Once a Pirate

by Susan Grant

  Blast! She was like a spark in the powder room, and twice as dangerous.

  “Well?” she asked, propping herself on one elbow.

  “I think not, milady. I have no time for frivolous pursuits.”

  She lay back down. “I bet you’re fun when you loosen up.”

  He gave a quick, surprised laugh. She was nothing like the women he had known. His chilliest retort did not intimidate her, nor did anything else he threw her way. He rather enjoyed not having to tread carefully for fear of frightening her.

  “Come inside before twilight, milady,” he said in the sternest tone possible. Then he strode off with one purpose: to put as much distance possible between himself and temptation.

  “See the red . . . duh-ah-guh. Dog.”

  “Good job, kiddo.”

  Theo grinned as Amanda ruffled his hair.

  “Now let’s try this.” She scratched more words onto the slate and propped it on her lap. “Go ahead. Make me proud.”

  Theo drew his finger over the slate. “That one I don’t have to sound out.”

  “So what is it, smarty pants?”

  “Pilot.”

  “Very good!”

  Amanda ducked as Theo swerved both hands past her head in what the lad called a mock air battle.

  Andrew chuckled. Observing the lessons was a pleasant addition to his daily routine, and he’d been loath to miss a single one.

  “I’ll be reading the captain’s books next, won’t I?” he heard Theo boast.

  The boy probably would, at that. Any sailor who could read and write was a valuable addition to the crew—there were logs to be kept, ledgers to be gone over. Had anyone told him last summer that the scraggly orphan he’d found on the docks would soon be reading and working with figures, he would not have believed it. It was a pleasure to be proved wrong. Until Theo joined the crew as his cabin boy, there had been nothing but misery in the lad’s short life. And now that Amanda had been taken aboard, the boy had blossomed, thriving on the maternal attention she so generously gave him.

  Lord knows, a boy needs a mother.

  Something deep inside Andrew stirred. Time alone with his mother had been rare. Her life had not been her own, for the demands on a duke’s mistress were enormous. Subsequently, as a child, he’d endured long periods of loneliness.

  Cuddy settled beside him, a rolled navigation chart in his fist. “The lad’s turning into a regular little gentleman, ain’t he?”

  “Aye. After only a month, she’s taught him to read and write.”

  “Patient, she is. And sweet. Not at all what I’d expected.”

  “Nor I,” Andrew confessed. God’s truth, the last thing he’d expected was that he’d develop tender feelings for the chit. “Perhaps not all aristocrats are cut from the same cloth.”

  “’Tis what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Cuddy said, a hint of a grin tugging at his mouth.

  “Worthless waste of human flesh, the vast majority,” Andrew said sourly. “But the lady had a sheltered upbringing. She hasn’t had a chance to be ruined yet.” He took the chart from Cuddy, unrolled it. “Give her time.”

  Amanda cried out more words of praise and stood, hugging a blushing Theo to her chest.

  “Lessons are over,” both men chorused.

  Cuddy said on a sigh, “Perhaps I could beg a reading lesson or two myself.”

  “I do not believe Theo would be inclined to share.”

  “Then you must step in. As the captain, you have the crew’s morale to consider. I ask you, sir, is it fair that only the lad has her full attention every morning?”

  Propping the chart on the railing, Andrew yanked out the wrinkles to better see the figures Cuddy had written. “Your duties as first mate keep you too occupied for lessons you do not need. However, if you desire more tasks heaped upon you, I shall be happy to oblige.”

  Cuddy pointedly ignored him. “How ‘bout yourself? Whether you need lessons or not, rank has its privileges. The way she looks at you—“He fluttered his lashes and pursed his lips.” ’Tis an invitation.”

  Andrew lowered the chart. “God’s teeth, man, you’ve been in the sun too long.”

  But there was more truth in Cuddy’s words than Andrew cared to admit. By keeping his mind focused on the business of revenge, he hoped to bury his highly improper physical and emotional attraction to her. “She’s good with the lad,” he said casually. “Her children will be lucky indeed.”

  “Aye. As lucky as Richard will be, having her as a wife.”

  Andrew blinked away the unwelcome image Cuddy’s remark conjured. He pretended to study the marks denoting latitude and longitude, but all he saw was Amanda with Richard, in his arms . . . his bed. Was Richard capable of fidelity, of tenderness? Certainly, he was a stranger to compassion. Andrew scowled, feigning concentration, while reminding himself not to allow Amanda’s future welfare to concern him. After all, he wasn’t changing her fate, simply profiting by it.

  “I say spend some time alone with the lass,” Cuddy said. “She’s not Richard’s yet.”

  “You’re as mad as she is!”

  “Aye, she has a colorful imagination. Her stories alone will keep you entertained for hours. Has she told you of the buildings in her fanciful cities of the future? Hundreds of feet tall, thousands of people housed inside.”

  “My point precisely, Mr. Egan.” Andrew returned his attention to the chart. Though he dared not admit it, he found Amanda’s imagination fascinating. Particularly her comments on the theories and possibility of human flight, the study of which had inexplicably fascinated him all his life. A woman willing to discuss scientific imponderables and natural philosophy? In all his life, he hadn’t thought such a creature existed.

  A repetitive rasping sound tore into his musings. “What is that infernal noise?” He directed his irritation with Cuddy’s meddlesome banter at Theo, who had settled beside a coil of rope. The boy wore an intense look of concentration on his face and had laid Amanda’s odd leather coat in his lap. “Theo! Cease that . . . sound!”

  Theo’s eyes blazed with wonder. “You ought to see this, sir.” He thrust the coat toward him.

  Andrew recoiled, held up his hand.

  “’Tis called Velcro,” Theo explained cheerily. “It holds the patches in place. ’Tis sticky, but ’tis not.”

  Cuddy chimed in. “An ingenious invention. Even more so than the zippers. Wee hooks and eyes fasten together—”

  “I’m not interested in fanciful inventions from any of the colonies, thank you.” Andrew handed his first mate the wrinkled chart. “I’ll see you at the helm shortly.”

  Cuddy clicked his heels together and strode off toward the main mast.

  Andrew gripped the sun-warmed railing and looked out over the water, not to admire the gentle swells, but to scan what lay ahead with seaman’s eyes. The slowly undulating water shimmered silver in the heat, and for days now the horizon to the south had been crowned with distant purple-gray peaks. The thunderstorms were the border of the approaching doldrums, the equatorial zone where the trade winds died. A ship could languish for weeks, or months, in the doldrums.

  Thankfully, their crossing north had been swift, and he prayed the return journey to Emerald Isle would be as well.

  Gradually, his tenseness dissolved, as it always did when he sought the horizon. The endless, open expanse of the sea—he craved it, went half-mad without it. Yet, even with the horizon before him and a fine wind filling the sails, his thoughts circled back to Amanda, and to her father.

  Lord Paxton was said to be a devoted father, not the sort who would knowingly give such a free-spirited daughter to a vicious, callow man who played with people like toys, a man for whom murder was a casual act.

  Worse yet, Andrew was a partner to this madness. Amanda deserved to be cared for, protected. Instead, with his help, she was being sold to the highest bidder.

  Unexpectedly, her laughter rang out, sending sparks of light into the gloom of his soul. Cuddy was
chatting with her—flirting, more likely.

  Amanda laughed again, smoothing pale wisps of hair off her forehead. Glancing away, Andrew tried in vain to shrug off the familiar gnawing ache.

  She was not his, he reminded himself. She would never be his, and by summer, she would be out of his life forever.

  “In Calleo there lives a gal whose name is Serafina.

  She sleeps all day and works all night in the old Cally Marina.

  Serafina! Serafina!

  She guzzles pisco, beer, and gin. On rum her mum did wean her.”

  Carly rocked back on her heels and laughed at the song. It was wash day. The men had brought up their damp and dirty clothes, from stockings to trousers, to wash them in a tub on the deck. After the clothing had been scrubbed, and the garments been towed overboard for an hour, Andrew sent her to the cabin while the men bathed. When she returned, she barely recognized the lot of them.

  Now the men were hanging their clothing from the rigging to dry, entertaining themselves, and her, with one chanty after another.

  “Serafina’s got no shoes—I been ashore an’

  seen ’er.

  She’s got no time to put them on, that hard-worked

  Serafina.”

  Carly laughed and glanced across the deck to Andrew. He was slouched on a wooden chair in the sunshine some distance from the men, his feet propped on a barrel, a book in his lap. In a ludicrous contrast to his handsome features, his glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, bestowing the hardened warrior with a sexy vulnerability.

  “How about something spicier!” she called out when the song ended.

  Delighted, the men laughed. Andrew removed his glasses and captured her with a long, indecipherable stare. She certainly enjoyed teasing him with her carefree and very un-nineteenth-century ways.

  Jonesy asked, “Will Barnacle Bill do ya, miss?”

  “Clean it up some, first,” Cuddy warned.

  “Aye,” Jonesy said. “The ladies’ version.”

  “Not the watered-down version,” Carly protested. “Give it to me straight.”

  Cuddy and Andrew exchanged glances.

  “Blush once and ’tis over,” Andrew said, then resumed his reading.

  It was nice, for once, to have someone watch out for her, even if it was over something as simple as a song. Only she wasn’t going to let herself get used to it.

  It wouldn’t last.

  Jonesy belted out a lively ballad. Carly climbed atop a barrel to listen. The shadow of the main mast hovered over her neck and shoulders. The breeze held steady, teasing tendrils of hair from her braid, tickling her sun-warmed cheeks as she rested her chin on her knees.

  “‘Who’s that knocking at my door? said the fair young maiden,’” Jonesy sang in a hilarious falsetto, deepening his voice for the next stanza, then alternating as he switched between the man’s role and the woman’s.

  “‘It’s only me from over the sea, said Barnacle Bill the Sailor. Hurry ‘fore I bust the door. I’ve newly come upon the shore, and this is what I’m looking for.

  “‘Oh, your whiskers scrape my cheeks, said the fair young maiden,’” Jonesy warbled, to the men’s laughter.” ‘My flowing whiskers give me class, says Barnacle Bill the sailor. The sea horses eat them instead of grass. If they hurt your cheeks they’ll tickle your—’”

  “Jonesy!” Andrew yelled, ending the risqué ditty.

  Carly pressed her palms to her cheeks and swung her gaze to Andrew. “Okay, so I blushed.”

  “Mr. Gibbons,” Andrew said, “sing for us, if you would be so kind.”

  While the men brought up buckets, mops, and brooms to clean the deck, Gibbons crooned a melody about a woman left alone, waiting for her man to return.

  Alternately singing and telling tales, the men scrubbed and scraped the decks, railing, and furniture until the ship gleamed and the sunset transformed the sea into an endless, undulating sheet of gold.

  In the deepening twilight, the men gathered on the deck to mend clothes, smoke their pipes, read, and chat. The hum of conversation and the masculine scents of perspiration and beer surrounded Carly as she gazed at the sea.

  Alarmed, she shoved aside a quiver of contentment. She must not allow herself to forget the threat of her uncertain future. Because unless she convinced Andrew that she wasn’t an English heiress in the short time left, she’d be handed over to a stranger—for money.

  Chapter Six

  “Bravo, Mr. Willoughby. That was delicious.” Carly scraped the bottom of her plate with a biscuit so she wouldn’t miss a drop of thick, spicy stew. Along with hunks of salty smoked pork, the broth had contained onions and greens from the small garden she tended near the pen where the livestock was kept. The average nineteenth-century sailor’s understanding of scurvy came as much from folklore as it did science, but Willoughby had bowed to her urging and was adding vegetables to their meals more often.

  They were nearly upon the equator. The Neptune ceremony, a traditional mariner’s rite upon crossing the line of zero latitude, was only days away. For the past hour, Willoughby had been regaling her with stories of how the custom was practiced onboard the Phoenix. In between, she’d shared her recollections of the hedonistic celebrations onboard her carrier. By combining the two, she and the cook had hatched the makings of a fine party.

  In the past, the sailors on the Phoenix had solved the dilemma of dancing without female companions by drawing sticks. Those left holding the shortest ones had to don dresses.

  “But this party will be different,” Willoughby declared, opening a small cask of beer. “No man will want to dance with another man if he can dance with a lady. You’ll be on your feet the entire night.”

  “I don’t mind a bit. I love dancing.” Carly looked forward to being the only belle of the ball. The experience was not a new one. She’d spent the last decade almost exclusively among men, two years of that time onboard the USS Eisenhower, a veritable bastion of masculinity. Although there were nurses and other female officers stationed aboard the carrier, Carly had often ended up as the sole woman in a group of men.

  Two cups of tepid beer in his hands, Willoughby joined her at the table. It seemed all she drank was tea and beer. No wonder people in the 1800s died young—their kidneys wore out.

  Carly unfolded a piece of vellum and dipped a pen into a jar of sour-smelling black ink. “Now, let’s finish up the plans for our little celebration. When we’re through, I’ll present them to Captain Spencer.”

  By the time Carly returned to the deck, the afternoon had melted into the amber-infused indigo of a tropical evening. The deck was unusually quiet, the air still. Most of the sailors were playing in—or watching—a card tournament on the gun deck.

  Carly paused to gaze at the two vast oceans—one of miles-deep water, the other a home for infinite stars. Her thoughts drifted to the dress she was making. Andrew had found her a bolt of pale coral linen in the hold. All week she’d been painstakingly tracing a pattern on some yards of sail, cutting the muslin with the sailmaker’s shears and using fishing hooks for straight pins. Her mother had sewn all her clothes until she’d learned to sew her own, and although Carly hadn’t made anything in years, she hadn’t lost her skill.

  A boot heel scuffed the planks behind her.

  “Tsk, tsk, Lady Amanda. What would yer rich mama think of ya out strollin’ all by yerself?”

  Carly whirled around. Overpowered by the pungent odor of skin too long without a bath, she slammed into a man’s hard chest.

  Black Beard!

  “Thanks for your concern,” she said, barely hiding her distaste. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Booth, I’ll be on my way.” She made no eye contact as she stepped around him.

  His fingers closed around her upper arm. Her heart lurched, and adrenaline surged through her. “Do you mind?” she snapped as she tried to wrench free.

  Booth pressed the ball of his thumb into her flesh. “What’s yer hurry?”

  “Let me go,” she
said evenly, “or I’ll scream.”

  “No ye won’t.” He slapped one callused hand over her mouth, clamped the other around both wrists, and shoved her into the dark alcove behind them.

  He pushed her backward until she slammed into a wall. The full impact of his hulking body crushed the air from her lungs. Bursts of light flickered behind her eyes. Wheezing air through his thick fingers, she tried not to panic.

  “Nice an’ private.” He ground his pelvis against hers. “Now we can play a wee bit.” He eyed her as though he meant to kiss her on the mouth. Instead, he fastened his mouth to the side of her throat, suckling hard. His breath was sharp with the scent of grog. Revulsion quivered through her. She bit his palm, crushing the salty flesh in her teeth.

  “Damn you, bitch!” He yanked his hand away, raised it.

  She braced herself.

  But he reconsidered and pressed his big paw over her mouth and nose. She made a muffled moan.

  “What’s that, missy? Ya beggin’?” He unbuckled his belt. “Me an’ the cap’n, we share an’ share alike. If he’s helpin’ himself to a piece of yer sweet ass, I’m takin’ me a piece, too.”

  She bucked wildly, raking her nails over his coarsely bearded cheek.

  Jerking back, he blurted, “Do that again, missy, and I’ll kill ya. Then I’ll take ya anyway.”

  He squeezed her neck with one sweaty hand. Her vision grayed; her pulse hammered wildly in her ears. “Do ya understand?”

  She nodded, gasping.

  Panting moist, hot breath against her throat, Booth unbuttoned his pants, freeing himself. She could feel his erection against her belly. Instinctively, she squeezed her thighs together and whimpered, hating herself for showing her fear.

  “Ya want it bad, don’t ya, missy?”

  With all she was worth, she jerked her knee into his groin. He slammed her head back against the wall. He was too big, too strong. She choked her cry of outrage, fought to keep from passing out as he rubbed himself against her belly, grunting with his sick pleasure. The wall behind her creaked with each thrust.