She didn’t care and held herself stiff as a board as he drew her to him. “Stop it, Logan. What in God’s name is the matter with you? Cassandra is out there.”
He sobered quickly but didn’t release his hold. “And I intend to save her,” he said grimly.
“So…”
“So…?”
“Let me go,” she said very softly. “It’s…over. Paradise or lust…it’s over. We must return to the real world.”
He inhaled, staring at her hard. His eyes were blue ice in the whisper of moonlight. “I told you that I love her, and I do. I also told you that a marriage will never take place between us.”
She heard his words, but they meant nothing to her. Perhaps he wasn’t madly, physically in love with Cassandra, but that didn’t change the fact that she was still the right woman for him, as he would no doubt come to see once they were back in civilization. Cassandra had risked her life for him. They would wind up together. And she herself would be left even without what had sustained her all her life: her desperate desire for vengeance.
“Logan, please.”
“Please what?”
“What did you see?”
“I believe the plan can work, and that I can alert Cassandra and Horatio.”
“How?”
“The men are drinking heavily. Even Blair Colm is drinking. Cassandra and her father are sleeping in the shelter. I can reach them from the far side and tell them of our plan, and that we’ll return for them. There’s when we will face danger.” He looked at her and inhaled deeply. “There’s no help for it. Unless…”
“Unless?”
Again he inhaled. “I beg you once again to stay aboard the ship once we take her, and let me come back alone to deal with Colm and rescue the Bethanys.”
“You know I will not.”
“I’ve prayed that you would.”
“I have a good sword arm. You will need me.”
He pulled her into his arms, staring at her. “Red…”
She looked into his eyes, but as she did, she lifted her leg and took the knife from its sheath at her ankle, then brought it to his throat.
“Don’t underestimate me, Laird Haggerty,” she said very softly.
“I would never underestimate you,” he told her.
The look in his eyes was more than she could bear. She started to turn away, but to her vast surprise, he moved swiftly, and it was her turn to be taken. Before she could escape his hold, he had wrested the knife from her grasp.
“You used my trust!” she accused him.
“As you used mine.”
“But—”
She was taken by surprise once again when his mouth fell on hers with a searing force.
The knife dropped between them. He fell to his knees, drawing her down with him. For a moment she was stunned. For another moment she struggled. Then the realization that everything she had dreamed of for years was about to happen suddenly roused a passion in her that was beyond desperate.
They probably would die tonight.
And the taste of his mouth was something she needed to know one last time.
The feel of his hands on her flesh, the fevered pressure of his fingers, even the hasty, hurried, fumbling with their clothing, those were all things she couldn’t die without experiencing again. His mouth fastened to her breast, his tongue bathing her torso. His hand slid between her thighs, and the pressure of his body forced them apart. He moved against her, making love intimately, so feverishly that she didn’t feel the hardness of the earth but writhed in response to the liquid fire of his tongue, then arched into his thrust, urgently needing the madness, the frenzy, of both the sex and the sensuality between them. She fought to keep silent, to keep her cries from giving away their presence, but he kept them both silent with the power of his lips and the fury of their coupling. When it was over, they lay as they were, not far from the cavern opening, with the air growing cool around them, and the sanity and the pressure of the night and the reality of imminent death returning as if on the wings of eagles. But finally he stood and moved away, awkwardly straightening his clothing.
She caught his arm. “I need to put on breeches,” she said simply, knowing she could never fight effectively in a dress. She rose and walked away from him, deeper into the cave where their store of clothes lay. Tears stung her eyes, tears she could never allow him to see. She thought their idyll should have ended far more sweetly. There should have been a bed of fragrant grass. There should have been time. They should have had long moments of lying tangled together, drifting in the pleasure of what had been. There should have been whispers, gentle touches…
But there had been none of that, and there never would be.
She hurriedly found a man’s light shirt. But finding no clean breeches that would fit her, she figured she had to make do with what she wore, and thought she could cut a slit up the side if the skirt’s fabric got in her way. She found a second knife and belted it around her other ankle. She would have only her knives and a sword, nothing more, though she was certain Logan planned to take guns off the crew when they boarded. They would have to do so carefully and stealthily, taking the remaining men off guard. It was a good plan.
They could prevail….
Or they could fail.
So many things could go wrong….
But it didn’t matter. It was the best plan they’d been able to come up with. It had to work.
She slipped silently back to the front of the cave. It was time.
Logan was there, his shoulders broad and stiff as he stared out into the night.
“Logan,” she said softly.
He turned. She saw the anguish in his eyes and realized that he, too, knew they could far too easily fail.
“Stay. I beg you,” he said softly.
Without a word, she hurried past him, straight out into the night, moving quickly.
There was no turning back.
CASSANDRA CAME awake suddenly, startled but unsure why.
“Cassandra?”
It was barely a whisper, scarcely louder than the breeze, but someone had spoken her name.
She looked around as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and saw a face.
Her breath caught.
Logan!
He brought a finger to his lips.
He slipped closer to kneel beside her, and it was all she could do not to touch him.
“Am I dreaming?” she whispered.
“No, but I must speak quickly. You must stay here for now. I’m so sorry. We’re taking his ship tonight…. But we’ll be back for you and your father.”
She felt like crying, but she forced herself to smile and then nodded to show she understood.
She could do anything now. Somehow, miraculously, Logan was there, and that meant there was hope.
“You must wake your father and tell him of our plan,” he said.
She nodded again, not trusting herself to speak.
Then, just as silently as he had come, he was gone.
RED KNEW SHE HAD TO take great care creating the leaks. She couldn’t make an obvious hole, which would be seen if someone decided to check on the boats in the night. She crouched flush with the side of the second tender, looking up frequently to make sure no member of the crew had moved. She was somewhat surprised that Blair Colm had not set out a guard, but perhaps, having searched the horizon for ships and seen none, he had decided himself safe for the night.
She was so attuned to the night that she wasn’t taken by surprise when Logan came up to her. Hunching down, he whispered quickly, “It is time. Are you ready?”
She nodded, then saw him crouch low and push the third tender toward the water. In seconds he had disappeared into the darkness. She was about to wade out to join him when she realized she had dropped the knife. She hurried back for it—and was startled by a sudden commotion from the shelter.
Suddenly Cassandra burst out into the firelight, a man behind her, clutching his groin. Colm’s crew were
mumbling and starting to rise.
Torches were lit, and suddenly the whole area was aglow.
“What’s going on?” Blair Colm raged.
Every one of them was awake now. Even Lord Bethany came stumbling from the shelter, crying out, “Cassandra! For the love of God, Cassandra!”
“Stop!” Blair Colm shouted.
Everyone froze, as if in a tableau, and Red knew she could make it to the tender, but something gave her pause.
Cassandra.
Red hid in the dark shadow of the tender and watched the drama unfold.
“You gave me your word!” Cassandra accused Blair Colm. “I was to sleep in peace. But instead this sack of pus came after me,”
“She stabbed me with my own knife and wounded me privates!” The man Red recognized as Billy Bones was the fellow who complained.
“I’ll kill you!” Lord Bethany cried out, rushing forward with a poor weapon, a tree branch.
“Shoot him,” Blair Colm snapped out, pointing at Bethany. “And do with her what you will.”
She could have made it to the ship. Red knew it.
But instead she inhaled deeply as one of the pirates drunkenly reached for his pistol.
She stood from her position behind the boat and threw her knife as hard as she could at Blair Colm. The distance was too great; her chances of hitting him were one in a million, and she had never been lucky, she thought sadly. But the blade buried itself in a palm tree right behind him, which was enough to arrest his attention.
The sharp impact of the blade into the wood startled everyone.
She thought about running, but she would only be caught, and hurt. And she couldn’t guarantee she would keep the attention of all the men away from Cassandra and her father.
So instead she prayed that Logan was even now crafting a plan to save them all and walked slowly into the light of the torches, knowing she had drawn every eye.
NO ONE COULD HAVE appeared more surprised than Cassandra, though neither she nor her father seemed to have any idea of who they were looking at.
But Blair Colm did.
“By God! It’s a ghost!” he said. He stared at her incredulously as she walked up to him. “The little Irish whelp I sold to Lady Fotherington. I had heard you died…hearsay, of course. Obviously. You should have died, wretched girl. I’d had my finger in what should have been your happy marriage, but…you…”
Everyone else was drunkenly silent, weaving, confused, watching.
“Where in hell did you come from?” he demanded.
She shrugged. “I’ve been living on this island for some time.”
He frowned. “With corpses for company?”
“That poor couple…. I tried to help them, but I could not, and they died.”
“Who is she?” someone whispered.
“An old friend,” Blair Colm replied, staring at her, smiling slowly. A grim, vicious smile.
“An old enemy,” she corrected. “I just tried to kill you.”
“You missed. Pity for you.”
“I won’t miss next time.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
For a minute she was afraid her sacrifice would be in vain. That he would simply shoot all of them.
But as he stared at her, she realized that he was seeing her as a woman—an attractive woman—and she could use that to her advantage.
Thank God he did not know she was Red Robert.
“You!” Blair said suddenly, spinning on Cassandra and her father. “Get back inside now,” he growled.
“And you!” He turned to Billy Bones. “You disobeyed a direct command. You’re the one I should be shooting.”
“But you just said—”
“Speak again and I’ll be deciding between the cat-o’-nine-tails and death,” Blair told him. “The rest of you, go back to sleep. Except you, Nathan. You’re on guard through the night. Through the entire night, do you understand? And sober up, you sots! Come the morning, we’ll take the prisoners back on board ship. There will be no more of this.”
“You must not hurt her,” Cassandra began, but Colm cut her off.
“I can still shoot you both,” he said, not glancing her way. “Get out of sight—now.”
Lord Bethany reached for his daughter. He was shaking, looking old and frail beyond his years. Cassandra was obviously torn, but finally she grasped her father’s outstretched arm and retreated.
And Red was left staring at Blair Colm, seeing the man who had destroyed her life so many years ago. Seeing blood.
Oh, yes, her vision was clouded with red.
His crew surrounded them.
There was another knife, sheathed at her other ankle. She could draw it and kill the man now where he stood.
But if she did…
If she did, the crew would not only kill her, they would certainly kill Lord Bethany and rape Cassandra, and probably kill her in the process.
So she just stood there as Blair Colm reached out to her, then bent in the mockery of a bow.
“Do come closer, child. We have a lot to talk about.”
She stood her ground.
“Shall I have you dragged?” he inquired pleasantly.
And so she walked over to him. The man she despised more than the devil himself.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE MINUTE HE HEARD the shouting, Logan turned and looked toward shore.
In a heartbeat, he took in everything that was happening and realized he was going to have to come up with a new plan to save Red, as well as Cassandra and her father, or die trying.
As he watched, he saw Red throw the knife, then stride up the sand to face the man she despised. He saw Cassandra take her father’s arm and move toward the shelter. He saw the pirates, standing around almost stupidly, and he saw Red start to walk toward Blair Colm.
He swiftly pushed the boat back up on shore, then crouched beside it as he tried desperately to figure out what to do.
Red stopped in front of Blair, and then the bastard’s arm shot out, and he hit her so hard that she fell down on her knees.
Everything in Logan quickened.
His heart was pounding, his muscles tensing, as he fought to keep himself from screaming in protest and racing toward certain death in a vain attempt to rescue her.
He watched with dread, telling himself that she was clever and could hold her own. He was glad that the dark wig she’d worn as Red Robert was at the bottom of the sea somewhere. There was no way Blair Colm could know she was his nemesis, the pirate everyone who sailed the Caribbean knew sought his death. She would think of something. She would be safe as Cassandra was safe. Colm would humiliate her, punish her, but not really harm her, because she was valuable. A beautiful young woman with such unusual red hair would be a valuable commodity in the whorehouses of the pirate ports—but only if both her body and her mind were whole.
He saw her rise and prayed she would not strike back.
She did not. Maybe she had learned that retreat could be the finest measure of courage; maybe he had even influenced her reckless desperation for vengeance.
As he watched, Blair Colm angrily threw out his arms, apparently ordering the others back to their drunken slumbers.
But he didn’t touch Red again. He kept his distance. They spoke, and then, with regal dignity, Red headed for the shelter.
The men who had moved off seemed to be looking to their leader once again. Colm walked among them in a rage, then sat down against a palm, his sword out, his hand upon the hilt.
Then one man disengaged himself from the group and began walking toward the tenders, so Logan hurried back into the water and swam silently out of sight.
The ship, he thought. He had to get aboard the ship and take her. That would be the only hope for any of them.
IN ONE RESPECT, Red thought, she had certainly succeeded in her longtime plan. Blair Colm had been stunned that she was alive, not to mention that she was on the island. Stunned that anyone was on the island. She was c
ertain he would question her with skill and rapacity, come the morning. But at least he hadn’t trusted himself to deal with her that night and sent her away.
Which didn’t mean she was safe.
Safe? Oh, God. He was truly the devil incarnate. And she was not safe, not so long as he still breathed upon this earth.
They hadn’t spoken long, but she would never forget his words.
“They say that all babes should be killed. And most oft I do. For babes grow to be men and women with an unseemly lust to right the wrongs they think were done them. I see it in your eyes, girl. I see the hatred. I see your hunger to kill me. I should have killed you, as lucrative as you proved to be. And I still may. But there’s something in me…that finds the hatred you bear me almost…delicious. What would hurt you more than anything in the world? Just my touch, perhaps. Hmm. I’ll think on that tonight. You’ll never know, will you, what to expect while you’re in my power? One minute, I let you live. The next, perhaps the cat. And the next…who knows? Maybe you’re not worth selling again and I should just use you ’til I tire of you, then pass you to my men. You are an intriguing catch.”
“Maybe you should kill me now,” she had suggested.
“No need. Not yet. I decide, for I’m in power.”
“Now.”
“I’ll always be in power.”
And then he had smiled, and looked at her with such amusement and cruelty that it had made her skin crawl. He would never take her because he wanted her. He never gave in to mercy, thirst, hunger, exhaustion…or even his own lust—unless it suited his purpose. He would only touch her if he thought she would find it the worst form of torture imaginable.
“I believe I’ll sleep on it, my dear. And I’ll let you sleep on it, as well. Or maybe I’ll drag you out in the middle of the night…if I get bored.”
“You can’t really touch me. It won’t matter.”
“Oh, yes, trust me. I can. And it will matter.”
She’d forced a shrug. She didn’t want him to know that watching him murder others would be a far worse agony than anything he could do to her directly.
He smiled, then looked at Billy Bones. “Search our dear friend for other weapons.”
The Pirate Bride Page 21
