She felt impotent, helpless…and sick. Shipwrecks were all too common on Cape Cod—especially this part of it—and Maria was well accustomed to the grisly sights they left behind. But never had she seen a wreck in which so many had died. She must have been daft to think there might be survivors. Already, the coroner was digging a trench at the base of the sand cliffs in which to bury the dead.
Tears of grief for these unknown men and their families burned the back of her throat. But oh, what good did it do to cry for them? All she could do was offer a silent prayer for their souls, hope that at least they’d found peace in death. That done, she wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, took a deep breath, and continued on to where Tim knelt, digging something out of the sand while Justice Doane looked on.
Neither heard Maria’s approach over the wind, the hiss of flying sand, the booming thunder of angry surf. As she came up behind them Tim pulled an object free of the sand, brushed it off, and handed it up to Justice Doane.
“What do you think, Joe? A nice piece, wouldn’t you say?”
Curious, Maria craned her neck to see. It was a long sword of some sort; a rapier, perhaps? Or maybe a cutlass. She watched as Doane took the weapon by the hilt, turned the blade over for inspection, and let out a low, admiring whistle.
“Well?” Tim repeated.
“Aye, sure is a beauty. Far too nice for the likes of pirates. God only knows who they stole it from.”
Pirates? Did he say…pirates?
“Let me see it again.”
Behind them, the color was draining from Maria’s face. Had she heard Doane correctly? Was that broken, gutted vessel lying in the breakers and strewn the length of the beach a pirate ship?
Just whose pirate ship was it?
Her gaze shot to that battered, capsized hull just offshore. She didn’t have to see it in its original state to know that those crushed timbers had once been part of a beautiful ship—and Tim had told her that his ship had been fine, lovely….
Her hand shook as she reached out to touch Tim’s shoulder.
“Maria!”
She ignored Doane, the stares of the villagers, everything but the fear that clawed at her heart. “Tim… I heard you mention pirates. Was this”—she swallowed hard—“was this a pirate ship?”
“It was indeed.” His gaze flickered to Justice Doane and he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Do you know how rich we’ll all be if we can get these things off the beach and hidden before the authorities arrive? Here, look at this rapier. Look at the emeralds encrusted in the hilt! And that workmanship! Quite a beauty, isn’t it?” Grinning, he held it out for her perusal but she ignored it.
“Tim,” she pleaded, clutching the blankets to her heart as though to shield it from what she desperately feared to be the truth. “Just what pirate ship was it? And who—” she took a deep, bracing breath— “was its captain?”
And as Tim looked down into her sweet, upturned face, the eyes that glistened with unshed tears, he suddenly knew.
Aw, hell….
How upset she’d been that day in the gaol when he’d told her that Bellamy, still a subject of gossip long after he’d left Eastham, had turned pirate. Beautiful, sweet Maria, who had birthed a love child and never revealed its father. Maria, who kept a vigil on this barren, lonely beach for reasons known only to herself. Maria, a forlorn little figure standing before him, misery clinging to her very being as she stared up at him with huge, tortured eyes.
They’d all been fools. The truth had been right there in front of them all along and none of them had seen it. Those tears streaming down her cheeks were not in sympathy for some seaman she’d never known. Now he knew why she’d refused his attentions, why she’d made a recluse of herself out here on these barren cliffs, for Maria loved—
“Sam Bellamy,” Justice Doane said smugly, answering her question when Tim did not. He drew on his pipe and stared down the length of his nose at Maria’s stricken face. “That hell-raising West Countryman. ’Twas his ship Whydah, and serves him right, too, having the audacity to sail it right up here to our very shores! What in heaven’s name is this world coming to?” He shook his head. “I’m told he was headed for Provincetown, of all places. Can you imagine what he would’ve done to those poor souls had he reached it? Murdered them in cold blood, probably. Thank the Lord above for taking mercy on us, for sending the storm to stop him, to deliver us from him and his evil intentions.” He jerked the pipe out of his mouth, disgusted by her stricken look. “Oh, don’t you go feeling sorry for these wretches nor Bellamy, either. Bad blood runs deep. Got what he deserved, I say!”
But Maria heard these last words through a numbing haze. She broke out in a cold sweat, the world reeled before her eyes, and she knew that if she didn’t faint, she was going to be violently, deathly sick. She felt Tim’s hand upon her arm, heard his voice coming from far, far away.
“Maria? Are you all right?”
And then the mist parted and the shock waves hit. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. And then her voice rose in denial. “No! You lie! You’re lying, Justice Doane, I know you are! Tim, tell me he’s lying! Oh, God, tell me he’s lying, please!”
Doane took a step backward. “Good Lord, what’s wrong with her? Maria Hallett! Don’t you dare go putting the Evil Eye on us, do you hear?”
“You’re lying!”
Tim tried to block her sight of the wreckage, the bodies. “No, Maria,” he said softly. “He’s not lying.” And as she burst into tears, he looked down at the rapier he still held and with a helpless gesture tossed it to the sand. “I’m sorry. If only I’d known.”
“Known what?” Doane snapped, ripping the pipe from his mouth.
Maria thrust herself away from Tim, her eyes wild behind her tears. “Known that he was the father of my baby! He was the one, do you understand? My baby’s father! The one I was to marry!”
She whirled and fled.
“What the blazes?” Doane tore his eyes from Maria’s retreating figure and frowned. “What’s she babbling about?”
But Tim was nodding toward the wreck just offshore. “I should think it’s obvious,” he said quietly.
“Him?” Doane exclaimed. “Bellamy?” And as understanding hit him, he shook his head and knocked the ashes from his pipe, making a noise of disbelief. “Well then, seems as though I was right all along, wasn’t I?”
“About what?”
“About who sired that babe.” He jerked his chin toward the pitifully smashed wreck. “Told you the father was the devil, didn’t I?”
“And the devil got his due,” said the coroner, who’d come up behind them. “Amen.”
* * *
Maria watched the sudsy foam drying at the water’s edge. Heard the surf’s hollow roar, and then the hiss of pebbles as the undertow raked them back into the sea once more. Lonely sounds, sad sounds. A single wave, green beneath embroidered eyelets of foam, reached out to console her, swirling around her moccasins and kissing her toes before eddying back into the surf.
He had come back for her.
Just as he had promised, long ago, that he would.
Oh, God…. She buried her face in the blankets, then raised her face to the gray sky. Rain leaked down, joining her tears. “Sam,” she cried brokenly. “Oh, Sam. I’m sorry if I ever doubted you.” Guilt assailed her, guilt that somehow, some way, she was responsible for this. For only she knew the real truth, knew it as surely as her heart thumped within her breast. The Black Bellamy hadn’t been headed for Provincetown to sack and plunder it, as the villagers thought.
He’d come back for her.
She burst into tears once more, crying so hard she couldn’t see the sand upon which she walked. Gunner came up to trot beside her and lick her hand. She no longer saw the tangles of wreckage, the pieces of things that might or might not have belonged to him. But oh, they had. His eyes had looked upon these once-proud spars and broken timbers, his will had commanded them. He might have touched that broken
musket, or perhaps it might have hung on the bulkhead of his cabin. Those torn pieces of sail, those lengths of rigging, the broken oar, all of it—they had heard his mighty voice, responded to his orders, obeyed him.
Obeyed him, until last night.
Her steps carried her farther and farther down the beach, away from the villagers. Scavengers, she thought bitterly. Thieves. Tomb robbers, desecrating Whydah’s grave…his grave. And with every body she came upon she dreaded to look down at its face, afraid of finding him, yet at the same time afraid that she might not.
For another mile she walked, eyes sightless and staring, like a sleepwalker trudging through the throes of a nightmare. Long habit coaxed her gaze toward the sea. Wake up, Maria. Wake up and look around you. He’s not coming back today, tomorrow, ever. Sam Bellamy is dead.
“No-o-o-ooooooooo!”
Dead, dead, dead. She fled, sobbing and trying to escape the voice in her head, until her foot caught on something and sent her sprawling. She got to her knees. A large pile of debris had tripped her, undisturbed and undefiled by the villagers, the wind-driven sand against its base smooth and white. Nothing more than a lumpy mass of sail, hemp, planking—and a fluttering sheet of black fabric held down by the broken length of a spar.
The Jolly Roger.
Maria stared. She dug her hands against her mouth and bit down hard on her fingertips. And then, shaking, she reached out and pulled that damp banner from the debris pile and buried her face in it. “Why?” she cried brokenly. “Why, Sam?” She rocked back and forth, her voice breaking. “Why, in God’s name, didn’t you just s-stay in the Indies, damn you? You should never have come back….”
She broke down and cried until it felt her heart would splinter in her chest. Sam Bellamy was dead, lying somewhere out there beneath the waves, and her reason for living was gone. Her reason for hope had been destroyed. He was dead. It had been hard enough when she’d lost his child. But to know that the man she loved was dead—that he was no longer alive, somewhere, on this earth—it was too much to bear.
Picking up the pirate flag and her blankets, she got to her feet, staring past the pounding surf and out over the endless, heaving expanse of water toward a horizon that would never, ever again hold any hope. The sea. Mighty, awesome, restless—and eternal. She felt its pull, heard her name whispered in the crash of breakers upon the beach. It was calling her, wanting her. He wanted her.
And this time, she would not deny him.
Trance-like, she stood up. Her feet moved. Her legs followed, as she drew closer to the pounding surf. Loose sand. Hard sand. Wet sand. The pirate flag fell from her arms and was claimed by the wind. The water’s edge swallowed her foot. Another step and she was up to her ankles. Her calves. Her knees. Another step and then, at that very moment, a thin spot in the clouds passed above and sunlight—watery, weak, but full of divine hope—flooded the beach. Maria paused, turning to take one last look back at the world in which she had known a brief moment of happiness.
And saw it.
It was small, nothing more than a splash of color buried beneath planking, sand, and the broken spar, but it had caught her eye. Frowning, she retraced her steps.
Just a bit of burgundy velvet dusted with salt and sand—yet her heart began to pound against her ribs. Her brain screamed a warning. The sky darkened once more and with a sense of doom, she tugged at the sailcloth. It wouldn’t give and as she brushed more sand away, she realized it was held down by something heavy.
An arm.
She clawed at the sand, growing frantic. Tore at the sail, tossed aside a piece of planking.
Another body, buried beneath the debris pile. She pulled back, reluctant to touch it.
But the velvet was fine. No. No! But she ignored the warning. Her hands worked feverishly at the debris pile. More and more of the sleeve was exposed, and now, lace at the cuff. And then she saw hair—black hair—sparsely covering a wrist and the back of a strong hand.
With a heart-wrenching cry, Maria ripped the canvas shroud away, brushed the wet, tangled hair off his brow, and looked down into the bearded, still face—
Of Sam Bellamy.
Chapter 10
By the sea
She knelt and bent above that senseless me;
Those lamp-drops fell upon my white brow there,
She tried to cleanse them with her tears and hair;
She murmured words of pity, love, and woe,
She heeded not the level rushing flow.
— Thomson
Time stopped.
For a long moment Maria could only stare, unable to move.
He lay on his side, one arm pinned beneath his ribs, his cheek pressed against sand and pebbles, the remains of that velvet coat half on, half off his still body. Sand dusted his skin and lashes and was strewn throughout tangled black hair. Salt dulled the bristle that darkened his jaw.
Maria closed her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. No. This wasn’t the man who’d sailed into Eastham so long ago. This one had darker skin, burned to mahogany by a sun that was hotter than Eastham’s would ever be. The unruly hair that flowed over his shoulders was longer, thicker, blacker, than her Sam’s had been. And that beard—though neat and well-kept—was alien to her. No, this wasn’t her Sam.
It couldn’t be.
But in the stillness of death, there was that same bold nose with its slightly flared nostrils, the same dark brows, the same sensuous lips, now chapped and wind-blistered, peeping from between the darkness of that beard.
Sam.
It was him all right.
Trembling, she reached down and touched his mouth. The lips were parted in death. Dry. Cold. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and bit down hard, her finger dragging through the salt-stiffened hairs of his beard. Sam. She fought for breath. Oh, Sam. Never again would that mouth speak her name, kiss her into the passion that had forever changed her life. Never again would those bold eyes gaze at her with hunger, never again would he smile at her with that lazy, crooked grin she remembered so well.
Sam.
Her grief exploded in a bitter, plaintive cry that surpassed the very limits of anguish a human soul can bear. She had killed him, just as surely as she had little Charles. It was all because of her that he’d come back, all because of her that he now lay dead beneath a coffin of splintered timbers, his burial shroud the black flag under which he’d sailed, his tombstone the imposing cliffs of sand, his death knell the timeless crashing of waves upon the beach.
She leaned down and embraced him. Tears streamed down her face and dropped upon the torn shoulder of his velvet coat. She rocked back and forth, choking on her own sobs. “Oh, dear God, not you. Please, not you!” But there was no denying the truth. She pulled him up against herself, and as his head fell back against her arm, she saw something hanging from the chain of gold that circled his neck, something silver and shiny, something that looked like a coin.
Spanish treasure.
Weeping bitterly, she buried her face against his chest.
Against her lips, the coarse braid of his buttonholes. Against her cheek, the knit of bone and muscle at the base of his throat, and sharp grains of sand that cut into her skin.
And against her ear, the faint thud of his heartbeat.
It was weak and uncertain, but steady.
He was alive.
Her head shot up, the tears streaming from her eyes. Alive? Slowly, very slowly, terrified of shattering the illusion, Maria reached out and with trembling fingers, touched his cheek. She held her breath and then, with infinite care, picked up his wrist and pressed her fingers to its underside.
It was no illusion. There was a pulse there.
Her heart burst the cage of her chest and leaped with savage joy. Her soul took flight and soared high above the wreck, the beach, the ocean. He was alive! Alive, alive, alive!
Oh, stupid fool that she was, couldn’t she see that his skin didn’t hold the iciness of death, but the surface chill of one who’d b
een exposed to the elements for too long? His eyes weren’t open and staring like the others—they were peacefully closed. No, he wasn’t dead at all! She burst into tears again, but this time they were ones of joy and gratitude.
“Oh God, thank you, thank you, thank you,” she sobbed over and over again as she took his cold, lifeless hand in her own and kissed it mindlessly. Her tears washed his skin, trickled into the hollows between his knuckles, raced down the back of his hand. It was only his hand, but she worshipped that hand, holding it to her cheek and rocking back and forth. He was alive! He was here, with her. And for the moment, it was enough to feel the pulse beating in his wrist and know that after all these months, after all this pain—this agony—his life’s blood now flowed just a hairsbreadth away from her own.
There would be a use for her blankets after all. Stretching to reach them, for she was unwilling to relinquish her grip on his hand, reluctant, in fact, to lose physical contact with him ever again, Maria pulled them across the sand and, tucking them beneath his shoulders, his back, and around his ribs, dragged his big body up against her own to warm it.
She reached down to brush the sand from his face—and at that moment, heard voices. Her head jerked up. Two figures were approaching, still some distance down the beach. It was Justice Doane and Tim.
“Lord, no,” she breathed, her arms tightening protectively around Sam’s shoulders. Oh, what should she do? What could she do? If Doane saw that Sam still lived he’d take great pleasure in nursing him back to health just to make a spectacle of his hanging. But worse, if he thought he was dead, he’d bury him alive! Quickly, Maria made her decision. By a miracle, he’d survived the shipwreck and the wrath of the sea; she would not lose him to the laws of mere men!
“Forgive me, my love,” she murmured, gently easing him back to the sand and drawing the blanket over his face. Seeing him shrouded so, as if in death, drove chills up her spine and she sent up a silent prayer that her action would not invite the death she sought to portray. Like a mother grouse, should she leave him and therefore draw their attention to her instead? Or should she stay with him to try to protect him?
Pirate In My Arms Page 13