was clutching the torn front of her dress together with both hands. Jon thought he had never seen a woman look more desirable.

  “Watch her,” he said briefly to a sailor standing nearby, then crossed the deck to supervise the transfer of the Anna Greer’s cargo into the hold of the Margarita.

  That cargo consisted of thousands of dollars worth of silver ore, partial payment from the Portuguese government to England for six English-built frigates. Jon had learned of the proposed shipment through a paid informant who worked as a clerk in the Portuguese embassy in England. The interesting part of the information was that the silver was to travel virtually unguarded. Although it would be carried on a military vessel, the ship would sail alone. The customary flotilla of guardian ships would be left behind.

  Jon had been incredulous when this news was passed on to him. He could not believe that any government would be foolhardy enough to send so much silver out unprotected. But he had the story checked out carefully and could find nothing to contradict it. The reasoning of the Portuguese government, as they had gradually pieced it together, had been that less attention drawn to the shipment would mean greater safety from attack. The original idea had been to place the silver on board a passenger ship with no heavy guns at all. But this had been deemed too risky, and a compromise had been reached: the silver would be shipped out on a lone military vessel, unguarded, as though the ship was making a routine voyage. The Anna Greer had been selected as the carrier ship, and had even been instructed to take on a few passengers to make the voyage seem as innocuous as possible.

  Taking the Anna Greer had been a dangerous piece of business. The Margarita had tailed her for days, watching for anything unusual. They had spotted nothing. It seemed as though his information was correct, but Jon still felt uneasy. Something about the situation just did not feel right.

  He had come to a decision only that morning. They would take the Anna Greer. Late afternoon would be the best time, when the lulling effects of the sun and water had dulled the senses of the Anna Greer’s crew. The whole operation should take less than an hour, and the Margarita would be away. With luck, none of the Anna Greer’s passengers, and few of her crew, would be harmed.

  So far, the operation had gone without a hitch. Of course, it was unfortunate that the Anna Greer had not surrendered at the outset, but then he had not really expected her to. The Margarita’s own losses had been minimal, and at this moment most of the men were happily engaged in gathering up all the plunder they could carry. It would be divided among them all as soon as they reached port safely, with each member of the crew receiving an equal share. As captain, he was entitled to one-fifth of the whole. The taking of the Anna Greer would make this voyage extremely profitable for him.

  “Get a move on it, Harley, Thomeon!” he roared, annoyed at the slowness of their efforts. The two men, who were carrying a load of silver across a makeshift bridge between the Margarita and her prey, almost fell overboard in their haste to obey his command. Jon watched the loading crew at work for a while, then turned to survey the passengers who had been segregated from the crew and were being loosely guarded by two of his men.

  Except for the girl, they were an unattractive lot. There was a middle-aged man and his fat, sobbing wife, who were obviously members of the wealthy merchant class; a foppish English lord and his poker-faced valet; the girl’s stout nursemaid, who had come around and was peering anxiously at her charge; and an elderly woman in an ugly lavender gown that had been in fashion twenty years before.

  “Not much to look at, certainly,” thought Jon, making a mental exception of the girl. But each and every one of them had to have money, or be in some way connected with it.

  “They’d bring a fat ransom,” he thought, regretting as he sometimes did his iron-clad rule concerning prisoners. He shook his head thoughtfully. They were just too much trouble, especially if they were female. Liable to cause trouble among the crew. It was a pity, though. He would have liked to have had a little time with the girl.

  “God, Cap’n, look to starboard!” a seaman gasped. “It’s a bleedin’ navy!”

  Jon whirled, staring out to sea. Ship after ship appeared on the horizon, heading grimly for the Anna Greer. Jon mentally cursed himself for being every kind of a fool. He had ignored the tiny inner voice that had tried to warn him, and so walked right into a trap. It was painfully obvious that the Anna Greer had been a carefully thought-out lure.

  “To catch some damn fool who couldn’t resist the honeypot!” Jon thought angrily, then turned to issue sharp orders to his crew.

  “Finish loading that silver! Fast! For your lives!” His voice was grim with determination, and the men rushed to do his bidding. Jon turned to Harry, who had come up beside him and was looking at him anxiously.

  “Find the Anna Greer’s captain and bring him to me!”

  Jon’s mind worked furiously as he waited for the captain of the captured ship to be brought before him. The Margarita could undoubtedly outrun the frigates if she could only get enough of a start. But they were less than an hour away, and closing rapidly. And it would only take one of the mighty ships to blow the pirate vessel clean out of the water. Guile was what was needed to bring them all through safely. Jon came to a decision abruptly, just as Harry approached with the captain of the Anna Greer.

  “Harry, get that fat couple over there, the old lady, and the girl. Put them on board the Margarita. They’ll be hostages for the good behavior of the frigates!”

  “Aye, aye, Captain!” Harry saluted smartly, then grinned. Jon would bring them through. He had never failed them yet!

  “Sir,” Jon said politely to the spluttering captain. “I very much regret the necessity of taking any of your passengers as hostages. However, they will not be harmed as long as the frigates keep their distance and their guns remain covered. If not—well, you have my word that the hostages will be executed immediately if one shot is fired. One shot. I depend on you to carry this message to the captain of the frigates.”

  The captain of the Anna Greer looked appalled.

 
“Sir, you cannot hope to escape with such hostages! The elderly lady is the Duchess of Kent, and the young lady is the daughter of the ambassador to Portugal! I implore you not to take them! Take myself, and my crew, instead!”

  Jon laughed, turning away.

  “Carry my message, Captain!”

  He gave low-voiced orders to another crew member and within minutes the Anna Greer’s outraged captain was being lowered in a gig with a crew of six to row.

  “Pull! Pull for the frigates!” Jon bellowed over the side at them. “Pull, damn your eyes, or I’ll blow you out of the water!”

  Thus admonished, the oarsmen fell to with a will. The little boat fairly skimmed through the water toward the frigates.

  Jon leaped on board the Margarita just as the last of the hostages was escorted over the makeshift bridge.

  “Cast off!”

  The ropes that tethered the two ships together were axed, and they began to drift slowly apart.

  “Square the yards!”

  The huge main sail was hoisted up the mast and flapped wildly for a moment before filling with wind.

  “Lie to windward!”

  The Margarita seemed to take on wings as the wind sent her clipping through the waves.

  On deck, Cathy held back frightened sobs as the Margarita picked up speed. A hard knot of unshed tears formed in her throat. She had never felt so helpless, or so alone.

  The hostages had been herded into a compact group directly under the main sail, and a rope had been twined loosely about their waists and legs to keep them in place.

  “So we can get to ye quick,” the man who tied the ropes told them, and his sly grin left them with little doubt as to his meaning. If the frigates misbehaved their lives would serve as forfeit.

  “We won’t be harmed. The frigates will never open fire as long as we are on board,” said the Duchess in a clear, strong voice. She took pity on Cathy’s obvious fright and patted her hand reassuringly. The merchant was too busy coping with his fat wife’s hysterics to argue with this statement, as he seemed to want to do.