Logan stepped around Roc. “We’ve come for you to be mediator. The Hawk is my prisoner. He’s to take me to a treasure, if you see the girl home. We’ve agreed it, sworn upon it.”
Roc set Skye down upon her feet. Blackbeard gave her a captivating smile. “Lady Kinsdale—no, Cameron, I’ve heard. Anyway, my lady, you’re most welcome here! A flower among us dregs of humanity, and I do mean it!”
“Teach, will you swear to me to see her home?” Roc demanded.
“With my blood. You carry out your bargain, and I’ll see her home. I’ve no wish to hurt a woman, sir, of that you are well aware.”
“But he comes with me!” Logan cried. “I want it agreed in blood!”
“Raise your arm!” Blackbeard commanded to Roc.
Roc lifted his arm. Blackbeard took his knife and Skye could not help but cry out as the pirate slashed her husband’s arm. A trail of blood oozed out. Roc did not protest; he didn’t say a word. Blackbeard slashed his own arm and placed it next to Roc’s. “Sealed in blood. You owe Logan, and by my honor, I owe you. Now tell me, Hawk, how did you let this scurvy piece of dog meat get the best of you?”
“There’s no excuse, Teach. He just did.”
Blackbeard swirled around to Skye. “Come, sit with me, we’ll drink together.
“I’ve no wish to drink with you or any of your kind!” Skye spat out.
“A feisty one, yes, I do say!” Blackbeard laughed. He leaned low against her. “Girl, I’m all the hope you’ve got here, do you understand?” He raised his voice then. “Hawk! You come, too.”
“He’s my prisoner, bound by blood—” Logan began.
“Yes, but this is my party, my pirate’s ball, and I’ll not have you leaving with my guests, not tonight. Hawk, you play out your devil’s bargain in the morning, and God and Satan be with you both! For now, come with the girl, and watch my beloved dance!”
He pulled the two of them along to join him on his platform. Skye was dragged down beside him on the one side and Roc on the other. The fury of the music increased to a tempestuous tempo. The girl danced ever more swiftly.
A mug was pressed into Skye’s hands. She looked into the drunken eyes of a middle-aged, buxom woman with her bodice torn in two. The woman smiled and started to laugh. “Dearie, dearie, a lady! We’ve a lady among us! Let us take her, Blackbeard, and she’ll not be a lady much longer, I’ll warrant.”
The woman reached for Skye, tearing at her bodice, Skye screamed, trying to draw away. Her chair fell over. Her head cracked against the platform, and she was dazed.
“No!” There was another sound of thunder as a second chair fell back. Roc was on his feet. He came to stand before her, his booted feet planted hard, his hands upon his hips. “She’s mine; she’s mine this night, and she’s Blackbeard’s promise of safe conduct when this night is over. No one touches her. No one but me. She’s mine, and ’tis my night, and I’ll have her in peace from the lot of you scurvies and whores!”
He bent down and lifted her from the floor. “No!” she whispered in desperation.
He barely glanced her way but turned to Blackbeard. “This is your party, Captain Teach! I’m your guest this night, and would request quarters, sir, if I may!”
The pirate Blackbeard laughed and nodded. “Aye, Captain Hawk! If it’s a dead man you’re to be, you should have this night! Every man gets a last request before the gallows!”
“Wait!” Logan protested. “I did not say—”
“Tomorrow, Logan, you may take the Hawk. Your prisoner, sir! Tonight, he gets his last request!”
Blackbeard indicated a building fifty yards from the platform on the beach. Roc leaped down from the platform with her in his arms and began striding toward the waterfront shanty. Pirates and their doxies applauded and laughed.
“She’s a tough one, Captain!”
“Aye, there, lad, feisty but fun!” Roc agreed. Skye hit him, slapping him just as hard as he had slapped her against the cheek. She was just barely aware of the guffaws rising from the pirates sprawled about them with their half-clad drunken whores.
“Take her, Captain!”
Roc, staring at her with fire in his eyes, quickly replied, “I intend to, lad, I intend to!” He lowered her down. Skye screamed, shocked and alarmed as she fell hard upon the sand. He bounded down upon her, seizing her hair in a rough grip, holding her still to his pleasure as he ravaged her lips with his mouth, all the while raking his hands over her breasts.
Laughter arose, whistles and catcalls. He leaped up, jerking her back to her feet, then forcefully into his arms. “I intend to this very minute, lads!” he cried.
“No …!” she gasped. Her lips were swollen and bruised and she had never seen such reckless disregard in him before. She gritted her teeth and beat against him in a sudden, desperate fear.
“No!”
“Shut up! Damn you, shut up!”
His eyes lit upon hers, silver and hard. “Open your mouth again and I swear you shall learn something of brute force this very night!”
Skye opened her mouth. She shivered uncontrollably but fell silent to the warning in his eyes.
And Roc dashed up the steps to the shanty and kicked open the door. She was alone again with him, with the pirate, with the lord. With her lover, with her husband.
Alone …
With the very devil himself …
XVII
Roc kicked the door closed and set Skye down. For a second she remained perfectly still, for shadows fell all around them, and she was frightened of a terrible darkness falling.
Darkness did not come. It was barely afternoon, she thought. She spun around, stared at Roc, and moved away from him, running quickly to the wall, setting her back against it.
He glanced her way with a certain disdain and fell against the door himself, sinking down before it. His eyes closed wearily, then shot open and stared at her with immense displeasure. He pointed a finger at her. “You! You little bitch! You’re going to get us both killed!”
Skye stared at him wide-eyed. “Me! You’ve lost your mind!”
“I am grabbing at straws to keep us going—”
“Straws! There is no treasure!” she hissed.
His lashes fell briefly over his eyes. “That’s my problem. I want you out of here. Blackbeard may be many things, but his reputation for cruelty has been deliberately exaggerated. He will keep his word to me. Tomorrow he will see that you are delivered back to Virginia, where you belonged in the first place.”
“Then Logan takes you!” she exclaimed.
The anger faded from his eyes and a slow smile touched his lips. “Will you care then, love? You were waiting to attend my hanging, remember? What difference will it make? Alas, you won’t get to witness the deed, but the end result will be the same.”
“Don’t!” Skye murmured.
“Don’t what, milady?”
Skye didn’t reply. She shook her head and backed against the far wall herself, staring at him. He could not die! And she could not trust herself to speak. She lowered her head, swallowing tightly against the tears that burned hotly behind her eyes. She looked about the room. Sand dusted the floor; there was a plain wooden table with a single candle in a brass holder and two rickety chairs beneath it, and against the far wall was a bed of straw with a gray blanket thrown haphazardly upon it.
“Elegant accommodations,” Roc murmured with a certain humor, “but the best that Blackbeard has to offer, I’m afraid. He’s a man who falls in love often enough; he’s glad to give us the night.”
She didn’t respond to his words but jumped back up and pushed away from wall and came to kneel down before him. “This is insane! What are you doing? We must escape from here somehow!”
“We?” He arched both brows. She wasn’t a foot away from him. Her hair trailed in sunset tendrils over her shoulders and her breasts pushed against the fabric of her bodice and her eyes were earnest and sparkling with emotion. He longed to touch her, but he did not. He allowed
his hands to dangle idly over his kneecaps. “We? My love, there is no need for you to escape. Your safety is guaranteed. In certain matters, there is no man you can trust so thoroughly as a rogue such as Blackbeard.”
“I can’t go back without you!”
“Why ever not? You’ll miss a hanging, of course, but you’ll live anyway, I’m sure.”
“Stop it! Stop being so—nonchalant!”
“What would you have me be?”
“Concerned! Sir, you are to die!”
He sighed deeply. The temptation was too great. He reached out and fingered one of the silky soft curls. Not even the seawater could damage the softness of her hair.
She did not wrench away from him. He went further, and stroked his knuckles over her cheek. “Will you care?” he asked her softly. “This morning you were anxious to see me boiled in oil! Skinned alive. Ah, yes, that is what Logan promised, I think, if I did not lead him to the treasure.”
“And there is no treasure!” she said desperately.
“What makes you so sure?”
“I was there the day you killed Jack!”
“Ah, yes, of course. Thank God Logan wasn’t about,” he muttered.
“Then there is no treasure!”
He shrugged. “Oh, there is a treasure. There really was a Doña Isabella that sailed out of Cartagena, and it was supposedly laden with a new cache of Indian gold. And rumor has it that Jack did seize her, steal the cargo, and scuttle the ship. The treasure is supposedly buried somewhere.”
“But you haven’t the faintest idea of where!” Skye moaned.
He was still smiling at her. Smiling ridiculously. There was sensual silver laughter and tenderness in his eyes; his touch against her was gentle and provocative. His fingertips just moved across her flesh. She wanted to hold him, to cling to him. He had lied to her, he had used her, he had made a fool of her, and he was leading a despicable life, but she loved him. She could fight it; she could deny her heart. But she could not change the emotion deep inside.
“You do care!” he whispered.
“I don’t—”
“You do!” he insisted, and then his touch was not so light as he reached out, sweeping her hard and full into his arms. He kissed her again, but this kiss was no hard seizure as it had been outside; this kiss was fierce and demanding but infinitely tender. His lips fell upon her with consuming desire, his tongue teased her mouth, grazed her teeth, sought deep, honeyed recesses. He held her with tenderness, too. His arms were ever ardent, but gentle. His hand cupped her cheek, his fingers trailed her throat as he held her to his kiss. His hands molded her breast, and her waist, and then he broke away, gasping for breath, holding her close. He did love her, too, she thought. He was a rogue, a terror. Demanding, autocratic as the pirate, and as the lord, but his will was fierce and could not be broken, only altered by his own choice, and perhaps, just perhaps, gentled by love.
His eyes probed hers feverishly. “You do care!” he repeated.
She moistened her lips, lowering her lashes. She only dared whisper so much upon this occasion. “If I am with child, sir, I’d just as soon he have a living sire.”
His smile deepened. “Ah. So that is why you have not betrayed me!”
“Betrayed you?” She lay against his arm, grateful for the curious moment of peace.
“To Logan. He still does not know that Lord Cameron and the Silver Hawk are one and the same.”
She swallowed hard, not caring to be reminded of the fact herself. She shrugged. “What difference does it make? He plans to kill the Hawk. He would be only too pleased, I’m sure, to discover that he has killed Lord Cameron, too.”
He carefully set her down and stood, pacing the room, his hands upon his hips. “It makes a great deal of difference. If Blackbeard were to know—”
“Your crew is all in on this, I imagine?” Skye interrupted curtly. Robert! Robert Arrowsmith had known all along that her husband and her lover were one and the same. All of them!
And still, there wasn’t a single man among his crew she would like to see dangle from a noose!
He paused, casting her a frown, then nodding. “Yes, they all know both of my identities. But these fellows here, they do not. And, thank God, you did not see fit to inform them.”
“I’m not a fool.”
“You were acting like one out there.”
“Because he’s going to kill you! Then he’ll probably kill my father, too, for good measure!”
Roc shook his head. “Your father is worth too much.”
“Oh? Amazing, the pirate Hawk let me go for not so much as a farthing! Perhaps my father is worthless as well.”
“The pirate Hawk let you go for not so much as a farthing, my love, to show you not that you were worthless, but rather worth far much more than gold and silver to him.”
She stared at him incredulously. Then she saw the tug at the corner of his lip and she came quickly to her feet, hands on her hips, defying him. “You are a liar, sir!”
“All right, so I was deathly afraid of your self-importance becoming exaggerated beyond all measure. I knew that you would return home and discover yourself married and that you would try every trick and wile in the world to escape your husband. And I, milady, was already deeply in love, and not about to let you go.”
“You’re still a liar!” she accused him.
“And if I’m not?”
“If—you’re not?” she whispered.
“What if it’s true? What if I really do love you, Skye Cameron? Can you spare just a touch of emotion for an old friend, an old lover?”
She whirled around, not wanting to meet his eyes. “You know that I would be distressed to see you die.”
“Ah, for a child. But what about yourself?” He came behind her, setting his hands upon her shoulders. “A child would be nice,” he whispered. “An heir to Cameron Hall … when I am skinned alive and then shot dead and left for the carrion!”
“Stop it!” she hissed, but she did not turn around.
“Come here!” he told her.
She held still.
“Skye, come here,” he repeated, and she did not know what drew her around, but she did turn. And she came to him, too, standing before him, not touching him, but looking up into his eyes. She did not know what emotion was betrayed in her, but he touched her shoulders and bent to touch her lips very lightly. Then he kissed her forehead and drew her against him.
“You do care!” he assured her.
She laid her palms against his chest and pushed him from her and looked at him gravely. “I care, yes, Roc, I care! But I cannot accept you, or what you’ve done. I’ve no desire to see you hang, but I wonder at the innocents you’ve robbed and plundered, and what has created the whole empire you rule at Bone Cay. But for now, I do not think that I can leave you—”
“There is no question that you will leave me,” he said harshly. “I will have you safe.”
“I don’t want you to die! And Logan will kill you, and heinously so, when he discovers there is no treasure!”
He shrugged. “Perhaps I will find treasure. Accidents do happen.”
“That would be a miracle!” Skye murmured.
“My men are out there, you know.”
Her eyes widened. She had forgotten that, a fact so important that it was nearly a miracle. Roc’s ship—rather, the Hawk’s ship—lay somewhere out on the other side of the island. Unless the storm had torn her to shreds. But Skye was certain that the Hawk and his pirate crew had weathered much worse.
“They’ll rescue you—us!” she said happily. “They’ll come in here and …” Her voice trailed away. He was looking at her sadly.
His crew could not just sail in, she realized. There were many captains here, at Blackbeard’s pirates’ “ball.” More men than the Hawk’s crew could possibly meet with any chance of victory.
And it would still leave her father as Logan’s prisoner. An enraged Logan, at that.
“There is no miracle to be
had!” she whispered brokenly.
“Yes, perhaps there is,” he said.
There was a sudden hammering upon the door. “Who is that?” Skye murmured with alarm.
“I don’t know. Get over there, on the bed,” Roc said swiftly.
“What?” she demanded, frowning.
“Damn you, milady, must you question everything? Get over there!”
She must not have responded quickly enough to suit him, for she found herself flying forcefully across the room and landing hard upon the straw bedding. He was quickly down beside her, gathering her into his arms. Alarmed and furious at his treatment, she struggled against him, kicking out madly. “Damn you, you have lost your mind!” she cried.
His hand landed hard over hers. “Shut up!” he ordered her. “Come in!” he called out.
Outraged, she struggled against him. The door opened and one of the pirates’ doxies stood there, dark hair spilling over her enormous breasts, her eyes dark and flashing and her very red lips curled in amusement as she watched Skye struggling.
“Leave her, Hawk!” The girl laughed. “I could provide far more entertainment than this one!”
He shook his head and smiled broadly. “She loves me, Leticia. Honest—she loves me truly. Right, love?” Skye tried to bite his hand. He laughed, a pirate’s laugh, and she realized that she was inadvertently playing right along with his ruse.
Leticia shrugged. “Every man to his choice, Captain! But remember if you tire of her … you need only call my name.” She walked more fully into the room. Roc regretfully pulled himself up from Skye, but dragged her along with him. He held her close, his hand nonchalantly over her breast. She was a possession here, and safe because he had claimed her as his, an important possession.
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