The Untamed Bride Plus Black Cobra 02-03 and Special Excerpt

by Stephanie Laurens

  Most of the sailors were grinning. Logan realized he was grinning, too. The speed and power of the Esperance under full fighting rig—under an expert captain’s hands—was breathtaking.

  Even if those hands were delicate.

  He had no experience of naval battles, but having a captain, who knew precisely which sail needed to be where at any time, to the square inch, was clearly a significant advantage—and Linnet, with her years of experience from childhood on, knew this ship, and these waters, these winds, as few others could. Her knowledge was all but instinctive.

  It was no longer any wonder that she was so widely accepted as Captain Trevission, that even the old fogeys in the Admiralty turned a blind eye to her gender. Underneath their gold braid, they were sailors to a man, and Linnet was a sailor of the most exhilarating sort.

  But their battle wasn’t over.

  With the disabled frigate slowly sinking behind them, Linnet exchanged the wheel for Griffiths’s spyglass. The second frigate, the one that with the first had tried to come up on the Esperance’s stern, had started to follow when she’d turned hard port, but the cannon volley had sent it shying away. Now its captain seemed to be dithering, probably signaling to the third frigate, the one she assumed was the command ship, for direction.

  The command ship itself seemed unsure what to do. Her unconventional manuever appeared to have given the captain second, even third, thoughts. As the situation stood, both frigates were still heading toward Plymouth, although they’d trimmed their speed, while the Esperance was heading the other way, picking up speed as it passed the command ship at a safe distance.

  With their original attack plan in tatters, the frigates were waiting to see what she would do.

  Closing the glass, she returned to take the wheel. “We’ll turn to port and come about again—let’s get back on course for Plymouth, then see what these idiots do.”

  She rapped out orders, and the crew responded as she steered the Esperance through another turn, this one much wider than the last, coming full circle. When they were once more on line for Plymouth Sound, all three ships were sailing in more or less the same direction. The second frigate, was well off to port and a good way ahead, too distant to pose any immediate threat, but the command ship, also now off the port side but much nearer, was scrambling, angling as if to intercept the Esperance rather than slink away.

  “They can’t be serious.” Linnet shook her head. “We’re coming up astern and they’ve just seen what our guns can do.”

  “The other frigate’s turning.” Griffiths had the glass to his eye.

  Lifting her gaze, Linnet watched, then frowned. “That’s too big a turn to come directly at us—looks like he plans to circle and come up astern again.”

  Slowly, Griffiths nodded. “Looks that way. They don’t want to come broadside and risk our guns.”

  “The command ship’s running.” Linnet watched as the command frigate suddenly angled away and put on more sail, drawing ahead and apart. She watched for a moment, then snorted. “What does he think I am? Blind?”

  The Esperance was still traveling faster than either of the frigates. Linnet called for sails to be trimmed, slowing the Esperance, and, as if helpfully falling in with the command ship captain’s plan, turned slightly off course as if to follow.

  When Griffiths glanced inquiringly at her, she smiled tightly. “He wants to engage, and assumes, after our last manuever, that I want to, too, but he wants to lead me a dance until the other frigate can come around and assist. I can’t just leave him and run for Plymouth; we’re still too far out—they’d catch us again, try coming up astern again, but I won’t be able to play the same trick twice. I suspect their new plan is for me to get distracted chasing the command ship, then suddenly discover the other frigate coming up hard astern and to starboard. When I react and try to run, the command ship will spill wind enough to swing close alongside the port bow. While we’re distracted at the stern, they’ll send men over the bow.”

  Logan asked Griffiths for the glass, trained it on the command ship. What he saw made his blood run cold. Lowering, the glass, he caught Linnet’s eye. “I’d say your reading is correct. There are cult assassins on board the command ship. They’ll be the ones wanting to come over your bow.”

  Linnet nodded. He stood beside her as she continued to follow the command ship as it tacked this way and that, much like a fox before a hound.

  “He keeps trying to slow us,” Linnet said, “but has to, at least at the moment, stay far enough ahead so I don’t simply overrun him.”

  Logan looked up, trying to judge how much sail she’d had taken in. “Could you overrun him?”

  “At his current speed, easily, but I don’t think he realizes that. The Esperance is significantly faster than other ships of her class. In these conditions, the speed we’re doing now is more typical.”

  “Which suggests the captain doesn’t know the Esperance, which means he’s from further afield—not these waters.”

  “It certainly seems that way.”

  Logan watched as she called another set of sail changes; he couldn’t follow the purpose behind them all, but assumed she was setting the stage for the upcoming engagement.

  Sure enough, once the Esperance was riding steady again, going nowhere near as fast as it could, she left the wheel to Griffiths, took the spyglass from Logan, and trained it on the other frigate, now attempting to sneak up on their rear.

  Those on the frigate saw her looking. The captain immediately put on all sail and came on as fast as the wind allowed.

  Linnet smiled. Lowering the glass, she gauged the distance between the ships, then strode to the forward railing and leaned over to yell, “Tommy, Burton, Calloway! Get your bows, arrows, and a brazier, and get up here—but keep everything hidden from the ship in front, and below the rail up here.”

  “Aye, Capt’n!”

  Two minutes later, three young sailors came clambering up the ladder. Logan helped the first lift a brazier of glowing, coals up, carefully setting it near the stern rail. The three slid long bows across the deck, then climbed up, each carrying arrows with ragged heads dipped in pitch in one hand.

  Leaving the arrows with their bows, the lads looked at Linnet. She joined them, her gaze on the frigate coming up hard on their stern. “They have arbalests standing ready to light our sails, but your bows have greater range. How soon before you can take out most of their sails? Doesn’t have to be all, but we need the main sails alight.”

  With the Esperance slowed, the frigate was closing the distance quickly.

  The lads narrowed their eyes, pursed their lips.

  “Just a little more …,” one of them said.

  “As soon as you’re ready, then—fire at will.” Linnet turned and walked back to the helm.

  Resuming his position more or less at her back, Logan watched as, with no further instruction, the youngsters waited, muttering between themselves about distance and wind, then as one they bent and, screened by the high side of the stern deck, fanned the brazier. With one eye on the frigate, each found his bow, notched an arrow and lit it, then, in perfect concert, the trio stood, smoothly drawing back the long bows, and let fly.

  They didn’t even wait to see fire blossom on the sails, but bent again. In less than a minute they sent another three arrows flying. They were fast and accurate. Using just nine arrows in all, they set nearly all of the rear frigate’s sails ablaze, sending the frigate crew frantically scrambling.

  All but instantly, the frigate fell away.

  Linnet returned to clap the three lads on their shoulders. “Perfect!” Behind them, the frigate was all but becalmed. “Excellent work—now get below. We’ve one more frigate to fry.”

  Logan looked back at the frigate rapidly falling behind. They hadn’t enough sail to even limp along, yet how soon before the cultists on board reached shore? And which shore?

  And while the first frigate they’d engaged had almost certainly sunk, it had gone down
slowly; plenty of time for all those aboard to abandon ship.

  “Full sail again!”

  Linnet’s call had him putting such concerns aside. Beneath his feet, the Esperance leapt like a hound unleashed. What would she do with the third frigate, the one carrying assassins? Returning to his position beside her as she stood alongside Griffiths, presently managing the helm, he followed both their gazes to the last frigate—and saw it swing very definitely away.

  Linnet watched, eyes narrow, lips thin, then humphed. “Ten points starboard.” Griffiths obeyed, and the Esperance‘s bow swung elegantly north. Linnet called several sail changes, then regauged the distance to the frigate, still some way ahead to port. “That will take us past at a safe distance. If they’ve finally come to their senses and want to scrurry out of our way, we’ll let them go.”

  The sails caught more wind on the new heading; the Esperance picked up speed, swiftly moving away from the last frigate.

  Logan watched, inwardly cursing, yet … “A magnanimous gesture.”

  Linnet shrugged. “That misbegotten captain must by now realize that taking the Esperance is beyond him.”

  She’d turned to look at Logan as she spoke.

  Griffiths’s shout had her turning back. “Blimey! Will you look at that.”

  The three of them stared. Most of the crew stopped what they were doing and stared, too.

  Rather than slink away, as it had definitely and sensibly started to do, the frigate abruptly changed course again, as if to engage—but then the masts dipped wildly and the ship nearly keeled.

  “What the devil’s going on there?” Linnet grabbed the spyglass she’d set down and refocused on the frigate’s deck. A second passed, then, her tone disbelieving, she reported, “There’s fighting on board. Some men—men with dark skins and black scarves about their heads—are fighting the captain and his mate, and the rest of the crew, too. They’ve seized the wheel and are trying to steer the ship our way … but the idiots are simply forcing the wheel over without changing sails. In this wind, they’ll capsize the ship.”

  Grimly Logan stared at the frigate. To his admittedly inexperienced eye, the space between it and the Esperance was already great enough to ensure the frigate wouldn’t be able to come up with them, certainly not if manned by cultists and not sailors. “All we can do is hope the captain and his crew win the battle.”

  And toss the cultists, especially the assassins, into the briny deep.

  Linnet lowered the glass. “Indeed.” She looked at Griffiths. “Keep all sail on. Let’s leave them to it and race for Plymouth.”

  Setting the glass back in its holder beside the wheel, she headed down the ladder to talk to her men.

  Logan watched her go, then picked up the spyglass, walked to the stern rail, and trained it on the frigate, now dwindling to their rear.

  He’d been prepared for a battle, but his saber hadn’t even cleared its sheath. He felt frustrated and stymied, especially over having to leave cultists, and even more assassins, alive to tell their tales. To report to their superiors, as they inevitably would.

  Yet there’d been no help for it, no legitimate way around it. The battle had been Linnet’s to command; she’d made her calls and got them clean away, crippling the opposition while her own men remained unscathed.

  The hallmark of an excellent commander.

  Asking her to turn back and attack the other ship, to put the Esperance and her crew at risk again to satisfy his wish to ensure no cultist who knew he’d been on the Esperance remained free to report … that wasn’t in the cards.

  She’d done the right thing every step of the way.

  Lowering the glass, he stared at the speck the last frigate had become. Rubbed a hand over his nape.

  Like any good commander, Linnet had rescripted her plans on the run, rejigging them to best save her ship and her crew.

  Now he would have to do the same. He’d have to meet the challenge of rescripting his plans to see them all safely home.

  Later that afternoon, still out in the Channel but with Plymouth not that far ahead, Logan arranged to meet with Edgar, John, Griffiths, and Claxton in the cabin he’d been given next to Linnet’s. She was still on deck, more or less above their heads at the wheel.

  When Griffiths, the last to join them, came in and shut the door, Logan waved him to a perch on the narrow bunk, and from his position leaning against the wall beside the small porthole, began, “Edgar and John already know about the Black Cobra cult and my mission, of my role, and those of my three colleagues and numerous others, in attempting to bring the fiend to justice. But what none of you can have much idea of is the reason our mission’s so vital.”

  In stark detail, he described some of the cult’s atrocities, enough to have the four sailors blanch. “That’s what these people are capable of.”

  He tipped his head toward the sea beyond the porthole. “You all saw the cultists aboard the last frigate—most were cult assassins, the deadliest group, the most fanatical. You saw how desperate they were to reach this ship—they’ll do anything to reach me, and, now, Captain Trevission. She, a woman, defeated them. Her gender will make the defeat sting unbearably. I doubt they’ll come after the Esperance herself—they don’t think of ships in that way—but they will come after her captain—to punish her. When I escape them, as I must once I reach Plymouth, those remaining on the coast will be desperate to—as they’ll think of it—redeem, themselves in the eyes of their leader, the Black Cobra, by killing Captain Trevission in the most gruesome and painful way they can devise.”

  He paused, scanning their faces; their expressions were as grim as he could wish. “To a lesser extent you and the crew will be in danger, too, but it’s Captain Trevission they’ll focus their vengeful hatred on.”

  Shifting, he straightened. “When we left St. Peter Port, my plan was for the Esperance to carry me to Plymouth, where I’d leave the ship, meet with the guards waiting for me in town, and carry on with my mission. I’ve already told Captain Trevission that on completion of my mission, I plan to return to Guernsey and Mon Coeur. If I survive, I intend to ask her to be my wife and live on Guernsey with her, but I won’t, can’t, make any offer until I know I’ve survived hale and whole.”

  The men blinked at his open declaration, but Edgar’s and John’s expressions lightened, and they nodded with both approval and relief.

  “However,” Logan continued, “if after today’s action I continue as I’d planned and leave Captain Trevission on the Esperance in Plymouth, the cult will target her.”

  Griffiths and Claxton frowned. “We can rally the crew—we’ll keep her safe.”

  Logan inclined his head. “I’ve no doubt that, while she’s on board, you’ll be able to do that. But I seriously doubt that, after today, the cult will come after her while she’s on the Esperance. They’ll wait until she leaves and heads home—to Mon Coeur.” He paused, scanned their faces as the potential for horror sank in. “And we all know what’s at Mon Coeur. The cultists aren’t much good on the waves, but tracking on land—at that they excel. They’ll follow Captain Trevission to Mon Coeur, scout the place, gather their forces—and they do have considerable numbers—and pick their time. I know there are men at Mon Coeur capable of fighting, but even if you can persuade Linnet to allow some, extras to go home with her, it won’t be enough. Not enough of you will realize the savagery and fanaticism you’ll face, not until it’s too late.”

  Again he paused, then simply said, “There are too many innocents at Mon Coeur to risk it.”

  None of the four disagreed; he could see their rising protectiveness in their faces. Griffiths fixed his shrewd eyes on Logan. “What’s our alternative?”

  Logan met his gaze. “I can see only one. If you could keep your captain on board the Esperance, under constant guard and in Plymouth Sound, until my mission is complete and the Black Cobra is no more, I believe she and everyone associated with her would remain safe. The cult might, in desperation, try to attac
k the ship in harbor, but from what I’ve seen of your crew—and you’d be surrounded by other navy and army, more or less at call—I can’t see even assassins succeeding. In addition, most of the assassins will follow me—it’s reasonable to assume those are their standing orders.”

  He paused, noting that all four men were nodding, following and agreeing with his assessment thus far. “The problem with that scenario is that I can’t see you—any or all of you—managing to keep Captain Trevission in Plymouth. The instant she realizes the potential danger, as indeed she might already have done, she’ll insist on returning to Guernsey and Mon Coeur with all speed, to make sure all’s safe there—to be there to defend it and her household when the cult come calling. She’ll reason that as the Esperance is flying the Guernsey flag, is so well known, and as her captaincy is an open secret, the cult will be able to identify Mon Coeur as her home even without her leading them there, and seek to harm her by harming her family.”

  He grimaced. “In this instance, that reasoning is wrong, but neither you nor I will be able to convince her of that. The cult would delight in butchering her family, but they’d want to do it in front of her. That’s the sort of fiends they are. It’s her they want—she’s their target—and they’ll remain, fixated on her. Only if she’s in the immediate vicinity will family or associates be used as tools—to draw her out, weaken her, or cause her pain. For all their brutality, the cultists are simple—acting at a distance isn’t their way.”

  He studied the four men, raised his brows. “As I see it, the only way you and the crew could keep her on board, here in Plymouth, is by committing mutiny—she is, after all, Captain Trevission of the Esperance, holder of an extant Letter of Marque. I won’t even suggest that—I think it would be an equally bad disaster, just in a different way.”

  The four men exchanged glances heavy with meaning, then Edgar looked up, grimly nodded. “You’re right. We couldn’t do it. This is her ship, and none of us would stand against her. She’s our leader—it’s been that way since her father died.”