The temptation to tell James of the heartache and grief that awaited him was strong, but Bart refrained. After all James had went through, he deserved this moment of happiness. No matter how fleeting it might be.
“My offer to teach you still stands,” Bart said. “Or, if you prefer, we never have to see one another again after I leave this ship. I know I haven’t been the father you need, but I can be a mentor. There is so much you can learn. There are still things that I’m discovering and I’m almost two hundred years old.”
James turned pensive for a moment. “If our paths cross again, we shall see. For now, I want your arse off my ship as soon as my men are too wellied to see straight. We picked up a lot of rum in St. Martin, so it shouldn’t be too much longer until they’re in their boots.”
The bold captain turned away and made toward the door.
His answer, though not what he truly wanted to hear, would be good for now. The world wasn’t as big as it had been and if Bart found him once, he could do it again. He’d give James time to pursue this romantic adventure with Grace, and then Bart would come looking for him again.
In the meantime, there was still one more pirate he had to hunt down. Will was no longer on The Burning Rose, that much he knew, but Bart would find him. He knew for a fact that loup-garou had been tainted by a lust for human flesh. He admitted it himself, how he had devoured the guts of natives when he had been marooned on an island by his crew. That was where Bart found him picking clean the bones of his kill like a mangy dog.
He’d need to find the loup-garou before he had a chance to terrorize more innocents. For now, he waited for the music and laughter to die away. When all was quiet, he’d make his escape, and James would be on his way to Kingston again.
Kingston Jamaica, three days later
James, Patrick, and most of the crew gathered on the quarterdeck near the wheel. Mr. Bones held the box they would burn, and the captain scribbled out The Burning Rose upon a piece of parchment. Behind them, Kingston waited, but James wouldn’t dare bring the ship so close to shore.
He had Mr. Jacobs already break off the nameplate at the stern of the ship, but he was taking no more chances with the lives of his men. After what happened outside of St. Martin, word about what he did to Bart’s ship must have spread around most of the Caribbean already. It would serve as the final legend of The Devil Dog before he dropped from history altogether.
Every governor of every island would be on the hunt for The Burning Rose and they had to disappear. All of them. It was typically bad luck to rename a ship, but this little ceremony would negate it.
James placed the folded parchment in the box and Mr. Bones set it on the makeshift altar. Once the box and the old name of his precious ship was burned, they’d dump the ashes into the sea. The vessel would be cleansed of its former title and Patrick could start anew.
A reverent hush fell over the crew and some men even took off their hats in honor of the infamous name that struck fear into the hearts of sailors just as much as The Devil Dog had. James and Patrick stood side by side, watching as the box was slowly reduced to cinders.
“She’s yours, Pat. What’ll you call her now?” he asked the Irishman.
He pursed his lips for a moment and then nodded to himself. “The Wolf Star,” he replied. “Has a nice fancy feel to it, doesn’t it? No one might think it be a pirate ship.”
James smiled. “Perhaps not.” He clapped his former quartermaster on the back, his own simple show that he was no longer captain and commander of the ship. It had a new name and a new leader. His fate, no longer fastened to these masts and sails, belonged on shore. He’d miss a life at sea, but a life without Grace with her red hair and fiery spirit was far more tempting than bloodshed.
“Take good care of her, mate.”
He turned and slipped past his crew, and each gave their own signs of appreciation for all their former captain had done for them. He led them into battle, into hurricanes, through hunger and perilous danger. He remembered each moment when he brought them aboard with the promise of riches and glory.
James kept that promise, and they kept to one of his most important codes while serving on this ship. They didn’t question his actions. That’s why they let him leave the ship without explanation, in the rowboat with nothing but a pack strapped across his chest and a brace of pistols. Everything else, he willed to Patrick, their new captain.
James wouldn’t let himself get misty as he rowed away from the ship, The Wolf Star. He shouldn’t have been so attached to that damned ship, but he was. He knew he’d never have another like it, at least not one so reliable.
In preparation for his departure, James had shaven off his beard again and cut his dark hair to make himself more presentable. He donned the cleanest, most fashionable garb he owned, knowing he’d have to find a way into the governor’s mansion. He picked himself a new name, a title to hold to, and a story of how he had come to woo Kingston’s jewel in hopes of marriage. Never in a thousand years would James figure he’d be so bent on a splice.
He paid the small docking fee at the harbor, entrusted his things to the inn keeper who gladly took his money, and set out for the mansion. With the brace of pistols tucked under his coat and out of sight from the other citizens of Kingston, no one would have suspected the well-dressed man was a former pirate.
James had to laugh. Former pirate. Never had he thought he’d subscribe to such a title.
The further he walked, the more whispers he heard behind doors and gossip in the streets. His steps slowed, and he stopped thinking about what he’d say to Grace, and more on what they were saying about her.
“I heard the governor’s holding a big ball after the ceremony.”
“Do you think she’s quick with child? Why else would she want to get married so quickly?”
“I heard the commodore makes three thousand pounds a year. Miss Norrie is sure to live comfortably.”
James came to a stop as he continued to listen, but it was all the same. Grace was getting married. Today.
He moved toward the edge of the road and leaned beside the door to a cobbler’s shop to catch his breath. She couldn’t marry. It hadn’t even been half a month since they parted ways. Was she engaged to the commodore the whole time while on his ship? Or was this just some idle gossip of the townspeople to amuse themselves? Grace couldn’t marry. She loved him. Didn’t she?
The door beside him swung open and a young woman stepped out. He recognized her blonde hair and petite frame. Though he hadn’t caught her name at the time, James knew she was at the ball that evening when he and Grace first met.
“Miss?” he called as she hurried down the street. When she turned, her brows shot up in recognition.
“You’re that man.” Her fist tightened around the pitiful money purse in her hands. Even if he weren’t turning respectable, it was a poor prize to pocket. “That pirate,” she whispered, a tiny sliver of excitement in her words.
James did his best to appear unoffending and harmless. “Grace… told you?” Surely, he hadn’t been so careless to let it be known that The Devil Dog had paid a visit to Kingston that night. He had done his best to cover his tracks at the time.
The young lady grinned and eagerly babbled on. “She told me everything! How you took her on the ship and brought her back. You should have kept her. Grace would have been happier than she is now. Came crying to me one day about how much she hated and loved you all at the same time, and how she doesn’t want to be married. Poor thing. Tragically romantic, really. I’d love to be in her shoes, though. The commodore’s a fine man, but she doesn’t want him. She told me she still wants you for some barmy reason.”
So, there was hope, and he was right.
“Why is she marrying him if she doesn’t want him?” he asked, ignoring the crowds that made their way around them.
She huffed. “Don’t you understand? Did you not hear what I said?” She leaned closer. “Grace loves you.”
That di
dn’t make a lick of sense and James continued to stare, waiting for the real answer.
The woman rolled her blue eyes heavenward. “Grace was so upset about never getting to see you again that she took the next man that came along, just so she could distract herself from you.”
There were plenty of things that James understood about the world, but women were not one of them. Her reasons didn’t matter. All James knew was that he had to stop her from making one of the biggest mistakes of her life. To hell with the commodore, his three thousand pounds a year, and his fine manners. If Grace didn’t want him, then she shouldn’t settle for him. James was the only one who could give her what she really wanted.
“When’s the wedding?” he asked hastily.
“In an hour,” she replied. “I’m going to fetch my dress and… Wait, where are you going?”
James shot off down the street and back toward the inn he had claimed a room at. He’d need his cutlass for this.
The flowers that festooned the sanctuary were lovely, as was the violin music her mother had insisted upon. Every member of Kingston high society was there for her wedding day, but Grace could not muster a smile. Staring out over the powdered wigs and brightly colored feather hats as she walked down the aisle to her betrothed, not a single happy thought danced in her head. There was only dread and woe for the future she didn’t want.
Commodore Carter was dressed in his finest, a sabre by his side and far too clean to her liking. Likewise, the white lace wedding dress that suffocated her in this heat didn’t belong on her. Just once, she wished she could have been wearing trousers again. Just once more, she wanted to smell the salty sea breeze and know that there might have been hope for freedom.
Today was her wedding day and the tight bonds of matrimony were about to be fastened around her like the heaviest irons in the world, the ones that would drag her down and drown her eventually. Grace always thought herself brave, but when faced with this new death sentence, she couldn’t find the strength she needed.
The bouquet trembled in her hands as she took her place before the preacher. The violins played their last lilting note and then went silent for the nuptials. The preacher’s withered voice was little more than an annoying fly buzzing around her ears. The only thing she knew to do was listen for her prompts, say the words, and get this day over with.
She had never seen herself as a wife or a lover. Never saw herself lusting after any man, pirate or not. Two weeks had done nothing to ease her jilted heart. How she would have loved to rip it from her chest and smash it under her heel for all the torment it had caused her.
“Do you take this man to be your husband?” the preached asked.
Grace broke free from the mire for just long enough to say, “I do.”
The preacher asked the same of Carter and he replied with his own affirmative. Then, he turned to the congregation. “If any man or woman here thinks that these two people should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Grace listened, hoping and praying that someone would speak or even cough. Something to give pause to this madness she was about to be thrown into.
Nothing.
“Then by the power – “
Something slammed against the church doors, joined by shouts and the clanging of metal just beyond. For the first time since she left The Burning Rose, Grace felt her heart come alive again. She turned and watched as the doors rattled and the guards fought whoever it was that tried to get in.
The people in the pews turned and whispered while the preacher stammered behind her, at a loss for what to do. Carter drew his sword and moved in front of Grace, but she tried to edge him aside. She needed no one to defend her.
Two loud thuds, like the falling of bodies on the steps of the church. Then, the doors were kicked open. There, stood the man she had dreamed of night and day since she left him.
James charged down the aisle, a pistol in one hand and his sword in the other. The congregation stood and screamed about being robbed, but The Devil Dog was not coming for them.
The commodore came forward to intercept. “You aren’t welcome here, pirate.”
The man she adored grinned. “Don’t be givin’ a dog a bad name, mate. I’m just here for the lass.”
Grace’s mother ran to her side and grabbed her arm to hurry her away, but she shook the woman off, ready to fling herself into James’ arms as soon as he cut down her intended. She didn’t care that he was a pirate, a ne’er-do-well, and a werewolf. He had come for her, something she never expected him to do.
“You can’t have her,” Carter declared. “Go on your way or I’ll have no choice but to arrest you.”
This time, James laughed. “You can try.”
The two men dueled up and down the church’s center aisle as the wedding attendees were ushered out the door in a mad dash for safety. Grace’s father joined her mother in an attempt to cart her away, but she fought them back, much to their bewilderment.
When she finally broke free, she ran for the two men and threw herself between them, risking her own neck. Carter immediately jumped back and lifted his sword out of the way so he wouldn’t harm her. Before she could shout her declarations of love for James, he grabbed her from behind and pulled her toward the exit with the pistol barrel pressed against her temple.
“If anyone follows, she dies!” he shouted. Grace wasn’t afraid. Not anymore.
Commodore Carter, at a loss of how to proceed, simply watched as Grace was taken hostage by the pirate. Again.
Once outside, James pulled her out of sight and they escaped down alleyways and away from the streets of Kingston that broke out into mayhem over the crisis at the church. Joyful tears welled up behind her eyelids as the weight of the world fell from her shoulders at last. Every tense muscle, every aching part of her injured soul felt mended now that James was back and their hands were clasped together so tightly. Soft laughter leaked out from her lips as they entered the forests of wild Jamaica, fleeing the men who were hunting for her now.
When all was silent and they were well out of danger from the commodore and his troops, James stopped and turned to her. Grace wouldn’t waste another second longer and leapt at him, her arms about his neck and lips pressed to his. This time, unlike the first, he didn’t draw back in repulsion. This was a true kiss, one bursting with the love and affection she had felt for him since the beginning. The love that never wavered for an instant, not when he shoved her across the deck of The Burning Rose or when she discovered the truth that he wasn’t human. She needed this kiss to be her way of telling him that all was forgiven, all offenses forgotten. This kiss was her sole confession that she needed him all along, that she accepted everything he was.
James held her close, entwining his fingers in her tightly bundled red hair. One by one, he pulled out the pins that held every lock in place and it all came tumbling down around her shoulders, just as it was meant to.
“I’m sorry for the way I treated you that day,” James said softly as he pulled away from their passionate kiss. “You have to know that – “
“Oh, shut your gob,” she said before kissing him again to silence his apologies. She didn’t need them. Not anymore. He came back for her, proving that he did care. He did want her. “Where’s your ship?” she asked, eager to leave Kingston and never come back as she intended so long ago.
James gave her a contrite smile. “Well, the ship’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Aye,” he said. “I gave it to Patrick. It’s a long story.”
Grace let her fingers caress the back of his neck beneath his dark hair. “I want to hear all of it. I’m just so glad you came back.”
“I’m sorry I ever left in the first place.”
“You’re here now, and that’s all that matters,” she said with a grin before indulging herself with just one more kiss. “Take me away from here,” she pleaded. “I don’t care if we go in a rowboat, a sloop, or in the bilge of a merchant galleon. Let’s
just go.”
James eased back. “I thought you said you hated sailing? Besides, the sea is no place for a lady.”
Grace shot him a sassy look. “My place is by your side, Devil Dog. And I sincerely hope you didn’t give up The Burning Rose because you thought I didn’t belong there.”
A new light glimmered in his eyes, one that rekindled all the promises he had given her that night they first met. Promises of adventure far away from the safety of home and family. That was what she had always wanted. James was all she wanted.
Epilogue
Bart ignored the surprised look on the helmsman’s face as they neared the lonely sandbar. Miles off the coast of Hispaniola, he had relied solely upon his wolf’s extra sense to locate Will. Ever since he was picked up by the French merchant ship near San Juan, Bart knew he had to find Will. From what he gleaned from the old cook who brought him dinner on his last night aboard The Burning Rose, the younger loup-garou was bound to be around this area he had told them to navigate to.
He had been right.
He found Will sitting atop the splash of white sand with the Caribbean isolating him from any real hope of escape. If a friendly merchant or even a fishing vessel were to stumble upon him, Bart doubted they would have taken him on. The crazed, hungry, golden glare would have been enough to send any sailor running.
Mentally counting the days, Bart knew the loup-garou must have been starving. Which made this endeavor that much more hazardous.
He slapped the back of the Frenchman at the wheel. “Ease her in and I’ll go fetch him,” he said in perfect French.
“Monsieur,” the helmsman protested, “this man may be dangerous.”
Bart had already donned his gloves before he picked up the pair of shackles. “That’s why I have these.”
The helmsman laughed. “You think that will hold him?”
“I’m counting on it.”
He had personally paid the silversmith on Santo Domingo to ensure that the inner cuffs were covered in the bane of all loups-garous. The hard part would be to get them on Will, and he hoped that whatever these men saw would not be spread all over the Caribbean.
The Pirate (The Legacy Series Book 5) Page 15
