Gray ignored his brother’s smug tone. “Damn it, Joss, just put me to work. Send me up to furl a sail, put me down in the hold to pump the bilge … I don’t care, just give me something to do.”
Joss raised his eyebrows. “If you insist.” He lifted the spyglass to his eye and began scanning the horizon again. “Batten the hatches, then.”
Gray tossed a word of thanks over his shoulder as he descended to the quarterdeck and went to work, dragging the tarpaulins over the skylights and securing them with battens. As he labored, the ship’s motions grew more violent, hampering his efforts. He saved the vent above the ladies’ cabin for last, resisting the urge to peer down through the grate. Instead, he first secured one end, then blanketed the entire skylight with one strong snap on the canvas.
“Ahoy! Ahoy!” Wiggins leaned forward over the prow, hailing the approaching ship, its puffed scudding sails a stark contrast against the darkening sky.
Gray moved to cover the companion stairs, reaching inside the gaping black hole and groping for the handle to draw the hatch closed.
Something—or someone—groped him back.
When the skylight was battened, the cabin went instantly black. Sophia felt the sudden, suffocating darkness, even though her eyes were clamped shut, the heels of her hands pressed flat against them to stem the tide of tears.
What was happening?
She stood up on shaky legs, smoothing her frock over her hips and adjusting her bodice in the dark. Fumbling in the darkness, she felt her way toward the cabin door and opened it. A square of light pierced the darkness overhead—the companionway hatch.
She moved toward the stairs and placed a foot on the bottom riser. When she reached forward to grab hold of the ladder’s edge, however, her hand met instead with something warm, solid, and strong.
An arm.
“Sweet,” a voice said. A large hand closed over her wrist.
His voice. His hand.
She nearly wept anew. He was still there. In some absurd, maudlin spike of self-pity, she’d prepared herself to never see him again.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, his shadowy face protruding through the hatch. “Get back in your cabin.”
Oh, but of course he was still there. His mere presence signified nothing, she told herself sternly. It wasn’t as though he’d any means of escaping the ship. If he had, he surely would have taken it.
Even so, she hadn’t the courage to let him go.
She used his arm as leverage, hauling herself up the stairs even as the ladder pitched and rolled beneath her. “What’s happening?” The salty breeze whipped loose strands of hair across her face, and she used her free hand to tuck them behind her ear. She gripped his arm with the other.
“There’s a storm coming.” Deep lines etched his face. His own hair clung to his brow in thick, wet locks. “You need to remain below.”
“This isn’t so bad,” she protested, pulling the hair from her face once again. “It isn’t even raining.”
He caught her chin in his hand and stared down at her face. For a breathless moment, Sophia thought he intended to kiss her.
She thought wrong.
“Look.” He swiveled her head toward the ship’s bow.
“Oh.” The wind whipped the sound from her lips as quickly as she uttered it. Before them, the sky boiled with towering, greenish-black clouds. If Sophia hadn’t suffered through enough geography lessons to know better, she would have thought they’d sailed to the very end of the earth and were about to tumble off the map into a churning void.
He turned her face back to his. The threat in his eyes was no less murderous than that of the sky. She’d never seen him look so forbidding. “Now go below. And stay there.”
“Are you coming with me?”
His lips thinned. “No.”
“Ahoy!”
Shouts drew their attention to starboard, where a tall ship backed its mainsail in preparation to speak with the Aphrodite. Peering through the spray, she could barely make out the ship’s name painted on its side: the Kestrel.
The wind accelerated, screaming through the rigging overhead. The ocean’s surface erupted in a thousand white-edged crests, like a sea monster bearing row upon row of menacing teeth.
“Get below!” Gray steered her back toward the hatch.
Then the sky cracked open in a flash of white, just as thunder quaked the deck beneath their feet. For a terrifying, endless moment, the world blanked. There was no sight, no sound, only the pungent scent of sulfur and weightless shock.
With a swift yank on her wrist, Gray twirled her into his chest, wrapping his arm across her torso and forcing her down to the deck. Sophia cowered between the wooden planks beneath her and the human fortress of warmth and strength surrounding her. Protecting her. She took a mental inventory of her limbs, making sure they were all still there. Yes, there were her legs, curled awkwardly into her belly. One arm was pinned beneath her; with her other hand she still clutched his sleeve. She slid her trembling hand down toward his wrist, rejoicing to feel his pulse pound against the crook of her thumb. Her own heart thudded against her ribs. Muffled noises reached her ears—men shouting, wood splintering. But the only sounds that Sophia cared about were these twin rhythms: his heart, and hers.
After a few moments, the weight pressing her to the deck eased, and she felt herself lifted to her feet.
“Can you stand?”
She nodded, locking her knees as she rested her back against his chest. “Was …” Her throat worked. “Was that lightning? Did it strike the ship?”
“Yes. And no.” His grip tightened over her wrist. “It struck theirs.”
She craned her neck to look up at his face. His features pale and drawn, he stared hard out over the ship’s rail. Sophia followed his gaze.
At first she scarcely noticed it, the faint red glow at the tip of the Kestrel’s mainmast. The ship was still some distance away, and Sophia had to squint to make it out. But it was there. Gray’s arm went slack about her, and she took a step forward. The light seemed to disappear for a moment, then sparked feebly and glowed anew, like an ember in a dying fire.
But this fire was not dying.
The captain appeared at Gray’s side. Together, the two men stared up at the red glow. “Gray, can you see—”
“Yes.”
A tongue of flame spurted from the tip of the mast. Sophia felt Gray’s whole body stiffen. Fire slithered down a length of rope, igniting one tip of the topmost yardarm.
“Damn it, why don’t they raise the alarm?” the captain asked. “Where is her crew?”
“After a blast like that …” Gray’s voice took on a steely edge. “Dead, some of them. Stunned or maimed, at least.”
A swell tipped the deck, and Sophia stumbled back against his chest. His chin scraped the crown of her head. They fit together so perfectly. Since the day he’d helped her board this ship, she’d fallen time and again into his embrace. To her, the truth was plain. His arms belonged around her. If only he would let her into his heart.
She turned her head and rested her brow against his shoulder. “Gray,” she whispered.
He tensed and pulled back. But he didn’t let her go.
The captain cupped his hands around his mouth. “Put in the boats!” he shouted toward the men at the bow. “Brace the mainsail aback!”
“You’re falling back?” Gray asked.
“What choice do we have?” The captain scrubbed his face with one hand. “There’s no telling which direction that mast will fall. We can’t risk the Aphrodite catching fire. I’ll put in the boats. If there are any survivors, they’ll make their way overboard.”
“Not if they’re injured or trapped in the hold, they won’t.”
“What do you propose to do, Gray?”
His reply was quiet, but firm. “Board it.”
“What?” Sophia pulled out of his grip and turned to face him.
“What?” The captain’s expression mirrored her sense
of alarm. “Board a burning ship? Gray, are you mad?”
“You act as though we’ve never done it before. This used to be our livelihood, boarding burning ships. That mast is a fuse. It’ll send the whole ship up in smoke if it’s not cut down before those flames reach the deck.” He clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder, his lips thinning in a tight smile. “Come on, Joss. It’ll be like old times.”
“In old times, any blaze we faced was the result of our own cannonfire. You know a lightning strike can spark fires all through a ship. Even now, there could be a blaze in the hold. If there’s a keg of powder, a cask of rum nearby … The whole thing could go any moment.”
“Then we’d best look lively, hadn’t we?” Gray strode toward the rail, shouting up at the sailors, “Mainsail haul! Bring her around!”
The men complied without hesitation, and the Aphrodite pivoted, coming abreast of the other ship. Sophia stood transfixed as the flames crawled across the royal yard. The furled sail took fire like a scroll of paper.
“Volunteers!” Gray lifted a coil of rope from its pin. “Who’ll board her with me? No men with wives or children.”
Levi appeared at his side out of nowhere, strong and silent as ever. He and Gray exchanged nods of agreement.
“I’m in.” O’Shea swung down from the yardarm and dropped to the deck with catlike grace. “Just like old times, eh, Gray?”
Gray shot an amused glance at his brother. “See?”
As the distance between the ships narrowed, the three men tested their ropes.
“I’ll go, too.” Davy pushed to the rail.
“No!” Sophia cried. “Gray, you can’t let him.”
“The ship could suffer my loss easier than most.” The boy stood tall, rolling the sleeves of his tunic up over his elbows. “And I’ve no wife or children, sir.”
“So you haven’t,” Gray said. “All right, then.”
The four men grabbed hold of their ropes and climbed onto the rail, preparing to swing across the gap of churning sea to board the burning ship. No anxiety showed on Gray’s face, only sharpened focus and grim determination. By contrast, Sophia was consumed with fear. She glanced up. The flames had reached the topgallant now. Dread numbed her entire body, and the bitter gale seemed to howl straight through her, whistling through her ribs and chilling her heart. She remembered the captain’s words. There could be fires throughout the ship … A keg of powder, one cask of rum, and …
And he would be gone.
“Gray!” A gust of wind took her choked sob and flung it out to sea.
The captain strode forward, reaching for a coil of rope. “If you’re determined to do this fool thing, I’m going with you.”
“No.” Gray’s face was hard. “No men with wives or children.” His gaze darted toward Sophia, then quickly away. If he read the desperate plea in her eyes, he did not acknowledge it. She winced, feeling the meaning of that dismissive glance. What ever she was to him, she was something less than a wife. And he would never allow her to be more. She wasn’t reason enough for him to live.
I don’t want you.
Something inside her splintered and cracked. Sophia wrapped her arms tightly across her chest, as if she could hold the pieces together.
Gray turned back to his brother. “Fall back as soon as we’re aboard, you hear? We’ll signal when all’s clear.”
He hoisted his body’s weight on the rope, the powerful brawn of his arms and back straining against the seams of his wet shirt. “The Aphrodite’s yours, Joss. Take care of her for me.”
“Aye, I will.” A knowing look passed between them. “I’ll look after the ship, too.”
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Gray’s boots hit the Kestrel’s deck with a hollow thud. Once the other three dropped over the rail, he began giving orders. The howling wind forced him to shout.
“O’Shea, take the wheel. Keep her steady, pointed into the gale. Otherwise, she’ll be on her beam ends before we even get a whiff of smoke.” The Irishman nodded and raced to the helm.
Gray looked to Levi. “Find some axes and start chopping down the mainmast. I’ll join you.”
His men dispatched, Gray peered up, squinting at the darkened sky rent by a line of bright flame. The fire was halfway down the mast now. With this unholy wind fanning the flames, they had only a matter of minutes before the fire reached the deck. No time to waste.
“I’ll chop with Levi.” Davy stood at his elbow. “I’m strong.”
“No.” Gray looked around. Where were the damn axes, anyhow? “I need you to search the ship. See if there are blazes in the hold. Look for injured, or anyone trapped. If you come across anything flammable—spirits, powder, medicines—you’re to heave it overboard immediately, do you understand?”
The boy nodded, his face pale but determined. “Aye, captain.” Davy’s voice cracked, and Gray felt a twinge of guilt. He should have insisted the boy stay aboard the Aphrodite.
“I’m not your captain,” Gray called after him.
“On this ship, you are.” With a shrug, Davy hurried toward the hatch.
Gray strode toward the mainmast, looking for Levi. His boots crunched over something metallic. He stared down at the deck. Nails. Bent, fused together, some gnarled as tree roots. Good Lord, he’d heard of lightning strikes like this—jolts strong enough to rip nails right out of the mast and send them clattering to the deck—but he’d never seen such a thing, in all his years at sea. He hoped he’d never see it again.
A misshapen hunk of metal rolled to a stop at his feet, still smoking. Gray kicked the roundish lump. “What the devil is that?”
“I think it used to be the bell.”
Gray’s head snapped up, and he found two bedraggled sailors standing before him.
“What can we do?” the shorter of the two asked, rubbing his shoulder as though it ached.
“Are you unharmed?” Gray eyed the men from head to toe. Tattered clothing hung from their gaunt frames, and their hands were black with tar and soot. The acrid odor of singed hair assaulted his nostrils.
The sailors nodded. “Just rattled, is all,” the taller one said. “Others weren’t so lucky.” He tilted his head toward a lifeless heap of rags on the opposite side of the deck. Mercifully, the dead sailor’s face was hidden from view, but a charred hand still clutched the rigging.
Gray swallowed hard, tasting bile. “Where’s your captain?” He brushed past the sailors. “And where the devil are your axes?”
“Don’t know where the captain’s at,” one sailor answered. “Probably rummin’ in his cabin. I’d like to think the bastard’s dead, but we wouldn’t be that lucky.”
“As for the axes …” The taller seaman nodded toward the rail, and Gray followed his gaze. A row of wooden hatchet handles stood at attention. Their hatchet blades, however, lay on the deck. Jolted from their handles, still smoking, half-melted … and completely, utterly useless.
Gray swore. Levi came bounding out from the galley, some sort of meat cleaver in one hand and a carving knife in the other. It was all Gray could do not to laugh till he cried. They were going to take down the mast with a meat cleaver?
Without a word, Levi handed him the knife and began attacking the mainmast with the cleaver. Well, apparently they were going to try.
Gray ran to the standing rigging, using the knife to saw through the ropes that connected mast and ship. If by some miracle Levi managed to cut through the mainmast, it couldn’t fall clear with the rigging intact. The two sailors drew knives from their belts and began to assist. Despite the spray and wind, Gray’s body quickly heated with the exertion. Sweat trickled down his brow, and he dabbed at it with his sleeve between blows. Eventually, he gave up the sawing motion in favor of full-armed swipes of the knife.
“How many crewmen?” he yelled at the sailors, hacking away at another rope. “Dead.” Thwack. “Alive.”
“There’s eleven of us. Five were in the forecastle. Don’t know how they fared. Two
dead here on deck. A few others got blasted, but they’re still alive. So far.”
“What’s in the hold?” His blow landed awkwardly, glancing the rail. Pain erupted in his elbow.
“Rum!” Davy scrambled toward them, juggling a small powder keg. Gray stopped mid-swing and stared at the boy. Terror was etched on his young face. “It’s rum, Gray. The hold’s full to bursting with it, and the—”
Davy tripped on a coil of rope, dropping the keg. Gray watched it roll back down the quarterdeck, trailing a thin line of powder as it went. Perfect. Just bloody wonderful.
Gray swung the knife again, fear cramping his side. “Is there fire below?”
“Not that I saw. But there are wounded men down there. One of them …” Davy’s chest convulsed with a sudden heave, as if he would vomit. “One of them’s burnt bad.”
“Boats?” Gray looked to the sailors.
“Just one.”
A wave of heat swamped them as the topsail caught fire, going up in flames like a dry leaf. Gray examined the shallow groove in the mainmast. Despite Levi’s strength, he’d barely managed to score the trunk of pine. It would take far too long to fell it. By that time, the flames would be too low. The fire would reach the deck, ignite the powder, spread to the hold full of rum, and the entire ship would explode like a Bonapartist’s grenade.
Bloody hell.
Levi kept swinging the tiny cleaver, while the rest of the men merely stared at Gray. Davy swallowed and shifted his weight, clearly awaiting direction. “Captain?”
The instant that word fell from Davy’s lips, Gray knew several things. He knew he was now the de facto captain of this godforsaken ship. He’d boarded it and taken command, and now he had to stay with it until the end. He knew he could save some of the men, but not all. At this rate, they’d be lucky to get the boat lowered before the rum exploded, let alone bring the injured up from the hold. And he knew he couldn’t leave the wounded behind and live with himself afterward. Which meant he wouldn’t live. He’d never get back to the Aphrodite. Not to his business, not to his family.
Not to her.
He was going to die. Today.
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