by Kresley Cole
Derek cut off all the excited exclamations. “We cannot count on them to voluntarily give us aid.” He couldn’t even begin to predict what they would do.
He surveyed his crew’s bewildered looks and listened to them hope against hope that Lassiter’s ship would come to their aid. He attempted to forestall that line of thinking; yet they were convinced from experience that sailors helped their own, competitors or not. Derek hadn’t planned to air his suspicions, but he wanted them to suffer no illusions. He also had to prepare them for the unorthodox commands he’d be giving them shortly.
“I have every reason to believe that the person who poisoned our water is aboard the Bella Nicola.”
Nicole closed her spyglass against her thigh and began her usual impatient pacing across the deck. It would be close, to beat him to the straits. Truthfully, one of the reasons she’d pushed to catch Sutherland was that she hadn’t expected him to stick with this course. He’d charted it, but she’d thought he would back out. He took an insane risk, steering a ship of the Southern Cross ’s size so close to these ridges with their gripping, snatching currents. Her brows drew together. He’s either very determined or crazed . She settled on the latter.
Pulling a strand of hair from her eyes and tucking it up into her ever-present cap, she turned to look at the towering clouds of a looming storm. It would be sheer folly for him to be in these straits when the storm moved in.
But he had a good quarter mile on her. From where she stood, it looked as though he might be able to squeeze past the last of the straits before the storm broke.Unlike me, she thought as she surveyed the purplish clouds building.
But she felt confident in her crew and, truth be told, in herself. She’d sailed these waters countless times with her father. And their ship was built to thrive in storms, agile even under pressure and milking every last knot from the buffeting winds. Her fondest memories were of squalls when she and her father had sailed together. They’d set all their canvas out, slicing at full speed past bulkier ships whose cowardly furled sails looked to her like tails tucked between their legs.
When Chancey gave the expected orders to prepare the ship for rough water, she padded to her cabin to fetch her oilskin raincoat. In this small break, she wasn’t surprised that her thoughts again turned to Sutherland.
She’d just threaded her second arm into her oilskins when a cold shaft of fear assailed her, so powerful she sank down in her chair.
Sutherland’s risk could be deadly.
Why should she care? His devilish prank had left them scrambling to get out of Brazil. She’d been furious with him for weeks now. But with the thought of the storm and the possibility that Sutherland could get hurt or killed, her anger left her as easily as a breeze deserting sail.
She had no overarching reason to hate him and couldn’t seem to reignite her anger over his trick. Especially now that they were so close to overtaking him and still had half the distance to Sydney to catch Tallywood. Her anger dissipated, her emotions turned anxious and a light sheen of sweat dampened her forehead. She jumped up to race to the deck.
She stumbled to the rail and was frantically yanking out her spyglass when she caught Chancey’s inquiring look. Forcing herself to be calm, she took a deep breath, even managed a small smile for him. Her foolish fears were running away from her. After all, Sutherland was reaching the end of the straits when I last saw him .
With a shaky laugh at her foolish emotions, she brought the spyglass to her eye.
Then promptly dropped it.
The Southern Cross lay dead in the water.
Chapter 14
“For God’s sake, what is he doing?” She didn’t bother to hide her fear for Sutherland from Chancey or any of the men close by. “His sails are down—I don’t understand.”
Chancey grabbed her spyglass, then muttered, “Bleedin’ idiot.”
“Why would he—? We’ve got to help them!”
She had to yell the last of her words because just then, the advance winds from the storm howled over them and rocketed the ship forward, too swiftly even for the Bella Nicola, and all hands were needed to shorten sail.
“Stop frettin’,” Chancey ordered with a chuck under her chin. “We’ll take down some canvas and make our way over there.”
She gave him a quick nod and assumed the helm, the one place she could physically help her crew since everyone was too afraid of her father to allow her in the rigging. Minutes ticked by as she pulled and pushed at the wheel, but she never took her eyes from the direction of Sutherland’s ship. She could feel her face was tight with worry. What could he possibly be thinking?
In sudden confusion, she stared down at her hands on the wheel. She perceived an oily sluggishness as the ship became increasingly lifeless and slow to respond. The feeling was similar to having a hull full of badly stored cargo. Her mind unwillingly recognized the heavy churning, the feeling of pressure on the wheel increasing. It was as if part of her midship had just…given way.
Impossible. They couldn’t have collided with anything, because they remained well within the channel. There hadn’t been any impact, damn it! Her head whipped up and she caught Chancey’s stark expression. He felt the same uneven listing.
With one hand gripping the wheel, she lifted the other palm up while frantically shaking her head. “We’re not afoul of anything—I don’t understand!” she yelled. He gave her a tight nod before abruptly running below decks. Chancey didn’t have to go below for her to know that the Bella Nicola was slowly taking on water.
She bit back a frantic laugh. Now that my own ship’s in danger, I can finally stop worrying about Sutherland’s .
Chancey emerged and called for several men to work the pumps, then gazed off at the storm, at the blistering mesh of lightning hastening toward them. He called Dennis, who’d finished with the sails, to come back and relieve her. She wanted to protest, but grew silent when Chancey gave her a sad smile.
In his gruff voice, he said, “Lash yerself down, lass. We’re in for a hell o’ a ride.”
Without argument, she did as he told her. When satisfied with her knots, he charged off to go over each detail, securing rigging, making sure the crew understood exactly what they were about to face.
Nicole strained against her ropes to see once again if she could make out the Southern Cross, but just as she thought she could, the clouds reached them and erupted. For what could have been hours, the rain pelted the deck and pounded in the remaining sails. It became impossible to see more than a few feet away. Until the lightning hovered directly over them.
The muscles in her neck bunched as she hunched down, away from the flashes streaming out in the leaded skies, firing closer and closer to them.
Nicole watched in horrified disbelief as a branch of lightning struck their midmast, hitting it halfway up. She wanted to shrink inside herself as the scorching intensity of heat bathed her face. A sound like sizzling grease accompanied the scoring bolt. Pain melted in her eyes from the shock of light. The immediate thunder shook not just herself and the ship but the whole black world around them.
She blinked repeatedly until she could focus on the mast. The lightning had left it smoking and splintered, held only by the rigging attached to it.
She hissed in wet air. If those ropes give way
Then it happened. The middle of the mast kicked out to smash down near the helm, exploding all the way through the upper deck, the spars acting like claws to drag down every sail and line. She stared, stunned, as the impact shot Dennis against the wheelhouse.
For the space of two hitching breaths, she waited for him to get up. He lay motionless. With shaking hands, she dug into her knots. Just as she freed herself, Chancey reached the man and began securing his limp body to the wheelhouse. She jerked her head from Chancey to the madly spinning wheel and pressed her legs down to cross the deck to it.
With each uplifting and crash of the ship, she skidded back and forth over the timbers lying on the deck, making litt
le progress. Finally…finally she reached the helm and fought to get a grip on the twirling wheel, but the pegs kept cracking against her hands. After all but tackling it, she stopped the spinning by pushing with all her might on one side of the wheel and lunging her whole body into her grip.
When she ventured a look over her shoulder, she could see Chancey’s scowl as he tottered back to the helm.
“Let go! I’ve got to take the helm,” he shouted. Without warning, a rope whining past them slashed at his face like a whip.
With a growl, he looked from her to the rope. “Tie up then, damn it. Strong knots!” He turned to find the source of the rope and scuttled off again.
She tied herself to the wheel, fighting to keep it steady as the ship continued to buck. When she’d achieved a measure of success, she looked up and scanned the ship. She bit back a scream. Chancey’s great bulk crashed across the deck as another merciless wave broke over the bow and tossed him as if he were a rag doll.
Her heart thundered in her chest while she waited for him to rise. Chancey, get up, damn you. Get up!
As though wrestling his lumbering body, he managed to stand and trudge back to the whipping line he’d been securing. She held her panic at bay while she could see him. But masses of foam were heaving up in all directions as the wind began keening even more violently. When she finally lost sight of him altogether, the harshest, most biting terror gripped her. She choked back the screams bubbling up.
She prayed for him as she willed his return. Then she prayed for her crew’s lives—for the men struggling all across the ship, yelling into the wind, laboring to prevent the destruction awaiting them. She prayed that her father would eventually remarry and get on with his life without his daughter and crew.
In the midst of the fury unleashed around them, she also prayed for Sutherland….
All on board knew their lives were in the hand of an arbitrary sea, and the certainty of death drummed in every mind. Nicole knew they were lost. And she knew she had failed.
Although it had arrived like an explosion, the fierce storm lingered in indecision for hours. During that time, Derek couldn’t locate the Bella Nicola . He’d told his men they would take Lassiter’s ship and all the necessary supplies and impress the crew. Then he’d simply anchored in the middle of the channel and waited, because the Irisher would have no choice but to sail dangerously close. He’d signal them, and if they came to, so be it. If they did not, he would cannon a warning shot over their bow and force them to stop. A simple, effective plan.
He had not factored in a storm that had burgeoned into one of the worst he’d ever seen. The rain soon began battering them not from above but from the side as it seemed to rise up from the ocean. He’d had no choice but to weigh anchor and get the ship to safer waters.
With a little luck, Nicole could slip right past him in the dark of the storm. His fury grew, but he also caught himself feeling something he hadn’t in a long time.
Fear.
He wanted to dismiss it at first. Yet his chest tightened every time he thought about Nicole on a ship that could easily be ripped apart on the rocks surrounding them. He wanted to convince himself that the only thing he felt for her was loathing.
But even if she was an evil, lying witch, he didn’t want her to die. If they hadn’t gotten clear when this storm reached them, it would be an all-too-likely possibility. He fought not to imagine how frightened she must be, trapped down in a sloshing, freezing cabin, hearing the timbers groaning under the water’s pressure.
Impatient as he hadn’t been since he was a boy, he waited until shafts of sunlight finally stabbed through the dense black clouds. His own skeleton crew thankfully had weathered the storm without major damage to the ship, and when he’d gauged it safe enough, they were able to make all haste to find the Bella Nicola. But for hours, the only sign of the ship they found was part of a splintered mast.
Seeing that sure sign of destruction had filled him with a maddening feeling of impotence. It was as if someone relentlessly kicked him in the gut during the hours when there was no other sign of the little ship. He nearly swore he wouldn’t punish her for her treachery, if he could only find her alive.
“Cap’n, the crew has started grumbling,” Jeb said from behind him. “They want to cut their losses and get to the Cape.”
Derek turned. “We’ll search until sunset.”
The salt began hesitantly, “We’ve covered a big patch of sea today. Do you think they’d be blowed out this far?”
“I don’t know,” Derek admitted, wondering how this weary tone had replaced his own. “With a mast gone, they’ve got to be sitting somewhere.”
“Unless—”
“That’s enough, Jeb,” he snapped, unwillingly finishing the sentence in his mind. Unless they went down . “We’ll keep searching. Tell the crew I’ll double their rations for the next week.”
“Aye, sir.” The man paused and turned to Derek with a frown, then began hesitantly, “Cap’n…about the girl, she was—”
Whatever the man was about to say was cut off by the watch’s weakened call of “Ship ahoy!”
Derek yanked out his glass. He spied a glimpse of tattered sail clinging to the one remaining mast of the Bella Nicola as she barely bobbed over the waves. A strange elation was overrun by surging impatience as he ordered his crew to full sail.
Though the sun continued to battle with still-laden clouds, Derek could see that the ship was dangerously low and obviously sinking. Her main mast had snapped and shot through her upper deck, where it remained in a bizarre tableau like nothing he’d ever seen before.
Groans sounded as some of the unconscious crew awakened, and he felt an involuntary twinge of pity for the hell they’d obviously been through. He stifled it. Lassiter had a core crew for this ship, the majority of whom had sailed with him for two decades. It was logical to think that some, if not all, knew of the poisoning.
Derek was also disgusted with himself to find that he scanned the decks, irritated beyond reason that he couldn’t find Nicole. Did the malicious little chit still cower in her cabin? No longer could he simply call her thief or spy. By poisoning the water, she was now a would-be murderer.
No one had died…yet, some part of him argued, but his men continued to fall.
I simply want to find her alive so I can wring her lovely little neck.
While his ship closed in, he and his crew watched the scene unfold. A small figure was slumped over the wheel, frozen except for small, jerky movements. As they got closer, he could see what seemed like yards of hair spread out over the body. Nicole had the helm.
So much for cowering in her cabin.
Nicole lay dumbly, mute, unable to think of anything but the pain as she decided whether her bones were broken or her skull cracked.
Hearing a moan from the deck, she shook her head to try to clear it. The movement made her fall, but the ropes around her waist held her up. Squinting, she looked down in confusion. She was tied to the wheel?
She pushed at the knots, reverse threading. When free, she took a step back and collapsed, then scrambled up again. Fighting down a rising panic, she shoved her hair out of her eyes. She’d taken about ten limping steps when the unfamiliar roiling of the ship reminded her.
Her eyes snapped open in alertness as she recalled the endless hours of the storm. Water poured in below decks. Not this ship. Not this one! But she’d known the Bella Nicola was sinking even hours ago? days ago?—when they’d first encountered the gale.
She half-walked and half-crawled as fast as her flagging body could manage to where Chancey lay tied to the deck. She shook him, and he woke after a minute. After a few more, he groggily assessed the situation.
It did not look good.
“The lifeboats?” he croaked.
“One lost. One b-broken.”
She knew many sailors never learned to swim. Purposely. Because being trapped on the open sea, much lessin the sea, was worse than death. Her thoughts made her
hands shake too wildly to make any headway with the ropes. Chancey had to help her with the lines that had carved deep, bloody grooves into his soaked, bloated skin.
“Signal. We might yet get out a signal.” He hauled himself up and hobbled to the stern of the ship.
She lay there, stupefied. She wasn’t sure she could get up again. Chancey would send up a flare. If Sutherland hadn’t gotten too far, they might be saved….
Suddenly, he stomped his foot and clapped his large hands in a mystifying display of energy. “Nic, buck up,” he called out drunkenly. “Yer captain has come to save ye.” His voice was thick as obvious relief infused him. “It’s not what I’d have ordered up, but considerin’ the other choices…”
She turned slowly, not believing, too afraid to hope.
And there he was. Lord, he was beautiful.
She’d never seen a more welcome sight than Sutherland standing on the deck as his ship slipped in beside them. She thought she’d remember forever the way his thick black hair ruffled in the wind, the way he nonchalantly rested a boot on the bottom rail with his muscular arms crossed over his wide chest. She smiled at him like a simpleton. Although her head hadn’t cleared as it should have, pure pleasure thrummed through her, as strong as the despair it replaced. Not only did she know he was safe, he would save them….
Grappling hooks bounced over the Bella Nicola ’s deck.
Nicole watched in horror as they were snatched in, scraping along her already splintered deck before violently catching her recently whitewashed railing. Grappling hooks? The abuse of her ship, even though it was dying, chilled her. Why would he…Did Sutherland think they would fight him? She needed to think. Why couldn’t she think?
Nicole stared, not comprehending, when his men skulked aboard, armed as if they were taking a resisting crew. Her head snapped up to meet Sutherland’s chilling gaze. Her heart slammed in her chest. Only this time it was not from the thrill and excitement she’d experienced on seeing him a few moments before. This time it was fear.
