Her stinging reply scorched his ears.
James disengaged himself from the folds of her skirts and yanked her to her feet. “I told you she was a handful, Matthew,” he said breathlessly.
The captain’s answer faded as Lacy began to sink into the void of her own private world. Her eyes widened and she drew in a deep breath, trying desperately to hold back the spell. But it flowed over her in a dark, suffocating wave. She had the briefest sensation of falling ...
And then the room was gone, and she was surrounded by water. The coral reef was as bright and dazzling as a sunrise; each fish glistened as though the scales were painted with liquid jewels. The ghostly sea plumes swayed in silent majesty amid the brilliant azure water.
She swam strongly, paying no heed to the menacing hammerhead shark that detached itself from the spires of an outgrowth of yellow-green cathedral coral. As she approached the wreck of the Miranda, she saw that the ship had rolled. A great crack ran from deck to keel a midship, severing the vessel nearly in two. Clearly visible in the bowels of the ruined schooner was a chest of gleaming gold.
Lacy reached out to pick up the treasure, and suddenly the scene changed. She was no longer in the Miranda—she was in the underwater cave. There before her was a heap of golden statues, jewelry, and sparkling gems. When she looked down, she saw that she had a golden mask in her hands. She added the mask to her hidden trove, then turned to swim ...
“Lacy!” James’s voice cried. “Lacy!” He shook her roughly.
She opened her eyes to see him staring into her face. “Jamie,” she whispered faintly. It required too much effort to keep her eyes open, so she closed them again.
“Don’t do this, woman,” he ordered. “Come back.”
She sighed, content to rest in Jamie’s arms. Memories of the trance were strong. It was so hard to make the jump between this world and that; she wanted to drift in the warm blackness.
“Lacy.”
Obediently, she forced herself into the present. James’s face was pale, his lips taut. She couldn’t see Matthew Kay.
“I’ll take her back to our room,” James said. “She’s not well.”
“Take her to my chamber,” the captain said. “If she needs attention, I’ll call a physician from Port Royal. She is, after all, my responsibility now.”
James’s mouth turned up in a roguish smile. “What say you give me another chance, Matthew? High card takes the lady.”
“Not again,” she protested, pushing herself away from James. She caught the back of the chair for support. Her mind wasn’t yet clear, but she knew what she’d just heard. “You’ll not—” she began.
“High card, Matt?” James offered.
“And you? What will you wager?” the captain asked silkily.
“I know where the treasure lies,” James said. “You’ll never find it if—”
“No!” Lacy protested loudly. “Don’t tell him.”
Matthew chuckled. “High card.” He snapped his fingers, and instantly a servant produced a deck of playing cards. Matthew shuffled them, then laid the deck facedown on the table. “If I win, James,” he said, “I’ll have the woman and the gold.”
James laughed and reached for the deck.
At that instant, Lacy had an image of a card in her mind. This was no spell—she was wide awake—but she could see the features of a woman on the card James had yet to draw. And just as surely, she knew that the captain would pull the king. “No,” she interrupted, stepping between James and the table. Her voice dropped to a sultry tone. “If I’m to be the prize, I’ll choose.” She put her hand over the cards, then hesitated and flashed Matthew Kay a dazzling smile. “Ye first, m’lord.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “If ye dare.”
The captain moved closer. “As you wish, madame,” he replied. Smiling, he cut the deck and revealed his card. “A lady for a lady,” he said.
It was the dark queen, the card she had seen as James’s choice. “A good selection,” she murmured. “But if luck favors me, sir, what proof do I have that you’ll let us go free?”
Matthew Kay’s lined face hardened. “My word.”
“Ye shall let us leave this house and this island,” she said. “Swear it.” She leaned toward him, holding his gaze with her own. “No disrespect to your honor, captain,” she purred, “but a woman must look after her own interests.”
“And if mine is the winning card,” Matthew insisted, “you’ll give to me freely what you’ve given to James.”
“Of course,” she lied sweetly. Damn all men and their ridiculous rivalries! she fumed inwardly. Thank God she’d been born with more sense. No matter what happened, she’d never give her heart to another man. What she’d offered to Jamie could only be given once in a lifetime.
“Lacy,” James said, “this isn’t your—”
She glared at him. “I told you, I’m no saddle mare to be bartered at your will!” She smiled again at Captain Kay and drew the king from the stack of cards.
Two weeks and an open stretch of water separated them from Captain Matthew Kay’s hospitality. They were once more aboard the Silkie, anchored off the island of Arawak, and Lacy was preparing to dive down to the wreck again.
This time, they weren’t alone; the Incan Kutii was with them. He’d been waiting on the Silkie with the cat when James and Lacy had returned to the boat. To James’s annoyance, Harry showed no hostility toward the Indian. In fact, he seemed as willing to rub against Kutii’s ankles or curl up in his lap as he was with Lacy. And nothing James could say would convince Kutii to leave the boat or Lacy’s side.
“She saved me,” Kutii said simply. “Now I serve her.”
To James’s surprise, Lacy had agreed. “He was in my vision,” she said. “I don’t know why or how, any more than I know how he knew where to find the Silkie, but he did and he’s supposed to be with me. Even Harry knows it. And if we leave Kutii in Jamaica, they’ll capture him again.”
“If that damned cat likes him, it’s because he fed it half our rations,” James grumbled. Harry ruffled the fur on his back and hissed at him.
“I stay,” Kutii repeated.
“I saw him in my vision,” Lacy insisted.
Outnumbered, James had thrown up his hands in defeat and Kutii had become a member of the crew.
When they’d first returned to Arawak, the weather had been too foul for her to dive. She and James and Kutii had spent six days camped on the island. During those days, she’d found herself greatly drawn to the Incan. From the first, she had been at ease with him, and as each day passed, she could better understand his strange speech. Never in her life had Lacy become so close to another person so quickly. It was as though they had always been friends ... even more, it was as though they were bound by bonds of blood kinship.
The first time she dived down to the Miranda, Kutii went with her. He couldn’t go as deep as she could, but he followed her down about forty feet, knife clenched between his teeth and watching anxiously as she continued into the depths. James told her later that Kutii had surfaced for air, then dived again. The Indian was waiting for her when she came up with a handful of golden objects.
As she’d seen in her vision, the wreck had shifted and broken down the middle. Two chests of priceless treasure had lain on the sand, waiting for her. She’d known it would be so. She hadn’t even been surprised. And she marveled at James’s excitement when she dropped a glove of thin beaten gold into his hands. “I told you,” she reminded him. “I told you that the ship would open up.”
Kutii lifted her up out of the water onto the deck, and she laughed and unknotted a lock of her hair. A pair of gold and turquoise earrings tumbled down. Kutii caught them and looked hard at the jewelry before he passed it back to her.
“Ye remember these pieces,” she said gently.
He nodded. “They are sacred objects—stolen from my people. I carry them on my back, across Panama, through jungle and mountains, from the west salt sea to the east. F
irst I carry them as slave to the Spanish, then for English. But this is Incan gold. Not Spanish. Not English. Incan.” He went to squat on the bow of the boat and stare out over the water. And when he finally joined them again, some of the sadness seemed to have gone out of his dark heathen eyes.
She went down to the Miranda again that day, and twice every day since then. And every day the heap of treasure in the cabin of the Silkie grew larger.
Because of the depth, she could only stay a short time on the ocean floor. Each dive produced another priceless object, sometimes two. Rings, armbands, necklaces, and statues of gleaming yellow gold. Cups and bowls, and once a perfect feather carved of shining silver.
She didn’t tell James that she was also diving at night while he slept, moving gold from the shelf on the coral reef—where she hid it on her way up during the daytime dives—to the underwater cave. Kutii knew. Once, she even allowed him to come with her into the cave. Kutii would not betray her secret. Instinctively, Lacy felt that the Incan was an ally, and that she could count on his support no matter what the cost.
Another thing she didn’t tell James was that the Miranda rested on the edge of a precipice, and that another storm might sweep the wreck into a narrow canyon in the sea floor. If it did, there would be no chance of recovering the remainder of the treasure. She was already diving deeper than she should, and she could go no farther into the ocean depths.
For days, Lacy hardly spoke to James. Her fierce anger had cooled to a throbbing ache. After all that had passed between them, and despite her growing certainty that she carried James’s child, she was certain she couldn’t trust him anymore. He’d let her down and risked her safety. He was a pirate—nothing more. And she’d never forget it, or let her guard down with him again.
“You’re still angry over what happened on Jamaica, aren’t you?” James said when she gave him a black look for the third time in as many hours. “I’ve told you, over and over, I had an escape plan.”
“So ye say,” Lacy replied stubbornly. “But if it wasn’t for me, you’d have lost both me and the gold.”
He took hold of her shoulders and yanked her close, forcing her to face him. “Damn it, woman!” he exclaimed. “I’d never have left you with Matthew. I love you. You know that.”
She looked into his eyes. “Ye love me?”
“You know I do.”
“Enough to make me your wife?”
His fingers cut into her bare shoulders. She dived naked except for the ragged shift, and the thin cloth provided little protection. She winced at the sudden discomfort of his embrace. Behind her, she heard Kutii’s angry intake of breath.
“I want you with me, Lacy,” James said. “Always.”
A sharp pain knifed through her midsection, not physical pain but the keener pain of the spirit. “But ye won’t marry me,” she uttered flatly.
“I am the king’s son. I must wed a woman of my own class.”
She twisted free and brushed aside the lock of hair that covered her witch’s scar. “A lady without a mark like this,” she accused.
“You knew it from the first,” he reminded her. “I never lied to you, Lacy. I mean to have my rightful station in life. I’ll have my father’s respect, and I’ll let nothing and no one stand in my way. Not even you ...”
Nausea rose in her throat and she swallowed back the bile. She’d not cry—not if she was to roast in hell for it. He spoke the truth. He thought her good enough to lie with—good enough to get with child—but not good enough to wed.
“Aye,” she agreed in a low, dry voice. “I’ve known from the first.” She took a step backward. “But you’re not the only one with a dream, Jamie. I’ve dreams of my own. And if you’ll not share them, so be it.”
Turning away from him, she dived over the side of the boat. As the blue-green water closed over her head, she welcomed the soothing touch of the warm liquid against her skin. The ache in her heart was bitter, but she’d not let it keep her from hunting for the treasure.
The sooner she recovered the gold, the sooner she could fulfill her dream of buying a farm. She tried to focus on the promise of owning her own land instead of on Jamie’s hurtful words. But even the sea around her couldn’t drown her sorrow.
She had not gone more than fifteen feet down when an excruciating muscle cramp in her right leg caught her unawares. Doubling up, she grabbed the aching limb. She knew she should be swimming, but the pain was overwhelming, and she rolled onto her back.
Suddenly, Kutii’s sturdy form appeared beside her. Grasping her arm, he began pulling her up toward the surface. Then, without warning, a gray form sliced through the water behind him. Lacy’s eyes widened in fear and she pointed at the hammerhead shark bearing down on them. She tried to swim, but the knotted muscle in her leg slowed her reaction.
The shark was so close now that she could see the curve of its eye. Kutii twisted to meet the attack. His knife flashed, gouging a bloody furrow in the hammerhead’s skin. The creature rolled and thrashed its tail. Kutii shoved her away as a dull boom sounded in her ears.
Lacy’s head broke the surface and she screamed for James. He leaned over the gunnel and fired again at the shark. “Kutii!” Lacy cried.
For a long moment the shadowy forms of man and shark were lost in swirling clouds of blood. Lacy reached the boat in four strokes and James pulled her to safety. “A shark! A big hammerhead!” she cried.
“Are you hurt?”
“No. But Kutii ... Kutii ...” She was fighting back tears when the Indian’s dark head bobbed up near the stern. “There he is!” she cried. “James! There!”
James threw him a rope, and the Incan climbed onto the deck, still clutching his knife. Blood streamed down one copper-skinned arm and seeped from a ragged bite on his thigh, but his eyes gleamed and his thin lips were parted in a grim smile. “He will not harm you, that one,” Kutii said softly. “I, Kutii, have killed him.”
“With a little help from my musket,” James added.
“With my knife I have killed him,” the Indian insisted.
“And saved my life,” Lacy said. “Thank you.” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. “That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“What about when I rescued you from the guards at Tyburn?” James asked. “Or when I killed all those pirates for you?”
Lacy squeezed Kutii’s hand. “We’re even now,” she said. “I rescued you from the sugar mill and you saved me from the shark. You’re free to go now.”
“Never,” Kutii answered. “You are the star woman, the hope of my ancestors. I never leave you, not in his world or the next.”
“Damned fool Indian,” James muttered.
Lacy turned and started to admonish him when the sight of a ship coming around the far side of the island caught her attention. “Look!” she cried, pointing. “A square-rigger. Heading straight for us.”
James turned to stare at the sleek three-masted vessel bearing down on them. “You son of a bitch,” he swore, shading his eyes from the sun. “That’s not just a ship. That’s Captain Matthew Kay, and unless I miss my guess, he’s come to rob us of our treasure!”
Chapter 18
“Matt . . . you sly old son of a bitch.” James pointed to Kutii and shouted. “Get the anchor up!” He reached the foremast in two strides. “Lacy!” Without hesitation, she sprang into action. She was at his side in seconds, her deft hands in motion.
Canvas cracked in the stiff breeze as they unfurled the sails. As soon as Kutii pulled the anchor, James ran to the tiller, steering the Silkie overtop the reef and straight in toward the island cliffs where he knew Matthew’s square-rigger with its greater draft couldn’t follow.
James glanced back at the larger ship. He’d felt the Silkie scrape bottom as they came across the shallows. Matthew’s vessel hadn’t altered course a degree. If she didn’t come about soon, she’d split her hull on the jagged reef.
Lacy and Kutii were both staring at the pursuing ship. Then
Kutii ducked down into the cabin.
“What’s he doing?” James called.
Lacy shook her head and replied, but the rush of wind and water drowned out her words. Kutii reappeared shortly, bearing a heavy bundle wrapped in cloth. He and Lacy both went to the starboard, and Kutii dropped the bag over the side. It sank like a stone.
“What the hell—” James protested.
“We threw the treasure overboard,” Lacy cried. “The water’s not so deep here. I can bring it up again later.”
“You what?”
Suddenly, there was a loud boom and a puff of smoke from one of the square-rigger’s guns. A cannonball splashed into the sea a dozen yards off the Silkie’s bow.
“Not very good aim,” Lacy said wryly. Her pale face was the only sign of fear as she flipped an obscene gesture toward the gunner.
A rush of pride brought moisture to James’s eyes. Damn but she had nerve to shame half the men that ever sailed! She was one of a kind, this woman of his. Had he a crew with her courage, he could have cleared the Caribbean of Spaniards.
A second shot followed, ten yards ahead of them. With the cannon’s roar came cold reality. His brow creased with worry as he leaned toward Lacy. “They were meant as a warning. At this range, we’re ducks in a barrel.”
A knot of shame formed in the pit of James’s stomach. God rot his greedy bowels! What was he thinking of to risk Lacy’s life so? He should have been protecting her, caring for her—not setting her up for cannon practice.
Matthew Kay was not a man to hold back when he wanted something. Matthew meant to have a share of the treasure, will he nill he. And if it meant Lacy’s death—all of their deaths—then ...
Matthew’s deep voice thundered at them through a speaking trumpet. “James! It’s over! You can’t escape!”
At the last moment, just when James thought it was too late to avoid tearing into the reef, the square-rigger slowly righted its course to sail parallel to the shoreline, just beyond the sharp edge of the reef. Ahead, around the bend, was the natural deep harbor that would allow the big ship to come in close to the beach. But Matthew Kay knew the passageway as well as James did.
Fortune Trilogy 1 - Fortune's Mistress Page 22