by Howe, Cheryl
“It’s all right. Sam took care of the guards at the backdoor.” He leaned forward and had the audacity to try to kiss her. Really, he thought too highly of himself as a womanizer.
“Sam?” She turned her face to the side, avoiding mouth-to-mouth contact at all costs. When she realized who Sam was, she also learned he could hurt her more than he already had. “Samantha Linley!”
“Be quiet. Sam’s having an affair with the officer in charge of the prison. They’re upstairs right now. You met him at the Linleys’ party. He makes sure the back door is unlocked and unguarded for their meetings.”
Felicity stared at Drew, too shocked to speak. Was this a common occurrence for him? Did he expect her to take up with one of his crew after he was done with her? “It’s amazing she finds the time.”
“They meet on Tuesdays when Philip is engaged elsewhere. She made special arrangements for tonight, but we have to hurry.” He tried to push her toward the cell door, but she stepped out of his reach.
“I didn’t realize you two were still so close, but I suppose I should have after our last conversation.” Her throat tightened. She swallowed down the emotion.
He turned and grabbed her shoulders, holding her in front of him. God, but it looked like he intended to try and kiss her again. She tried to jerk from his grasp but he held her still. “I’m not exactly sure why Sam helped me, but I think it might have something to do with her feeling a little trapped herself. Though, I wasn’t too surprised when she stopped by my cell on the way to see her soldier. Sam thrives on stirring her husband’s temper. She brought me some food and told me when the back door would be unlocked. Nothing more.” He squeezed Felicity’s arms and lowered his voice. “Things were done with Sam and I before I ever met you, but even when we were together, neither of us had any illusions about love.”
Felicity shoved him hard. She had no wish for him to stare so earnestly into her eyes and tell her of his shortcomings again. “I have no desire to hear about your relationship with—” He stopped her by putting a finger over his lips. “Shh. Don’t want to wake up the others.” He paused. “Or maybe we do?”
He reached down and scooped up a handful of keys. “We’ll let the others go, too.” He pulled a few keys off the ring and tossed them to her.
She scrambled to catch them. “They are killers and God knows what else. Besides, we don’t have time.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her from the cell. “It’ll give us more time. It will be a diversion.”
She didn’t want to do it. Damn him. How could he go from woman to woman so callously? Linley? And why had he accepted Samantha’s help to escape and not her own? “No. I won’t release them.”
He strode to the nearest cell and tried different keys in the lock. “Oh? So your father was a killer, was he?”
She scooped up the file from the dirt. By the time he found the right key, she could open all the locks. Let him free all the prisoners. Let him sleep with whomever he pleased. All she wanted to do was get out of there and then remove herself from his company permanently.
She shoved Drew aside. The nearest prisoner stood by the door, not asking questions, just eager to be released. She sprung the lock in seconds.
Drew squeezed her shoulder and whispered much too closely to her ear, “I knew there was a reason I liked you so much.”
Tears sprung to her eyes, but she distracted herself and him by quickly opening the rest of the cells. He might like her, but he’d never love her. Apparently, he liked Samantha Linley also, and who knew how many others. He probably didn’t even notice who filled his bed. It was a wonder he kept the names straight.
When she stumbled, Drew pulled her down the long corridor and up the stairs. The freed prisoners, even the bundle of clothes that sprouted legs and a shaggy head, followed without having to be told. Felicity wanted to jerk away from Drew. His touch was torture. Unfortunately, she couldn’t navigate the stone steps with his speed unless he helped her. She wondered if Samantha melted at Drew’s slightest caress as she did. Damn him for being such a thorough lover.
At the top of the stairs, Solomon held the door open for them. “A cart’s waiting.”
Drew hauled Felicity up the last steps and into the alleyway.
Solomon closed the door behind them and they all rushed to climb into the bed of the wagon. Unruffled as usual, Solomon didn’t even blink at the extra ten passengers. After the last man had climbed aboard, Drew lifted Felicity onto the cart.
“Stay here,” he said, then sprinted around the cart to talk to Solomon, who held the reins of the two nervous horses.
Felicity sat up on her knees so she could see over the bodies crowded around her. Solomon’s stance warned her he wasn’t happy with whatever Drew was telling him. Both he and Solomon swung their gazes in her direction, giving her the distinct impression their argument had something to do with her.
A light flared, then steadied in a window above them. Wooden shutters were closed against the night, but the lantern light seeped through the slats, throwing more attention on them than they needed. Solomon jumped into the driver’s seat and Drew sprinted back to her. Felicity slid against the man next to her, making room for Drew. Apparently, whatever they had been discussing wasn’t as urgent as their immediate need to be away from the prison.
Drew pushed Felicity’s head down while he tried to draw the tarpaulin over her. “Obey Solomon. I’ll see you on the ship.”
She grabbed his wrist, preventing him from covering her with the dirty canvas. “No. Come with us.”
The shutters from above swung open, banging against the building. Both their gazes jerked to the window. A man hung over the edge. With the light at his back, they couldn’t see his face, but blond hair hung around broad, naked shoulders.
“Bloody hell!” his curse echoed in the alley.
Drew used the moment of surprise to wrench free from her grasp and step back “Go, Solomon.”
“Get in the cart,” Solomon’s hoarse words sounded as desperate as Felicity felt.
Drew took a few more steps away from them. Felicity reached out her hand to him. “Please. Get in the cart.” Instead of the shrill demand she had intended, her voice sounded weak with fear.
He shook his head and continued walking backward, watching her as if he were trying to memorize her features. A shaft of moonlight fell on his face, and she realized his left eye was blackened and his lip cut. He’d been beaten since she last saw him.
“I lied in the prison. I do love you.” A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth that wasn’t swollen. “I hope I get the chance to make you believe that. If not…” He let the sentence he suddenly seemed unable to complete drift off. “Either way, I’ll make sure you’re safe.” He tore his gaze away from hers. “Go, Solomon!” he said through gritted teeth, then turned and ran down the cobblestone alley.
She sat on her knees, too stunned to do anything but watch him go. To turn to Solomon and demand he do something meant she’d have to take her eyes off Drew. That he’d said he loved her only gripped her heart with the renewed force of pain. Hearing those words wasn’t worth watching him run away.
The door to the prison banged open, forcing Felicity to dart her gaze in the direction of the sound. The slap of reins against horseflesh, followed by wheels crunching sand on cobblestone, drifted over her in unnaturally slowed time. She could no longer see Drew, and hoped neither did the half-dressed man now standing in the middle of the alley.
He paid no attention to her or the cart pulling away, but kept his gaze on the place where Drew’s white shirt had last been visible in the thick night. After a few half-hearted paces while pulling a red coat over his bare shoulders, he turned again to the cart.
Felicity fell back on her heels when a wheel hit a rut in the cobblestone. The urge to slip off the cart, while she still could, had her gripping the wooden side in indecision. The soldier turned back to the prison and Felicity knew he would sound an alarm. Why did Drew run away on foot? He
’d surely be captured unless she could stop the soldier from alerting the others.
Before Felicity could do anything, Samantha Linley slid through the open door. Her dark hair swayed around her shoulders and the silk of her cream-colored gown caught the light from the window. She blocked the soldier’s way and kept him standing in the alley with a deep, long kiss. Perhaps she would gain Drew only a few more minutes, but that might make all the difference.
Darkness enveloped the cart as it drew farther from the prison. Only the couple’s shady silhouette remained visible until they abruptly parted. Samantha rushed in the direction of the cart. At first Felicity feared she was coming after them, then she thought she might be trying to warn them. When it came to Drew’s life, Felicity would take any ally she could, even one as questionable as Samantha Linley.
Samantha abruptly darted between two buildings lining the alley, a space barely visible in the dark, and Felicity spotted the glint of metal off the unlit lantern on Samantha’s waiting carriage. A flash of insight tightened Felicity’s chest. Was that how Drew planned to escape—hide in Samantha Linley’s carriage?
The wooden cart driven by Solomon careened around the corner and onto Broad Street. Felicity slipped under the canvas tarp not wanting to be spotted on Barbados’s main thoroughfare. She huddled against the other prisoners, her heart still pounding in her ears. The urge to peek from underneath her cover to see if Samantha’s carriage pulled into the street tempted her. Knowing that Drew’s best chance for escape lay with Samantha Linley, filled Felicity with a stomach-churning combination of hope and dread.
He’d said he loved her before he left, and everything in her wanted to believe him. When her habitual doubts tried to raise a damning chorus, all she had to do to snuff them out was recall the look on his face before he disappeared down the alley. He’d sacrificed himself for her safety more than once, and if he wanted to try to prove to her that he truly loved her, she’d give him all the time he needed. And though it was the hardest thing Felicity had ever had to do, she stayed hidden because Drew asked her to, and she trusted her heart while knowing full well there was a strong possibility she’d never see him again.
Chapter Twenty-three
Felicity trained the spyglass on the crowd surrounding the scaffold. The soft roar reaching her on the deck of the newly painted Rapture confirmed they were eager for a hanging. She hoped they would be disappointed.
When her father tried to wrestle the telescope from her, she slapped away his fingers and scowled. Drew’s continued absence tried her sanity. Her father would just have to wait.
He rubbed his knuckles and returned her glare. Time in gaol had roughened his soft temperament. “Give it here, daughter. I’m just as anxious as you to know what’s going on.”
Grudgingly, she handed over the leather tube. They were all on edge. “We should do something. Perhaps I should go down to the dock to—”
Solomon’s baritone voice was as firm as his solid presence behind them. “No one leaves the ship until the captain’s return.”
As hard as she tried, Felicity had been unable to pry any information from Solomon after they’d returned to the ship. Her pleas for answers regarding Drew’s disappearance were met with monosyllabic grunts, though she suspected he knew much more than he let on. The only explanation she received was that Drew had had unfinished business.
Scanning the growing crowd from the deck of the Rapture only increased Felicity’s fear. What had been so important that he had had to leave her? He said he loved her and wanted to make her believe it. Being by her side in the flesh would have been proof enough. He didn’t need to run off on some mysterious errand. She feared he’d left to save them from being caught with Barbados’s most-wanted fugitive and had decided to get back to the ship on his own. Had he failed? Why was there a crowd around the scaffold if he’d escaped?
With her naked eye, she could barely distinguish the wooden scaffold from the blur of people gathering for El Diablo’s hanging. The excited buzz wafting over the distance seemed to promise the entertainment would take place as scheduled. “I can’t bear this. Do you know for sure that he wasn’t recaptured, Solomon?”
Solomon’s tone held the familiar calm that at the moment tempted Felicity to shake him. “A good strategist does not waver from his plans at the first tingle of doubt. All will be well.”
Having Drew in her life however briefly was a gift. Discovering that he truly loved her had been a miracle. But she’d gladly give up the latter just to know he was safe.
“I see something!” Her father’s voice held all the panic Felicity felt.
She yanked the spyglass away from him, raising it to her eye before he could grab it back. Immediately, she spotted Drew, and her worst fears tightened her throat like a noose. Watching Drew hang would kill her as well. “There he is!” She pointed with her free hand. “They’re leading him to the scaffold. Solomon, please, do something.”
“May I see the telescope, Miss Kendall?”
She didn’t respond. Her gaze remained riveted on the scene below. A blindfolded man, flanked by a guard, was led in chains to the scaffold. The dark, shoulder-length hair teased by the trade winds told her more than she wanted to know. As if that weren’t proof enough, Drew wore the same stained clothes he’d had on at his capture and their escape last night.
She trained the glass on his face, trying desperately to hold back tears that would blur her vision. Below the black swath covering his eyes, his cheek swelled red and purple, and a cut from his lip oozed fresh blood. Something had gone terribly wrong after Drew had left them last night.
“Give me the telescope.” Solomon’s words were a command.
Felicity slapped the tube in the quartermaster’s waiting palm, hoping he’d finally do something once he saw with his own eyes the seriousness of the situation. “We have to act now. I won’t let him hang.”
“Did you notice the condemned man’s guard?”
“There was only one by his side, but I’m sure there are more soldiers around. We’ll need every man if we want to take Drew by force. Perhaps we should fire a cannon into the crowd.”
Ideas ran through her head like shooting stars, but all were just as fleeting. The odds were against them, but she would not give up. She would forfeit her own life before she would watch Drew die.
Her father gently touched her arm. “Solomon will handle this. He won’t let anything happen to Drew.”
Solomon took her shaking hand and wrapped it around the telescope. “Drastic measures will not be necessary. Take another look at the man beside the prisoner.”
She lifted the telescope to her right eye and closed her left. The blindfolded prisoner had reached the scaffold. He appeared to be babbling. Faint jeers from the crowd drifted toward them on the wind. They appeared to be laughing at what he was saying. She hated to take her eyes off Drew even for a moment but forced herself to look at the guard.
He was impossibly thin. Sandy hair fell limply across his pale face. He bore all his weight on his left leg, as if his right side pained him. He shifted and grimaced. Recognition hit her in a wave. In all the turmoil of the past weeks, she’d forgotten to ask if her patient had recovered. Apparently, he had. “Avery Sneed,” she said to herself as much as to Solomon and her father.
“I don’t think Mr. Sneed would be escorting our captain to the hangman’s noose. Do you?”
Solomon sounded as if he’d moved away. When she turned to find him, her movements were blocked by a solid chest. Strong arms encircled her waist, closing the distance between them with a squeeze that robbed her of her breath.
“I’d have Avery whipped with the cat-o’-nine-tails if he ever even thought about it.”
She squirmed, trying to look into her captor’s face. An oversized tricorn hat sporting a mauve plume covered the top of his painted face, but she’d recognize the voice anywhere. She tore off his hat and long white wig in one swift motion.
Sea-green eyes sparkled down at her
with amusement. “I take it you don’t like my borrowed clothes? Sorry. I had to loan out the ones I had on.”
She wrapped her fingers in his hair and pulled him down for a deep kiss. “You scared the bloody hell out of me.” She kissed him again. “Who’s being hanged?” she asked when she finally let him go.
Drew kissed her back, quick and hard. When he lifted his head, he laughed in deep, melodic tones. “I hate to tell you this, sweeting, but you now have more paint on your face than I do.”
“I don’t give a damn.” She pulled him down for another kiss to prove it. “Now, answer my question.”
Drew wiped paint from the tip of her nose and answered, “El Diablo. Who taught you how to curse like that?”
“The Devil,” she whispered against his lips. Her hands played in his hair.
“What else did he teach you? Perhaps we should go to my cabin so you can show me.”
She put her palms against Drew’s chest to push him away from her. “We should leave before that crowd realizes there isn’t going to be a hanging.”
Drew rested his hand on her shoulder. “There will be a hanging. But we should still make a hasty departure. Solomon!” Drew turned away from her. “Are all the men accounted for besides Avery? He’ll lie low for a few days, then meet us in the Bahamas.”
“Aye, Captain. I’ll be glad to see the last of Barbados.” Felicity heard the relief in Solomon’s voice and wondered if he had been as worried as she.
Her father brought the spyglass to his eye, scanning the shore. “I think they’re going to hang that man, Drew. I don’t want to see an innocent killed.”
Drew retrieved the wig and hat from where it had landed on the deck. “You won’t. My brother is getting nothing less than he deserves. He killed Marley and Beatrice. And my father.”
Felicity caught the edge of anger in his voice, but suspected the hurt and betrayal that went deeper. She slid her hand into his. “I’m so sorry. Did he hate you so much?”
