by Angel Payne
“Very good,” Braziliano said to the men who held her. His glittering gaze returned to her face. “Ahhh, that’s so much better.”
He lowered his head, and rammed his mouth against hers.
Golden forced herself to swallow her scream. Think. By the love of all the spirits, think!
As much as the act revolted her, she opened her mouth just enough to let his bottom lip in. And then—
“Aggghhh! Caramba! Santo Maria y Jose!”
“Captain!” The darkness had voices. Their volume increased in proportion to the tightness of the steel grips on her. “Captain Braziliano, que paso?”
“The puta bit me.” Golden watched him pull up his blood-tipped fingers and glare at them in astonishment. When he looked back to her, a demon took the place of the playful gallant who’d helped her out of the mud. “So it is to be like this, my little tigre?”
Golden grimaced and squirmed but her arms were wrenched tighter against her back. “Like what, sir?” she said in a false simper. “With your stalk limp and your mouth bloodied?” She nodded. “Sounds perfect to me.”
Roche growled and dipped his head at his men. The next second, her knees were roughly kicked from the back. Despite her effort to bite it back, Golden yelped in pain as she slammed to the floor.
“Estupidos!” Braziliano growled. “Carefully! We only want to break this colt, not make her impossible to ride.”
The voices in the darkness shared in his laugh. Golden hoped that would distract the idiots. She kicked, hissed, and tried to wrangle free again. A hand shoved into her scalp, yanking her head back by the roots of her hair. Braziliano snarled with pleasure and sidled up to her again.
“Dios, you are such a hot one.” He fanned the side of her face with one hand, until his gaze slinked down her neck and onto the mounds of her breasts. He grinned and nodded again at one of her captors. With a hearty growl, the bastard took his leader up on the open invitation to plunge his hand inside her bodice and palm her there.
“Ahhhh! Her tits are mui fantastico!”
Braziliano let his own hand dip under her dress. He brushed a rough thumb across her other nipple. “Hmmm, the pleasure Stafford must have taken from you…no wonder he broke that stupid rule of his.”
The words sparked every violent and defensive instinct in her being. She thrashed against them and seethed, “You bastard! You have no idea what pleasure really—”
She was silenced by the back of Braziliano’s hand across her cheek. The blow snapped her head. White flecks of dizziness floated before the view she was now given of the fancy-papered wall.
“Shut up,” Braziliano ordered.
A greasy snicker came from the darkness. “Should we take her to your room, Captain?”
“No. As enticing as it would be to teach the puta some true manners around a man, I have no appetite for Stafford’s leftovers. Besides, I cannot know what she may bite off next.” There was another round of chuckles. “Lock her up in Abby’s old room. Alone. Nobody in or out—except for Lilly. Send her in tomorrow to do something with this hair and face.”
He issued the last sentence while yanking Golden’s chin back up. With an appraising smile, he studied her features in full. “After all, my bride auctions are the finest in the Indies. And I do believe I’ve found my prize filly for tomorrow night.”
Dizzy dread washed over Golden. As more male laughter filled the air, her head swam in disbelief and her heart crashed in a tidal wave of terror. Pain came again, too, as the hands behind her forced her to her feet. Despite how her body screamed for mercy, she tried her hardest to wrangle and kick from her bonds. “You can’t get away with this,” she cried. “You…you…”
But words wouldn’t come. Her senses were a fuzz of nausea, exhaustion, and fear.
“Or what?” the exotic accent mocked. “Or your father, the friend of the crown, will have me hanged? Or maybe your friend Mast Stafford will don his Moonstormer’s mask and come murder me?”
Braziliano leaned over her, his black beard parting on a cold smile.
“You little fool. Did you expect me to believe that absurdidad about your ‘father’?” He snorted derisively. “As for Stafford? He wouldn’t hurt a flea, querida, let alone your shipload of people. It is his prim and proper way; everyone in New Providence knows it. Bah! If that stiff-cravat caballero is the Moonstormer, then I am the king of the mermaids.”
“Pleased to meet you, your highness.” Golden’s voice was barely a rasp, but she forced her head to stay up long enough to flash the bastard a hating glare.
Braziliano stepped away. He waved his hand as if at an annoying fly. “Get her out of here.”
She woke groggily to the eerie silence and faded shadows of early morning. After several unsuccessful attempts, she finally rolled her head on the plush pillow in the big feather bed into which they’d thrown her. Bad bad idea. Braziliano’s blow instantly made its presence known up the side of her skull. Besides, the pillow smelled of old cheap perfume and—
She’d only experienced the other smell once before, in the bedding of Mast’s bunk after they’d made love the third time.
Mast. The thought of him pierced sharper than the pain in her cheek, a surge of agony in this half-awake moment that her heart was unguarded. With a wince, Golden rolled over and curled the other pillow next to her. For one soul-twisting moment, she wished she were holding him. She wished that crimson and black flag had been in any other hold in the world. She recalled Roche Braziliano’s nearly vehement conviction that Mast wasn’t the Moonstormer, and wished she could believe the double-faced, lying blackguard.
The blackguard, she suddenly remembered, who was going to sell her into marriage tonight from an auction block.
Despite how her head hurt like a flea under an anvil, she forced herself to sit up. “Dear stars. I have to get out of here.”
She fumbled as far as the bedpost, which she clutched in hopes that the anvil would disintegrate. It didn’t. More thoughts rushed in like a monsoon of horror, crashing in with her dizziness and hunger. The Athena was setting sail and Maya was still aboard with those criminals. Saint Kitts was falling to the French and Papa would never know. She couldn’t marry anyone; she might be carrying the seed of Mast’s baby!
“Calm down,” she admonished herself. “Nobody’s going to help you out of this, so you need to think very hard and do it yourself. Take a deep breath and try again. The window would be a good start. That’s it, one step at a time…”
“Search it again.”
Mast’s tone was as black as the circles beneath his eyes. But as Dinky studied his friend’s intent stare over the early morning light on the water, he knew the last things on Mast’s mind were the events that had put the shadows there. Mast wasn’t remembering every cheat, whore, and criminal in New Providence they’d questioned about the burning of the Gabrielle’s Hope twelve years ago. Nor was he thinking about the remarkable information they’d gleaned. The kid was definitely not thinking about the jammed capstan they’d come back to, or the three hours it had taken to fix it, or the hairline fizzure in the fore topgallant sail they had to address after that.
The only thing in his friend’s mind was the moment the two of them had parted ways in the wee hours of this morning. Dinky had just turned to head for his own bunk, and Maya’s sweet embrace, when Mast’s roar had exploded over the deck.
“Dink!”
“What?”
“Where the hell is she?”
“What the crimey are ya talkin’ about?”
Within minutes, the entire ship had the answer to that. Every man was roused and put to the search for one very much missing Lady Hellion. Now, two hours later, they’d just finished the fifth sweep.
Mast wanted a sixth.
“Captain.” Old Ben wearily leaned against the galley wall. “I just don’t think she be aboard—”
“Search it again.”
“The colleen was a mite misty when I was with her at the truck gun earl
ier. Most likely she’s bolted miles from here by now.”
“Search the ship again, goddamnit!” Mast’s face was a mask of fury and exhaustion. And dark, dreading fear. “This time, look closer. She had to have left something behind”—he looked away as his voice faltered—“a clue of some kind…a note… Something. Anything!”
“Captain Stafford!”
Young Ramses’s shout was shrill yet muted. Dinky exchanged a glance with Mast as they attempted to determine where the lad’s hail had come from.
“Captain! Down here!”
Bloody hell.
Ramses was in the side hold.
“Fuck.” Mast gritted it as he bounded across the deck.
Ramses popped out as Mast knelt down at the open hatchway. The young sailor’s eyes were full of apprehension.
“What?” Mast demanded. “What the hell is it?”
“I think you should probably look at this yourself, Captain,” the youth blurted.
He swung down into the hold—and spotted the yellow circle of the lamp precisely where he’d dreaded it would be. In the far corner, near Wayland’s crates.
This is nay the catastrophe you think it is. So she found her father’s trunks in your hold, and it confused her. She ran off somewhere to try and figure it out, probably the rocks beyond the point to discuss the matter with the crabs and the seagulls—and her damn fish. When you find her, you can throttle her delectable backside until it’s red as a pissed off lobster.
After that, you’ll explain everything to her. Everything this time. You’ll tell her about the deal, the money…all of it. You’ll have to tell Wayland that that there was no way around it, security concerns or not. Bloody hell, why don’t you just tell Wayland the truth? That the light of his daughter’s smile makes you so damn giddy, you’d risk life and limb and even your own precious honor to bring peace to her world again?
He actually laughed at himself for a moment. Hell, the infuriating little witch had him paraphrasing Don Quixote now. And believing in the windmills he’d tilt at for her.
Until he got to Ramses’s side.
And the windmills crashed down on him.
“Christ.” He sank to one knee next to the flag that had been unfurled there. Aye, that flag, with the skull that seemed determined to haunt him now. “How the fuck did she—when the hell did she—”
He crunched his fist into the dark-red material.
His second knee fell to the deck.
Only two words reverberated in his head and twisted through his gut. She knew. She knew. There was no telling what she’d done now. Or where she’d gone. Or who she’d met.
Or what they’d done to her.
With a violent slash of fury, he ripped the flag in half.
“Dink!”
His first mate shimmied down the ladder. And wasted even less time getting to the point. “What’s the plan?”
“Search parties.” He tried to lick his lips but his mouth didn’t have a drop of moisture. “Please,” he croaked, “organize…”
The boards over his head started pounding with boot steps before he finished the thought. But he didn’t rise to join his men. Not yet.
Instead, he slowly gathered the pieces of the flag into his lap, and balled them up between his shaking, white hands.
Then, for the first time in fifteen years, he lowered his stubborn, prideful head before his Maker. And he prayed.
Chapter Seventeen
The lock in the door clicked. Golden tried to angle herself up from the bed to see who was entering, but after a few inches, she winced and stopped. The cuff holding her left wrist to the bed frame allowed no more than that. Braziliano had ordered it, said the grinning henchman who’d shackled her there.
This is what happens to wild little girls who try to break their windows and leave our happy home. You’ll stay right here, little tiger.
That same greasy henchman entered the room now. He was followed by a rotund, flat-nosed woman who looked like she’d never smiled a day in her life. Golden tried to catch the woman’s eyes and share a friendly smile, but she only received an imperious glare. Her queasy stomach turned into a pit of despair.
“How’s our pretty little missy after her rest?” Braziliano’s man drawled. His patronizing tone didn’t lighten the sickening feeling, which grew worse as he opened the curtains on the window that wasn’t boarded up from her escape efforts. The late afternoon sunlight streamed in, making dark-orange snakes out of the sweat on his scrawny chest. Golden gulped back some more bile.
“Cat snatched yer tongue, aye? ’Tis likely for the best. Ye’ve a big night ahead o’ ye.” A gold tooth flashed as he cracked a lewd grin. “Damn, ye be a comely one. And a mighty juicy morsel, Cap’n Braz says, when yer piqued. Saints, I may even try my own luck on biddin’ for ye.”
It took a supreme effort not to level a hiss and a kick at the slimy bastard, despite her dwindling strength and energy. Instinct told her that would make matters worse at this point. She must try her hardest to control her temper—and even harder, her impatience. She would escape this horrid mess; it was just a matter of waiting for the right opportunity.
Spirits help her, let that magical moment be soon.
“This here be Lilly.” The henchman spoke as if his previous overture were but a passing quip on sugar prices, though his stare roamed her body with brazen intent as he went on, “She’s gonna make that face o’ yers real beautiful, and do some fancyin’-up on yer hair. Now don’t that sound lovely?” He waggled his crooked eyebrows. “And o’ course, ye’ll need somethin’ as lovely to wear…”
He pulled her over to a set of double doors in the side wall. Golden had stared at the carved wood panels many times during the day and tried to distract her fearful thoughts by wondering what lay behind them. But now, with the henchman’s leer as her introduction, only a foreboding gloom gripped her at the imminence of finding out.
Gargoyle Guard swept back the doors. A walk-in closet was revealed, lined on both sides with satin gowns in every color she could imagine. ’Twas a sight, she imagined vaguely, that would have taken her breath away if her mind wasn’t screaming so frantically, what happened to the others? What had happened to the women who once filled those sunset golds, coral reef blues, and peacock greens?
She couldn’t envision them. All she could see was her own face above any of those bodices; herself in the degrading situations burning her mind.
She pulled away from the door. The henchman chuckled and yanked her forward. “Don’t be shy, tiger. Which one do ye fancy? Every lassie fancies satin. O’ course”—his gaze fastened to her breasts in a manner that made her feel as revered as a brood mare on display—“you don’t have the top hold we be accustomed to around here. Not a thing wrong with that, if ye ask me. I get bloody tired of all that titty in the way sometimes—aahh, this should do it!”
He pulled out a mass of blood-red material. Golden barely had time to observe the off-the-shoulder bodice, draped skirt, and black lace flounces before the pirate pressed it to her for a crude fitting.
“Aye,” he purred, “very nice. Very nice, indeed.” He tossed the dress on the bed and nodded the same direction. “Now put it on.”
Golden forced herself to move calmly as he released her, though the freedom from the shackle made her feel strong enough to break down the door if need be. But her wits were going to be her greatest asset in the next few minutes—the minutes she saw forming into an escape.
Her plan formed quickly. She had to give the illusion of complete acquiescence as she gathered up the gown and entered the closet. Then she would need to dawdle long enough for the henchman to become bored and distracted. Judging the dolt’s attention span by what she’d observed so far, that would be the easy part.
The difficult part would be slithering out the door without the peep of a field mouse.
It was close to impossible.
It was her only hope.
“Where do ye think yer goin’, tiger?”
Her gauntlet was riposted by a slow, unnerving grin. “That’s very nice o’ ye, missy. But Cap’n Braz anticerpated the yen ye’d develop for that closet. He bestowed me with the pleasure of makin’ sure ye do this with me own eyes.”
“The hell you will.” Never mind that the plan would fall through; the thought of what he insinuated made her skin clammy and her innards want to retch.
“No need to get testy, darlin’. Just be a good girl and put the dress on.”
She was forced to shuffle backward as the sweaty bastard pressed in on her. “Go drown yourself!”
She was horrified to hear her voice shake on the protest. The thread of her self-control stretched thinner as he trapped her closer against the bed. It snapped when the pirate laughed and lunged, his face filling her vision. Golden hissed and raised her fingernails at his revolting cheek but even as she dug in, he kept taunting her.
“Lord love it, ye do have a hot flame.” The bastard jerked on both her arms. “Now put on the damn dress on before I have to douse it out.”
Golden raised her chin and curled her lips. She didn’t spit at him but sweet stars, how she wanted to.
“Put. It. On.”
“Go. To. Hell.”
In an instant, an icy blade pressed at her throat. Her sneer dissolved. She froze, terrified even taking a breath would send one of her veins into the sharp edge.
“I tried to do this nicely, ducky,” the henchman said in a stinking whisper. “I apologize ye wouldn’t see it that way.”
He lifted the knife from her pulse point. She dared to take a small breath. Until he gashed the blade down between her breasts, ripping apart her dress. Ruining the beautiful sky-blue gown that Mast had loved.
She watched her hope tumble to her feet along with the shreds of the dress’s bodice as the pirate tore it off of her. The flounces followed along with the bottom hem, until it all lay in a ruined heap. Naked except for her pantaloons, she stared at the tatters. They were meaningless now…like her ridiculous hope of escape.
