Damon straightened, reminded himself to show no sign of pain or weakness, because Blackbeard probably didn’t know he’d been knocked out. Every step down the gangplank made his head throb. His sight blurred in and out of focus, but he made it to the pier without stumbling.
Blackbeard studied him for a few moments while they waited for O’Roark. One hand snaked out, and a finger found the line of stitches along Damon’s cheek. “A memento from that she-devil?” he teased. “Surely you knew better than to let Sofia shave—”
“What have you done with her? So help me God, if you’ve—”
The pirate’s sarcastic laughter echoed around the waterfront. “Fine time to worry after you shot her, for Christ’s sake! Any civilized man would be more careful where his betrothed was concerned. Most wouldn’t aim at a talisman, much less fire at her.”
Betrothed? Talisman? Damon almost blurted out a denial, but if Sofia had told her captor she was his fiancée, his good luck charm…
Or had Blackbeard made up this story as a trap?
“Any decent man would’ve shot you for grabbing her,” Damon muttered, “but I foolishly assumed our previous dealings—ventures and prizes we’ve shared—would foster more respect for my woman. If you thought I’d allow you to rip off her—”
“If you thought I would wear the reeking coat and pants she ruined, you’re a jackass, Delacroix. A crazy, cockless jackass.”
The pirate was tormenting him into revelations he didn’t care to make—at least until he learned of Sofia’s condition. Damon cleared his throat, trying to think despite his throbbing head. “Had you given me the chance—had you not snatched Sofia before we could talk—you’d know my ships are escorting a nobleman’s two daughters and their very generous dowries to New York. I’d planned to be a sporting sort—to share my good fortune without you having to lift a finger! But until I see Sofia—”
As Teach let out another rude laugh, a fluttering motion caught Damon’s eye. A white dove, perhaps? What sort of omen would that be?
He turned as though to greet Morgan O’Roark, and when his gaze traveled to the railing of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, he saw a small white handkerchief. Sofia’s mother was waving it at him!
She was smiling. Like she knew a juicy secret.
Damon’s pulse settled into a dull roar. He kept his face in a guarded mask, pondering his options. The moment Blackbeard swiveled his head, however, Mrs. Martine disappeared.
“O’Roark! Is everyone aboard the Odalisque behaving properly under the watchful eyes of this dragon Blackbeard?” Damon kept his tone playful, but he shot his partner a purposeful look.
Morgan removed his hat to smooth his hair while gazing up toward the tavern nearest the bay. “Aye,” he responded tightly, “but we were none of us happy to have those uninvited ‘guests’ come aboard. Considering our fine cargo and the plan to share it with you, Teach, your commandeering of our ships was rude and—”
“I had no chance to tell him of our offer,” Damon interrupted. “He absconded with my beloved fiancée, Sofia, and when I shot out his window to protect her honor, he used her as a shield! She took his bullet.” Damon kept his expression somber, and his eyes wide in silent warning.
Morgan covered his confusion with genuine shock as he glared at Blackbeard. “Why the hell’d you do that? My God, man, have you no regard for the fairer sex—”
“Too much regard!” Delacroix countered hotly. “He snatched her for himself even after she pelted him with hard tack and tossed salmagundi in his ugly face!”
“Not only rude but stupid to ignore the lady’s obvious dislike of him!” O’Roark remarked. “Not a man I’d trust for any exchanges of—”
“You two buffoons can natter all you want, but the fact remains I have captured your ships, and I’ll damn well take what I want.” Blackbeard’s swarthy face hardened in a sneer—and then his head swiveled to look toward the railing of his ship again.
“Ha! So the sly tart has made a miracle recovery, has she? Cantrell!” he bellowed. “Chain her to the mast—and the other bitches with her! We’ll let Captain Delacroix watch as we take our pleasure. Then she’ll bring us a fine price on the auction block!”
Damon’s pulse sang when he saw Sofia’s foxlike smile. Her hair was arranged fetchingly about her dusky face, and she wore an alluring gown of purple that teased at her cleavage. When she was grabbed from behind, her shriek sent him into a rage. “She’d go willingly enough if…You don’t have to treat her like—”
“Like the ripe and ready tart she is?” Blackbeard laughed again, gesturing toward the gangplank of the Queen Anne’s Revenge. “Let’s see how much your intended loves you—how much she’s worth to you, Delacroix. Let’s see if she’s indeed your ship’s talisman. Are you feeling lucky, captain?”
Sofia cried out when Cantrell jerked her arms behind her to chain her to the mast. Her wound broke open, and the blood would ruin the violet dress Beatrix had loaned her. It was a plain, dark gown the young blonde hadn’t fancied on herself—one of the many new ones in her trousseau—but Sofia had felt well dressed for the first time in years. Eager to entice Damon with how pretty she looked in something besides her gray uniform.
“You needn’t be such a beast about it! What have we done that calls for such crude treatment?” Sofia’s mother rushed over to check her shoulder, but a trio of Blackbeard’s bullies grabbed her, too, with manacles at the ready.
Cantrell flashed a nasty, gap-toothed grin as he snapped the irons on Sofia’s ankles. “When you lovelies get wrestled to the auction block to be poked and prodded in all yer private places, we’ll seem like titled gentlemen,” he replied in an oily voice. “Even after we satisfies ourselves, we’ll look like saints, compared to how the slave mongers treatcha.”
Slave mongers. Sophia swallowed a sob. She’d come so close to escaping that fate, convincing Damon Delacroix she was worth more to him as a lover than as a commodity. Daphne’s shriek pierced the evening air behind her, and then came Trixie’s curses. The younger Havisham sister could’ve been a stevedore, the way she shot vile language at the sailors who bound her, and if her mother had been here…
But so many things had gone wrong since they’d left Lady Constance waving from the pier. Even Lord Havisham, with his sly suggestions about making a fortune on this voyage, would be appalled at this cruel turnaround in Damon Delacroix’s plans.
And here came her captain now, looking angrier than she’d ever seen him. Yet beneath that fringe of dark, fledgling beard she noted a pallor, a haggard anxiety he was trying to hide. She’d wondered why he hadn’t come to her aid sooner, but Sophia had never guessed that he, too, might have been mistreated. Was he beaten for shooting at Teach through his window?
“So, mates!” the swaggering blackguard cried as his sailors gathered on the deck. “It’s the moment I’ve awaited! Had Delacroix not wounded this vixen, why, I’d have had my go at her and turned her over to you lads long ago. But the waiting only intensifies the wanting, eh?”
Randy laughter rang around them, and Sofia’s stomach knotted. She wasn’t a bit shy when it came to lying with a man, but the looks on these sailors’ faces suggested a brutal sport she’d never endured—nothing like love or even mild happiness lit their eyes as they gazed at her. Like a pack of wild dogs, they licked their chops in anticipation of bringing down their prey. And this while poor Mama looked on.
“Ten pieces of eight!” Sophia called out. “Set my mother free, dammit!”
Silence. All eyes went from her to Blackbeard, whose lips quirked. “Your noble generosity moves my heart, but that’s hardly enough to—”
“It’s all I have! Please, sir, leave her out of this!” Sofia flexed her wrists behind her voluminous skirts, testing the cuffs that bound her to the mast. If she relaxed her hands…The manacles were designed for much bigger limbs than hers….
Cantrell’s eyes went wide when he realized the other sailors had shackled her mother. “That’n’s a witch! I seen h
er workin’ her spells—why, she nearly hexed me, sir!” He scurried over to unlock her mother’s manacles and then jumped back as though Mama might curse him with her vicious glare.
Mama—now Magdalena Martine playing to a potential audience—stepped away from the chains. Her salt-and-pepper black hair had fallen loose in the uproar and blew around her slender, pale face. After a purposeful glance at Sofia and the Havisham girls, she held herself haughtily, flexing her fingers as if she were about to turn the sailors into toads or render them impotent.
Blackbeard stepped forward, bristling. “I’ve given no orders to release—”
“We’ll not be sailin’ with ye, sir, if the crone sets her black magic loose on yer ship!” another sailor chimed in.
“Ain’tcha seen the way that oldest girl twitches and heaves and the younger one bares her teeth at us?” another crewman called out. “They’s under her spell, and we will be, too!”
Sofia suppressed a smile as, around the ship, Blackbeard’s men were nodding cautiously as they considered their risks. Sailors were such a superstitious lot! If Mama’s powers had grabbed their imaginations, playing along was Sophia’s best weapon, wasn’t it?
A glance at Delacroix suggested that he, too, was following this unexpected turn of events. And when his gaze met hers, the intensity of those crystal-blue eyes—the longing on that dear, grizzled face—sent a jolt through her. He did intend to rescue her! He did have feelings he hadn’t expressed.
“Fifty gold doubloons! Plus the silks and spices aboard the Lady Constance!” Delacroix cried. “Set the girls free!”
Blackbeard pivoted with a sneer. “The wench’s charms are worth far more than—”
“That’s to free the sisters,” Damon clarified. “Lord Havisham’s connected to the Crown. He’ll have the Royal Navy chasing down every last one of us if his girls don’t arrive in New York.”
“Then it’ll be worth more than that to Lord Havisham to ensure their safety, won’t it?” Blackbeard countered. “If your three ships are loaded with fortunes untold, why’s your offer so skimpy, Delacroix?”
Morgan O’Roark stepped forward. “Fine, then! I don’t want that witch hexing my ship! You can have the Odalisque—lock, stock, and barrel—as ransom for the Havisham lasses.”
Dismay flashed across Damon’s face until O’Roark’s gaze prompted Sofia’s mother to keep the hoax going. With a dramatic flourish, Mama raised both arms to encompass the entire crew of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, and then she pivoted to face the sunset. The horizon glowed like hellfire, and the full moon rising in the fiery sky seemed a bad omen indeed.
“Moon of revenge and moon of sorrow,” she chanted in a high whine, “Change these men to maidens tomorrow!”
With a cry of sheer terror, Cantrell fled the deck, and his companions followed. Down the ropes and off the decks they scurried, their eyes wide while Blackbeard’s commands went unheeded.
“Fools!” the pirate captain hollered after them. “That woman’s no more a witch than…You’ll not be claiming your share of the prize if you—”
The thunder of boots drowned him out, which gave Delacroix and O’Roark a moment to exchange strategy. Sofia stood with her back against the mast, watching them, waiting. Her hands were free, and by slipping off the kid slippers that matched Trixie’s dress, she could wiggle her feet from the leg irons as well.
But it wasn’t smart to flee with the crowd if she was to be used as the next bargaining point. That had to be Damon’s reason for not including her in his offer…didn’t it?
O’Roark’s grin bolstered her spirits. Mama still stood with her arms raised and her hair blowing about her face; at the captain’s slight nod, she faced the Odalisque.
“Fie upon thee and thy decks!” she cried. “Haunts with hands around thy necks!”
O’Roark rushed to the helm to holler at his crew. “Abandon ship, men! We’ve been cursed! Abandon ship!”
And with that, he joined the last of Blackbeard’s fleeing pirates while Damon went to the opposite rail to signal his own crew. “Thomas and Comstock, abandon ship!” he cried. “Captain Cavendish! Flee for your lives! We’ve a witch in our midst!”
Sofia wanted so badly to laugh, but Mama had turned toward her to point at the mast where she was chained.
“Manacles, fall away!” she shrieked.
With a flourish, Sofia raised her arms. The handcuffs landed on the deck, and then she hopped from the leg irons as well.
Blackbeard’s face fell; if only for a moment, he seemed worried.
This gave Damon time to rush to the Havisham sisters with a small knife. The two girls, however, had already slipped their irons, so they sprang from their poles with triumphant cries and hurried off the ship. Mama then pointed a witchy finger at Blackbeard and held it there like a pistol while she steered Sofia toward the gangplank.
The last thing Sophia saw was Damon’s handsome grin, rendered more brazen by that rugged line of stitches along his whiskered chin.
“Best of luck unloading the Odalisque—or finding a new crew,” Captain Delacroix crowed. “Word of Magdalena’s witchcraft will spread around the island like wildfire. There won’t be a stevedore or sailor to hire for days!”
18
T each was no fool, so Damon hurried down the gangplank, the last in a long parade of crewmen headed toward the pubs of New Providence. No doubt Damon’s ships would be empty by the end of the evening, once Blackbeard paid locals to unload them, but at least his passengers were safe. So safe, in fact, that as he quickly searched the streets he saw no sign of Sofia, her mother, or the girls.
He ducked down an alley he knew well and into the tavern his partner had designated as their rendezvous point. Behind the noisy room, where kohl-eyed women in parrot colors propositioned him at every turn, Damon found the open courtyard and the crews of his three ships. His sailors lifted pints and guffawed with each other while sloe-eyed wenches circulated with trays of smoked meats, pickled eggs, and fresh tropical fruits the crews hadn’t seen since their last visit.
“Delacroix! You made it out alive!” His partner hailed him from across the crowded space, waving a tankard above the crewmen’s heads. “Any repercussions?”
Damon squeezed between rowdy sailors, who clapped him happily on the back, and then accepted a fresh tankard from one of them. “Can’t argue that meeting like this was a stroke of genius, with a little help from witchcraft. But Magdalena’s hex will wear off once Blackbeard pays some locals to unload—or even sail away with—our ships.”
“I’ve taken care of that.” O’Roark looked as smug as Damon had ever seen him. “I whisked Sofia and the other ladies into the innkeeper’s care and then assured Blackbeard’s men the hex wouldn’t harm them if they returned to their captain—unless they allowed him to commandeer our ships.”
“And you bought them with…?”
O’Roark shrugged. “Lord Havisham didn’t load his holds with silks and spices for nothing. We pirates honor our commitments to each other, so,” Morgan quaffed the rest of his pint and then wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve, “I was simply upholding our promise to Blackbeard by allowing his crew the spoils we’d budgeted for him.”
The younger captain snatched a pair of hard-cooked eggs from a tray, held them to his chest, and wiggled them provocatively at the serving girl. She laughed and playfully slapped his cheek. “That’s comin’ to ye later, O’Roark,” she teased. “Don’t forget me, now!”
“Not on your life, sweetheart!” He popped an egg into his mouth and washed it down with a fresh tankard of rum punch. “A bevy of beauties have been paid to escort Blackbeard’s crew to cribs all around the island to keep them too skunked—and too scattered—to sail for him tonight or even tomorrow,” he said with a grin. “Our men, meanwhile, plan to slip back to the harbor after nightfall and set sail for America. If that’s fine by you, of course.”
“Damn fine. Thanks for overseeing those details while I was detained.” Damon raised the tangy-
sweet liquor to his lips; it felt good to see his men gathered here as a crew with their glasses raised in salute. Even Ned Cavendish, older and more refined, as befitted the captain of a nobleman’s ship, came up and clinked his tankard to Damon’s.
“Sheer genius, having the abigail conjure up a hex!” Cavendish said with a grin that was getting lopsided. “You can be sure Lord Havisham will hear of your recovery efforts and quick thinking! But we wondered why the Courtesan lagged so far behind—”
“Gentlemen! Crewmen aboard Captain Delacroix’s ship!” a voice rose above the crowd’s noise. “We may have ducked from under Blackbeard’s thumb, but we left an important matter unsettled, did we not?”
Damon looked toward the far wall, where Quentin Thomas was stepping up to a tabletop. “Our quartermaster became…distracted and left his post—left the wheel untended—while I was indisposed,” Damon replied to Cavendish. “Damn sorry we’re airing our dirty linens here, but my crew deserves to sail for the man they trust. Please excuse me.”
The sailors cleared a path for him as Damon strode forward to join his accuser. This impromptu hearing would be easier to endure if he himself had tucked Sofia out of harm’s way…and if he knew her inclinations. It was best, however, that his men settled this matter where witches and pretty women wouldn’t sway the vote.
“Yes, gentlemen, we were discussing whether Mr. Thomas’s neglect of his duties—his ruthless pursuit of Miss Martine—are grounds for his dismissal, or whether I should bow out for allowing Sofia to remain aboard in the first place.” Damon hoisted himself on a tall stool beside the table, thinking the depleted trays of food near Quentin’s feet looked risky.
“But without a quartermaster, the Courtesan is a ship without a rudder!” Quentin raised his tankard to launch into his argument. “Who has so competently minded the accounts? And who would—”
“But she’s the captain’s own ship!” a crewman near the front piped up.
Pleasure of His Bed Page 10