Captain Rourke

by Helena Newbury

  No... Not something on the floor. Something in the floor. The surface was semi-opaque, like a frozen lake. But beneath the frosted layers, I could see something small and round and green. An emerald. And when Rourke shone his dive lamp down through the floor, I saw more colors next to it. The dark red of rubies. The deep blue of sapphires. And hard, bright points of white light that could only be diamonds.

  We drew in our breath as we looked around the cave. “He spread them out for her,” muttered Rourke in amazement. “Every jewel he’d taken over the years.”

  I closed my eyes, imagining the cave as it would have been centuries ago. A carpet of jewels. Esme would have been able to roll around in them….

  Except Esme had never arrived. For whatever reason, she’d never followed the trail of clues we were following now. The cave had gone undisturbed for three hundred years and rain had dripped down, depositing minerals, slowly encasing the jewels beneath a new floor.

  “There must be a message!” I said breathlessly. “We have to find it!”

  We searched every inch of the floor and finally found the glass bottle, stoppered with wax like the others. We had to chisel it free with Rourke’s dive knife before I could read the parchment inside. I immediately went to work figuring out the references. The first one was the number of times Captain Mace had brought Esme to—as he put it—her peak, one memorable night at an inn. I knew that because Esme had written a long, detailed description of it that still made me flush every time I thought of it. Six. And the other one was....

  “The number of letters in the name they’d give to their first child, if she was a girl,” I mumbled aloud. “Harriet, that’s seven.”

  “She was going to have a bairn with him?” asked Rourke, sounding surprised.

  That brought back what he’d said that morning and my chest tightened. He still didn’t believe a man like Mace—or him—should try to make a life with anyone. I turned to him. “She loved him,” I said tightly.

  He stared back at me, half-guilty, half-defiant. “She was a bloody idiot,” he muttered.

  My chest contracted into a cold, hard knot. After everything we’d been through, he was still determined to push me away.

  I turned away and marched over to the shaft of daylight. It was coming from a narrow, almost vertical tunnel that led towards a distant circle of blue sky. I began to climb.

  Below me, I heard Rourke mutter a curse. Then those quick, uneven footsteps as he limped over to the tunnel. “Hannah!” he called. But I didn’t look down. I didn’t want him to see the way my breath was hitching, or the wetness in my eyes.

  I reached the top and hauled myself out into open air and bright, warm sun. I’d come out near the center of the island, on a grassy rise overlooking the sea. I heard Rourke following, cursing as the climb forced him to use his injured leg. He hauled himself out onto the grass and I quickly turned away. I let the wind whip past my face and willed my eyes to cool because I didn’t want him to find me all—

  A big hand grabbed my shoulder and hauled me around to face him. I looked away and I tried...but I couldn’t hide my pain from that fierce gaze. He cursed again and, when I met his eyes, I caught my breath. There was so much going on in those deep blue pools: anger at himself for having hurt me. Frustration at having to hold back. There was something he wanted to say so badly.

  “I—” he began, then just glared at me.

  My heart leapt. Say it!

  For a second, we just stared into each other’s eyes. He was so big, so strong...but in that moment, he looked absolutely helpless. He held my gaze for another second and then turned and scowled at the sea.

  I knew. I knew what he wanted to say. But I knew he never would. He’d keep pushing me away instead. My only chance was for me to find out where all this anger came from. And this was the most open and exposed I’d ever seen him.

  “You need to tell me what happened to Edwards,” I said, my voice cracking.

  He shook his head savagely.

  “Please!” I put my hand on his arm.

  He drew in a long breath, then turned and pinned me with his gaze. It was almost as if he was trying to be angry, using it as a defense. “Shouldn’t have let you on board,” he snapped. “Shouldn’t have helped you. Shouldn’t have bedded you. Shouldn’t have—” He broke off and just stared at me helplessly.

  What? My heart leapt again. Shouldn’t have what? Fallen for me?! “Please,” I begged. “Tell me.”

  His gaze softened. He opened his mouth to speak....

  Then his eyes widened as he saw something behind me. He grabbed me and threw both of us full-length on the soft grass. I landed under him with the air knocked out of me.

  Rourke pointed and I drew in my breath in shock. Ratcher’s boat was a few miles offshore and heading straight for the island.

  46

  Rourke

  We ran for the far side of the island, where the Fortune’s Hope was moored. It was downhill, the slopes steep but grassy. An easy descent...unless you have a gammy leg. I cursed up a storm as I stumbled and slipped. “Go on ahead!” I snapped at Hannah. It made no sense: she couldn’t handle the boat on her own so she’d still have to wait for me. But I didn’t care about sense: I just wanted her to be safe.

  But she shook her head, grabbed my arm, and hooked it around her shoulder.

  I snarled at her. “Let go of me! Dammit, I don’t need your help!” Just as I said it, I staggered and almost fell.

  “You help me plenty underwater,” she panted. “You’re in my world, now.”

  I cursed and we struggled on. I really didn’t understand this woman. I was pushing her away as hard as I could and she was still trying to save me. You bloody stupid woman—

  Except...she wasn’t stupid. She was the smartest, bravest lass I’d ever met. And I didn’t want rid of her. I wanted her by my side more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. The sight of her next to me, the scent of her hair as it brushed my shoulder...I felt myself softening and that was dangerous. I’d come so close to telling her how I felt....

  I had to find another source of anger. “How did he find us?” I snapped, jerking my head behind us. “No one knows we’re here. Not even Hobbs!”

  Hannah shook her head, as confused as me. We reached the shore and I sighed in relief as we began to wade. Now I was stable and she was shaky, the wet sand shifting under her feet. Without thinking, I grabbed her hand. Instantly, she looked up into my eyes. And as soon as she did that, it was almost impossible to keep looking angry and stern. Dammit!

  I glanced towards our boat. “We have to swim out,” I told her, forcing myself to snap. “Okay?”

  She nodded, but suddenly hesitated.

  I blinked, then looked at the Fortune’s Hope again, this time seeing it with her eyes. I’d had to drop anchor a quarter-mile offshore: I knew she could swim that far but...for once, we were swimming out into the open ocean. The horizon was empty.

  And huge.

  God, it was everything the poor lass feared. And yet, as I watched, she nodded and took a step forward, her leg trembling a little. She was terrified and she was still doing it. My heart damn near melted.

  I knitted my fingers with hers. “I’ll be right beside you,” I told her. “Just look at the boat.”

  And together, we dived into the water and started swimming.

  47

  Hannah

  We hauled ourselves up the ladder and onto the deck. After the run down the hill and the swim, I was ready to drop but there was no time to rest. I raised the anchor while Rourke scrambled madly with ropes and sails. Luckily, the wind was getting up.

  “Will he see us?” I shouted over the noise of snapping, billowing fabric.

  “Not if I can keep the island between us and him,” yelled Rourke. We started to race forward, white foam forming at our prow. The island began to drop away behind us and, eventually, it disappeared from sight. Both of us let out a huge sigh of relief.

  “But how did he fin
d us?” I asked.

  Rourke shook his head bitterly. “No idea.” He led the way below deck. “Let’s get a course laid in for the Hawk. The sooner we get the cure….”

  He trailed off guiltily. I knew what he meant: not just the sooner you’ll be safe, but the sooner we can get back to our lives.

  We changed out of our wetsuits. I recited the numbers from the final clue while he bent over a table and plotted the course on a map. I suddenly saw his shoulders tense.

  “What?” I asked, worried.

  He shook his head. “Nothing.” He rolled up the map and put it away, then stalked out onto the deck and began hauling on ropes, bringing us about. Soon we were flying along, the sails straining and the waves rushing past.

  That’s how I could tell something was very wrong. I knew that nothing made him happier than sailing but his jaw was set, his lips pressed together in a grimace. I sneaked a look at the map but it had so many lines and notes written on it, I couldn’t work out where we were. What did he see? What was on the map?

  Three hours later, I found out.

  Rourke slowed the boat as we approached an island with towering cliff walls. He cursed, grabbed the map and compared it to the scene in front of us, then cursed again and angled the boat around it.

  “What?” I asked. “What is it?”

  He wouldn’t answer, stubborn as a petulant child. We circled the island, which seemed to have sheer cliffs on all sides. I watched him consult the map again and then hurl it down in fury. “What?!” I pleaded. “Tell me!”

  He sighed. Glared at the island with so much anger it seemed as if he wanted to move it through sheer force of will. “I was hoping the map was wrong,” he muttered at last, still staring at the island. “But the heading leads here.”

  I blinked, confused. “Well...isn’t that good? We’ve found it! Mace must have scuttled the Hawk just off the coast. Do we know which side?”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. “The heading is precise,” he said. “And it doesn’t lead to a point offshore, like the others. It finishes on the island. Right in the center.”

  “W—What?” I asked. The wind suddenly felt cold.

  He finally opened his eyes and looked at me and my fear doubled as soon as I saw the worry on his face. He was scared. Scared for me. “The trail of clues doesn’t lead to a wreck. Mace must have taken the treasure ashore and buried it, then scuttled the Hawk somewhere else.”

  I felt my face go pale. “Wait, but...if he just took the treasure—” I broke off, unable to finish the sentence. And saw from his expression that I was right, that he’d come to the same conclusion. He’d known as soon as he plotted the heading on the map. He’d just been praying he was wrong.

  Our whole plan had hinged on finding the wreck of the Hawk because the cure was in the hold along with the treasure. But if Mace had taken the treasure and buried it instead, he’d have left the cure in the hold: as far as he’d known, it was just a worthless rock in a bottle. And the Hawk could be miles away: we had no way to find it. “But—But the map I found said it was the path to the Hawk!” I said, my voice cracking.

  “Maybe that was to throw people off,” said Rourke. “He let everyone think the treasure was on board: but he’d sneaked it ashore here. Then he scuttled the Hawk somewhere far away.”

  I let out a choked sob. It was the ultimate irony: Mace had gone to all this trouble to protect his fortune so it could go to the woman he loved...and we’d successfully negotiated every challenge, every clue he threw at us. We’d found the prize everyone had searched for...and it was useless to us. We needed the worthless junk he’d thrown away.

  “No!” I croaked. I was trying not to panic but I could feel my whole world coming apart. Katherine. Chrissie. All those women, condemned to die. And me, too, probably within days.

  I felt like I had when I’d first discovered the cure had been lost at sea. I’d come to the Bahamas for nothing. The whole thing had been a wild goose chase. Only this time, it was worse. Not only had I missed most of Katherine’s remaining time with us but—my stomach lurched—I probably didn’t have time to get home before the disease killed me. I wasn’t even going to be able to see my family one last time.

  I looked up at Rourke in hopeless despair. He’d been hauling on a rope, steering us around the island. But through a blur of tears, I saw him let go of it, leaving the boat to the mercy of the wind as he strode over to me. He wrapped me in his arms and crushed me to his chest, my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he managed, his own voice choked. “I’m sorry, lass.”

  That did it: he was so strong, so unshakeable. I’d seen him stand against Ratcher, against the men in the bar, against sharks and darkness and the sea...to finally see him beaten was terrifying and it made the whole thing real. I pressed my face to him and sobbed, his shirt going damp and then wet. I felt him press his palms harder and harder into my back, hunching his shoulders so that he surrounded me completely, a barrier between me and everything that was trying to take me from him.

  But there was one thing even he couldn’t protect me from, because it was already inside me.

  My sobs slowed as I felt it begin: a tendril of fire, rising to curl around the nerves in my right leg, hair-thin but flaring as hot as the sun. I let out a choked gasp that became a scream, long and loud, right into Rourke’s shoulder. He grabbed me by the upper arms just in time to stop me falling to the deck as my leg gave way.

  The tendril rose higher, looping itself around the nerves in my thigh. This time it cinched tighter and it felt like barbed wire was sawing into my flesh and bones. My whole body went stiff with agony and meanwhile my mind was still trying to accept what was happening. I’d known I was overdue for an attack but it had come on so fast and now, right when I was at my lowest, oh please not now, please not now—

  A second tendril started spiraling up my other leg and now there was no hope of my standing. Rourke had to take my full weight as my legs kicked, every muscle straining in agony. A sweat broke out across my body and I could barely breathe, the pain stealing every bit of air in my lungs.

  Rourke slipped a hand under my ass and scooped me up, cradling me like a child, then laid me carefully down on the deck. By now, the pain had risen to my stomach and back. It felt as if someone had punched right into my guts and was twisting and squeezing my organs. Meanwhile, sand had been poured between every vertebra of my back: the slightest movement was agony. And yet I couldn’t lie still, not with the pain that was engulfing my muscles. I started to pant and choke: I wasn’t in control of my lungs, anymore, my chest was spasming like everything else.

  Rourke hunkered down over me, his muscled body blocking out the sun. “What can I do, lass?” he muttered between clenched teeth. “What can I do?”

  But I couldn’t answer him. Couldn’t even reach for his hand, which was what I needed. This was worse, much worse, than the last attack. The pain wasn’t just in my nerves and muscles, it seemed to be everywhere, in my bones and eyes and—

  Oh God—

  It was in my skin! Every inch of my skin was suddenly on fire. Wherever it touched anything, it was agony. The soft cotton of my blouse was like sandpaper dipped in acid. The elastic at the waistband of my panties was piano wire, cutting into my skin. Every point of pressure where I lay on the deck—my ass, my shoulder blades, and my heels—seemed to be crushing the skin into parchment-thin sheets and then slowly tearing it apart.

  I was dimly aware that I’d started screaming and couldn’t stop. I could feel my heart racing out of control and the sweat was pouring off me. I knew my body couldn’t stand much more. Rourke was leaning over me, putting something to my mouth, and each time he did, I seemed to breathe a little easier, though it was still agony. There was a feeling of coldness on my forehead, too, the one part of my skin that didn’t hurt.

  It helped...but I knew it didn’t matter. Whether I survived this attack or not, it was all over. Katherine, Cassie, me...we were all dead.

  I felt
myself doing the one thing I was most scared of. I felt myself giving up. The pain reached a peak. It hurt so much. It would be so much easier to just....

  Stop.

  My eyes closed. My aching lungs slowed their fight and then ceased moving altogether.

  And then suddenly he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. It should have been unbearable: the grind of sand in my elbow joint as he lifted my arm, the scalding press of his palm against mine. And yet it wasn’t. The pain was subsumed by something much stronger. I opened my eyes and looked up into his deep blue ones. And despite everything, I found myself squeezing back.

  “Don’t,” he snarled. “Don’t you give up on me!”

  I wanted to tell him that it was useless, that there was no hope.

  “We’ll find something!” he snapped. The emotion was making the Scottish in his voice even stronger, the words like flashing steel. “There’ll be something, we’ll find something!”

  I wanted to hug him for his bloody-minded stubbornness. It was just enough to keep me going, to make me fight. I took an agonizing, rasping breath. I was sweating so much, it was running into my eyes. I twisted my face to the side for a second so that the wind could cool it and—

  Without Rourke manning the sails, the boat was drifting. We were dangerously close to the cliffs: Rourke was putting his beloved boat in danger to tend to me. But as we spun and bobbed on the waves, I saw—

  My eyes went wide. I hear Rourke give a guttural moan of horror: he thought this was it, that I was having a heart attack. But I’d seen something, something that changed everything.

  For what felt like hours, I kicked and spasmed and screamed, my clothes wet with sweat. But Rourke stroked my hair and whispered to me to hang on and I squeezed his hand and focused on the strength in his voice. And finally, it came to an end and my body relaxed. I lay there panting, staring up into his eyes. I was utterly spent. I couldn’t even lift my head, could barely speak. But I had to tell him.