The Devil's Luck (The Skull & Crossbone Romances Book 1)

by Eris Adderly

  The steel manacle went around her ankle with a metallic clank when he went to one knee before her. Turning, he fastened the other circlet around a leg of the table that stood in the centre of the room. Like most furniture on a ship, the table was fixed permanently to the deck to prevent it from sliding around. The widow had the length of chain to move about, but she would no longer be leaving his cabin.

  She made a noise of disgust. “Do you think this will convince me to lead you to my uncle? Threaten me with chains and I’ll give up my family to you, the same as I’ve given up so much else?”

  “No”—he stood again, resigned—“I think it will prevent you from wandering about my ship, which you’ve no longer the privilege to do.”

  Put it away, Edmund. Put away everything you might have felt. You’ve had your fun, now back to business with you.

  “Besides,” he added, rubbing a frustrated hand over the back of his neck, “I won’t need you to lead me to him. All I must do when we arrive is put word out at port among my contacts that Bertrand Symes’s niece is being held aboard The Devil’s Luck, and your uncle will come to me on his own.”

  The look on her face when he explained his plan was enough to tell him that if he hadn’t destroyed everything with her before, he’d surely done so now. It was worse than her first day aboard. She’d only feared him then. Now she had cause for hate.

  After she closed her open mouth, her fists came to her hips and the widow regarded him with all the scorn she could muster, which was a considerable amount. Her lovely chin tilted up in defiance and she gave a single shake of her newly tethered ankle, thrashing the length of chain over the deck to illustrate her next words.

  “You mean to keep me in here, then? Continue having your way, just as you managed that first evening? Force me apart again for the crew member of your choosing to rut upon? How could you, Edmund?”

  The widow’s final words were the ones that appeared to break her at last. He was surprised to find they’d come from her mouth and not his. The intimacy of her hurling his own name at him was a harsher blow than any object she might throw. She surrounded it by words that spoke of such complete betrayal, and it became the final straw to cast her from righteous indignation into a broken, bitter mess of tears.

  She didn’t crumble to the floor or hide her face in her hands, though. His Hannah only stared at him through red-rimmed eyes, her useless tears burning down her cheeks while she named him ‘devil’ with her gaze.

  She’s not ‘your Hannah’ any more. She never was. You cannot think of her that way.

  “You’ve nothing to say?” she demanded of him after several awful moments of blistering silence.

  Edmund knew he had nothing helpful and he made a half-hearted wave of his hand, gesturing to the room in general. “Well … you trusted a pirate, didn’t you? You’ve received just what a person would expect in such a bargain.”

  There was little more he could say, or would. Edmund only managed to shake his head at the totality of ruin before him and move for the doors. He turned his back on Hannah Collingwood and left her standing there, despising him, while he made his way out of the stateroom and onto the deck.

  The captain of The Devil’s Luck should be asleep in his bed at this hour, but he couldn’t be in the same room with the widow just now. He would need to break the news to Benjamin. The man was the closest thing to a brother he’d ever had, and Edmund was not looking forward to the look on his friend’s face when he explained what they’d lost tonight. The look would serve as a reminder. Benjamin had warned him about this very possibility, though Edmund had already taken his fill of other people being right for one evening.

  They should be making port at Nassau any day now, and it would come not a moment too soon. Best to be on with this whole affair and stop pining for things that would never be.

  * * * *

  Hannah waited until she was sure he must be well away from the doors before she allowed her knees to give way. Her palms thumped the deck when she fell and hot tears made wet little blossoms where they splattered onto the oiled wood.

  She wanted to curse him with every blasphemous word she knew or had ever overheard, but for long delirious moments all she could do was choke on incoherent sounds which weren’t quite speech as she fought for air.

  She wanted to curse herself.

  Get control of yourself! Hasn’t he done enough to you?

  The pace of her breathing and sniffling needed to be brought into line, and she did this as best she could, drying her face with the heels of her palms. She had her legs bent at an odd angle beneath her and she straightened them, her new tether making a sullen, metallic sound as it moved over the deck. There would be no point in struggling with the band of steel around her ankle. The captain would not have bothered to secure her with something from which she could easily escape.

  The familiar rocking of the ship was of no comfort to Hannah now, as she sat there in a daze, completely at a loss for what to do, or how to endure.

  You should’ve never read that letter! Your own foolish questions led him straight to your uncle. You betrayed your own family, Hannah!

  But how could she have known? In what fantastical Hell could she have possibly imagined any of this? That she’d be tricked into boarding a pirate ship? And that its captain would be in possession of letters from her uncle? The likelihood was too slim to be real. It seemed as though Providence, or the Fates, or whatever otherworldly force governed this existence, was having an uproarious laugh at her expense.

  Blackburn was right. If he put word out she was being held aboard his ship, her uncle would likely agree to almost anything if he thought it would deliver his only niece from the hands of a scoundrel. No form of protest or stubbornness on her part could prevent the captain from making good on his plans.

  Perhaps if she could get word to him that a trap was being set, her uncle could flee Boston ahead of them; not tell anyone where he was going. He’d done it before.

  And where will that leave you? Stuck on this cursed ship for ever? To be used as bait in every port until Black Edmund catches his prize?

  But those were foolish thoughts either way. There would be no way for her to warn her uncle. There was nothing Hannah could do about any of this. Nothing at all.

  And what of her remaining time aboard The Devil’s Luck? His words still stung her.

  You enjoyed your own self plenty, woman, with your legs spread …

  A rich man’s spoiled daughter who thought she’d try out the whore’s trade …

  The utter hubris of the man! Hannah finally let loose the string of curses she’d been accumulating, banging her shackle against the deck for emphasis.

  Did she imagine he would leave her be in the coming weeks? Chain her up in his cabin, sleep in it himself every night, and leave her untouched? No. He’d proven not to have a shred of honour about him, and more than once. The only question remaining was how she would choose to react.

  Things would certainly not go back to how they’d been before, and the pang of regret she felt at this loss was a new shame for her to heap atop her already burgeoning hoard.

  She could fight him tooth and nail, every step of the way. Spit and kick at every attempted caress, bite and claw when he covered her. That path would probably land Hannah in a great deal more physical hurt than she thought she might be capable of enduring.

  There was always the apathetic approach. She could lay there, limp as a dishrag, whatever he did. Deny him the pleasure of hearing her moans or feeling her struggles. Her own passive, pathetic little rebellion against the inevitable.

  No matter what she did, or how she might handle herself, one thing was certain. Hannah Collingwood would not be fooled by this man again.

  * * * *

  When he returned to his stateroom after a long and uncomfortable conversation with his quartermaster, Edmund found himself letting out a sigh of guilty relief to find the angry widow asleep.

  She was huddled with her bac
k to his wall of cabinets, as far from his sleeping berth as the dozen or so feet of her chain would allow. Her head lolled to one side, the column of her throat a pale highlight in the darkened space. The distance she’d put between the bed they’d shared told him all he needed to know about how she still regarded him.

  He pushed off his boots and climbed onto the berth, not even bothering to remove his shirt or breeches. He was tired. Tired of chasing after impossible goals, tired of making decisions, and tired of useless, inconvenient emotions.

  Let her sleep where she is, then.

  His affairs were fouled up enough for one evening, without having to complicate things by poking a stick at an anthill and trying to wake the widow up to move her elsewhere.

  The rest of this journey was going to be a trial, and they hadn’t even made it to Nassau yet.

  Only one more day, two at most. Keep your head, Blackburn. You haven’t been ruined by a woman for thirty-six years. Don’t take up the habit now.

  * * * *

  Benjamin stared at the grain of the wood overhead, both seeing and not seeing, as though if he let his gaze penetrate long enough, answers would come forth from the ceiling of the cabin above his bunk.

  He rearranged his wrists behind his head and let out a long breath. It was another among many since Edmund had come and gone, leaving a swath of wreckage in his wake.

  Oh, Edmund. Of all the times for you to stick to your guns.

  There was no way that wizened old cock Nathaniel Blackburn was going to let his son inherit his estates. Benjamin had enjoyed the misfortune of meeting the man, and he’d needed no words of confirmation to illustrate the complete apathy the plantation master had for his only bastard son. And apathy would come on a good day. Other days ranged into disdain and outright contempt.

  The quartermaster of The Devil’s Luck knew the captain’s father had made the rash promise during an uncharacteristic moment of raw anger. The old man’s cool head would have returned with the dawn, the same way Edmund’s was wont to do, and his hasty bargain would dissipate like a fog under the sun’s first rays. And then sacrificing the widow would be for nothing.

  Hannah.

  His fingers gripped and twisted in the linens behind his head at the thought. Lord, what that woman had done to him. To them both, though Edmund was making an infuriating effort at denying it.

  Her scent still lingered in the cabin from earlier that evening. He should have held her closer in his sleep. Then she might never have left. Whatever had happened when she’d gone wandering the ship seemed to have put the fateful nail in the coffin of this sweet budding thing he knew, in the part of his heart he’d refused to explore, had been destined for the grave.

  Hours ago, she’d been rolling beneath him. Above him. He’d drunk her kisses, the finest of wines, the idea of having to give her up in a few short weeks packed away so well even he couldn’t find it. The way her eyes would glint in the lamplight when he would ask her to tell him about the things she’d read in her father’s library, her arm bent at the elbow, hand propping up her head, the fingers of her other hand playing over his chest as she spoke with a quiet, focused enthusiasm.

  Circumstances had never permitted him to know such a woman, and part of him was glad life hadn’t allowed him this particular pleasure until now. How would he ever have accomplished anything, driven to distraction this way? Even when he walked the decks, seeing to the fluid operation of the ship, thoughts of Hannah would come creeping at the strangest moments. Her laugh, her gasp when he showed her something new, the way she would humph at Edmund over crossed arms when his friend devilled her beyond her tolerance.

  Your ‘distractions’ will lift, soon enough, Till.

  He growled to himself, shifting over onto his side to face the wall. Another pending disaster, equally troubling, was the way his thoughts had turned dark on the prospect of continuing aboard The Devil’s Luck after the inevitable ripping away of his newfound joy.

  There had been disagreements before between him and Edmund, certainly. No two men would be of a mind on every matter, every day. But this … this was something different. Were the fight over gold or battle plans, well … more coin could be won, logistics reimagined. They would not be able to replace Hannah Collingwood. Did Edmund think either of them would be satisfied with whores after this? With their empty smiles and fleeting embraces?

  Now what worried Benjamin was the swelling tide of thought that suggested he might be better off quitting the sea if his oldest friend chose to remain blind to something as plain as this. He was beginning to think Edmund’s mad pursuit of this resurrected Prometheus quest was nothing more than a way for the man to divert his own attention away from a more terrifying reality.

  The captain, he suspected, did not want to admit to himself what Benjamin already knew: the pair of them were in love with the Widow Collingwood. And now they would lose her.

  Acting the bloody fool, Blackburn. We had everything we wanted right here.

  The inside of his cabin was a storm of ill humour and pointless fretting. Benjamin closed his eyes and sought out sleep. Perhaps there he’d find a few hours peace.

  * * * *

  It was lamentable that Hannah’s first sight of the islands had not been under more fortunate circumstances, because everything she saw was painfully beautiful. She had to take in everything through the window in Blackburn’s stateroom as they made their approach, still chained as she was to the table, but her eyes could hardly make themselves wide enough to absorb the exotic sights rolling by.

  The sky was violently blue and the waters competed, trying to strangle her in a barrage of brilliant colour. She’d heard accounts from acquaintances of her father’s who’d been, but nothing she’d seen back at the Port of Bristol could prepare her for this. The smaller, narrow islets they passed on their way into the harbour had beaches of blinding white sand, and plants and trees, the likes of which she’d only encountered illustrated in books, fringed their higher portions in glossy green.

  Yes, a true shame, this. She would’ve loved to travel here one day without a dark could of hate and betrayal hanging over her head. But that was not to be, and there was nothing to be done about it.

  Two restless, uncomfortable nights she’d spent trying to manage sleep with her back propped against cabinet doors and her bottom going numb from sitting on the deck. She would doze for brief spells, but her body would jerk her awake with a sensation of falling, and the sudden movement of her legs would stir her chain, the sound of it yanking her back into cruel reality.

  Blackburn had made some grumbling, after the first night, about allowing her the use of the bed, but she’d ignored his offer. By what possible stretch of his imagination he thought she would be amenable to sleeping beside him, she didn’t know. She’d be tempted to strangle him with the chain, although that wouldn’t see her off the ship, now would it?

  Hannah was surprised the captain still intended to take her ashore, considering the current state of affairs between the two of them.

  Well, the three of us, really. Till did nothing to prevent any of this now, did he?

  But he’d come nonetheless, unlocking her single restraint and explaining that he wasn’t interested in leaving her aboard the ship with Graves while he and Mr Till went to shore. As though anything that wretched surgeon did could hurt Hannah more than what her two duplicitous lovers had already done to her.

  They’d given her but a few moments to try to pile up her hair beneath the silk hat she’d arrived with, as though it mattered how she should appear in public here. Nassau was, after all, a pirate haven. Its denizens bandied about names just as notorious as Black Edmund’s here, if not more. Calico Jack, Thomas Barrow, Edward Teach … Names that seemed unreal when one was expected to pull them out of society gossip and place them on the heads of living, breathing men.

  The journey ashore had been awkward, as had everything else the last few days, with Hannah looking everywhere but at the captain or the quartermast
er. Perhaps she could forget for a time, while the crew rowed the smaller boat toward the warm lights of a darkening port, that she was here entirely against her will.

  Or perhaps not.

  “Mrs Collingwood,” Blackburn said her name, making her turn back to face him. He offered a hand to help hoist her out of the boat and onto a short dock, and she let him see the full measure of her disdain before allowing him to assist her. Hannah wanted nothing to do with the man, let alone permit him to touch her again, but she also saw there would be little use in putting up a struggle at this moment.

  Once she’d gained footing on the dock, he reminded her as he’d done before matters had gone so sour about the dangers of this particular port.

  “Now listen to me, Mrs Collingwood,” he said, taking hold of her arm. She felt some rueful triumph that he’d given up on calling her ‘Hannah’, but looked at him with blank eyes, no longer interested in giving the man any glimpse into her emotions. “I cannot emphasise how important it is for you to stay close to either Mr Till or myself. This isn’t a place for ladies such as yourself, and I assure you, you won’t do well at all unattended.”

  Blackburn swept his eyes over the bodies that milled about the street skirting the docks, so different from the look and feel of the crowds at Bristol. He snorted in bitter observation. “You may just be the only woman on this island who doesn’t already have syphilis, and I’d put it past none of this lot to see the situation rectified.”

  He locked his gaze with hers again, brown eyes she’d wanted to drown in only days ago, now making her want to gouge at them with her nails. “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.” One word at a time was all he would get from her.