The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst

by Louise Allen

  ‘Sorry.’ She didn’t know what had come over her. Normally that sort of eyelash fluttering, Oh, Mr Stanier, you are wonderful, won’t you do it for me? irritated her, too, when she’d seen other young women trying it on men.

  Clemence knew she was hopeless at flirting; she always had been, feeling a complete idiot making eyes at boys she’d known all her life and pretending to be five foot one and a fragile little bloom when she was nothing of the kind. Attempting to deploy her inept feminine wiles on Nathan Stanier was madness. Feeling as she did about him was even madder.

  ‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ he conceded. ‘Come on, breakfast time.’

  Street was frying yams when they made their way to the galley, the savoury smell making Clemence’s mouth water with longing. Nathan raided the skillet of bacon, peering into the pots that bubbled, their contents sloshing back and forth with the motion of the ship as they slid between the restraining bars on the range.

  ‘That’s surely not our dinner, is it?’ He dipped a cautious finger into one pot.

  ‘Nah, that swill’s for the cargo.’ Street grinned.

  ‘You are not much concerned with keeping them alive, then?’ Nathan sucked his finger clean, grimacing.

  ‘Not what you’d call a high-value cargo, field hands,’ Street remarked. ‘But I keep them alive, as much as food and water will do.’

  ‘It’s slaves down there, then?’ Nathan queried, pouring himself thin ale and draining the tankard.

  ‘They will be, by the time we get them to St Martin. The French’ll buy anything, they’re that short since the Peace, what with the trade being outlawed.’

  ‘So captive merchant crews are sold to the French islands and just conveniently vanish into the upland plantations out of reach of any English help? Good business idea.’

  Clemence was positively hissing with indignation by the time she and Nathan found a deserted piece of deck to lean against the rail and eat.

  ‘The bastard! I’d like to—’

  ‘Quiet! At least we know he wants them kept alive. If they’re worth money, they’ve a good chance of getting off this ship. I was worried he was keeping them for sport—shark bait or something.’ Nathan tossed a piece of bacon rind over the side as though to make his point.

  ‘What? He wouldn’t? Alive, you mean?’

  ‘He would and he does. He’s got a very strange idea of entertainment, has our captain. He isn’t called Red because of his taste in spotted kerchiefs, it’s because blood’s red and he likes it. Lots of it.’

  ‘You…you’re frightening me,’ Clemence managed to say around the constriction in her throat. She didn’t want him to treat her like a sheltered little girl, but like a grown woman. On the other hand, there were some details she could very well do without.

  ‘Good. Be very frightened—you are less likely to do anything foolish.’

  ‘I’d heard he had a dreadful reputation, but I didn’t know he was like that.’ She shuddered. But she couldn’t just let men she knew be sold off as slaves. She would have to think of something.

  ‘Mr Stanier!’ The light was breaking through, chasing the night back into deep pools of shadow either side of the channel. Ahead, in the open sea, a brisk breeze was making white horses on the wavelets.

  ‘Coming, sir.’ Nathan pushed his ale into Clemence’s hands. ‘Now, things get lively.’

  Nathan studied the open waters of the Windward Passage as Sea Scorpion slipped out of the channel and turned starboard to the sheltered deep anchorage between Lizard Island and, at their back, the scatter of islands they had picked their way through the night before. Ahead was the major route for shipping between Hispaniola and Cuba and topsails were distantly visible. Closer to the island the white lateen sails of fishing boats dotted the sea—small fry, safe from the big shark.

  He turned on his heel, seeming to glance casually over the forested slopes and rock-strewn beaches behind them. Somewhere, if things had gone to plan, spy glasses were watching them and messages were being sent to a middling-sized merchant vessel with a conveniently damaged mast. It would come limping out of shelter, like a bird with a broken wing, right under the nose of the Sea Scorpion—and McTiernan would not be able to resist.

  ‘You seem pleased with life, Mr Stanier.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t smile at a morning like this, Mr Cutler?’ On his other side he sensed Clem stiffening, but she neither pressed closer to him nor moved away. She was scared of Cutler, but she had guts.

  ‘Drop anchor!’ There was a roar as the pinions were knocked out and the chain rushed free, the anchor dropping through clear water to the sand beneath, then a few moments of peace again until the bo’sun began ordering the hands to their morning chores.

  ‘You’re not expecting any business along yet?’

  ‘No.’ Cutler was looking up into the rigging, his eyes checking, evaluating every knot and sheet. ‘Those fat lazy merchantmen won’t stir themselves for a while yet.’

  Beside him Clem gave a muffled snort and Nathan kicked her lightly on the ankle in warning; the last thing they needed was her giving Cutler a lecture on the superiority of merchantmen over pirate vessels.

  A jolly boat was swung out with water casks to fill at the stream that burst out of the forest on to the beach in a miniature waterfall. Even without the telescope he could make out the spreading pool beneath the fall. ‘Imagine swimming in that,’ Clem said wistfully.

  Nathan looked at her. Leaning with elbows on the rail, chin in hand, rear end stuck out, she was lost in a daydream. With no difficulty at all he joined her in it. Somehow he had no trouble at all imagining Clemence naked, slipping like a fish through the water, coming up to the surface laughing, her hands full of shells, walking towards him, small high breasts covered in sun-reflecting droplets…

  He looked again and hissed, ‘Stand up straight and pull your shirt down.’

  She jumped to obey, startled question in her eyes.

  ‘You might be too thin,’ he muttered in her ear, ‘but no lad has got a backside like that!’ Oh, God, and now that was in his head, too, pert and rounded, just asking to be cupped in his palms like a ripe peach.

  She went pink, but looked pleased. ‘Really? That’s good. I must be putting weight on.’

  Women! ‘It is no such—’

  ‘Sail ho!’ The cry from the masthead had everyone turning towards the rail. There, emerging slowly from behind the headland, was a small merchantman, sail drooping, mast oddly angled, crew swarming over the rigging in frantic activity.

  ‘Raise the anchor!’ Cutler roared and the bo’sun came at the run, starter in hand, shoving and bullying the hands into place around the capstan. Men were climbing the rigging, making for their designated places on the yards ready to lower the sail, and the lids of sea chests crashed open as the crew left on deck armed themselves.

  ‘Get below.’ Nathan pushed Clem towards the companionway.

  ‘No!’ She dug in her heels, then saw the look on his face. ‘I’ll go down before we close with them,’ she promised.

  ‘Do that. This is going to be a hot fight.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Clem demanded, half-running to keep up with him as he made for the nearest arms’ chest to find a cutlass. ‘It’s a small ship.’

  ‘Instinct,’ he lied, mentally kicking himself for the slip.

  ‘But they aren’t heavily armed,’ she continued to speculate.

  ‘Spare me your views on marine strategy,’ Nathan said coldly, desperate to stop her talking.

  ‘Sorry.’ She subsided, shooting him a side-long look from under her lashes that was pure feminine speculation.

  The anchor was up, the sails crashing down, beginning to fill as the hands scrambled back to the deck. Nathan tried the edge on the cutlass with his thumb and studied the men on the poop deck. Just behind the steersman, that was the place.

  Sea Scorpion began to move, nosing out towards the sea and its victim. ‘Hoist the bones,’ Cutler yelled and a man ran to th
e main mast and began to lash an odd bundle to it.

  ‘What’s that?’ Beside him Clem craned to see.

  ‘The skull and cross-bones,’ Nathan said grimly, watching it jerk up to the foremast.

  ‘But…that’s not a flag. Those are real…’ Clem turned away, her face white as she saw the gulls swoop to feast on the remains that still clung to the pathetic relics.

  ‘I told you, our captain has a novel sense of humour.’ To say nothing of a unique personal style. The merchantman had seen them now. Its few gun ports dropped open; across the water there was the sound of shouted orders, the rumble of gun carriages. The armament looked pitifully small, but that was all to the good, Nathan thought. They didn’t want a long-distance gun battle, they needed hand-to-hand fighting if the trap was to be sprung on the Sea Scorpion.

  Beside him Clemence gasped. ‘They are running out their guns—what if we’re hit? The men down below won’t have a chance.’

  ‘Nothing we can do. Clem, be quiet—’

  There was a shout from the crow’s nest. ‘Cap’n! Big merchantman, just coming into sight off the starboard bow!’

  There was a rush for the rail, telescopes trained beyond the stricken ship. Minutes passed, then, ‘It’s the Raven Princess, Cap’n!’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Yes!’ For the first time Nathan saw McTiernan animated. The captain slammed his clenched fist into the other palm. ‘Leave this one, it isn’t going far.’ He turned to the wheelman, firing rapid orders as Cutler shouted up to the sail handlers.

  Sea Scorpion swung round, away from her crippled victim towards the richly tempting prize of a great ocean-going craft bound for London. ‘Hell!’ Nathan let the one word escape, then shut his lips tight. The rat had so nearly walked into the trap and now, whiskers twitching, it was off after a bigger, tastier piece of cheese and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

  ‘No, oh, no.’ Clem’s whisper cut through his own furious thoughts. ‘Not the Raven Princess.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I…I know the captain, some of the crew. That was the ship I was making for when McTiernan stopped me.’

  It must be the thought of what would have happened to her as a member of a captured crew that was making her so distressed. She was going to cry in a minute, he could see her full lower lip begin to tremble.

  ‘Clem,’ he hissed, ‘if you can’t control yourself, you’ll have to go below. There is nothing either of us can do about this.’

  ‘Why should you want to?’ she spat at him, her face contorted with anger. ‘You’re one of them, you’ll share the killing and the booty and the plunder and I expect you’ll want me to wash the blood off your clothes when you come back from getting it.’

  ‘Clem, shut up.’ He took her arm and shook her. ‘You are attracting attention.’

  ‘I will not stand by and—’ His hand over her mouth cut off the threat. Nathan wrapped his other arm around her waist and hoisted her off her feet, kicking and struggling. Her buttocks squirmed against his groin, sending desire lancing through him, deepening his anger. His entire strategy was going to hell in a handcart and this damned woman, who hadn’t the sense to be terrified, was going to give it a final shove off the cliff if he couldn’t shut her up.

  ‘What the devil are you about, Mr Stanier?’ Cutler shouted down from the rail of the poop deck.

  ‘He’s frightened, Mr Cutler, but he won’t go down. He’ll be a damn nuisance under our feet, I’ll dump him in the cabin and be right back.’

  Ruthless, Nathan slung Clem over his shoulder with considerably less care than he had shown the day before and got her, struggling and cursing at him, down the companionway.

  ‘Will you shut up, Clem?’

  ‘Put me down!’ She fetched him a painful thump in the kidneys with a clenched fist. Nathan dropped her on to her feet and pushed her back against a bulkhead, keeping one hand pressed to her shoulder to hold her still. The deck around them was deserted, everyone was either above decks or at the guns.

  ‘There, you are down.’ She glared at him, hands fisted on her hips. ‘Now, show some sense and shut up.’

  ‘There was no need to manhandle me.’ She pushed the hair out of her eyes and tugged at her shirt tails.

  ‘There was every need.’ She wriggled and he brought up his other hand and pinned her against the wood. Even under the strapping he could see the rise and fall of her bosom, catch her feminine scent, hot, furious, heady.

  ‘You pirate, you bully, you—’ The injustice, even though she had no way of knowing the truth, was the final straw. Wrestling with her had stimulated an erection that ached, his hands could feel her heat, he could hear her panting breaths, his nostrils were full of her.

  Nathan took a step forward and kissed her hard on the mouth with none of the delicacy and restraint he had used before and with the full force of his angry frustration behind it.

  Clemence’s gasp of shock was swallowed up by the fierce open-mouthed kiss. She grabbed his wrists, but she might as well have been wrestling with the capstan bars. Something slid through her, a strange mixture of anger and triumph that she had provoked him into this violent acceptance of her femininity.

  But the anger was winning—the logical emotion, the wise one. She jerked up one knee and he moved in like a swordsman, almost as though he had expected it, turning her aggressive gesture into weakness as she found him between her thighs, his whole body pressed against her, the heat of his erection searing against her belly.

  His tongue was in her mouth, thrusting. Clemence closed her teeth and he jerked back and looked down at her, his face stark. ‘Clemence—hell.’

  Panting, she stared at him from a distance of perhaps six inches. He looked shaken, yet still angry. He should be grovelling at my feet. Nathan met her stormy gaze and something deep in those blue eyes stirred, despite the expression on his face. He desired her, it was not just anger at her outburst.

  Before she could think, Clemence let go of his wrists and seized his head, dragged it down to her lips again, clung for a few dizzying moments and then pulled free.

  ‘Are you sorry? I should hope so,’ she said shakily. ‘So…so am I. Sorry.’ Slowly he lifted his hands away from her shoulders and she stared back at him, each of them cautious, as if they were two wrestlers not knowing if the other truly had called quits. ‘May I come back on deck? I won’t say anything, I promise.’ There was nothing she could do, except watch and pray that Raven Princess could outrun them. And if the worst happened, then it was her duty to stand and watch it, not cower in her cabin with her head under the pillow.

  ‘Clemence, what just happened was madness.’ Nathan touched her swollen lower lip with the back of his fingers.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t very sensible,’ she agreed shakily, ‘but I think we can forgive ourselves, because otherwise we are going to have to spend some very long, silent hours in that cabin.’ He was still looking grim, but that produced a reluctant grin.

  ‘Come on, then. Hell, your mouth is swollen. You look as though you’ve been kissed hard.’ Clemence narrowed her eyes at him. Nathan shrugged, his smile twisting wryly, raised his wrist to his mouth and bit with a grimace. Blood welled from the puncture and he smeared it onto her lip and down her chin. ‘There. Look cowed, I’ve cuffed you, cut the inside of your lip.’

  ‘All right.’ Feeling quite adequately cowed, and more than a little confused, Clemence dug a bandana out of her pocket and held it to the side of her mouth, bracing herself for their reappearance on deck and Cutler’s hard stare.

  But there was no need to fear they were of the slightest interest to anyone; as they reached the rail there was a shout from above. ‘Frigate!’

  McTiernan froze, then a stream of low-voiced invective hissed from between his clenched teeth. Most of the words meant nothing to Clemence, but the sheer malevolence of it chilled her to the bone.

  Beautiful, sunlit, the white sails of the distant naval ship strained in the wind, bringing
her into a direct line between hunter and hunted. Clemence thought she had never seen anything more wonderful in her life.

  ‘There’s time to take the smaller ship.’ Her jaw dropped as Nathan called up to McTiernan. He began to climb to the poop deck. ‘We could board her, grab any portable valuables. Cut and run.’

  Nathan? Clemence stared, disbelieving, as the men talked. Yes, she could accept, just, that he was the navigator, that when they went into action he would take part, but that he would deliberately incite McTiernan to take a helpless ship shocked her to the core.

  ‘No, that bastard will see us, the visibility is too good. Mr Cutler, take us back behind Lizard Island and into the pool, we’ll skulk like curs until that damn King’s ship’s gone and then…’ he showed his stained teeth in a humourless grin ‘…then we’ll take the next thing that shows a bowsprit, and God have mercy on them, because I won’t.’

  Clemence did not need any instructions to stay out of the way. She retreated to her perch amongst the casks andwatched, blank-eyed, as the ship turned tail back into the shelter of Lizard Island. The watering crew were waiting on the beach, but the Sea Scorpion kept going. Surely McTiernan was not going to abandon his own men and a valuable jolly boat?

  Puzzlement broke through her misery as she saw the topsails were being reefed in, then the mainsail. Boats were lowered, lines thrown out to them. As Sea Scorpion’s speed dropped to a glide, the boats took up the slack and began to steer her towards what seemed to be sheer cliff. Men in two of the boats that were not towing rowed right up to the tumbling vegetation and she realised that they were pulling back a screen of greenery to reveal the tight mouth of an entrance.

  Slowed to walking pace now, the ship slid forward, her shadow black on the white sand, fish shoals darting away as though at the approach of a giant predator. They were through the screen, into an almost circular sea pool. Clemence had seen inlets like this before, caused when the roofs of caves collapsed; she’d even swum in one in the days before she had become a virtual prisoner, a million years ago.