The Rebel Pirate

by Donna Thorland

  “And Micah wanted to carry the news on the Sally, to be the man Congress turns to—contracts with—for powder and shot and cannon, but she will be a week at least refitting.” Sarah ran through the fastest Salem schooners in her mind. “Derby’s Quero is almost as fast. Smaller too, and quicker to make ready.”

  “Just so,” agreed Angela Ferrers. “It will displease Wild to be bested by Derby in this. The Sally, though, could still be of great use. If you manage to keep control of her, you might restore your fortunes and your standing among your neighbors with a few successful powder runs to Portugal or Saint Eustatius.”

  “The Sally and my brother Ned barely survived one unsuccessful run to Saint Stash. Rebel machinations have cost my father everything we had. We can’t afford to take part in your war.”

  “Neutrality is not an option for your family. You chose the Rebel side when you took up arms against an officer of the king.”

  “I did it to save my brother.”

  “Forget, for the moment, Micah Wild’s rhetoric. This fight is not about abstract ideals or tea or tax. It is about the most basic kind of liberty—the kind you fought to preserve for your brother.”

  And which the Rebel mob and Micah Wild would take from Sparhawk.

  “If I told you that I have brought another kind of cargo to Salem,” Sarah said, choosing her words carefully, “something that might precipitate an incident that would not redound to your credit, what would you say?”

  “I would say that I was interested, but that I needed more information.”

  “Information is currency.”

  “With which you hope to buy my help,” the young widow said. “You came here to see the woman for whom Wild jilted you. You must have needed something, yes? What would you have used to purchase Elizabeth’s aid?”

  “Sentiment,” said Sarah, honestly.

  “A debased specie. You will find it buys very little from me.”

  “Then I will apply to Elizabeth,” said Sarah, rising.

  “Then I will send one of Micah’s men for little Ned. Several, perhaps, if the formidable Mr. Cheap is still part of your household.”

  And Ned would tell Mrs. Ferrers everything. Sarah sat back down. “We brought the captain of the Wasp home with us as a prisoner. I fear that if Micah and the Sons of Liberty discover him, they will hang him.”

  Angela Ferrers raised a plucked eyebrow. “You are right to fear it. As do I. Such an incident might make a popular figure of Wild in the ports, but it would not redound to American credit in London. Not even Mr. Adams’ talents for propaganda could cast the hanging of a British officer in a good light. What is it then that you propose?”

  “I want to send the captain back to Boston, but he is injured, and I have no carriage.”

  Angela Ferrers made a study of the sepia mourning ring on her right hand. Finally she said, “I will have Wild’s carriage sent to Judge Rideout’s house at midnight. Rideout’s man will drive your captain to Boston. But that is all I will do for you. It will be up to you to keep your captain safe and hidden until then.”

  • • •

  James pushed open the door to find a cozy keeping room, appointed with rough-hewn furniture from the last century. Behind the painted tavern table sat a gentleman in an invalid’s chair, a cane leaning against the arm. His hair might have been Sarah’s honey blond in youth, but it was faded yellow shading into white now. On the table in front of him lay a model of the Sally, her mast unstepped. The old man held it in his gnarled hand. When Sparhawk entered, he stopped singing and put it down.

  Abednego Ward had reportedly been a giant. Age had reduced him, but it had not robbed his eyes of light or his voice of mischief. He looked from Sparhawk’s splint to the broken mast of the tiny Sally and chuckled with satisfaction. “At least she got a few swipes in at you as well.”

  He meant the Sally. “Yes,” Sparhawk said. “If it is any consolation, I was quite sorry to be obliged to dismast her.”

  “Hah!” The old man reached for a jug on the floor beside him. “I’ll warrant you were at that. Wanted to bring her in a prize all trim and neat. There are as many pirates in the British Navy as ever ravished the Spanish Main.” He nodded at Sparhawk’s blue coat, laid out on a bench by the fire. Someone had brushed it, he noted. “You didn’t buy those fine buttons out of your pay, did you?”

  “No.” He hadn’t. He’d always been lucky with prizes, until the Sally.

  The old man slapped the table and laughed. “I thought not. Come all the way in and let me get a look at you.”

  Sparhawk complied. Abednego Ward studied him, and Sparhawk observed the old pirate in turn. He wore an old-fashioned coat with wide gored skirts and a silk waistcoat embroidered with gold wire. A white scar twisted from eyebrow to jawline down the left side of Red Abed’s face, reminding Sparhawk of the man’s checkered and violent past.

  Abednego Ward huffed, set his jug on the table, and pushed it toward James. “My youngest son,” the old pirate said, “thinks you’re some kind of hero. My sailing master believes you’re a seducer, out to ravish my daughter. And my daughter believes you are a wounded bird in need of her care. But she has notoriously bad judgment when it comes to men.”

  Sparhawk reached for the jug. “And what do you think, sir?”

  “I think my old coat suits you, but you’ve yet to fill out the shoulders.”

  He was a canny old rascal. “I’m no pirate,” James said. “I have been in the navy since I was eleven.”

  “The way my daughter tells it, you hailed our late and not particularly lamented skipper, and threatened him with a broadside. When Molineaux did not heave to, you dismasted the Sally and boarded her. And it was the Wasp that sailed away with the gold. If you don’t think that’s piracy, my boy, I suggest you make a closer study of the word.”

  • • •

  When Sarah entered her house she was surprised to hear low voices coming from the kitchen. She had left Sparhawk resting in her bed and her father downstairs by the fire. Ned and Lucas were supposed to be readying the Sally to take her to Marblehead when night fell. The house should have been silent.

  She hesitated at the door to the keeping room. Her father’s voice she recognized, a bass rumble expressing interest and excitement. The other sounded familiar as well. She wished James Sparhawk’s pleasing tenor did not make her pulse race. She had been foolish over one man. She must not be foolish over another.

  At least not any more foolish than she had already been. Bargaining with a woman like Angela Ferrers for Sparhawk’s life might cost Sarah her own. Carrying flint and French molasses had branded her a smuggler; kidnapping Sparhawk named her a pirate; dealing with Angela Ferrers made her a Rebel. If her actions were discovered, no doubt the navy would think it a pity it could hang her only once.

  And she could not pretend that she had struck a deal with Angela Ferrers entirely out of a sense of obligation. The truth was that she cared for Sparhawk, thrilled at the way he made her feel—like the carefree girl she had been before Micah Wild jilted her.

  She slipped inside the keeping room door. Her father and Sparhawk were crouched beside the table, scrutinizing the hull of the little Sally at eye level. The rum jug sat on the floor between them, and two dirty plates speckled with greasy crumbs—toast and cheese, no doubt—littered the table. They were so entranced by the miniature Sally’s timbers, so caught up in some scheme to copper her bottom and reinforce her decks, that they did not hear Sarah enter.

  “You,” she said to her supposed captive, “are meant to be resting.”

  Sparhawk stood and turned to face her. Unlike many sailors, he was graceful on land, even with one arm in a splint. “I got tired of resting,” he said. “And your father is excellent company.”

  On the Sally he had been the picture of military splendor, his hair neatly clubbed, his collar starched, his cravat exactingly
tied. Now his sun-shot hair hung loose about his shoulders, and he wore a soft linen shirt she had found in her brother’s dresser, open at the neck, beneath her father’s second-best coat. Even his once-polished shoes were now water stained from the squall aboard the Sally.

  He was, if anything, even more appealing in dishabille.

  She did her best to ignore his beauty. “And you,” she said to her father, “are supposed to be in bed.”

  “As it happens,” her father said, unfolding himself with obvious effort, “I am waiting for Mr. Cheap to return. I need a look at the Sally.”

  “You’re not fit for it,” she said. “The damp will play merry hell with your joints.”

  “The damp finds me wherever I am. And the sooner I’ve seen her, the sooner we can fix her.”

  He should not go, but there would be no way to stop him. He bade them good night and ambled out, leaning heavily on his stick.

  “Will he be all right?” Sparhawk asked, watching him from the window. Her father teetered over the lawn, his cane sinking deep in the earth, until Cheap met him at the dock.

  “Mr. Cheap will see that he is as comfortable as he can be, but when he comes back, he will be crippled for days. He had the freedom of the sea his whole life, and now he is a prisoner in his own body.”

  “I am sorry,” Sparhawk said. “He is a charming old rogue. Why didn’t you tell me that your father was Abednego Ward?”

  “Because having a pirate for a father casts doubt upon my character.”

  “It shouldn’t. Red Abed was no ordinary pirate,” said Sparhawk.

  “We have our fair share of retired sea dogs in Salem. Is my father’s name really so distinguished?” she asked.

  “Among men who have served in the West Indies, certainly. We abhor pirates, of course, except when they are British and colorful and know how to frustrate the French. Then we heap honors upon them.”

  “My father was no Morgan.”

  “Only for want of opportunity,” said Sparhawk. “He was born fifty years too late.”

  “Would you have let Ned go if I had told you?”

  “No. I could not make such an exception. It would set a terrible precedent. But we did, I recall, speak on several occasions after that.”

  “Would it have convinced you then that I had nothing to do with the gold and that my father was a loyal Englishman?”

  “Your father, I daresay, has no love for the Rebels because he cannot abide being told what to do.”

  “That is a common malady amongst sea captains,” she said.

  He laughed. “So it is.”

  “My father will always put kin and crew before king and country, but that does not mean that he has no love for the king.”

  “I do not doubt his love for the king,” said Sparhawk. “On the contrary. Your father still has his royal pardon, rolled in a leather cylinder. I myself am the king’s trusty friend, but he has never seen fit to sign a document with my name on it. Some Jack-in-office signed my commission on His Majesty’s behalf.”

  He was being charming again. “Perhaps you don’t cut a flamboyant-enough figure.” And she was flirting with him.

  He warmed to it, flicking the skirts of her father’s old velvet coat. “No? Maybe it’s that I haven’t taken enough prizes. If I recall, Red Abed preyed mostly on the Spanish and French, but suffered occasional confusion when he saw British colors.”

  “And that is a common malady amongst pirates,” she said.

  “Your father made much the same argument.” Sparhawk turned suddenly serious. “I wish I had not placed you in such a difficult position, but I am not sorry that I captured the Sally, however briefly. Micah Wild’s French gold would have been used to buy powder and shot to kill sailors on British ships, many of whom are your countrymen, and one of whom, of course, is me.” There was that charm again, damn him.

  “Micah sees the pressed men as traitors,” she said. “True Patriots would have chosen jail.” She could quote much of his rhetoric. She had believed in it, once.

  “You didn’t tell me you were engaged to Wild, either.”

  She flushed with embarrassment. “No, I didn’t. Ned shouldn’t have either.”

  “You were jilted, Sarah. For mercenary reasons, it seems. There is no shame in that. It is Wild who was in the wrong.”

  “I have found you a rig and a driver,” she said, changing the subject. “We must meet him at the home of our neighbor, Judge Rideout, at midnight.”

  “Sarah.” He stepped closer. She could smell the soap on his skin, pine needles and juniper. She had fetched it from her father’s washstand, but it was different on Sparhawk, deeper, earthier, like the forest floor in springtime. “I want to help you, if I can,” he said.

  He was so close to her now that the tips of their shoes met. She could feel the heat of his body. He was the kind of man she and Elizabeth Pierce had daydreamed about, the kind of man Sarah had thought Micah Wild to be: bold and brave and honorable.

  She wanted him, even if only for one night, to feel desired by a man with integrity, whose code was something more than personal convenience. To replace the shame and humiliation of her night with Micah Wild with something born of mutual respect and shared passion. But the danger to herself and her family was too great.

  “That kind of help,” she said, not troubling to disguise her longing, “sounds very appealing right now, but it would only leave me worse off in the morning when you are gone.”

  • • •

  He could not recall a time since he had been ripped from his home and his mother’s arms that he had wanted anything so much. Not food or drink or a woman, though he had been starving, parched, and deprived in his time.

  He tried to muster all the reasons why he did not bed women like Sarah Ward.

  He could not call them to mind. The room was pleasantly warm. There was a convenient trundle near the fire. He could see the red highlights in her hair and imagine the sweet taste of her mouth, the soft sound of her sighing. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and he knew he could make it good for her, but that still did not make it right.

  “Sarah, I realize that I have a certain reputation when it comes to the fair sex, but I do have some principles. I don’t bed girls like you.”

  Her nose wrinkled. She had a wonderfully expressive face, at odds with her fine features and porcelain complexion. Right now it was displaying indignation. He found the contrast enchanting.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because of our difference in status,” he said.

  “You mean because you are my captive?”

  She meant it as banter, but there was truth in it. Tonight, in this house, their positions were reversed. She held all the power and all the choices. If she did not want him, she had only to scream and her neighbors—Rebels all, it seemed—would come running to tar and feather him—or more likely worse. But tomorrow, things would be different. “I mean because you are, by your actions on the Sally, a criminal. And I represent the authority of the Crown.”

  “You don’t look much like the Crown at the moment.” She touched the bald velvet cuff of his coat. “And fool that I am, I’m not running away.”

  She wasn’t. For Sarah Ward, desire had already overcome reason. And the invitation in her bright, dilated eyes and her moist open lips was enough to convince him to follow. One night, he reasoned, if they were careful not to make a child—and he had been careful all his life—would not harm her, so long as no one learned of it. There had been no seduction, no false promises on either side, only this powerful tide of desire, that would drag them both to the trundle, then wash them up on shore, panting and spent.

  He leaned toward her. She was so close that her breasts touched his coat. Her breathing quickened. Rational thought fled and animal nature sprang to the fore. He reached for her—

  Three
brisk raps upon the front door, echoing through the empty house, shattered their intimacy.

  “Don’t answer it,” Sparhawk said. If she did, the moment would slip from them.

  “I have to,” she replied, stepping away.

  “Surely not. It’s night, and you are alone with no servants. It could be anyone.”

  “But it isn’t anyone. It is Micah Wild.”

  The knock came again, fast, sharp, demanding to be answered. Sparhawk did not like its tone. “How do you know it is him?”

  “I went to his house today,” she said. “To see his wife and beg the use of her carriage. Micah’s servants will have told him I was there. He will know the Sally is back.”

  Sparhawk did not miss the tremor in her voice. “Cargoes are seized every day,” he said. “Wild cannot blame you for his loss. Surely, despite the circumstances of our meeting, I have earned some little of your trust. What else is it you fear?”

  “Without the flint you threw over the side, we cannot raise enough to pay Wild back.”

  Sparhawk should have figured it out sooner. But his attention had been fixed first on the gold, and making certain it did not fall into Rebel hands, and then upon Sarah Ward, in all her intriguing complexity. “The Sally,” he said. “She was your collateral for the loan from Wild.”

  The knock came again.

  “Yes,” Sarah said. “That is why my father has gone with Mr. Cheap. Not just to hide the Sally from your friends in the navy. My father must hide her from Micah as well, or he and his Sons of Liberty will seize her and fit her out for their purposes.”

  The fastest ship in New England, probably. Abednego had shown him how easy it would be to make her faster and more maneuverable still, with a little money and a little time: new rigging, a copper bottom, and in the event that another ship sought to hinder her, reinforced decking for cannon. A swift vessel, low in the water, able to outrun most of the navy’s blockade ships. Ideal for powder runs to Lisbon or Saint Stash.