Rory glared at him in astonishment. “You cannot make the Windwards in this storm. We’ll be blown to shore, if not to pieces. We’ll have to try for Jamaica.”
“It’s no good, Maclean. She won’t make Jamaica in one piece. I’ve got friends in St. Domingue. We’ll shelter there.”
“Friends! Those French renegades will slit your throat if they see you’re helpless. Friends don’t count when it’s war and there’s a prize to be won. I’ll take my chances on the storm.”
“’Tis easy for you to say when it’s not your ship. I’m taking her in.”
Rory was too loyal a seaman to breech a contract. Without another word, he stalked off to locate his weapons.
He allowed Alyson to sleep undisturbed. There was nothing she could do against weather or pirates. There was very little he could do.
The storm hit with the first sign of land. A breaker half the size of the mainmast crashed against the stern, sweeping tons of water across the deck, splintering weakened wood, and leaving men clinging to anything nailed down. A gust of wind caught the gaff mainsail before it could be furled, and the vessel lurched dangerously to starboard.
The heavy clouds seemed prepared to engulf them. The brief dawn darkened again as the foundering ship limped toward shore. No one dared mount the rigging to right a loosened spar, and with the loss of a lateen, there was little control over direction. The wind sank its teeth into every spare inch of canvas and ripped at it with violence.
“Ship ahoy!” came the cry from a battered sailor clinging to his roost on the mainmast. Rory glanced in the direction indicated and clenched his fingers around the hilt of his sword. This was where Margoulis would be proved right or wrong. If he did not mistake, the ship idling to leeward of the jutting coast of St. Domingue bore French colors.
There was no question of a fight. Crippled, short-handed, the crew exhausted by the night’s travail, they could offer little in the way of defense. Without giving a second thought to Margoulis and his beleaguered crew, Rory headed for the cabin and Alyson.
She was dressed and waiting for him, her pale face pinched with fear, her dark brows drawn together in almost a single line as she scanned his face. Beneath the heavy fringe of lashes, her eyes were entirely gray without a hint of blue. Rory had learned to be wary of that look. It foretold anger or premonition. He didn’t need the Sight to tell him of the dangers outside.
Her relief at his return disappeared as he made no attempt to don his shirt, but only secured his broad sword and tucked an ivory-hilted dagger into his breeches. She stared at him wordlessly.
Alyson’s silences were as evocative as another woman’s tirades, Rory decided. He planted himself against the wooden door and pinned her with his gaze. “The ship is foundering off the coat of St. Domingue. There’s a French ship out there. Margoulis claims he is welcome here. I’m none too certain of his claim.”
“What will they do with us?” Nervously, she ran her tongue over dry lips.
She had no notion of how the sight of that small pink tip slayed him. Hunger drove through him like a stake. He hid his despair as he drowned in her Scots beauty, for he was certain no part of her English heritage tainted this vision. Hair black as the coal of the hills, eyes the color of a Highland mist, complexion as fair as the mountain snow, she was his home. He would not lose her again.
“Hold us for ransom, I suspect. Steal the cargo, of a certainty. But perhaps I am being a doomsayer. I just don’t intend to take chances.”
They could hear the bumping and grating as the two ships ran abreast, then the unmistakable rattle of grappling hooks. The ship seemed to shudder and shake, then sigh with surrender. The shouts above did not sound welcoming.
“You are not a doomsayer,” Alyson said, lowering her gaze.
A piercing scream from above confirmed their fears. Rory cursed, and his jaw tightened. A man died up there, not yards from where they stood. Foes, then. Not friends.
Booted feet trampled the gangway without any roar of a fight. They were boarded, and the captors had come for the loot. A woman as beautiful as Alyson would be parceled out as a valuable along with what gold and cargo they carried. Rory’s fingers curled over the hilt of the sword with the certain knowledge of what he should do, but when a hand shoved against the door at his back, he spun the sword in the direction of his attacker, not toward Alyson.
The grinning, rapier-wielding Frenchman at the door did not elicit a single scream from the woman at his back, but Rory could feel her tension. The pirate’s dark eyes assessed the danger of approaching Rory’s mighty broad sword in a narrow space, and he opted for assistance.
When the pirate’s shouts brought two of his mates, Rory cut through their leering threats with the voice of command. In the French learned as a student many years ago and polished only in the waterfronts of the Atlantic, Rory demanded, “We will see your captain.”
They laughed at this, but the dangerous arc of Rory’s sword caused them to fall back and regroup. The longest weapon between them was the rapier, and a Scots claymore would easily break that in two. Rory knew it was only a matter of time before they sought out firearms, but he hoped to gain some authority first.
He was grateful that Alyson chose to hide at his back. She could not hide her wide skirts, nor her presence, but the men did not yet know whether they dealt with child or dowager, and curiosity kept them entertained. At Rory’s repeated command, the rapier-wielding pirate laughed and ordered one of the others to fetch someone by the name of Courvais.
The buccaneer who arrived topped Rory’s height and breadth, undoubtedly accounting for his leadership among his smaller crew. The scars of hard living marred one side of his face, and the thin line of his lips gave evidence of a cruelty their other tormentors had not exhibited. Rory abandoned all hope of reasonable compromise, but fate had left him little choice. One bullet would put an end to him, and the French captain wore a pistol in his belt.
“The lady is an heiress whose fortune lies in my hands,” Rory announced in his lamentable French. “We are worth more to you alive than dead. But understand this: harm one hair of her head, and I will not give the order that would release your ransom. Kill me, and there will be none to sign the order. Do you understand?” His French was poor, but not so poor that the man did not understand. The greed leaping to his eyes was unmistakable.
Rory thanked the heavens that Alyson had no understanding of French. The lewd noises and whistles were understandable in any language, however, and she clung to his arm as they walked the gauntlet of the main deck to the plank that served as access to the other vessel.
Rory wrapped his arm around her and pulled her head against his chest when he saw Margoulis and his officers tied to the mainmast. Undoubtedly the remainder of the crew had decided to side with the pirates. In these waters, it wasn’t unusual. The men lived from day to day, hand to mouth, heeding no loyalty. Any leader would do. But the officers would be a subversive quality and thus expendable. There was nothing Rory could do for them, even when he saw the pile of debris set afire at their feet.
He relinquished sword and dagger, and in return his captors allowed his hands to go unbound as they walked past the bound crew. He had to use this limited freedom in Alyson’s behalf. She was the injured party here. Margoulis had risked her life. Rory offered him no sympathy.
Rory feared his own actions were little better than the same gamble, but he could not have drawn the sword across Alyson’s throat any more than he could have placed it to his own. Should he lose as Margoulis had done, he was throwing away both her life and honor.
They were led down into a dank, unlit hold and shoved into the narrow confines of a cell, which was luckily unoccupied by the usual drunken or insubordinate sailors. The door slammed behind them with only a minimum of speculation on who would have the lady first. The dividing of spoils was already going on overhead.
Alyson retreated to the far corner of the smelly space and stared at him with wild-eyed fear. For some
one who had once been inclined to show no emotion, she had made amazing progress, Rory thought wryly. All thanks to him, he imagined.
“What did they say?” she demanded.
Although terrified, she still turned to him with some semblance of trust, a trust he did not deserve. She could have no idea of what lay ahead of them, and Rory had no words to tell her. The depressing stink smelled of a prison for condemned men. He belonged here. She didn’t.
“They are holding us for ransom,” he answered curtly.
Wisely, she did not ask of the others. The smoke of a burning ship would penetrate even these depths before long. The rain was holding off, and the wind would sweep the flames through Margoulis’ vessel as quickly as the wave that battered it earlier. With the storm approaching, the pirates would not even attempt to carry the captured vessel to shore. If they had any intelligence at all, they would be sailing for the nearest protected cove.
That the pirate ship was under way, Rory could tell, but the argument above did not bode well. The giant of a captain might argue in favor of ransom, but his younger, more hot-blooded crew would have other ideas. Women were few and far apart; ones like Alyson were nearly nonexistent. Only the captain’s prowess in commanding order would stand between Alyson and certain rape.
Alyson crossed her arms and shivered as if she had read his thoughts. Pale eyes turned beseechingly to him, trusting him, pleading to him for reassurance, and something inside Rory snapped. He should have killed her while he had the chance. His guilt had brought her to this, and his indecision would destroy her innocence. The thought of Alyson’s trusting innocence given up to the repeated debauchery of the filthy swine above broke the few remaining threads of sanity.
When he heard shots fired above and footsteps on the ladder, he swung around, and with the force of his body behind the blow, hit Alyson squarely under the chin.
22
Like a wounded dog, Rory crouched beside Alyson’s body. The footsteps in the gangway had retreated. They had been anchored offshore for some time, and no one had come for them. There had been more shots, and he no longer heard the angry commands of Courvais. If there had been a mutiny, he had no hope. Raw anguish tore at him. He should have killed Alyson when he had the chance.
The blast of cannon broke through the brawl, followed by howls of fury. He had noted cannon on deck, but it did not make sense that the mutineers would fire on empty sea or their own ship. Margoulis couldn’t possibly have cut himself free and sailed after them. Rory could think of no other mad enough to brave the storm.
Heavy anchor chains rattled in the hold. Surely the madmen didn’t mean to set sail? The ship heaved wildly even in this protected bay, and the timbers shook and squealed in the wind. Had they been fired upon from shore?
The cannon roared again. This time Rory felt the shudder of the ship as a ball veered off the stern. They were being fired upon!
Rory dragged an unconscious Alyson into his arms. Sinking would be preferable to the fate that otherwise awaited them. He tried to imagine what a life with Alyson would have been like, but he had no experience in his adult life to compare it with, and his imagination failed him.
Alyson moaned and stirred, and Rory held her tighter. Would she hate him in heaven, or would she understand and forgive? An angel would forgive, but Alyson was a very human angel. If he could not forgive himself, he could scarcely expect her to. He had wanted too much, and as a consequence, he had lost all.
The firing above was sporadic as ships fought each other and the wind. Chaos apparently commanded the buccaneers. Whoever fired upon them had picked the perfect time to attack. Unfortunately, they seemed to be shooting very badly.
Weary in body and soul, Rory wrapped Alyson in his arms and buried his face against her hair. He waited for death, no longer certain if God existed or if it mattered. He had been wrong about everything he had done since he had first met Alyson. Possibly he had been wrong about everything he had ever done in his life. He had never been meant to be a white knight to rescue fair maidens. If they did not sink this ship soon, he would take leave of what remained of his senses.
By the time the firing stopped, Rory had no surprise left in him. Fate or God had made him the puppet of a giant joke. His strings were being pulled by an invisible hand, guided by a cruel mind. When he realized the pirate ship was being boarded, he merely waited to see what would happen next.
The sight of the blue and white-braided coats of His Majesty’s Royal Navy on the seamen bashing through the locked door seemed only fitting.
Rory brushed a stand of ebony hair from Alyson’s forehead, then rose to his feet, holding her draped across his arms. Those strands that had come loose from their combs hung nearly to the floor, but he was aware only of her shallow breathing. He had accomplished nothing but his own destruction. Perhaps that would be best for Alyson in the end.
The officer looked at the defiant stance of the half-naked auburn-haired man clutching the lady in his arms and hesitated. There was something mad behind those dark eyes. Just as he would not attempt to remove a bone from a mad dog’s grip, he made no attempt to remove the man’s burden.
“Captain Rory Maclean?” the officer inquired. At Rory’s nod, he added, “I have orders to place you under arrest, sir. If you would come with me . . .” To his relief, the madman followed without protest.
On deck, a civilian broke away from the troops securing the ship. The wind howled through the masts, but his roar of rage could be heard over the storm. “He’s killed her! The scoundrel’s killed her! I want him hanged! I want his head right here and now!”
Rory halted where his guard indicated and awaited his fate. His gaze moved with disinterest over Cranville’s less than immaculate appearance. The man appeared to have undergone a dramatic change in the last few months. Gone were the fashionable wig and expensive silk coat, replaced by the earl’s thick dark hair and a more practical broadcloth coat with no adornment but a cravat. The lazy, bored expression of a spoiled dandy had hardened into the fury of a tormented man. Overall, Rory rather approved of the difference.
“Call the surgeon! Get her to a bunk. She’s still alive.” The officer wearing a captain’s insignia shouted his commands.
He ignored Rory until the physician arrived. When Rory relinquished his burden without protest, the captain yelled over the voice of the storm, “Well, Maclean, it looks like we’re well met, wouldn’t you agree? You have your lucky stars to thank that we spotted that fire.”
“Don’t welcome the bastard,” Cranville snarled. “Hang him.”
The captain shot the earl a mild look of reproof. “He must be brought up on charges and tried. If he is guilty, he will be hanged with all due process.” Turning to Rory, he emphasized, “I’m certain once the lady recovers, she will be willing to testify against him.”
Rory met the man’s gaze without flinching. “My wife will do as she thinks best, but I believe legally she cannot be made to do any such thing.”
“Wife! You scum! If you think you’ll pass off some heathen ceremony as a marriage . . .”
Rory’s impassive glare halted the earl’s tirade. “The governor sent the marriage papers to London in his official packet. Signed and witnessed copies are aboard the Sea Witch. You may verify it directly in Barbados if you intend returning there. The lady is my wife. I will recommend her into your care, Captain, not to this scoundrel’s.”
Since the prisoner was behaving with more gentlemanly aplomb than the irate nobleman, the captain nodded agreement.
As the wind raged about them and the waves threatened to toss the two ships into the black sea, Rory’s hands were tied behind his back and the small party returned to the navy frigate.
***
Alyson stirred and groaned. Her head pounded, her stomach felt queasy, and her throat was parched. Her jaw ached, and she settled back against a welcoming softness with a whimper.
A rustle indicated she was not alone, but she could not wake to any desire to discover
the person’s identity. A moment later, she heard voices at the door, and a second presence entered, a much larger presence, but she was too tired to care. She sank once more into a deep, protective sleep.
“Well, how is she? Can she talk?” Cranville searched anxiously past the surgeon’s shoulder to the discolored face lying unconscious against the pillows. “Wake her, Buscombe. I cannot bear it any longer.”
The surgeon turned away to lay his hand across the patient’s cool brow. “Neither can she, my lord.”
Cranville stared at his cousin’s delicate features with anguish. This was the result of his unthinking actions, and he hated it. He didn’t like himself very much either. She had been little more than a child when he had all but driven her from her home and into the arms of a scoundrel. His poor attempts to right that wrong had failed.
For the rest of his life he must learn to live with the torment he had caused her. He had to find a way of rectifying his mistakes, and he would begin by making the man in the hold pay for what he had done.
The next time Alyson woke, she felt darkness and silence. Not a real silence. Rigging creaked, canvas flapped, but she heard no voices. Sighing with relief, she opened her eyes.
The dim starlight from the porthole only illuminated shadows. The lurch and sway of a ship at sea told her where she was to some extent, but the cabin did not seem familiar.
She lay still, summing up the various aches and pains. None of them equaled the savage pain ripping at her heart.
She had known Rory would bring her pain from the very start, but she had persisted in her fantasy of love. She doubted if love existed. Survival seemed to be the main purpose of life. Well, she had survived. What now?
By morning she was aware that someone sat guard outside the cabin door. Desperate for water, she attempted to speak but only a hoarse croak emerged. Lifting herself on one elbow, she gazed down at her chemise-clad body. Somebody had removed her skirts, but not her petticoats, and the blanket had been pulled up to her neck. Her captors were obviously modest people, but she would prefer to see if she were still in one piece.
Moon Dreams Page 23
