April Moon

by Merline Lovelace

  James swept her with a single cutting glance before turning his gaze on the American. The bloodstained handkerchief sent as clear a signal as any flag flown from the yardarm.

  “May I assume my intended put that hole in you, Blake?”

  “You may.”

  “How unfortunate her aim was off.”

  “Yes, wasn’t it?” He made no attempt to conceal his disgust. “Perhaps next time you’ll fight your own battles instead of allowing a woman to wage them for you.”

  Fury flared in James’s face at the insult. “I told you I would meet you above decks, sword in hand. I’m still prepared to do so.”

  “You had your chance. It’s too late now for swords. You may thank your lady, though, and be glad that I admire courage whenever and wherever I find it. Hers saved your ship and your own sniveling hide.”

  It was a lie. He’d sworn he hadn’t intended to harm either the Linx or her captain. Yet he spoke so convincingly that Sarah had to clench her fists and stare straight ahead to keep from throwing him a look of gratitude. Maintaining her icy demeanor became even more difficult when he scraped a hand over his chin and smiled ruefully.

  “I can only wish she’d followed through with her noble offer to give herself to me before pulling the trigger. Perhaps next time, lass?”

  Sarah wanted to weep. Instead, she lifted her chin and stared down her nose at him. “There will be no next time, Lieutenant.”

  He gave her a look of warm approval before turning to Sir James. Instantly, the warmth left his eyes.

  “I’ll have your parole, sir, or I swear I’ll have you put in irons and parade you in front of your men like the shambling shim-shanks that you are.”

  The threat was so low and fierce that even Sarah believed it. She held her breath while James considered his choices, now narrowed down to two. He could surrender his ship or his pride.

  His lips pressed tight. His cheeks reddened. With a churlish nod, he conceded. “You have my parole.”

  “Very well. Let’s join our men topside.”

  THE MOON GLOWED bright and full when Sarah poked her head through the hatch. A brisk breeze tossed the ends of her hair. Holding her skirts up with one hand to keep from tripping over them, she climbed the last few stairs and stepped onto the deck.

  The first thing she saw was the Seahawk. No longer a ghost ship, the American brig blazed from stem to stern with lanterns. Sleek and trim, she bobbed only a few dozen yards off the starboard side of the Linx and rode the waves with the grace of a gull. Her gunports, Sarah noted with a gulp, were all raised.

  Gingerly she stepped over pieces of debris and made for the waist of the Linx, where the frigate’s crew was lined up along the rail. The officers stood to the fore, grim-faced and stiff-shouldered. Having given their parole, many of them had been allowed to retain their weapons.

  That wasn’t the case with the seamen and marines. Evidently their word of honor wasn’t sufficient surety of their conduct. They stood in ranks behind their officers, many still blurry-eyed and groggy from the sleeping draught they’d been administered. Those who’d fully awakened scowled at the Americans standing guard over them.

  Sarah searched the assemblage anxiously. To her relief, she spotted Maude off to one side, still under the protection of Carpenter’s Mate Jenkins. As she and James moved to stand with his officers, she saw that a number of British seamen had joined the ranks of Americans. Far more than the twelve James had reputedly taken off the Seahawk.

  James spotted them, as well. His voice taut with anger, he promised retribution. “I’ll see you men hung for desertion. Every last one of you.”

  One of the turncoats hacked up a gob of spit and launched it through the air. The mess landed on the captain’s boot with a loud plop.

  “I’d rather take me chances with the ’angman than with you,” he said scornfully. “At least ’is rope does its work quick and clean.”

  “We ought to give him a taste of the cat,” the sailor beside him growled. “See how well he wears his stripes.”

  Others fell in with the idea and voiced a chorus of eager suggestions.

  “Soak the whip in seawater first so it burns more, like he ordered done for us.”

  “Grab ’im, boys. Let’s tie ’im to the grate.”

  “I want first cut!”

  Several started for their former captain, only to be stopped in their tracks by a stern command.

  “Hold where you are!”

  Richard strode forward and put himself between the angry deserters and the captain of the Linx.

  “Sir James has given his parole, as have his officers. We honor such pledges in the American navy. If you’re to sail with me, you will honor them, too.”

  Only one of the deserters dared challenge that flat ultimatum. “You don’t know what he done to poor little Billy, the lad what waited on his table last voyage,” the burly seaman protested. “We buried the boy at sea.”

  “I repeat,” Richard said, his voice steely, “the captain has given his parole. If you wish to sail with me, you’ll haul yourself to the rail and climb down into the one of the Seahawk’s boats. Now!”

  The hulking seaman threw a last, loathing glance at James before spinning on his heel and marching to the far rail. The rest of the deserters followed.

  Over the painful pounding of her heart, Sarah watched them grasp the ropes and disappear. She heard a series of thumps. A muttered curse or two. The splash of oars as a boat pulled away.

  In the silence that followed, the two captains faced each other. The moon’s bright glow bathed them both, and the brisk breeze tossed the fringe of their gold epaulets. Aside from those visible symbols of their rank, they had little in common. One was thin, elegant, tight-lipped with anger and burning with the desire to avenge this insult to him and to his ship. The other stood tall, broad-shouldered, his hair as black as midnight, his eyes a cold, silvery blue.

  Until he turned to Sarah.

  His harsh expression softened. Something close to pity flickered across his face.

  “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

  That fleeting look spurred her pride. Her spine stiffened. Her chin tilted.

  “Yes, it is. Far too late.”

  He looked as though he wanted to argue the matter, but refrained. With a smooth grace that belied his size, he made an elegant bow. “Farewell, Lady Stanton. I wish you a fair wind and a safe harbor at the end of your journey.”

  She couldn’t speak over the lump in her throat. A mere dip of her head had to serve as her answer.

  “All right, Mr. McDougal. Get the boarding crew into the boats.”

  Bound by their oath of parole, the officers and men of the Linx could only watch with clenched fists while the Americans departed their ship. One after another dropped over the side and scrambled down into the waiting boats. Blake was among the last to leave.

  With a mocking smile for the captain of the Linx, he turned and made for the rail.

  “Bastard,” James growled.

  Snarling, he spun to the officer next to him and snatched the pistol from the man’s waist. When he leveled it at Blake’s back, Sarah didn’t stop to think.

  “James! No!”

  She flung herself at him in a desperate attempt to throw off his aim. For the second time that night, a pistol belched fire just inches away from her. The deafening report was still hammering against her eardrums when the night seemed to explode around her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RICHARD HEARD Sarah’s desperate cry a mere heartbeat before a pistol barked and a bullet whizzed past his left ear. In an instinctive move honed by his years in uniform, he ducked, whirled and came up with his own weapon in hand.

  A single glance at the smoking pistol in Lowell’s hand told the story. The bastard had violated his parole. And Sarah had without doubt saved Richard’s life by throwing off Lowell’s aim.

  Richard’s jaw clenched as the British captain whipped his arm free of her clinging grasp and
sent her crashing to the deck. Stunned by his actions, his officers had yet to draw their weapons and violate their own sworn oath, but the shot had galvanized their seamen. Those not still affected by the sleeping draught were scrambling toward their stacked swords and muskets.

  The American marines Richard had ordered high up in the Seahawk’s rigging to provide cover for the boarding party saw what was happening. Wild shouts carried across the water as they let loose with a volley designed to keep the British seaman away from their weapons. When bullets sliced through the rigging above Richard’s head and splintered the deck some yards away, his heart jumped into his throat.

  “Sarah!” he bellowed to the figure still prone on the planks. “Stay down!”

  Sincerely hoping the moon’s bright glow would allow his marines to distinguish between his uniform and that of the British officers, Richard charged back across the deck. Those few of his men still aboard the Linx pulled their cutlasses and prepared to follow him.

  “To the boats!” he bellowed, knowing he had to get them off the British frigate before they lost the advantage of the marines’ covering fire. “Jenkins, take Mistress Maude to safety!”

  He had one chance, only one, to get to Sarah. Using the confused melee to his own advantage, he charged straight for her and scooped her up right under Lowell’s nose. The British officer roared in outrage.

  “Damn you!”

  Whirling, Lowell lunged for his first officer and snatched at his sword. Thrown off balance by his superior, the lieutenant stumbled back into the ranks of men behind him. Both officers went down and took a number of the seamen with them.

  Richard gave a fervent prayer of thanks for the lieutenant’s clumsiness. As much as he ached to put his own sword into Lowell’s gullet, his main concern now was Sarah. Snatching her up, he crushed her to his chest and ran back through the rain of covering fire. Once at the rail, he shifted her upward, tossed her over his shoulder, and swung a leg over the side.

  “Dear God!”

  Sarah’s piercing shriek carried even over the rattle of musket fire. Upended and dangling high above the Seahawk’s bobbing boat, she snatched at Richard’s coattails and hung on for dear life. Once in the boat, he dumped her in the gunwales. She pushed to her hands and knees, scuttled crablike toward the sobbing woman Jenkins had carried down to the boat, and shielded her maid’s body with her own.

  In that instant, Richard knew he’d done right by following his instincts and snatching the lady out from under Lowell’s nose. Her heart was as wide as the sea and as true as a compass. If she went to any man’s bed, he’d do his damndest to see it was his.

  First, though, he had to get her aboard the Seahawk alive and unriddled by musket fire.

  Thankfully, his marines kept the British away from their weapons. Firing in alternating waves, they maintained a steady volley while Richard and his men pulled at the oars of their boat. Long, muscle-wrenching moments later, the boat bumped against the Seahawk’s keel.

  “Come on, lass. Let’s get you and Mistress Maude aboard.”

  “I can climb the ladder.”

  “We’ve no time for you to attempt it on your own, I’m afraid. I’ll take you up.”

  Tossing Sarah over his shoulder once again, Richard went up the rope ladder with the agility of long practice. Jenkins came right behind him with a wailing Maude.

  Once on deck, Richard made for the aft hatch. He didn’t set his burden on her feet until he got her below decks and away from the musket fire now being returned by the marines aboard the Linx. Jenkins followed hard on his heels and deposited Maude in the narrow passageway as well.

  “You are mad!” Sarah exclaimed, shoving back her tumbled hair. “I thought as much when you put a bullet through your own arm. I’m sure of it now.”

  “Not mad. Just willing to fight for what I want.”

  “And fight you will.” Her face grim, she wrapped an arm around Maude’s heaving shoulders. “James will blow your ship out of the water.”

  “Do you think so?”

  His cheerful unconcern had Sarah gritting her teeth. She knew little about sea battles, but even the most ignorant landlubber understood that a frigate carried twice the firepower as a brig. Before she could point out that basic fact, the American preempted her.

  “I’d best get up on deck. The officers’ mess is straight ahead. Take your ease, lass, and don’t worry.”

  Since he punctuated that bit of absurd advice with a long, hard kiss, Sarah had no breath left to refute it. All she could do was stare at his back as he disappeared up the stairs. A long, keening cry from Maude snapped her attention to the distraught maid.

  “We’ll be kilt along with him and all his crew!”

  “I suspect you have the right of it. Come, let’s find the wardroom and take what shelter we may.”

  The Seahawk’s officers’ mess was half the size of the Linx’s but very well fitted. Wood shone. Brass gleamed. Benches were bolted to the floor on either side of a long rectangular table. The center of off-duty life for the ship’s officers, the wardroom cabinets displayed the usual assortment of pewter crockery, books, musical instruments, board games and well-worn decks of playing cards.

  Maude collapsed onto one of the sturdy benches, shaken to her shoes by the extraordinary events of the past few hours, quivering with fear over what was yet to come. Almost as distraught as her maid but trying desperately not to show it, Sarah paced the mess. It was located in the center of the ship and had no windows, no view of the sea or the ship riding the waves just yards away.

  If Sarah couldn’t see the Linx, she could well imagine it. The gunports drawn up. The cannons run out. The matches lighted. Powder boys running from the ship’s magazine with cartridges tucked under their jackets to keep them from catching a spark and exploding. Officers issuing cutlasses and pikes to the sailors and marines who would board the Seahawk once it struck its colors.

  Her heart in her throat, Sarah waited for the cannons to boom and braced for the shriek of torn sails and falling timbers. Instead, the only sounds that came to her and Maude were continuing bursts of rifle fire and a shouted command to raise all sails.

  The deck above her came alive with the slap of running feet, followed shortly by the shriek of pulleys. Mere moments later it seemed, the Seahawk’s sails caught the breeze and she lunged forward. The pewter crockery rattled. Maude gasped and clutched the table’s edge. Sarah put out a hand to steady herself and waited in agonizing dread for an explosion of fire and death.

  Seconds crawled by. Minutes.

  The rattle of rifle fire died. Canvas snapped. Masts creaked. The ship picked up speed.

  It took a while for both women to grasp the fact that they were away. Well and truly away. Without a cannon being fired on either ship!

  Maude ceased quivering with fright and turned a confused face to Sarah. “Why did Sir James not fire?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Not out of concern for his intended or her maid, of that she was sure.

  “What…? What do we do now, m’lady?”

  For the first time, Sarah considered her abrupt change in circumstances. She was on an American ship, bound for God knew where, with only the clothes on her back.

  She should have been awash with worry about her family, her fate, her future. Yet all she felt was the most ridiculous sense of relief. And excitement. And adventure.

  “What can we do,” she said to Maude, “except go wherever the ship sails.”

  She was free! The realization rushed through her veins. By tossing her over his shoulder, Richard Blake had taken all choice out of her hands. For however long it took the Seahawk to make port, she was free of both her worries and her past. The heady wonder of it still filled her when the captain and his officers crowded into the wardroom.

  “Lady Stanton,” he said with a punctilious formality belied by his broad grin.

  “Lieutenant Blake.”

  She dipped her head in a regal nod, but Richard caug
ht the gleam of suppressed excitement in her green eyes.

  “I hope you and Mistress Maude will excuse the rather clumsy way you were brought aboard the Seahawk.”

  She arched an auburn brow. “Have we a choice in the matter?”

  “None,” he admitted, his grin widening.

  What an incredible woman she was! Snatched from a ship, carried off amid a hail of bullets, and as cool as a north-water pike.

  “May I present my officers?” he asked with the same formal courtesy.

  “You may.”

  They filled the wardroom, their faces jubilant. Those seeing her for the first time gaped in open admiration at the tumble of fiery curls and swell of snowy bosom above her gown’s square-cut neckline. Those who’d been with the boarding party showed somewhat more restraint, yet Richard could see them falling under her spell as she acknowledged each introduction.

  “And this is Mistress Maude,” he said with a smile for the plump maid who’d wedged herself into a corner.

  The woman blushed furiously as the officers acknowledged her and looked to her mistress in an agony of embarrassment.

  “Perhaps you’ll explain why there was no exchange of cannon fire,” Sarah said, drawing their attention back to her.

  “Well, it’s like this,” Richard admitted, his eyes alight. “My previous encounter with Sir James did not inspire me with confidence that he would hold to his parole.”

  “So we spiked the cannons,” his first officer put in with a grin.

  “All of them?” she asked incredulously.

  “All of them.”

  “The Linx will be a long time in port being refitted before she goes on the prowl again,” the Seahawk’s surgeon added gleefully.

  And Sir James would face a court martial to explain how his guns came to be rendered inoperative, Sarah didn’t doubt. She could only hope that would keep him distracted long enough for her to find some way to raise the funds to pay off the notes he held on her father and brother. Maybe, just maybe, she could keep her family from being hauled off to Newgate, after all.