“No,” Lindsay whispered fiercely, swiping at the useless tears fogging her eyes as she looked down at the crumpled vellum in her hand.
She had given him everything, too, her love, her very soul; there was nothing left save for her life. And if she had a choice to be safe aboard this neutral vessel or to risk death to be with Jared—it wasn’t even a choice! She knew what she wanted to do; memories of his kiss, his caresses, the memory of how he’d stared into her eyes that morning as if emblazoning her rapture upon his mind—all spurred her on.
Such things couldn’t be lies, she told herself desperately as she tucked the license in her bodice and climbed onto the railing, then grabbed a fistful of rigging while nearby passengers gasped in surprise. Words might hide the truth, but she’d seen no fantasy in Jared’s eyes no matter what he’d said—
“My lady, come down from there! Come down!”
As a dignified gentleman wearing the braided trappings of a captain rushed toward the railing along with several of his crew, Lindsay shook her head.
“No, no, don’t worry about me! It was all a mistake, I’m staying in Gijón—oh!”
She lost her footing and almost fell, even now the Swedish vessel edging slowly away from the wharf while she clutched at the rigging and fought to regain a toehold. As more startled faces appeared at the railing, she waved to reassure them and then, squeezing her eyes shut, she jumped, not knowing if she might just make the end of the wharf or find herself in the water.
She laughed giddily when she landed upon something solid, the dock soundly beneath her feet, and she spun again to wave at the ship. The embarking ship that she was no longer aboard, while the Vengeance… oh, Lord, the Vengeance.
Realizing as if waking from a frantic daze that she still had to find some way back aboard Jared’s ship, and without him seeing her, too, or she was certain he’d lash her to the mainmast of the next vessel to ensure she stayed put, Lindsay ducked into an alleyway that led behind the row of buildings facing the wharf. An alleyway she would not have dared venture into except for the comforting light of midday, although she hurried all the same for fear of meeting any unsavory characters.
Fortunately, she startled only stray cats that meowed and skittered out of her way, and a few serving women who watched her progress curiously before she reached the tavern where she and Jared had stayed the night before. After entering through a back door, Lindsay heard glasses chinking and mugs being thunked down upon tables. She took a brief moment to catch her breath before she swept into the main room and brushed past the stout proprietor, who glanced up from wiping a table, his eyes growing round.
“Señorita—excuse, excuse, señora?”
“My husband told me to wait for him here.” Without even looking back, Lindsay proceeded right to the stairs. “El Capitán. He will return soon.”
She heard no response; hoping she’d been believed, she raced up the steps and didn’t stop until she had entered their former room, relieved to see that it wasn’t occupied, though the rumpled bed had been made. Her face hot as flame, she drew the bolt quietly and then raced to the window, her heart battering against her breast as she spied Jared’s ship among a dozen still anchored in the sparkling bay.
She could see men working busily on deck, the shattered topmast being replaced while sailors climbed the rigging to get at the torn sails needing repair and patching. Dear Lord, how was she ever going to find a way...?
It was then she spied him, Cooky with two other sailors—his kitchen assistants, she realized, her heart racing faster—and they were rowing a galley back to shore.
***
“Cap’n’s going to have my hide.”
“Shhh, Cooky, he’ll have mine first,” Lindsay admonished him for what seemed the hundredth time since she’d been lugged in a burlap bag to the galley, hoping desperately she appeared nothing more than a lumpy sack of potatoes. “Are we almost to the ship?”
“So we are, and there’ll be no word out of you two, either, do you hear me? Or our hides will be patching the sails!”
Lindsay bit her lower lip, praying that Cooky’s assistants might not panic and give her away. She had never seen men look so startled as when she had dashed from the tavern and drawn all three with her into a shadowy alley—pleading for them to help her, declaring passionately that she didn’t want to be anywhere but at Jared’s side—although from the look of admiration in Cooky’s squinty eyes, she had sensed his acquiescence at once.
Yet that had obviously become anxiety as they neared the Vengeance, and Lindsay couldn’t say she wasn’t nervous, too. She hugged her knees and chewed her lip as Cowan’s Irish brogue rang out, ordering the galley to be hoisted aboard. Then, as the ropes and winches began to creak and groan, reminding her so much of the first time she’d sneaked aboard, she truly began to pray.
“Aye, good thing you came back when you did, Cooky. Cap’n’s ready to sail. And he’s in a black mood, just as a warning. Ever since that Swedish ship left the bay, so you’d better unload fast.”
Oh, Lord. The news filling her with equal parts dread and incredible elation, Lindsay grimaced as she felt herself being lifted, her breath gone from her body. To think if Cooky and his men hadn’t come back to shore for more supplies, her only recourse to wait until dark and then try to find a way aboard. She would have missed…
Shoving the dreadful thought away, Lindsay resumed praying, hard, as she was carried toward the hold. Everything had been carefully planned. All they needed to do was get her safely below to the ship’s kitchen, where Cooky had promised to hide her until the Vengeance was well under sail again, and then she would carefully make her presence known to Jared.
“Blast it to hell, Cooky, haven’t we enough potatoes to last us a year? We’ve eaten so many of them, I’d sooner see the damned things tossed overboard to the fish—”
“A needless waste that would be, too, Cap’n.” Cooky’s surprisingly calm voice did little to soothe Lindsay’s trembling as she realized Jared must be standing very close to them. So close, she feared she might have to reveal herself then and there or risk drowning inside the sack. But when the light seemed to fade around her, she knew Cooky’s assistants were descending with her into the hold. Only then did she dare allow herself a swamping sense of relief.
“All right, men, put her—put the potatoes over there under the table. Gently, now.”
Settled on her side upon the floor, Lindsay smiled gratefully at Cooky as the sack was loosened at the top to allow her some air. She longed for nothing more than to stretch her cramped legs, but that would have to wait.
“Is there anything else I can get for you, miss? It might be a while, maybe not until morning, before we’re far enough out to sea that Cap’n wouldn’t be tempted to come right back once he knows…”
At Cooky’s worried frown, Lindsay shook her head, very much aware of what the old sailor had risked for her. “I’m fine, truly. Thanks to you, Cooky, and your men, I’ve everything I want. I’ll never forget how you helped me.”
“Neither will Cap’n, I fear,” the man mumbled, but he gave Lindsay a gruff smile. And he didn’t leave her to begin preparations for the evening meal until he had wadded up a towel and tucked it gently under her head for a pillow.
***
And Lindsay slept, not realizing the depth of her fatigue until Cooky tried to wake her late that night to get her to eat something, which she did. But she couldn’t have remembered if she ate the choicest stew or a dried slice of salt pork, she was so tired, the day’s strain and excitement clearly too much for her.
As well as the previous night’s.
At one point she awoke, the galley darkened, Cooky and his assistants long ago gone to their bunks or hammocks, the ship eerily quiet but for the creaking of timbers and the distant flapping of sails. She lay there for long moments staring at the planked ceiling, the ship rocking beneath her while her flesh burned, her breath snagged in her throat, dreams and memories of Jared’s hands upon he
r, his mouth upon her so vivid it seemed as if he were there at her side.
But he wasn’t, and she still feared it was too soon to go to him, although she wanted to so desperately.
She sensed he wasn’t sleeping in his cabin at all but pacing the quarterdeck, restlessly, unceasingly, which only made her ache for him the stronger. Would he take her in his arms, think her a dream or a phantom come to haunt him or flesh and blood? Would he rouse the crew and order his helmsman to head straight back to Gijón— No, no, no, she couldn’t bear to think of it!
Somehow Lindsay forced herself to be patient, forced herself to close her eyes, although the next hours were more a futile tossing upon the hard floor. Yet she did finally fall asleep, Jared once more filling her dreams: her husband, her love, her life…
***
“Miss, miss, wake up! Wake up! We’re attacking, God help us, the ship barely repaired—”
“Attacking, Cooky… what?” Roused so suddenly, Lindsay could only stare at the grizzled sailor with bleary eyes while he threw aside the burlap sack.
“Climb out of there, miss! It’s safer in the stern, for we’re coming at them broadside. Now, miss, now!”
Cooky’s urgency cutting through the drowsy fog gripping her, it was still the deafening roar of cannon that got her to move. She gasped, the sound bringing back the horror of the last time, when Dag and the others…
“Oh, God, Jared.” Irrational fear overwhelming her, Lindsay stumbled to her feet, her legs so numb from being confined in the sack that she fell over, knocking Cooky to the floor.
Yet they both scrambled back up when another round of cannon fire boomed with fierce explosive power, making the entire ship quake. Although Cooky tried to hold fast onto her arm, she broke free, running frantically toward the hold.
“No, no, miss, the stern, Cap’n’s quarters! It’s too dangerous—great God, he’ll never forgive me now! Come back, miss!”
Lindsay was halfway up the steps when Cooky caught her by the ankle, the old sailor’s agility as startling as his grip was so desperate. Yet she was equally desperate, rounding on him with hoarse pleading in her voice.
“Let me go, Cooky! He’s my husband now—we were married in Gijón! Please let me go!”
Cooky was so stunned that he released her. Lindsay didn’t waste a moment but lunged up the last few steps and burst onto the deck, the familiar and horrifying smell of gunpowder burning her nostrils, black smoke choking her, the brilliant morning sunlight blinding her eyes. She blinked, wildly looking for Jared, but what drew her gaze before she could find him was the high-pitched screams coming from the stricken brig lying broadside, the two ships no more than twenty feet apart.
The terrified screams of women and children clambering from the hold onto the deck—dear God and the British vessel had already struck its colors, ready to surrender.
Coughing from the smoke, she ran toward the quarterdeck and stumbled up the companionway, nearly collapsing into Jared’s arms. He hugged her fiercely for a moment, then quickly thrust her away from him, his expression as grim as his eyes behind his fearsome gold mask, but she couldn’t think of that now.
“No more firing, Jared! Tell your men to stop! There are innocent women and children aboard—”
“Damnation, Lindsay, the order to cease fire has already been given! What are you doing here? How—”
He didn’t get to finish, a deafening blast roaring from the lower gun deck making his face go white. In horror, Lindsay saw the ominous damage to the brig’s hull as the thick smoke gradually cleared, three gaping holes at the waterline. Like a great bird winged by a hunter’s bow, the crippled ship before her very eyes began to list and settle.
“Walker, get down there! Tell them to cease fire!”
Incredulous, Lindsay met Jared’s stricken eyes. “You said you had ordered…”
“I did, woman! I sent Cowan…”
Lindsay scarcely heard him, looking back to the sinking vessel, her gaze drawn to the name emblazoned in white upon the prow.
Industry.
Oh, God, no. Breaking free of Jared’s arms, she ran to the starboard railing, her heart in her throat as she searched the passengers frantically thronging the tilted deck. Desperate shouts went up to load the longboats with women and children and lower them to the water at once, before it was too late, which only set off more screaming and weeping and frenzied cries of terror.
Yet one man’s commanding voice rose above the din like a strange calm amidst a storm. Lindsay’s breath caught, her eyes widening in disbelief when she recognized Lord Donovan Trent at the ship’s prow, his dark head towering above the rest as he helped passenger after passenger onto a crowded galley.
And standing at his side, stubbornly refusing to leave him even as he lifted her bodily onto the boat, was an auburn-haired young woman holding a sobbing child in her arms, the poignant scene making Lindsay’s throat grow tight.
“Corie!”
Chapter 30
Jared heard Lindsay’s hoarse outcry at the same moment one of his men shouted to him from high in the mainmast rigging, the sailor waving wildly at the horizon.
“Cap’n, man-of-war approaching from the south, seventy-four-gunner!”
Cursing, Jared wrenched the spyglass from his belt; his gut clenched at the sight of not one warship cruising at full sail toward them, but three—the vessels abandoning the convoy of seven merchantmen stretching behind them that, he realized too late, must have included his latest quarry as well. Now there was no time to help the people aboard the foundering ship, not if the Vengeance was to escape—
“Cap’n, look, she’s going over the side!”
Jared spun around, his heart lurching as Lindsay grabbed a fistful of rigging from her precarious perch atop the railing and swung over to the sinking vessel. A powerfully built man with hair as jet-black as Walker’s caught her and hauled her safely aboard. A man Jared knew he had seen before…
Terrified shrieks rent the air as the brig suddenly listed further to port and he knew, too, with a certainty as sure as that he breathed, that he couldn’t leave Lindsay behind.
Damn Cowan, why hadn’t he repeated the order not to fire? The Industry was sinking; there was no choice even to be made. God help him, if they left now, Lindsay and those innocent people could drown before help ever arrived. And what if those bloody cruisers chose not to stop at all just so they might chase him?
“Walker, send our men over to help! She’s settling too fast for us to lower the boats—helmsman, bring her closer in!”
As the deck exploded in commotion, sailors who’d served Jared so loyally for years leaving their cannon to grab rigging and swing over to the other ship, Jared caught a rope, too, and lunged into the air, to land squarely on the listing deck. Already the stricken vessel’s passengers and crew were scrambling from the longboats, now useless, a host of frightened faces looking to the Vengeance for deliverance as the schooner scraped alongside the brig, heavy planks dropped at once atop the railings.
“Over the side! All of you, now!” Jared roared, searching for Lindsay, who was nowhere to be seen. Then he spied her ducking into the ship’s hold and he knew she’d gone to see if anyone below needed help. His gut clenched all the tighter. Damn the woman, must she think of everyone but herself? The sea would claim this vessel in a few moments, no more!
He ran toward the hold, tearing off his mask, but a man lunged in front of him so suddenly that they nearly collided. Cursing, Jared faced his strapping, midnight-haired opponent eye to eye, the same man who’d helped Lindsay aboard, while his hand moved to his pistol.
“Get out of my way—”
“If you care for her, man, you’ll have nothing more to do with her. Do you understand? Nothing!”
Jared stared into near-pitch-black eyes as resolute as his own, every part of him fiercely aching to find Lindsay, aching to shove this man violently from his path. Only when a tall, long-limbed beauty approached them, cradling in her arms a little gi
rl who looked terrified, did he realize that he had once seen the young woman before, too, no more than a month ago in the smuggling port of Roscoff, Brittany.
“It’s you,” came her incredulous whisper, her lovely brown eyes searching his face. “I couldn’t believe it was Lindsay, and now to see it is you—you saved my husband’s life! Donovan, this is the man who—”
“We’ve no time now, Corie! Take Paloma and wait for me on the other ship while I go find Lindsay.
As the woman nodded and hurried away, Jared stared once more into his opponent’s dark eyes, the man’s voice as determined as before.
“While I find Lindsay. Dammit, man, will you take her down with you? No one has to know what you are to each other. I promise we’ll do everything we can to help her. Lie for her if we have to, anything, but now is the time to choose—before those bloody ships get here and slap you and your men in irons!”
The deck creaking ominously beneath his feet did more to sway Jared at that moment than Donovan’s words, which he knew rang as true as the agony tearing at his heart. With a vehement curse, he turned from the hold and Donovan disappeared down the steep steps, Jared knowing all too well he was turning his back upon Lindsay just as surely as if they had never met. But what else could he do? Have her share the deadly fate that awaited him?
“Cap’n, that’s nearly the last of them!” he heard one of his men cry out. Jared realized then that the sinking brig was almost deserted. Somehow he made himself cross back over to the Vengeance, but he whirled around on the deck when a shout went up from the passengers huddled aboard his ship. A relief so intense filled him when he saw Lindsay emerge from the hold, followed by Donovan bearing an unconscious woman in his arms, that it was all Jared could do not to rush back and help them.
Instead he forced himself to make his way to the quarterdeck as a thundering warning shot hit the water with a huge splash only fifty yards off the prow, but he paid little heed to the approaching warships. His eyes were upon Cowan, the stricken-faced Irishman meeting him at the companionway.
Man of My Dreams Boxed Set Page 55