The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo

by Byrne, Kerrigan

  Veronica gathered her skirts and tucked them into her waist. Lorelai reached for her, readying to secure her so she could lift her leg up and over the high rail of the deck.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to climb down the ladder with your ankle?” Veronica asked. A worried frown pinched her brow.

  In truth, Lorelai didn’t know. “I’ll have to,” she decided.

  “Oi! Don’t move, you daft nanny.” A familiar, grizzled voice broke through the mist back toward the overhang of the galley. “If you don’t cooperate, I’ll be forced to hobble you.”

  Lorelai’s muscles seized, and Veronica’s fingers became talons on her wrist.

  A plaintive bleat both astounded and bemused Lorelai, but it became readily apparent the voice didn’t address her or Veronica.

  “If you kick me in the head, you stubborn old goat, I’ll return the favor. Now give over!” The man’s demands rose in decibel to the tune of his frustration.

  “Barnaby?” Lorelai whispered. What was her gamekeeper doing aboard the ship? And to whom did he speak? The poor old man was seventy, if he was a day. She’d hired him not quite a year ago to help her with her growing menagerie. He’d been guarded and gruff at first, as though he’d almost resented her for employing him, for having to take orders from a woman. But he’d stubbornly insisted he stay, and was a fair hand with the animals. Eventually, they’d found their stride, and lately, they’d become great friends. Lorelai’s fondness for the old cantankerous septuagenarian knew no bounds.

  Lorelai drifted toward his voice, and Veronica jerked her back toward the ladder. “What are you doing? We have to go.”

  “That’s Barnaby.” Lorelai tugged out of her grip. “They’ve taken him, too. We have to help him. He’s so feeble, they might make him … walk the plank, or something equally frightful.” Did pirates still do that? she wondered. “I’d never forgive myself.”

  Veronica cautiously surveyed the mist, now becoming thinner as the sun threatened the horizon. “Very well, but we haven’t much time.”

  “Oi,” Barnaby called again. “Whoever’s lurking out there in this soup, come help me wrestle this stubborn bitch to the ground so’s I can have at her tit—” His rheumy amber gaze widened as Lorelai broke through the mist frantically trundling toward him. Had she had any doubt the voice belonged to him, they’d have been crushed the moment she’d spied his ever-present red cap. Lorelai flattened him to her in a desperate hug.

  “My lady, what the fu—er, what the devil you doing?” He gave her shoulders a few hesitant pats. “I—I didn’t know you were about or I wouldn’t have spoke like that … It inn’t safe for you … for us … out here.” He carefully extracted himself from her embrace, looking around with wild, worried eyes.

  “Barnaby!” She gasped, clutching his thin shoulders. “I’m so sorry you were dragged into this. Did they take anyone else from the household?”

  Rubbing a hand on his work trousers, he refused to meet her eyes. “Just me, m’lady. It be me job to look after the animals, inn’t it?”

  “The animals?” Lorelai breathed.

  “Brought the motherless little mites with us so’s they di’nt starve. Which meant Grace O’Malley had to come along, di’nt she? But beggared if she’ll let me milk her on the ship, the slag.”

  Had the fog not been so thick, Lorelai’d have seen the makeshift pen behind the galley sooner. Inside, her milk goat, Grace O’Malley—ironically named for a fearsome Irish pirate—bleated her complaints at them from beneath perpetually angry brows. Next to her, the basket of eight kittens she’d only five days hence rescued from drowning in a burlap sack mewled at the familiar sight of her.

  “Goodness,” Lorelai marveled. “How’d you talk them into taking animals with you?”

  “Funny story, that—” Barnaby shifted about diffidently, but was cut off when Veronica hissed for them to hurry from across the deck.

  “Coming,” Lorelai whispered back to her before she limped over to the pen and wrangled it open as quietly as she could. “We’re going to escape on the lifeboat,” she explained as she hefted the basket of kittens, to their noisy dismay. “Here.” She shoved the pistol into Barnaby’s hands, thinking he’d know how to use it better than she. “Take this for protection and follow me.”

  “Right behind you, m’lady.” Barnaby gaped at the pistol for a moment, then held the pen door open for her and shuffled about in the fog. “I’ll … just get old Grace, here, and meet you by the ladder in a tick.”

  “Good thinking, Barnaby. I’m glad I found you before we escaped. I’d never leave you behind.” Lorelai kissed next to the tufts of silver hair at his temple, and plunged back into the mist using an outstretched hand as her eye until she found the railing and Veronica again.

  “What’s this?” Veronica’s dark brows drew together as she peered into the basket.

  “The kittens.”

  Veronica blinked twice. “The … the kittens? Your kittens? What on earth would pirates want with them?”

  “I don’t know,” Lorelai rushed. “Maybe they wanted to eat them. Do you think you can climb into the lifeboat and I can somehow lower the basket down to you? Barnaby’s bringing Grace O’Malley and hopefully a rope. Perhaps we can lever her weight—”

  “Grace?” Panic flared brighter and brighter in Veronica’s jade eyes. “Grace. The goat? Oh, Lorelai. We can’t take them. There isn’t time. We’re going to have to leave them behind if we have any chance.”

  “I’m not leaving them behind!” Lorelai insisted. “These are heartless pirates, Veronica. They tear entire armadas apart without shedding a tear and then sleep like babies. What do you think they’ll do to these helpless little things?” She held up the basket, forcing Veronica to face identically tiny aspects of three orange tabbies, a gray tabby, two calicos, one white, and a strange little silver, blue-eyed ball of fluff that didn’t at all seem to belong in the sleek-coated orphan family. “These villains will probably drown them again, and that’s if they’re feeling merciful.”

  “They’ll do no such thing.” The Rook melted out of the mist like Hades emerging from a realm of ghosts to claim his most recent soul.

  Lorelai froze, gaping at the sight of him.

  He moved like a panther. Silent and predatory, with the languid ease of a beast at rest, comfortable in the knowledge that he was the creature to whom all in his vicinity showed deference.

  He claimed first kill. He devoured the most desirable morsels. His very presence alerted the jackals to wait their turn.

  If he was lord of the underworld, was she Persephone, then? A prize to be claimed. An unwilling bride to be dragged down to the depths as his consort.

  That certainly seemed to be his intent.

  Veronica made a hopeless sound, and Lorelai instinctively stepped in front of her, wishing with all her might she’d not relinquished her pistol.

  To her astonishment, Barnaby trudged alongside the Rook, his head down and his hands clasped behind his back like a scolded child.

  Dash it all, where was the gun? Had the Rook wrested it from him?

  Lorelai ached to go to the old man, to comfort him, but six feet plus of dark and deadly pirate stood in her way.

  The Rook’s lips tightened with a wry sort of amusement. “Why would old Barnaby here go through the trouble of milking a goat to feed motherless kittens if we simply planned on slaughtering them?” He gently but firmly pried Lorelai’s hands from the basket, and handed the litter back to Barnaby, who reluctantly accepted it. “Everyone aboard a ship has a job to do, and Barnaby, here, is a surprisingly deft gamekeeper.”

  “You must let him go. He has nothing to do with this,” Lorelai demanded. Well, she’d meant to demand. In reality, her words escaped as a half whisper, half question and landed somewhere in the vicinity of his chest. If she met his gaze, she might expire.

  “You would presume to steal from me, and then order me about on my own ship?” Mirth shaded his smooth baritone.

  Her
limbs went cold. “Steal from you?”

  “That’s my flannel, is it not?”

  “Flannel?” Lorelai had never before heard the word.

  “My shirt. Though I’ll admit it suits you much better.”

  She looked down, distressed to note two of the toggles had come loose, and the nonexistent collar had begun to slip off one shoulder. She clutched it to her throat, finally gathering the courage to meet his sinister glare.

  He assessed her with his own shark eyes as she searched his achingly familiar face. He looked so much the same, and yet she recognized none of Ash in him. And she searched. God, did she hunt for a glimmer of the boy she’d loved.

  His jaw was stronger, wider than before. His skin shades darker, weathered by the sun and the wind. The hollows of his cheeks were deeper, as though the fullness of youth had been chiseled away by a cruel but masterful artist.

  He still wore his clothing from last night, and his collar gaped open, just as hers had. Unlike the ink on his back, the tattoos covering his chest and winding up his neck had vivid hues. She thought she saw the stripes of a tiger’s claw slashing up toward his throat.

  Dashing away an unwelcome curiosity, she hurried to explain herself. “I had to cover myself with something. I selected the least expensive garments I could find.”

  “No you didn’t. That sash is the rarest cashmere made from soft exotic beasts who may only be sheared once every three years. It’s worth more than your entire wedding dress.”

  Veronica gasped, and ran her fingers over the sash as though to test his assertion.

  “I—I didn’t know,” Lorelai protested. Even as the daughter of an earl, she’d never been afforded many expensive things, and the sash was a plain cream, unadorned by jewels, tassels, or intricate threads.

  The dagger concealed within was most likely valuable as well, the hilt and sheath encrusted with enough gems to sustain a small village through the winter.

  She glanced over toward Barnaby, pleading at him with her eyes. Now was his chance. If he had the pistol, he could train it on the Rook and convince him to let them all go. If any of the crew showed up, it would be too late.

  What if Barnaby shot the Rook?

  The thought lanced a confounding fear and grief through her chest. She’d not overtly mourn a violent murderer. But to watch a man with Ash’s beloved features die would crush her spirit into the dust.

  What to do?

  The Rook slid closer, lifting her chin, though her eyes darted anywhere they could to avoid his empty gaze. “You have more courage than you used to.”

  She really didn’t. She’d always been timid. Afraid. She’d cowered beneath the heel of a tyrant her entire life and would rather freeze at night or starve at mealtimes than displease her own servants. A dive into the treacherous sea sounded far more comfortable than a verbal spar with anyone, let alone a pirate.

  If she could dissolve into the very mist that surrounded them, she’d sell her soul to do so now.

  “I—I didn’t mean to steal from you. I’m sorry.” Was she really apologizing to the man who’d murdered her brother, kidnapped her, her family, her favorite employee, and her kittens? “T-to be fair, you ruined my bodice,” she reminded him hesitantly.

  A few masculine chuckles erupted from the mist, and Lorelai’s heart sank further as she realized they were surrounded.

  Surrounded … by pirates.

  The Rook’s fingers tightened on her wobbling chin. “You should have stayed where I left you.”

  Veronica whimpered from behind her, and poor Barnaby’s head dipped so low, he looked as though he wanted to disappear into the basket with the kittens.

  Somehow, their fear emboldened Lorelai, and she rested a hand on the Rook’s thick wrist, her resolve clicking into place. “What if I made you an offer?”

  His gaze flicked to where her hand rested on his skin. “I’m listening.”

  “Let Veronica and dear Barnaby go, and … and I won’t try to escape you again.”

  More laughter. That didn’t bode well, at all.

  His fingers stroked from her chin to her jaw, testing the downy skin there. Oddly, she salivated, and was forced to swallow as a wash of foreign awareness poured over her like warm honey.

  “There is no escaping me, Lorelai.” His silken voice deepened to a husky velvet. A threat of inevitable seduction. A promise of possession.

  Lorelai’s knees trembled, and she could have sworn the calm seas had become decidedly choppy beneath her.

  Barnaby stepped forward, one hand out. “Don’t you give a worry for me, m’lady. There inn’t no need to—”

  One look from the Rook silenced him, and he took a step back.

  “Barnaby needs no saving,” the Rook said. “He’s been a loyal member of my crew for almost a decade, now.”

  The wash of warm awareness became a splash of cold betrayal as she gaped at her employee. “Barnaby?” He’d been a plant? A spy sent to inform on her to his ruthless captain? Tears pricked her eyes. She’d thought they were friends, that she’d saved him from the workhouse.

  Was there no one on this earth she could trust?

  “I needed someone loyal in your household,” the Rook explained dispassionately. “And only you would hire a doddering old waif over an able-bodied or handsome young hand.”

  Barnaby’s stooped old bones straightened, and he took off his cap, suddenly losing ten years. “Forgive me, m’lady.”

  Pain and humiliation pricked and tore at her resolve, but still she fought for composure, “Veronica, then.” Her voice was harder now. Colder. “She goes, and I’ll stay.”

  Veronica clutched her arm. “Lorelai, no!”

  The Rook snorted and released her, gesturing to the expanse of the ship they still could not quite see through the fog. “You are both in my custody. You’re hardly in a position to make a bargain. This isn’t a trade deal, it’s me collecting what’s mine.”

  “Veronica is not yours,” Lorelai argued.

  “But you are.” His cold eyes blazed for a transient moment before he blinked it away. “She’s just insurance.”

  Heaving a great breath, Lorelai stepped toward him, out of Veronica’s grasp. “What will it take to secure her release?” she murmured. “What will I have to do?”

  Dawn broke over them, then. Scalding the mists, but not completely dissipating them. Pillars of golden light graced the deck, spilling over the Rook as he regarded her. It gilded a cobalt hue in his midnight hair and glinted off the sable lust in his eyes.

  After a protracted moment, he answered her. “I think you know.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The hungry glint in his eye left no room for interpretation. He desired her submission. He was hungry for sex. Lorelai gulped as an explosion of butterflies erupted in her stomach.

  “I’ll do it,” she said, then cleared the catch of fear out of her throat to proclaim, “I’ll do anything you want.”

  “Lorelai, stop. You don’t have to. Not for me.” Veronica seized her, thrusting herself between Lorelai and the Rook. “She’s innocent. Take me, instead. I am younger than she, and less fragile. I’ve been married, and I … I know how to please a man.”

  The glance of distaste the Rook flicked toward Veronica baffled Lorelai. Her sister-in-law was considered a great and mysterious beauty, and she accentuated her natural allure with a wardrobe fit for a queen, all designed and stitched by her own hand.

  “I don’t want you,” the Rook bluntly informed Veronica.

  “I’ll take ’er!” a crewman with a heavy French accent offered from somewhere off to their left. A chorus of male guffaws spread across the deck like a wave.

  Veronica spat at the Rook’s feet. “What kind of monstrous brute forces himself onto a frightened, crippled woman after murdering her brother and her intended on her wedding day?”

  He stepped forward, grim amusement deepening the brackets around his hard mouth. “This kind of monstrous brute.”

  Even in such an
extraordinary situation, it occurred to Lorelai that she didn’t at all appreciate being discussed as though she were not capable of making her own decisions. Her own sacrifices.

  The Rook held his hand out. “Come with me, Lorelai.”

  Lorelai couldn’t bring herself to release Veronica and reach for him. The woman next to her trembled, and a wild terror bled from her eyes.

  “I gave you my word, Lady Southbourne will not be harmed.” He motioned her forward. “If you behave, I’ll let her go.”

  “We cannot trust his word,” Veronica said.

  Lorelai extracted herself from Veronica’s clutches. “It’ll be all right,” she soothed in a voice that failed to even convince herself, let alone her terrified sister-in-law. “You had to … to lie with Mortimer. Nothing can be worse than that.”

  “A pirate could,” Veronica wailed, gesturing wildly to the Rook. “Just look at him. He’s enormous!”

  Their audience found no end of amusement in her declaration.

  “Just wait until she sees ’im without his trousers. She’ll faint dead away,” one chortled.

  “Take ’em both, Captain. The pretty one could teach the other one what to do, and then you could show ’em a thing or two.” Another’s salacious suggestion was met with howls of encouragement.

  Lorelai heated with abject mortification. As much as she was used to being the brunt of a joke, it still stung when they laughed.

  The other one? Not the most hurtful moniker she’d been subjected to, granted, but still. Veronica was the pretty one. She … was the other one. Though, on a pirate ship, her status might, for once, be an advantage.

  Except … the Rook didn’t want the pretty one.

  He wanted her.

  “The next man who makes a sound loses his tongue.” The Rook’s soft threat had immediate effect. Silence landed like a heap of bricks. They might as well have been alone on deck.

  Lorelai turned to Veronica and kissed her cheek. “I’ll be all right. Every time we’re broken, we get back up and limp along. Isn’t that what we’ve always said?”