In the Arms of a Pirate (A Sam Steele Romance Book 2)

by Michelle Beattie

  “Then put me in the brig.”

  Aidan’s head snapped back. “I will not put you in the brig.”

  Squawk. “In the brig. In the brig.”

  “Does anyone else have the key?”

  He narrowed his eyes. What was she up to, now? “No.”

  “They all agreed to take me in order to lure my father to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then there’s nothing to be lost by putting me there. Not only do you have the sole key, it will allow you to rest comfortably and it will also show them, similar to putting me to work, that I am only what you say I am, leverage.”

  Again, he couldn’t fault her reasoning. And if there were grumblings amongst his men, putting her in the brig would go a long way to alleviating their concerns. But he didn’t have to like it.

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “I am. Besides,” she said, her eyes bright as her smile. “I’ve never been in a brig before.”

  Chapter Nine

  When Sarah had suggested the brig, she’d truly been excited about the idea. For one, she would feel better knowing Aidan could rest on a soft bed rather than a hard deck. Secondly, for someone who’d been locked in the same house and yard her entire life, the thought of being in the brig was an adventurous one. Of course that was because she knew she wasn’t a true prisoner and her stay would be brief but, nonetheless, it would be an experience she’d never had. She was smiling when Aidan locked the door behind her.

  He didn’t look near as sure or happy as she felt.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “Rest. You don’t need to hurry on my account.” She sat on the short stool he’d brought from the galley. “See? I’m perfectly fine.”

  He walked away shaking his head, clearly thinking she was out of her mind.

  Sarah clapped her hands together, tapped her feet. It was a dingy space, certainly nothing that should excite her. Pinched between secured barrels of supplies stacked to the height of her shoulders on one side and a small enclosure that held a goat and two long cages of chickens on the other, the brig was little bigger than the berth in Aidan’s cabin. And it didn’t smell nearly as nice.

  Though the galley was at the other end of the deck, the smell of eggs and onions lingered. It blended with the musty smell of wood, the stench of goat and chickens. It certainly was not an enjoyable combination but she was not so delicate that she couldn’t endure it for a few hours. However, with only the stool to sit on Sarah was glad she wasn’t a true prisoner, as one would have little option but to sleep on the floor. Eyeing the stream of urine meandering from the goat’s pen, Sarah moved her feet. There were some experiences she could do without.

  It wasn’t long before the heat of the day warmed the confines below. Perspiration dampened her neck and trickled between her breasts. She sat on the stool until her buttocks numbed then circled the small cell, which only served to warm her further. The pungent smell intensified and Sarah found herself hoping Aidan didn’t rest too long. Sitting again, she grabbed hold of her skirt and flapped it around her ankles. The small current of air was a relief and she closed her eyes, humming as she fanned herself.

  “If it were up to me you’d have nothing to hum about and you can be sure you wouldn’t have that stool either.”

  Sarah startled. Her eyes shot open and she dropped her skirts. She hadn’t seen this man before; he hadn’t been among the men with Aidan when he’d invaded her home. Looking at the tall man’s seething expression, hearing the snarl snap in his voice, Sarah wished she didn’t have to see him now. Even knowing he couldn’t reach her, Sarah moved further back into her prison.

  “This is the only part of the ship you should be allowed to sully.” He spat on the floor. “Captain lets you sleep in his cabin. Can only be for one reason.” His chuckle crept through the bars and slithered over her skin.

  Sarah held her tongue. It was clear his only intent was to foul the air with his contempt.

  “Your father is the scourge of the Caribbean. The devil himself will rejoice when Santiago is dead.”

  Sarah managed not to flinch but the words struck her heart. To these men, he was filth and rubbish, but to her he was the only family she had ever known. Even though Aidan’s intent had been clear from the beginning, knowing she’d lose her father if they succeeded in their quest did not make it any easier to accept. The truth lay heavy in her heart.

  He stepped closer, wrapped his hands around the bars. “Your father killed two good men whom I considered my friends.”

  “I’m not responsible for my father’s actions.”

  “Ah, yes. That would be the same song our captain is singing.” Hatred twisted his sharp features. “You may have him fooled but you’ve not fooled me. You have your father’s blood. It’s only a matter of time until you’re as putrid as he is.”

  That very seed of doubt had been planted when Aidan had told her what her father had done to his mother. If he’d truly done something so vile, then wasn’t a part of her also capable of evil? Not wanting to give this man the satisfaction of seeing her doubt, Sarah came around the stool. She wasn’t fool enough to get within reach of his grasp but she nonetheless refused to cower before him.

  “I do not believe,” she said with a steady voice, “that I am the putrid one.”

  His lips peeled back, revealing long, yellowing teeth. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the bars.

  “Aye, Peter!” Someone yelled from the direction of the galley. “You were supposed to help me move this barrel, mate!”

  “Your father’s head isn’t the only one in jeopardy.” He growled, pushing back from the cell. “You be careful now, a ship can be a dangerous place, especially for a woman.”

  Sarah held her ground, met his mutinous gaze with the haughtiest she could muster given her trembling knees. Her heart was trying to kick its way out of her chest but, luckily, he couldn’t hear the pounding that filled her ears. Still, he must have known her bravado was a ruse because he chuckled, stepped forward again, angled his mouth to fit between the bars and spat toward her.

  She hopped back to avoid the spittle.

  With a last parting glare, he left her alone and made his way toward the galley where he was greeted with a ‘where in hell have you been’.

  Sarah’s breath stumbled from her lungs. From the moment Aidan had made his reason clear for invading her home, she’d known both his and his crew’s contempt. Over the course of the two days in the house, Aidan’s disdain had lessened. He’d spoken kindlier to her and had shown her small courtesies such as letting her past the garden walls to stroll the beach.

  But even if they hadn’t shown the same change of attitude, they hadn’t threatened her either. Sarah’s hands slid to the base of her neck. She wasn’t simple; she knew he’d meant her head when he’d spoken of others in jeopardy. Just as she knew he intended to do the harming, though he’d been careful not to say so directly. No doubt he was protecting himself in case she were to take his threat to Aidan.

  She had no intention of doing such a thing. He wanted her scared and feeling guilty. She was both those things but he didn’t need to know and running to Aidan would only confirm his opinions of her. Opinions, she fumed, that had no base on fact. He knew nothing of who she was, what she wanted out of life. Instead he was condemning her for her parentage and threatening her life because of it. When she’d had as little say in that as she had in how she’d been raised. Frustration pushed her to her feet and she kicked the stool across the small cell. It wobbled across the floor and smacked against the bars. Though she’d never had reason to be bloodthirsty before, she found herself wishing that had been Peter’s head rebounding off the steel.

  It was only a matter of time until she was putrid as her father, he’d said.

  The uneasiness that she could be like her father resurfaced, only this time she didn’t push it aside, she held
it and examined it. Certainly, there had been times of anger and frustration in her life. When her father wouldn’t listen to reason, wouldn’t allow her any of the freedoms she was desperate for. When Simmons and Mrs. Bingham, no doubt on her father’s orders, patted her on the head like a child, refused to look at her as an adult. When every time she turned around, there was a staff member there, watching her, ensuring she wasn’t doing anything she wasn’t supposed to.

  Yet even then, she hadn’t wished them harm, hadn’t schemed and planned to hurt them. With Sophia, she’d been careful not to harm her and she’d left that note ensuring—though she wasn’t so certain now—the maid wouldn’t be punished for Sarah’s escape. They may not know her, but she knew herself and she wouldn’t allow anybody’s opinion of her to cloud what she knew as the truth. Sarah straightened, faced the bars though Peter was gone.

  “I’m a good person,” she said. “It’s you who needs to look in a mirror.”

  Feeling better, Sarah grabbed the stool. With the swaying of the ship the stream of urine crept closer. Wrinkling her nose, she placed the stool as far away as possible and sat.

  Sarah knew she was naïve to the ways of the world. How could she not be, having been kept from them? Yet there was no denying her father’s guilt any longer. She’d heard too much to discount it. Clearly, he’d done violent, vicious things.

  But why? To what purpose? Did he feel remorse? Any at all? She desperately wanted answers and she needed to hear them from his lips. Aidan didn’t think her father would tell her the truth if she asked, but there was only one way to know, wasn’t there? Perhaps she’d see the truth in his eyes, if she didn’t hear it in his words.

  Sarah settled back against the bars to think. It would be hours yet until Aidan awoke and came for her and she intended to use her time wisely.

  Aidan had already told her he wouldn’t give her the opportunity to question her father, that if he had a chance to kill him he would. Therefore, she needed to get to her father before Aidan did. A tricky situation to be sure, given she had no idea how to make it happen.

  *

  Aidan lay on his back, ankles crossed and hands stacked beneath his head. His eyes were closed, but sleep was a distant speck on the horizon. When Samantha had given up piracy, married Luke, and the three of them had moved to St. Kitts, Aidan had come to sleep with Carracks in his room. At first, he hadn’t known why he’d wanted the noisy bird with him at night but he’d soon come to understand. At the plantation, he’d always been with the other slaves, on Sam’s ship there’d been the crew but it wasn’t until he’d had his own bedroom that he’d realized he couldn’t sleep without someone or something else with him.

  He hated feeling alone.

  He’d never admitted it to Sam or anyone and thankfully Sam had never discovered the truth. Or if she had, she’d kept it to herself. It could explain why she’d given him the parrot when he’d taken on as first mate alongside Cale. At the time, she’d told him it was to remind him of the family that loved him.

  Little did they all know he’d only been leaving one family to sail with another.

  His sigh echoed off the walls of his cabin. A worry for another time. If he thought of Cale now, he’d never get to sleep. Although sleep didn’t appear imminent anyway. Even with Carracks pacing the perch in his cage, with the odd rattle of beak against bars, with not having slept all night, sleep eluded him.

  Because Sarah Santiago was not what he’d expected her to be.

  Grace had told him Sarah was doted on, that Roche gave her anything she wanted. Well, that certainly had proven false as she’d been denied the one thing she wanted most, freedom, the opportunity to have a life outside the garden walls.

  While waiting for Roche’s arrival, Aidan had gone through the man’s home. Roche’s office was a large, rectangular space of pure opulence. Priceless statues posed on tall pedestals. His desk was an ocean of ivory marble and intricately carved wood. Art decorated the walls in heavy, gilded frames. Aidan’s knowledge of art was limited to what the teachers Sam found had taught him but he, like most, had heard of the legendary da Vinci and Michelangelo. He’d have bet the Revenge the drawing of a woman’s head he’d looked at was a da Vinci.

  And so, after the embarrassment of riches that was Roche’s office, carried further with silks and more paintings in his bedchamber, Aidan had expected to find similar luxury in Sarah’s rooms.

  Instead, he’d been surprised.

  Certainly the gowns in her wardrobe were the latest fashion and her bed had also been draped in rich, dark silks. However the art gracing her papered walls wasn’t crafted by one of the greats but rather signed by her own hand. Intrigued, he’d lingered over them.

  Full, bold-colored blooms such as what grew in the gardens would have been expected. Perhaps a ship on the sea as seen from a distance, a sunset of burning colors.

  There had been none of those. Rather she’d drawn a woman sitting on a bench, holding a small mound of dirt with a seedling sprouting from it. The sky above was grey and dismal, the grass at her feet dying with thirst. The trees at her back nothing more than skeletal trunks and twisted, bare limbs. Her eyes looked directly at the observer and within them there was determination, a fire that her abysmal surroundings hadn’t yet extinguished. She would plant that sprout and damned if he didn’t believe she would find a way to ensure it thrived.

  Where that painting had little color save the green of the sprout, the one on the other side of her canopied bed was an explosion of it. He could almost hear the rain forest within it breathing. Bubbles of dew glittered on the various sized leaves in greens ranging from the palest avocado to the richest emerald. One drop hung by a breath, its shape stretching from round to oval as it clung those last few moments before plunging into the undergrowth of ferns and hibiscus, plum-colored orchids the size of an apricot.

  Toward the corner of the portrait, suspended from a gnarled branch, a veil-like cocoon lay empty while the newly hatched butterfly spread its glistening wings. Beating red and lemon yellow covered the top half of its wings while within the sand brown of its lower wings what appeared to be two blue eyes winked at him. At first glance, he only saw the one butterfly but when he stepped closer, looked further into the painting, he saw what she’d hidden. To the right, to the left, up in the opposite corner and down at the bottom, he caught more glimpses of red poking out of the green.

  The best, to his estimation, was the painting hanging over the dresser. A mermaid, her jeweled-scale tail curling out of gentle waves, frolicked with dolphins. Two leapt behind her, their sleek grey bodies arching gracefully over the sea. Another two faced her, thin streams of water spurting into the air toward her. Her head was tipped back, the long, wet ropes of her dark hair trailed over her shoulders and floated on the water. She was laughing and her arms were spread wide.

  Thinking back on it, every one of her paintings was about life. Despite the fact she herself hadn’t had much of one, she’d depicted life from the struggle of it, the beauty of it, to the joy of it.

  And remembering that mermaid as though he was still staring at it, he saw the sensuality of it as well.

  He doubted Sarah had intended it to be sensual, erotic. Yet the more he envisioned it, the more he saw only the mermaid. The arch of her neck, which begged for a man’s fingers to dance over the creamy flesh, from chin to the swell of breasts that rose out of the water. The droplets of seawater clinging to sun-kissed, bare shoulders invited a man’s lips to lick, taste. Savor.

  The mermaid’s eyes had been open, but he imagined them now closing, her laugh turning to a sigh as tongue and teeth worked their way around her shoulders, to the base of her neck while clever hands slid beneath the water’s surface.

  At the time he’d seen a mermaid. Remembering it now, it was Sarah he saw in the water.

  And thinking of Sarah naked, smelling her on his pillow, stirred his blood and ensured sleep would not find him.

  “For God’s sake man, don’t think of Sar
ah naked,” he scolded himself.

  Squawk. “Sarah naked. Sarah naked.”

  Aidan hissed, turned his head and glared at the bird. Carracks tilted his head as if to ask what he’d done wrong.

  Aidan heaved out a troubled breath. It wasn’t Carracks’ fault. It would all be so much simpler if she were like Roche, then he wouldn’t have this dilemma. He wouldn’t be teased by her scent, fresh and innocent. He wouldn’t feel the need to give her little pleasures such as manning the helm, touching sand. He wouldn’t like her.

  And damned if he didn’t.

  If only she were mean and ruthless like her father. But he’d read the letter she’d left for Roche on her dresser. Aidan had been surprised that she’d taken full responsibility for getting the maid drunk and within it she’d pleaded for his leniency. Aidan snorted. A few words would never be enough to keep Roche from inflicting pain. Or death.

  No, she wasn’t in the least similar to her father. She’d even asked to be put in the brig, demanded that he put her to work in order to alleviate the concerns of his crew. To keep them from questioning him as captain.

  She didn’t have to do any of it and yet he didn’t question her motives. Hadn’t he already been witness to her honesty? When he’d caught her escaping on the beach she’d told him she didn’t have another weapon on her. When she’d admitted to trying to escape, and again when she’d told him she’d never touched sand. If she told him she wanted to be in the brig and be put to work to help him with his crew, then he was inclined to believe her.

  She was beautiful, honest, and, despite how he felt about her father, he was attracted to her. He’d loved seeing her smile on the beach and again when she’d taken the helm. He’d loved knowing it was his actions that had made her happy.

  Aidan dropped an arm across his eyes. Cursed his luck.

  Why did the first woman who stirred his heart have to be the daughter of his greatest enemy?

  This attraction, this pull toward her could go no further. He would not spare her father. His mother would be avenged and Aidan would see justice for what Roche had stolen from him.