by C. K. Brooke
James muttered something, but it was too low for Abi to hear. She touched his elbow. “Come again?”
“I said, that’s not my crew.”
A new voice croaked, “You’re damn right, it ain’t.”
Abi swiveled around. From behind, James’s arms were seized by two additional men. To her utter shock, the young woman came face-to-face with…
“Bones?”
The brown-skinned man lowered his cutlass. “Abi?”
Before she could beg him not to, Bones began to shriek like a wild animal. James’s captors accompanied him, together bellowing an incoherent jumble.“We found ’er! It’s Abi! Cap, she be here!”
Rags, Peter, and One-Eyed Will, faithful hearties of The Succubus, contained James Morrow, who showed no intention of resisting, although Abi suspected the three of them would be no match, should James choose to fight back. Calmly, he allowed them to bind his wrists behind his back with rope, despite Abi’s protests. He said not a word, staring straight ahead as they bullied and shoved him along the dock and up the gangplank.
Abi raced after them, pushing through her father’s ragtag crewmen, who were all vying to greet her. “Wait!” she demanded, hauling up The Succubus’s gangplank. Her boots slipped and she nearly tripped over her skirts. Hoisting the hem out of her way, she ran, not giving a fig who should see her ankles, or even her knees.
The trio and Bones led James to the prow, cursing fiendishly at him. Abi’s heart ached to see him silently tolerating the abuse. “Shut up,” she ordered the four. But it was plain they hadn’t any idea she was talking to them, if indeed they’d heard her at all.
She caught up to them in time to witness Rags binding James by the ankles as well. She opened her mouth to object again when a set of heavy heels clapped deliberately up the bow. Behind her, a hand squeezed her shoulder.
Abi turned. Her emotions crescendoed into a mess of contradictions as she was bombarded with paralyzing fear, yet flooded with familial comfort, to behold the lined face of Captain Clear.
“Abi?” Her father squinted at her. “I almost didn’t recognize you, dressed so.”
“Papa.” She swallowed.
“Why, you look rather like…” But he faltered mid-sentence, and simply held out black-cloaked arms to her.
At painful odds with herself, Abi stepped into her father’s embrace. She shut her eyes, taking in the smoky scent of his cloak, the tickle of his graying red whiskers at her forehead.
“Welcome home.” He patted her on the back. “We knew you’d find your way back to us. But, even so…” He stepped away, digging into his belt. “The one responsible will now meet his end.” Stalking past her, Captain Clear withdrew his silver pistol.
Abi’s blood curdled in horror. “Papa, no,” she cried, bounding after him.
Abner Clear came to an abrupt stop before his captive. Abi did not miss the surprised widening of his eyes, before they narrowed into something more sinister. For a moment that seemed to last an eternity, he and James Morrow stared each other down, the loathing in their venomous gazes mutual.
“Well, well.” Her father leered at last, spinning the glinting pistol around his index finger. “We meet again, Dagger Jim.”
Chapter 13
The tension among them was thicker than the gathering fog. Abi’s lips turned numb as she gaped blankly between the two rival captains, wondering how much she had managed to miss over the course of her abduction. “Wait.” She gripped her father’s cloak. “There must be some mistake. This man can’t be Dagger Jim. Captain Morrow is a privateer…”
She trailed off as her father shook his head at her, though his eyes didn’t leave James’s. “What do you recall of our last encounter with my sworn nemesis, Abi?” the older man asked her quietly.
She looked down, trying to remember. Notwithstanding her efforts and the longstanding notoriety of the name, she couldn’t summon a single memory to mind. Not one. “Nothing,” she realized.
“That’s because you were but a child.” Her father twirled the pistol again, his frown becoming more pronounced. “Remember that old toothless wart what you used to call ‘Grandpapa’? He stayed with you, watched over you below decks, while the battle raged on this very floor.” He clicked the toe of his boot against the planks.
Grandpapa? This sparked a distant memory. Abi vaguely remembered being a girl of perhaps twelve years old, huddled in a swinging hammock. She recalled listening to the stories of an elderly man while trying to stay brave amidst the pounding boots and chaos ringing out above their heads.
“But Papa, that was so long ago,” she countered, though only half-heartedly. The fluids in her stomach were rolling like the waves before a tempest. “How can you be certain it’s him?”
Captain Clear indicated the side of Morrow’s head. “I am certain that is the scar I gave him.”
Abi’s chest felt hollow.
“Which leads me to ask you,” her father faced her, his face darkening like a storm cloud, “what in hell were you thinkin’, bringing him here?”
Her throat was parched, and her voice emerged strained. “I didn’t know he was Dagger Jim. And I didn’t tell him anything about the island, I swear—”
“What about the island?” James interjected, speaking for the first time since his capture.
Abi’s father gave her a furious look.
“I didn’t mean to come here, Papa!” Abi maintained. “We happened to be passing by. I thought I was escaping them. I wasn’t expecting him to follow me!” She returned her flustered focus to James, who was watching her intently, as though trying to decipher a code. “You.” She heaved a breath as her heartbeat escalated. “You’re a pirate.”
He didn’t deny it.
She struggled to reconcile the word with the face she had come to associate with a straighter path. “You’ve been one, this whole while.” And not just any pirate, but an established enemy! She thought on James’s crew, their tattooed arms and wrists. The pieces were folding into place. “And your crew…you’ve all been disguising as privateers.” No doubt the idea was to evade the reproach of the law by pretending to uphold it.
“What about the island, Abigail?” James asked her again. Although, his flat tone told her he’d guessed perfectly well.
Her father bopped her on the back of the head.
“Don’t,” blurted James. “She’s told me not a thing, Clear. Trust me, I tried everything…” he winced as Will and Peter tightened their holds on him, “to loosen her tongue.”
Abi couldn’t quantify her devastation. There was so much she wanted to say—to scream, actually—but couldn’t in her father’s presence. Yet, the depth of James Morrow’s deception was crushing. What kind of fool had she been played for?
Why, he’d never meant a word he said! Settle down someplace, a sailor’s humble but happy wife? As if just another wayward pirate could give that to her. She had dared to dream he was falling for her, that they might be destined for the prospect of romance and liberation. How childish. All along, he was only after…
“The Spanish Treasure,” growled James to Captain Clear. “It’s here on Monhegan, isn’t it?” His eyes flickered over to Abigail, looking disappointed, almost as though she was the one to betray him. “Yer daughter has a good poker face, fer sure. She would never have told me. Truly, her loyalty is with her pa.”
Captain Clear cocked his pistol, plainly losing patience. Despite everything, the sound sent terror into Abi’s heart. “Papa, don’t!” She lunged and grabbed her father’s wrists. Abi aimed the gun into the sky as it fired, sending a bullet into one of the masts.
“Abi,” snarled her father. “The devil are you—?”
“Please!” She shook as she fought her father’s hands, trying to wrestle the gun away from him. Tears dribbled down her cheek.
“He knows too much, thanks to you!” Captain Clear hissed. “He has to go! I don’t get why you’re being so—”
Boom.
Abi knew that cannon
fire, had lived it. It didn’t hit The Succubus, but sent up a fearsome splash beside it. All across the deck, the pirates cut away from the spectacle and turned on their heels.
A great shadow poured through the obscuring fog, a man-o’-war with cannons aimed and ready to fire. It blasted another cannonball into the shallows, needlessly announcing its arrival.
James’s relief was palpable, while Captain Clear reddened with rage. Out of Clear’s mouth rang a slew of curses so impressive, Abi thought her ears might bleed. He ended with the command, “To the bloody brig with him!” Abandoning the prow, he marched down the opposite deck, snapping orders to the rest of the crew and unsheathing his cutlass. Bones hurried after him.
“Leave the prisoner,” Abi told Peter, Rags, and One-Eyed Will sternly, once her father was out of earshot.
Rags furrowed his brow. “Wot’s this about, Abi?”
“You’ll not take him to the brig just yet. I need a word.”
“But, Cap’n Clear—”
“Is busy.” Abi seized James’s burly upper arm, forcing the others to let him go. “Besides, our Jim is bound by hand and foot. It’s not as though he can go anyplace.”
The others looked unsettled, but heeded her. She imagined they knew the sort of trouble that crossing the Captain’s daughter had invoked in the past. And her father was already in a dour enough mood. She waited until their broad backs were out of sight.
Abi scrutinized James as the second ship grew massive in her periphery. Though the man was tied up, he somehow seemed far from helpless. There was, in fact, something positively defiant about his erect posture and calm demeanor.
Her blood flow seemed to speed up, making her hotter. “Your faux privateer vessel impends on us,” she observed in a clipped tone.
James replied with irritating ease. “Aye, they’ve come to recapture their captain.”
In no time, his men disembarked, storming The Succubus just as before. The clanging of swords smarted in Abi’s ears, but it wasn’t enough to divert her. “You play a dirty game,” she told him coolly. “I still haven’t decided who’s won.”
“I’m not playing any game.”
She made a dismissive sound.
“I tell you, I never was.” His voice dropped. “And we both still have a chance to succeed—together,” he said, more urgently, “if you’ll free me.”
Abi glared at him. “You honestly think I trust you?”
“Now.” His imploring eyes were so sincere, Abi almost believed him. He wriggled in his bindings at her hesitation. “The truth isn’t what it seems.”
“You dare speak to me of truth?”
“I promise, I can explain,” he said between clenched teeth, “if ye’ll slice off these bloody ropes.”
They stared at each other as men clamored and jeered behind them, and one of The Succubus’s masts was cut down. James didn’t blink. Neither did Abi.
She was seriously considering it. As furious as she was, as betrayed as she felt, her curiosity heightened over her emotions. Was there more to know? Could he possibly have a worthy explanation? Or was this simply another episode in James Morrow’s line of deceptions?
Her fingers flirted with the waistband of her skirt. She still had Hoff’s sickle, which she’d stolen for her escape.
Before she could come to a decision, a stream of silver flashed between the captain’s boots, startling the daylights out of Abi.
“Thank you,” sighed James. He held out his fastened hands. “These too?” Another dart of silver spliced them free. Abi gaped at the blue-jacketed man who wielded the sword, while James massaged his wrists gratefully. “Mr. Calahad, you never cease to astound me.”
“Cap’n!” Old Calahad saluted him breathlessly. “Let’s get you on board, sir!”
Morrow held up a finger. “I require just one moment.” He turned to Abi, his face alight. “Come with us.”
“What?” Abi hugged her arms, almost as if to restrain herself from the impulse to leap forward. “No.”
“There’s more you must know. Only, now’s neither the time nor place.”
She wanted to step back, but her boots seemed stuck to the floor.
“Please.” The man offered a hand, and Abi looked down at it, heart thumping. “I won’t take ye unwilling. But you need only say yes.” He added in a whisper, “I still mean to keep ye…for at least a lifetime.”
Abi couldn’t speak past her frayed breathing. The tender words danced through her mind, drowning out her protests, softening her heart to seafoam. She could hardly believe what she was doing when she discovered her hand reaching for his.
With no chance to reconsider, she was swept off her feet. Literally.
James Morrow tossed Abi over his tremendous shoulder as she yelped in alarm. With one arm, he locked her legs over his chest. Abi pummeled his back, over which she was unceremoniously draped. “Morrow,” she shrieked. “I didn’t agree to this!”
“Hush,” he advised her, running with her up the prow. She bounced over his shoulder, and hung onto him fretfully. The sparring enemy crews were a blur in her upside-down vision. “Fer your own sake, this needs to look like another kidnapping.”
Abi moaned into his back. She was mutinying against her own father? “This had better be worth it,” she warned, her voice jiggling as he jogged. “Your explanation had better blow me out of the water.”
As though on cue, a new cannonball collided with her father’s ship.
“Cease fire!” James roared, nearly tripping sideways. “Leave ’em be! Evacuate!”
Abi was dizzy to the point of nausea by the time they jumped ships. Morrow’s men weren’t far behind. Aboard The Indomitable, James lowered her gently into a corner of the forecastle. Abi held her spinning head as he returned to the edge of the stern to see his crew to safety.
When the last of them had boarded, the vessel swiftly set sail into the oncoming foggy sunset. Shots from The Succubus exploded after them, but her father’s ship was still tethered to the docks. Captain Clear might come after them, but would have trouble catching up by then. Besides, Abi suspected her father would only sail so far. He wouldn’t wish to part from the island, now that he had reason to guard it.
A deafening cheer broke out on deck. Weapons were raised and boots stamped, vibrating beneath Abi’s backside as she struggled to regain her senses.
“Where the devil were you?” the captain demanded of his crew, though to anyone who knew him well, it was evident he concealed a grin. “Three days?”
“The storm set us off-kilter,” explained Hilaire.
Shellig piped in. “We searched for you, sir, but ’parently, we’d found the wrong island.”
“We feared you for dead, Cap.”
Though her legs were still wobbly, Abi rose. The crew’s heads turned in response to the movement, and Mr. DuPont’s fallen jaw lifted into a flabbergasted smile. “Miz Clear?”
Among the crowd, Abi spotted Hoff. Resigned, she stepped up to him and handed back his sickle. The man received it in his beefy hand, looking bewildered.
She marched down the forecastle, joining James, and clenched his forearm. “Sorry to break up the sweet reunion,” she couldn’t bring herself to return their smiles, “but your captain here owes me a word.”
The men waited, as though expecting to be entertained.
“In private.” She frowned.
“To work, all of you,” grunted James. He touched Abi on the small of her back, guiding her toward the companionway. “I’ll set her straight,” he added under his breath to a few of his mates as he passed, earning an indignant scowl from Abi.
Just before they reached the top step, DuPont called after her in a carrying whisper, “Congratulations on switchin’ t’ the right side, Abigail!”
Abi pretended not to hear. But something choked in her throat. She hadn’t ‘switched sides,’ had she?
And would she really have to choose?
She felt ill as she descended the stairs on the captain’s arm
. After all her father had done for her, a girl he could have easily abandoned, she’d jumped ships? Had she thought this through? What was it about the impossible man at her side that held her so captive, even when she had the choice to be free? And why, regardless of all better judgment, was the deepest part of her still inclined to follow James Morrow?
Something told her, as he unlocked the finely carved door to his quarters, that she was about to find out.
Chapter 14
James beckoned Abi inside. She entered the roomy cabin, which was in some disarray after the storm. Behind her, James shut the door with a resounding thunk, resigning them to the muted quietude of the room’s expanses.
After a terse moment, James approached her, his hands open.
“Before you begin,” she raised her chin, “I want the truth. A simple aye or nay will suffice.”
He nodded.
“Are you Dagger Jim?”
He inhaled. “Aye,” he answered, and Abi’s shoulders slumped in disillusionment. “But Abi,” his voice emerged strained, “you must understand, things ’ave changed.”
“Changed?” she exclaimed. “You sail the ocean, seeking riches to plunder. Sounds to me like you’re still the same.”
He paced between the bureau and dining table, by-stepping fallen scrolls and strewn papers. In his evident distraction, he didn’t bother to tidy them. “It’s true,” he began, “I was the man they called Dagger Jim. But these last five years, I’ve been mercifully granted privateer status by the king, contingent upon righting my wrongs, the greatest of which involved a Spanish galleon I hijacked nearly a decade ago.”
Abi watched him, her voice trapped in her heaving breast.
“’Twas a galleon full o’ gold that the royal family of Spain was sending to England, in a trade. She was barely a day off the coast when we raided.” His rueful gaze was distant as he reflected on the triumph. “Sunk the whole damn ship, we did.” He chuckled, though without humor. “An’ the majority of the booty went down with her. But not before we looted a few trunksful for ourselves. “Yet, the victory was short-lived. All I had won was, shortly thereafter, stolen from me.”