Her voice dropped to a dead calm. “Don’t take another step, Captain, or it may very well be your last.”
Gerard nodded toward the pistol. “That thing’s a bit more lethal than a letter opener. You won’t have quite the margin for error.”
It wasn’t the gun or even the threat of death that captured Gerard’s attention. It was Lucy herself. She was too incensed to be conscious of her scant attire, but the wind was taking great delight in molding the delicate chemise and drawers to her taut curves. Pudge, with his abiding love of mythology, had been closest to the truth. With her bare, shapely legs braced against the swell of the deck and her long, blond hair whipping in the wind, she looked every inch a wronged Norse goddess gunning for vengeance.
Her gray eyes flared with murderous emotion. Her generous mouth had tightened in a sneer. Gerard thought she’d never looked more magnificent. He wished the Admiral could see all the spirit and spunk he’d fought so hard to repress come boiling to the fore. Being held hostage to her whims in front of his men should have infuriated him, but his frustration was tempered with fierce pride.
“Did it ever occur to you that the gun might not be loaded?” he ventured. “Do you really think I’d let a muzzy-headed lad like Tarn ram a loaded pistol down his breeches?”
Lucy’s confidence wavered, but she remembered only too well how convincing Gerard could be when it suited his selfish purposes. “If it’s not loaded, then you won’t mind if I pull the trigger, will you?”
Gerard’s rueful smile conceded her victory. The wary gazes of his men bored into her.
“If you value your captain’s life, gentlemen, then I suggest you shorten the sails and drop anchor. We’re going to sit right here and wait for a Royal Navy ship to happen by,” When they made no move to obey, Lucy steadied her arm against the dragging weight of the pistol “Do it or I’ll put a ball of lead right through his miserable heart! I admit it’s a poor target, but it will have to do.”
The men glanced uncertainly between her and Gerard. All it took was the faintest shake of his head. Not one of them so much as twitched another muscle.
“I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m afraid my men obey only my orders.” Gerard’s kindness was even less tolerable than his mockery.
“Then you tell them to do it.”
He folded his arms over his chest, his expression almost pitying.
Lucy’s trigger finger jerked as Apollo stumbled into sight, holding a dripping rag to his head. “You mustn’t blame the little missie, sir. It’s all due to my own clumsiness. I’d still be out cold on the cabin floor if Kev—”
Gerard’s eyes narrowed in warning, giving him time to realize it was not the little missie in jeopardy, but his captain. Apollo’s great liquid eyes darkened as if Lucy had somehow disappointed him. He moved to stand behind Gerard, a reproving sentinel.
Their united front intensified Lucy’s desperation. Perhaps if she chose one of his weaker men …
“You!” she said, cornering the man who’d tried to jump ship. “You’re the sailmaster, aren’t you?” she asked, recognizing the leather apron stretched over his distended belly. “You shorten the sails.”
He shuffled his feet and tucked his head like a shy pouter pigeon, declining to answer. There was something familiar about his quaint, steel-framed spectacles, something that made her heart contract with nostalgia.
“All right then, you!” she exclaimed, pointing toward the muzzy-headed young Irishman. “You’ll be the one to …” Her command faded as she studied the dirt rings around his freckled neck. “You,” she echoed softly. “You’re the one who applied for the position as my bodyguard. The one Smythe booted down the front stairs.” The pistol wavered as she studied the familiar faces of the men around her. She pointed an accusing finger at a lithe Oriental man. “You’re the one who broke Captain Cook! And you—you’re the fellow who pilfered the silver.” A hysterical laugh escaped her. “Where were you that day, Apollo? I’m sure I would have remembered you.”
“My penmanship is legendary,” he admitted modestly. “I forged the Captain’s references. Oh,” he added, flexing his mighty hands. “And I detained the genuine applicants until he was hired.”
The legends were true, Lucy thought. The Retribution was crewed by ghosts. Resurrected ghosts their captain had used to worm his way into her life. How could the Admiral have resisted the self-assured Mr. Claremont after being besieged by such bumbling applicants?
Tarn appeared nearly as shocked as she to recognize her. “Why, miss, I never would have known you. The last time I saw you, you was—”
“Dressed?” Lucy provided.
His freckles melted into a flush. “Aye, that too. Of course, I was a bit flustered, what with you beatin’ me brains out with that wee umbreller of yers.”
“Tarn!” Gerard barked an instant too late.
Lucy took a long, hard look at the lad, realizing that he was indeed the masked assailant who had tried to nab her reticule outside the mercer’s shop. Her discovery led her to another, far more chilling, conclusion.
Time tumbled backward to the fireless room of an inn, the tapping of frozen rain on the windows, the beguiling warmth of Gerard’s arms around her as he pressed his lips to her bruised throat in a kiss that might very well have been his most bitter betrayal of all.
Blinking through a scalding veil of tears, she lifted her gaze to Gerard’s face, utterly helpless to disguise the pain flaying her heart. He took a reckless step toward her, already shaking his head in denial.
She dragged back the hammer of the pistol.
“Captain …?” Apollo whispered on a bass note of warning.
Tears spilled from Lucy’s eyes, and streamed down her cheeks. These men weren’t going to do her bidding. They were nothing but a heartless bunch of bullies. Just like her father. Just like the three men who had thought to rob and rape her in that dank, cold London alleyway. Just like the man who had hired them.
All the pain Gerard had caused her welled up from her aching heart in the nearest thing to hatred she’d ever felt toward him.
He took another careless step. “I know what you’re thinking, Lucy, but those men weren’t mine. I swear it.”
“Why should I believe you? You’d already proved you’d do anything to protect your position.” Even feign an affection he did not feel.
He spread his upturned palms in a gesture of appeal, offering her an unguarded target. “I’ve no proof to offer you beyond my word. You’ll just have to trust me.”
His request was so ludicrous that Lucy started to laugh, the gulping exhalations tearing at her like sobs. She brought the muzzle of the pistol to bear on his heart only to discover that she was even less capable of doing him harm than when she’d stood on this very deck one windy, moonlit night that had changed her life forever.
She swung the pistol straight up and fired into the air. Gerard didn’t even flinch.
Her arm fell limp at her side. The pistol clunked to the deck, leaving as the only mementos of her pathetic rebellion the echo of the report, the stench of gunpowder, and a slice of azure sky visible through the grim elegance of the fore topsail.
Lucy sank to a sitting position on a coil of rope, her tear-streaked face a study in defeat. Gerard found he could take little pleasure in his victory. He dropped his jacket over her shoulders, shielding her from his crew’s curious stares and glances of grudging respect. A mutiny such as the one she had dared to stage would have earned them a flogging or an even more dreaded abandonment on the nearest deserted island with nothing but a pistol to shoot themselves with before they perished of thirst.
He snapped off a volley of orders that had them wisely scurrying in all directions. Not all of his men were as superstitious about women aboard ship as Tarn and Pudge. Tarn slunk away with the rest, sheepishly retrieving his fallen pistol, but with uncharacteristic boldness, Pudge hesitated.
He sponged the sweat from his palm with a scarlet kerchief before shyly offering his hand to Lucy. “I
—I—I’m sorry, miss. I shouldn’t have c-c-called you those names. ’Tweren’t very gentlemanly of me.”
Shaking off her daze, Lucy found herself looking up into a familiar pair of temple spectacles. A fresh pain lanced her heart, but the brown eyes behind the lenses blinked with such sincerity that she couldn’t help giving his hand a comforting squeeze. “All is forgiven, sir. I shouldn’t have startled you.”
“See to the sail, Pudge.” Gerard gave him a gentle nudge toward the block and tackle.
“Aye, sir.” He gave his captain a doting salute and limped off to do his bidding.
“Pudge is more skittish than most when it comes to women,” Gerard said quietly. “His wife used to beat him. After she smashed his knee with a poker while he slept, he ran away to sea.”
Not wanting to hear these things, not wanting to care, Lucy escaped to the rail, hugging Gerard’s jacket tight around her. Sunlight rippled across the scattered whitecaps. A balmy breeze stirred her hair, disconcerting when she’d expected nothing but bitter winter winds. It was her first taste of freedom in days, yet her heart felt as if it were bound in iron chains.
Gerard moved to stand beside her. She childishly edged her elbow away to keep it from touching his. “They were his spectacles, weren’t they?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
He nodded. “Damn things gave me the very devil of a headache.”
“And Tarn?”
“When the Retribution sailed, he stayed behind in London, knowing I might have need of him. When you threatened to have me dismissed …” Gerard trailed off, before offering matter-of-factly, “Tarn’s lifelong ambition was to be a priest. Only he could never quite master his vow of celibacy. When they caught him in bed with two of the blushing young novices—”
“ ‘Some of the most vicious cutthroats in all of England.’ ” Lucy tossed his own words back at him with dull accuracy. “ ‘A dangerous lot … utterly ruthless.’ An excommunicated priest? An amateur philosopher who doesn’t believe in violence? A sailmaster terrified of his own shadow? These are your devil’s minions?”
His unrepentant shrug brought their forearms back into contact. “You haven’t met Fidget yet. He murdered his mother-in-law. Of course, they say there never was born a witch more deserving of it.”
“You should have introduced him to Pudge’s wife,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry if their lack of villainy disappoints you. Despite what you may have read, most pirates are and always have been ordinary seaman. Men who prefer freedom to the taste of the lash. Men who prefer a command system based on merit, rather than on the fickle fortunes of birth. We’ve our share of deserters from your father’s precious navy.”
She cut him a mocking glance. “Does that make you the only practicing villain aboard?”
His hazel eyes captured hers, their wary heat belying the cold set of his jaw. “Hardly. After all, any man is capable of villainy when confronted with a temptation he can’t resist.”
Spotting Apollo by the main mast, Lucy tore her gaze away. “If you’ll excuse me, Captain, I shall see if your quartermaster would be kind enough to escort me back to my … cell.”
“Lucy?” The husky query stopped her. Not Miss Snow with its sharp, mocking edge, but Lucy—tender, bewitching, and fraught with memories. “Now that you’re not pointing a gun at my heart, you can believe what you like. But I didn’t hire those men. And I’ll regret to my dying day leaving you alone in that alley.”
She inclined her head, aching to believe him, but fearing he’d once again think her a deluded fool if she did.
Gerard watched her silent battle, wishing its outcome weren’t so vital to him.
When Lucy finally tilted her grimy face to him, her eyes were sparkling with a haughty impertinence he had feared was lost forever. “I can’t say that I believe you, sir, but I have no proof to the contrary. If I did, Pudge would be sewing up you instead of your topsail.”
With that dubious absolution, she marched across the deck and captured his quartermaster. Gerard met Apollo’s gaze over her head, offering him a gesture and a faint nod. His mate’s stoic face briefly registered surprise, but he saluted his captain to signal his unquestioning obedience.
Lucy had been generous enough to gift him with a fragment of her trust. Even if it cost him his tenuous peace of mind, Gerard could afford to do no less.
The hold didn’t seem nearly as confusing when navigated by Apollo’s confident strides. Lucy was forced to trot to keep up.
“Does your head ache frightfully, Apollo? I’m very sorry about your accident. I shan’t throw a pillow at the door again.”
He rubbed the lump ruining the symmetry of his sleek pate. “I didn’t mind the pillow, missie, but I do wish you’d stop threatening to shoot the Captain.”
“I’ll consider it,” she muttered, refusing to make any promises.
He escorted her inside the great cabin, then turned to go. She poked her head out the open door. “Apollo?”
“Aye, missie?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
He frowned as if deeply puzzled, then broke into a broad grin. “Your lunch! I’ll fetch it right away.”
Lucy was surprised to realize she was ravenous. She would never have suspected that attempted mutiny was such a stimulant to the appetite. “Not lunch. The door. You forgot to lock the door.”
He continued on his way, calling back over his shoulder. “No need. The Captain has given you the run of the ship.”
Lucy sank against the doorframe, her knees weakened by a long denied hunger sharper than that for food. Apollo might not realize it, but the Captain had given her something infinitely more precious than just the run of his ship.
Gerard’s breeches and shirt had been a poor fit, but with a few artful nips and tucks by Pudge, Tarn’s cast-offs fit Lucy as if they’d been tailored for her. Her slender, boyishly clad figure became a familiar sight on the Retribution’s decks in the days to come.
Once Tarn lost his fear that she was going to whip out a parasol and whack him across his freckled nose, he became a most amiable companion, escorting her about the ship with the vastly superior tolerance of an elder cousin. Lucy suspected he didn’t often get the opportunity to lord his knowledge over someone less informed than he.
The ship itself seemed to have been designed by a maniacal genius with a perverse sense of humor. Its decks and hold were riddled with secret companionways. Lucy lived in fear of dropping through a hidden trapdoor, triggered by nothing more than the innocent action of brushing against the mizzenmast or peeping through a gunport.
Although its taciturn captain remained an enigma to her, the ship was not so reluctant to surrender its secrets.
A pirate vessel’s only salvation lay in being faster, sneakier, and meaner than her opponents. The Retribution excelled in all three. Every bit of visible wood on the boat had been stained dark. Gerard had replaced the traditional canvas sails with black double silk, an extravagant but effective method of masking the ship’s path through the indigo waters of night. An oversized replica of a galley stove squatted in the stern, equipped to belch out clouds of steam to confuse pursuers.
A false deck had been built into the bulwark, thus explaining the ship’s deserted appearance on the night Lucy had first sighted her. The shell could be rolled over the fo’c’sle, quarterdeck, and aftercastle in the event of attack, leaving the crew free to manipulate the ship from below, using an elaborate combination of pulleys, mirrors, and curved spying glasses. The flush false deck also gave them the advantages of speed and agility under sail.
All of those clever modifications allowed Gerard to run the ship with a crew of ninety men, only half of what he should have required. Pudge doubled as both sailmaker and sailmaster. Apollo labored as quartermaster and kept Gerard’s logs in his flawless, elegant hand. Only the navigator had one job, his sole task keeping them on whatever mysterious course Gerard had charted.
As Tarn hastened to explain, the s
chooner had been designed for rapid attack and quick retreat, but her most formidable weapon lay in the reputation of her captain. The whispered name of Captain Doom alone could coax most merchant ships, awkward, under-gunned, and pregnant with heavy cargo, to surrender without a fight.
A lingering twinge of navy pride forced Lucy to stiffly retaliate with, “That doesn’t make him any match for one of His Majesty’s warships. A well-placed broadside could reduce this floating circus to so much flotsam.”
Tarn’s green eyes shone with admiration. “That’s where ye’re wrong, Miss Lucy. Cap’n’s the very best. He studied navy strategy in his younger days. It’s almost as if he knows what they’re thinkin’ afore they do.”
Lucy was discomfited by the reminder of what Gerard might have accomplished had her father not robbed him of his career. And his freedom.
It was impossible for Lucy not to think of freedom beneath the banner of azure blue that unfurled from horizon to horizon each dawn. Impossible not to think of it while leaning over the forward rail with the wind tossing her hair, the sun warming her back, the cool salt spray peppering her cheeks. How was it possible that as Gerard’s defenseless captive, she had never felt so free?
Free to read the morning away on deck or simply drowse in the sun. Free to watch the men at their tasks or badger Apollo for tales of his native Africa.
The spontaneity of life aboard the Retribution was irresistible. Except for the bells tolling the changing of the watch, time might have ceased to exist. Unlike the worker ants toiling beneath her father’s command, there was nothing regimented about Gerard’s crew except for their common and unspoken desire to run the sleek schooner to the best of their abilities.
These men laughed whenever they wanted, frequently burst into song, and paused in trimming the sails to swig rum from a jug or dance a merry jig. They censored neither their jokes or opinions, engaging in good-natured fisticuffs if the occasion warranted, but never forgetting that if any one of them dared to draw steel, he would suffer the traditional penalty of forty stripes.
Thief of Hearts Page 25
