Island Flame

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  “Thank you, gentlemen, very much for providing me with an escort,” she said rapidly, catching first Harry’s hand, then Petersham’s. “I’m sure you must be anxious to get back to your duties. Don’t let me detain you any longer.”

  The two men stared at her, then catching the warning in her eyes solemnly shook her hand and started to turn away. They had done all they could for both Cathy and Jon, and now knew that they must think of their own skins.

  “Wait!” the young officer ordered suspiciously as the two men started back up the cliff. Harry and Petersham stopped, but before anything else was said Cathy whirled on the man.

  “Lieutenant, I said that I require you to escort me to that ship immediately! I do not have time to waste while you bandy words with these men!”

  The lieutenant stared down at her, undecided. He had no way of knowing if she was who she claimed to be, but he did remember hearing that a Lady Catherine something was either dead or captive at the hands of these pirates. If she were the lady in question, it behooved him to obey her commands. Apparently she had some powerful friends at Court.

  “Immediately, Lieutenant!” Cathy’s words cracked like a whip, and the officer visibly started.

  “Yes, my lady!” he stammered, and turning back to his men ordered them to prepare a boat for her ladyship and look sharp about it! In the confusion, Harry and Petersham were able to escape unnoticed.

  When the boat was ready the lieutenant handed her into it reverently. Cathy almost gnashed her teeth at his pomposity. Even now Jon might be being hanged!

  “Please hurry!” she exhorted the rowers, standing in the prow of the small boat while it skimmed through the white-capped waves toward the huge frigates. When they at last reached the ship where the hangings were taking place, Cathy directed them to pull up beneath the ladder snaking down the ship’s side while she caught it. Once her hands and feet were firmly positioned on the ropes, she was up it like a monkey. Fear for Jon’s safety made her impervious to fear for her own. As she reached the top, eager hands reached down to haul her the rest of the way aboard. She was set on her feet on the deck, barely conscious of the interest in the dozens of pairs of masculine eyes turned her way.

  “And what might your business be on the Lady Chester, miss?” a gruff voice demanded roughly.

  “I demand to see the captain of this vessel at once!” Cathy said sharply, fear clogging her throat as she saw the limp bodies of men who had already been executed and were now stacked in neat rows against the Lady Chester’s rail. A funeral service would be read over them after the last of the hangings, and then their bodies would be consigned forever to the sea. Cathy was just able to restrain herself from rushing over to the corpses and examining every face. After all, if Jon were among them she could not help him now, and if he wasn’t speed was of the essence!

  “Oh, you do, miss?” the voice, sounded amused, and Cathy turned her most ferocious glare on its owner.

  “Yes, my good man, I do! I am Lady Catherine Aldley, and these brigands have been holding me captive! I believe you will find that your captain knows very well who I am, and will be most sorry to learn that I was not immediately conducted to him!”

  Under her freezing look the stocky, grizzled bosun’s mate visibly wilted.

  “Yes, ma’am!” he responded smartly. “If you’ll come this way, ma’am!”

  Head high, back ramrod straight, Cathy sailed after him through the crowd of sailors who had been detailed to watch the hangings. Halfway across the deck a cannon roared, so close that Cathy felt deafened by the noise.

  “What was that in aid of?” she snapped, hurrying her pace so that she was beside her perspiring escort.

  “It’s a signal to the guards to bring out the next batch of prisoners for hanging. We can do five at a time, my lady!”

  The pride in the man’s voice sickened Cathy. She had come to know and like men like those being hanged, and had discovered that, despite their unsavory occupation, they were really no different from men anywhere. Suddenly she was devoutly thankful that the Margarita’s crew were safely away. They had become her friends, and it would have pained her to watch them die.

  She turned sharply at the sound of marching feet behind her to see a score of sailors bringing the condemned men to the makeshift gallows. The prisoners were blocked from her view by their uninformed guards, but some sixth sense froze her in place. An instant later she was thanking God that she had stopped. On a rickety platform, hastily erected beneath an overhanging spar, hands tied roughly behind them and blindfolds covering their eyes, stood the five parties who were soon to be hanged. Third from the left was Jon. And a blackhooded executioner was placing a noose around his brown neck.

  Eleven

  Stop!” Cathy wanted to scream, but the words wouldn’t come. She could only open and shut her mouth soundlessly, like a fish out of water, her throat closed up with pure terror. Her limbs seemed frozen to the deck, refusing to carry her across to where Jon stood with that horrible rope around his neck. Oh, God, this was worse than any nightmare! They were just moments away from hanging him, and she could neither speak nor move!

  A hand caught at her arm, squeezing familiarly, and Cathy suddenly recovered the use of her limbs and whirled viciously on her assailant. The vituperations quivering on the tip of her tongue died a quick death as she stared up into the grim, tired, but suddenly vastly relieved face of her father.

  “Cathy!” He made the words sound like a prayer. “Cathy, child, I thought you were dead.…”

  “Papa!” Cathy cried on a note of thanksgiving. “Oh, Papa, thank God! You have to stop them from hanging that man!” She pointed to Jon. The sailors about them turned at her desperate plea, their faces curious. Cathy didn’t care. She was beyond feeling embarrassed or thinking of the proprieties. Jon was the only matter worth considering.

  When her father just stared at the blindfolded man, making no move to go to his rescue, Cathy shook his arm frantically.

  “Papa, hurry! Oh, God, please hurry!”

  “Is that the man who abducted you?” Sir Thomas asked viciously, his eyes never leaving the man on the gallows.

  “Yes! Papa, stop them!”

  “Let them hang him! Hanging’s too good for the dog! I’d like to draw and quarter him! I want him to suffer as he’s made you suffer! Bloody bastard!” Sir Thomas flashed a hateful look to where Jon stood, too far away to hear Cathy, pale and quiet as he nodded in answer to the earnest questions of a priest. As Cathy and her father watched, one horrified and the other gloating, the priest made a sign of the cross over him and moved on to the next man, where he started to repeat the ritual.

  “Papa, you have to stop them! He’s the father of my child!”

  “What?” Sir Thomas cried, his voice cracking with pain and outrage.

  “I’m going to have his baby! Oh, Papa, I don’t want my baby’s father to hang! Please stop them! Hurry!”

  Sir Thomas stared at Cathy for a full minute while she thought she would go mad. The priest granted absolution to the last of the five and stepped back. The drum roll that preceded all executions began.

  “Papa, please!” Cathy begged urgently, clutching at her father’s arm. It was too late now for her to appeal to the captain of the Lady Chester. If her father would not relent, what was there left to do?

  Sir Thomas’s eyes moved from her pleading face to the man on the gallows and back again, his lips compressed in a straight line.

  “Papa … !”

  “Halt!” His deep, authoritative voice rang out. “I want that man, third from the left, brought to me for questioning! Cut him down!”

  The executioner hesitated with his hand just above the lever that would send the five men swinging into eternity, and looked to the officer in charge for confirmation of the brusque order. The officer identified Sir Thomas with a glance, then nodded curtly at the blackhooded man. With a shrug that clearly renounced all responsibility for what he was about to do, the executioner lifted
the noose from Jon’s neck. Cathy felt a lump rise in her throat as she saw the broad shoulders, which had been held rigidly erect in anticipation of the coming ordeal, slump a little. Two of the armed sailors dragged Jon down from the makeshift gallows and led him roughly away, still bound and blindfolded. Cathy turned to Sir Thomas anxiously.

  “Where are they taking him?”

  “To the brig, I imagine, until I send for him. He’ll be quite safe.” The bitter mockery in her father’s voice made Cathy wince.

  “Papa, I can explain …” she faltered uncertainly, wanting to ease the hurt anger in his eyes. He grimaced, catching her arm.

  “I’m sure you can, daughter, but I think you had better do it in private. We seem to have attracted quite an audience as it is.”

  He glanced scathingly around at the grinning crowd of men who were listening unabashedly to their exchange. Cathy saw the lecherous looks being cast over her, and realized, sickeningly, that by her own words she had branded herself whore. An unmarried woman who was with child, no matter what the circumstances were, could be nothing else according to the morals of the time. She held her head high as she moved with her father to the stairway that led below, but could not control the crimson flood that rose to stain her cheeks. Behind her the execution went on. She flinched at a hoarse scream that resounded across the deck; it was followed by the sharp cracking sound of necks snapping. Cathy shuddered, her hand tightening convulsively on her father’s arm, bile rising in her throat and threatening to choke her. Despite the irretrievable ruin of her reputation, she could not repine over what she had done. Better for her to be spat upon forever than for Jon to lose his life. But the shame wasn’t hers alone to bear. There was her father.…

  “Papa …” she began in a small voice.

  “Hush,” he bade her gently, pushing her before him down the stairwell. “You can tell me all about it when we’re in my cabin.”

  Sir Thomas, as an extremely rich and influential man, had been given the best cabin on the ship. As he allowed Cathy to precede him inside she was taken aback a little at its luxury. Compared to Jon’s neat but spartan accommodation on the Margarita, this cabin was positively opulent, almost embarrassingly so. Her eyes flickered as she considered what Jon’s reaction would be to such elaborate comfort. He would sneer, she knew, at the plush carpet and velvet drapes, the fine furniture and crystal ornaments, just as he had once sneered at her expensive clothes. Cathy looked at the ornate room with his eyes, and felt faintly uncomfortable.

  “Now, child, I want you to tell me everything that happened,” her father directed, his eyes grim as he directed her into a chair and took the one opposite her.

  Cathy swallowed, blushed, and obeyed to the best of her ability, leaving out only the most intimate parts of her relationship with Jon. She emphasized that he had been kind to her, seeing that she was adequately fed and sheltered and protected from all harm. Describing how he had risked his life to save hers in Cadiz, her eyes glowed lovingly, although she was unaware of it. Sir Thomas, however, took full note of her expression, and his own eyes narrowed. She told about Jon’s terrible wounding, and how she had nursed him, and her father’s eyes narrowed even more. Cathy became suddenly aware of his quietly rising anger, and broke off. He was silent for a long moment, staring blankly at the opposite wall. She fidgeted finally, and he looked at her.

  “Are you sure—that you’re with child, I mean?” Sir Thomas asked in a carefully neutral voice.

  Cathy felt the hot, betraying color flood her cheeks again. In her present condition, she could be nothing but a liability to the father who had always been so proud of her. Sir Thomas Aldley’s daughter with child by a pirate. … Cathy could almost hear the malicious talk. It would destroy her father as well as herself.

  “Yes, Papa. I’m sure,” she managed, not quite able to meet his eyes.

  Sir Thomas saw her shame and his heart quickened with protective love for her. She was, after all, his daughter, and what had happened to her was not her fault. Fierce hatred rose in him for the man who had been vicious enough to visit such degradation on a seventeen-year-old virgin, a well brought up young lady. He thought of his own role in saving that man from a well-deserved death, and his eyes glittered. But he had just granted the pirate a temporary reprieve, he promised himself. For now, his daughter’s happiness and good name had to be his first concern. But later …

  “My child, you have no reason to look so distressed,” Sir Thomas said soothingly, catching her small hand in his and patting it. “Your condition came about through no fault of yours, I know. The child you carry was conceived through a brutal act for which you cannot be held accountable. We must now take steps to safeguard your reputation. It was unfortunate that you had to blurt out the news within hearing of every sailor on the ship, but I believe that we can remedy that mistake. Now, Cathy …”

  Cathy was feeling a resurgence of nausea. Plainly, in glossing over the intimate details of her association with Jon she had misled her father. For Jon’s sake, he had to know the truth, no matter how much it might pain him.

  “Papa,” she ventured hesitantly, her eyes on their clasped hands. “Papa, it wasn’t rape, you know.”

  “What did you say?” Sir Thomas exploded after a stunned instant.

  “Jon—Jon didn’t really have to force me, Papa,” Cathy whispered, feeling more humiliated than she ever had before in her life. “I—I was willing.”

  “My God, do you know what you’re saying?” Sir Thomas leaped to his feet in agitation, glaring angrily down at his daughter. Cathy looked up at him, going almost as white as her dress.

  “Yes, Papa.” Her voice was low, but her eyes met his steadily. Sir Thomas’s florid face got even redder. Cathy bit her lower lip, but refused to drop her eyes.

  “The bloody bastard!” Sir Thomas breathed finally. “I’m glad I stopped them from hanging him! He’s going to pay.…”

  The ugly light in her father’s normally placid blue eyes alarmed Cathy. She stood up too, then swayed as a spasm of giddiness hit her. Sir Thomas reached out a hand to catch her, and Cathy clung to him, her eyes wide and frightened.

  “Papa, I love him.”

  She looked like death, and Sir Thomas couldn’t bring himself to berate her further. Even if the bastard hadn’t actually forced her, he thought furiously, an experienced man would have little trouble seducing an innocent young girl. What he had done was no better than rape. Cathy must be made to see that. She couldn’t be allowed to continue thinking that she was actually in love with such a man!

  “Daughter, this man is considerably older than you, is he not?” he began gently. He realized that condemning her affection for the pirate out-of-hand would only serve to alienate her.

  “He’s thirty-four,” Cathy replied faintly, sinking back down into her chair. Her father’s sudden volte-face surprised her. She had expected him to rave for hours.

  “I thought so.” Sir Thomas sounded as if his gravest fears had been confirmed. “Have you reason to suppose that he loves you?”

  “Well …”

  “Has he ever said so?” Sir Thomas pursued. A keen glance at Cathy’s flushing face told him that he was on the right tack.

  “N-no,” she had to admit. Her eyes dropped to study the rich red carpet, against which her sandal-shod feet looked totally out of place.

  “I thought not,” Sir Thomas sighed heavily and resumed his seat, once more taking Cathy’s hand. “My child, a man of thirty-four, especially an unprincipled brigand, will have known scores of women in the biblical sense. Any feelings you may have aroused in him were no novelty to him, believe me. But you, on the other hand, totally innocent, sheltered from men, you mistook your very natural physical awakening for love. It’s normal for a young girl to imagine a deathless romance with the first man who makes her a woman. Haven’t you noticed yourself that many young ladies who despise their husbands before marriage soon grow attached to them? Why do you suppose that is, daughter?”

&nbs
p; Cathy thought. What her father said was true. She had known girls who had wept at the idea of marriage only to appear later to be perfectly resigned to their fates, and even fond of their husbands. But.…

  “It’s not like that, Papa,” she said determinedly. “I really love Jon. He’s handsome and strong, and he can be very gentle and sweet.…”

  Her father gave a rueful bark of laughter.

  “Of course he’s been gentle and sweet with you, my poor child. Pleasure for a man is much enhanced by a willing partner. I know. I myself have used that technique on a female to ensure her compliance with my wishes. And the sweet young things have all supposed me to be madly in love with them, while in actual fact it was no such thing. A man doesn’t dishonor a woman he loves, and a woman would be well advised to use the degree of respect a man accords her as a gauge of his true feelings.”

  Sir Thomas was satisfied with the effect of this speech. Cathy appeared to be struck, and if he could have somehow known her thoughts he would have been happier yet. It’s true, she was thinking. Jon did prefer me when I was willing. Was his tenderness just a ruse to get me to accept his lovemaking? She could only judge by the depth of her emotions for him, but her father’s words had opened even her own feelings to suspicion. Was what she felt for Jon really love, or was it the natural reaction of a young female to a handsome male? How could she be sure?

  Seeing that he had given her food for thought, Sir Thomas wisely said no more on the subject. Instead, he turned his attention to an even weightier problem.

  “Cathy,” he said at last, startling her out of the maze she was lost in. “We must get you wed, child. As I see it, that’s the only thing that will serve to restore your reputation.”