Shanna could contain herself no longer and laughed in derisive glee. “Of course, you fools. What else?”
The sound of her mockery rose above their murmurs to ring against their pride, reducing it to shattered shards.
“And should you have the butts,” she jeered, “you’d find them useless still, for you see the chest was dropped on the dock, and all the barrels are bent. My father kept them as a reminder of his one failure at profit. It always pricked him, but now I’m sure he’ll find the memory of it tickles his wit.”
Ruark groaned inwardly at her foolishness, recognizing that her words might well draw real blood before the hour was gone.
Pellier whirled on her with a curse. “But you swore it held a wealth no one could count.”
“Of course,” Shanna answered sweetly. “And does it not?” She tossed her head, sending her hair flying over her shoulder.
In a rage Pellier snatched Shanna’s arm, cruelly twisting it until she cried out in pain and fell to her knees before him. Drawing a dagger from his boot, the Frenchman held it close in front of her eyes, which now betrayed a first hint of fear.
“Then I’ll carve the price from your precious skin, bitch.”
Suddenly Pellier found his wrist seized in a grip of iron. Slowly, against his will, the blade was raised away from Shanna until he stared into Ruark’s softly smiling face.
“I know you are rash, my friend, but I think not foolishly so.”
Pellier let Shanna sprawl to the deck. His free hand dipped quickly toward the pistol in his belt, but Ruark caught that arm as well. The half-breed struggled against Ruark, but his arms were held between them where none of the crew or captains could see the battle. The more Pellier tried to free himself, the tighter the vise became until he could feel his hands growing numb. His eyes sought his captor’s face and saw in it a strength and will he had until now doubted existed. It was born in the back of his muddled mind that he could not rest until this one who held him like a child was made to feed the fishes. Having no other choice, he ceased the useless fight, but the grip held where it was.
“Now I, for one, have great love for my neck and would not see it stretched upon the Hampstead’s spar,” Ruark continued easily. “You have already tweaked Trahern’s nose, but would you draw the full wrath of his vengeance on us all? There is also this to consider. The wealth you draw from her flesh will be meager indeed and done with all too soon, but her father treasures the wench as his only kin and will no doubt pay handsomely for her safe return.”
Seeing some logic in this, Pellier relaxed in the tenacious grasp, and Ruark released him.
“Oui, you speak true,” the half-breed grunted reluctantly, but his hawkish eyes lowered to Shanna who, though bruised and shaken, let her gaze show contempt as it roamed his filthy person. With a sly leer he chuckled, “But ‘twas Pellier who brought her here, eh? She will be mine ‘til the ransom is full paid.”
Shanna’s breath caught sharply in her throat, as much in outrage as in shock, and she scrambled up, staring at him in horrified disgust. His lustful perusal pierced her meager garments, taking a path downward over her round bosom and gracefully curving hips. Shanna could not hold back a shudder of revulsion and clutched the thin robe higher about her neck. When she had seen Ruark aboard the ship, she had thought he had somehow planned her capture, whether for revenge or desire she could only guess. The idea, though it had angered her mightily, was at least remotely acceptable as her fate, and she reasoned it could be dealt with. Now a cold, sickening dread of what really lay in store for her began to make itself known. This swaggering brute, Pellier, could hardly have made himself more sickening to her eyes. He was a rank, filthy man with not the shallowest knowledge of decency. Given her choice between throwing herself overboard and submitting to him, she could only surmise she’d seek the former end without hesitation. Indeed, in the matter of choices, Ruark was her only refuge. But if he had betrayed her before, he might well again.
Ruark’s manner was almost calm as he watched Pellier’s eyes covetously survey and obviously savor that which he named his. A more observant man than the half-breed might have noticed the distinct hardening of Ruark’s lean features, the tightening of his jaw, the coldness in his gaze—and taken a warning.
Deliberately Ruark caught Shanna’s wrist and in spite of her resistance and attempts to snatch free, he pulled her before the pirate captain. He ignored the flashing green daggers that fair riddled him and with a finger under her chin, raised it beneath the lantern until Pellier could clearly see her fine and delicate beauty.
“This further caution I would give you, Captain Pellier. If you’ve eyes in your head, you might see this is a rare piece of considerable cost.” Ruark’s fingers softly stroked the fragile column of her pale throat. Beneath his light touch Shanna trembled, and he wondered what emotion betrayed her. “But the piece bruises easily with abuse and once returned, her vengeance might well be more costly than Trahern’s own. This is his valued pet, and he’ll see her will carried out. To be the treasure you seek, she must be tended carefully and kept against the day you’ve gotten her worth.”
Ruark dropped his hand away from her, but not before he frowned a warning into Shanna’s eyes. Then, with a casual salute to Pellier, he strode past her and made his way to the forecastle where he leaned upon the rail and watched the iridescent sea curling beneath the prow.
A puzzled frown troubling her brow, Shanna studied him covertly and wondered if this man who seemed to ever mark her life would be her champion or her end.
“Bind the wench!” Pellier bellowed.
Gaitlier scurried across the deck, catching Shanna’s wrist, and dragged her along in his wake as she cast repeated glances over her shoulder at the lone figure by the rail.
Dawn had brushed the heavens in deep magenta before the sun, rising golden on the horizon, bleached it to a softer pink and sharply etched the detail of the craft in its gilded light. The morning bloomed into full day. The sky faded to a subdued blue, and the translucent aquamarine that rose and fell in a languid, heaving motion became the sea beneath it. Triangular sails billowed with the full breath of a brisk wind, and the schooner skimmed the waters like a gull in effortless flight.
Tied with the other prisoners to the pinrail at the base of the main mast, Shanna found little comfort. She dozed fitfully, rousing whenever footsteps paced near. Usually it was Pellier who came to stand above her, his legs braced apart and arms set akimbo. His dark face twisted in a malevolent grin as his black eyes bored into her. Shanna shivered in apprehension as she sensed in him a twisted, vengeful desire to see her writhing in agony while he had her in some perverted way.
Noon cast Shanna in the shade of the sails, protected at last from the glaring sun, but it had already brightened the pale, slim nose and brought a deeper flush to her cheeks. Her long, curling hair, lifting on the freshening zephyrs, swirled about her face and bosom, the ends entangling in their abandon.
Pellier’s men paused often to stare at her with more than a longing glance, but they knew their captain and held a deep fear of him. His temper could rise without warning, and his skill with weapons had earned a healthy respect bordering on fear from them. Long ago they had learned to stay well away from the half-breed and that which belonged to him. It was only Gaitlier who brought her an occasional bit of cheese or bread or a drink of water, and even these minor ministrations were wont to draw Pellier’s disapproval.
Ruark kept his own vigil at a more distant spot, viewing Shanna through slitted eyelids while he appeared to slumber peacefully, his back braced against the rail, and his legs stretched out before him.
In the lengthening shadows of late afternoon, the schooner trimmed her sails and slipped cautiously along a string of small, swampy islands, little more than reefs choked with sand and crowded with cypress and occasional groups of palms. A dark, blood-red flag slashed with a black bar sinister was hoisted, and the ship passed a slightly larger island where, on a placid whi
te beach, a single hut could be seen beneath an overhanging thatch of palms. A shiny surface reflected the light of the waning sun, and the signal was answered with waves from the pirates on the schooner. Shanna and the other hostages were loosed from their tethers and grouped together near the gangport. Ruark roused from where he catnapped near the prow and set his gaze toward the lay of the land and reefs, carefully noting details.
When the Good Hound had cleared the end of the point, she was faced with an open stretch of shallow water spotted with breakers which signaled reefs and sandbars. Ahead of them lay a much larger island that sprouted a low hill overlooking a shallow, half-protected cove. A scattering of ramshackle huts could be seen on the shoulders of the higher ground. In the center and on the brow of the dune squatted a large, once whitewashed structure surrounded by a low stone wall which enclosed a barren courtyard. Behind the port and for several miles on either side, a mangrove swamp extended, which combined with the reefs and bars beyond the shoreline to provide a good half mile of protection from attack.
Harripen joined Ruark by the rail and leaned beside him. The whole side of the Englishman’s face seemed to compress in a weird smirk as he squinted his eye at the younger man.
“Well, me lad, ye see our haven. Mare’s ‘Ead she be. What do ye think of ‘er?”
He observed Ruark closely, but he only shrugged noncommittally. “Appears safe enough.”
“Aye, ‘at ye can say.” Harripen’s arm stretched out toward a spot where the broken ribs of a ship rose amid the shoals. “Ye see ‘at ‘ere wreck? ‘Twas part of a Spanish fleet what tried to warp a galleon through the shallows near enough to bombard our town, but the currents at ‘igh tide are strong and treacherous.” He chuckled heartily and grated a hand across the heavy, coarse bristles darkening his scarred chin. “After the ship hung up ‘ere, we floated a raft with a single gun into range and chewed ‘er to bits.”
Ruark noted the man’s obvious relish of the event but pointed out, “If a determined man covered his ship with another and went carefully, he could succeed, and other ships could stand off and intercept anyone trying to escape. You’d be trapped in there.”
“Aye, lad.” Harripen laughed briefly. “And so ‘twould seem. But ‘tis only fair to say, the wisest rat sees to ‘is hole ‘fore ’e builds the nest.”
Ruark peered at the pirate with a cocked brow.
Harripen gave a secretive chuckle. “Just in case the dogs try to dig ‘im out.”
Ruark led him on. “ ‘Twould be a crafty rat to get from here unscathed.”
The Englishman was eager to explain. “As long as ‘ere’s a ship to sail, we’ve a way out, lad. ‘Ere’s a channel through the swamp and no reefs on the other side. The Spaniards cut it through.” He stared at Ruark for a moment as the younger man accepted this silently. Then he warned, “But a man must know the way, and Mother keeps it well hidden.”
With that, the hoary buccaneer turned away and busied himself with preparations to debark, leaving Ruark to stare after him, his curiosity much aroused.
A crowd had gathered on the white sand beach, outcasts from the world trapped in this backwater way of life with little hope beyond the meanest existence. Indeed, the town could not sustain itself and survived only by servicing the corsair fleet. Vendors came with their baskets, hawking their wares, hoping the warriors would feel largess with their victory and share some of the spoils for a new bauble or a trinket. Gaudy, unwashed harlots sought any favorable glance, the bolder ones calling invitations to the crew while they revealed plump bosoms and round thighs or sauntered with cocked hips and arms akimbo. The children, few that they were, bore the vacant stares of hopelessness or the savage leers of minds already twisted into the mold of malice and greed. Running sores and scars marked the beggars and bespoke the merciless deprivation suffered on the island. They were the fortunate ones. The unfortunate were those who had been dealt a deep wound in battle or had an arm or leg severed and were dying slow and agonizing deaths in this hellish hole. These poor wretches, whose maimed, misshapened bodies wore a grimace of pain permanently on their faces, and women who were worn and abused until they looked like hags of some horrific tale stood back in mute surrender while their counterparts who still sustained a meager vigor crowded close in hopes of catching some coin, some treasure, some rejected morsel, some sharing of whatever was to be shared. Crewmen tossed coppers from the ship and guffawed as scrawny youngsters and grown men splashed into the shallows for such wealth.
Shanna’s stomach tightened and wrenched with the cruelty of it all. She had always considered herself worldly, well traveled and educated, but nothing she had seen or read had prepared her for this. A twinkling began to dawn of just why her father had so desperately desired to secure his loved ones from poverty. In the tormented faces of the children, she glimpsed her father’s despair as a youth, and something stirred deep within her consciousness, trying to surface into realization, but Shanna was too tired, too exhausted to think.
A questioning murmur rose from the bondsmen who stood near her. This place frightened them as much as it did her, and they cursed their luck to have been captured. They could expect no more than slavery here and were quick to recognize their own plight would scarce be better than that of Trahern’s daughter. As Shanna raised her gaze to them, uncertainty written heavily on her face, they quieted their grumbles. One man swore and faced away while another remarked hoarsely:
“Bloody savages they be. The devil’s own. God save us all.”
Shanna sagged wearily, setting her back to them. She knew they voiced her own apprehension. Awkwardly she brushed a wayward tress from her cheek with her bound hands. She was numb to every emotion save a gnawing fear that feasted heartily upon what courage she tried to muster. She set her mind not to appear frightened, yet her knees had a strange tendency to shake beneath her, and an uncontrollable shivering made tatters of her resolve. Just when she had won some semblance of composure, her chin quivered and the sting of tears smarted in her eyes. Despite her show of self-control, however strained, she was terribly afraid, not knowing what lay in store for her, but convinced now that the miscreants planned some hideous fate for the daughter of Trahern. The constant stares of the pirates and their bold leers when they caught her eye unnerved her considerably. Bruised and hungry, exhausted from lack of sleep, she was listless and dazed. Her head ached from the merciless sun which beat down upon her.
Disconcertedly, Shanna moved her gaze to Ruark. He stood near the fore of the ship watching as the vessel worked her way toward the crude jetty that formed a landing dock. His dark hair was stirred by the light breeze, and his broad, tanned shoulders gleamed with a fine mist of sweat. He seemed like a stranger, a man she had never known, distant, frowning as if his cares weighed upon him sorely. She felt a rising bitterness that he had trifled with her so casually, yet she also recognized the folly of the anger that had caused her to have him cast away. Had she only cooled her need for immediate revenge, she could have made him pay a thousandfold for his indiscretion. Now she had only herself to blame and must admit that he had ample cause to seek redress upon her person.
Fear pricked her consciousness that Ruark would be willing to see her demeaned and abused at every hand, and the surety of such was beginning to loom monstrously large in her future. Her already depleted strength would little deter Pellier’s assault when he chose to launch it. But it was best not to dwell on the degradations that would precede the final one, and Shanna fought the despair that threatened to reduce her to a whimpering, sobbing wretch.
As his entire fortune was on his person, there was little to occupy Ruark. He was glad he had not doffed the breeches before Pitney’s visit or he might well have been more exposed to the air. Though the pirate captains had promised him a share of the loot for his assistance, he was not bent to believe that Pellier had accepted his interference with Shanna kindly. Considering the half-breed’s possessive attention, she would need much in the way of protection. Still, Ru
ark thought, if he appeared anxious to defend her, it would arouse suspicions against him. He must gain some degree of trust, or at least some sort of respect, from the picaroons, or escape would be doubly difficult. On the other hand, he could not abide anyone mauling his wife, and he knew if they pricked Shanna’s defense, she could well flay anyone’s pride with her tongue and might bring odious penalties upon herself.
“It may well be that I shall have to fight the whole lot of them,” he mused wryly. “And for that selfsame wench who will not accept my protection, thinking I took my ease with another. But I am set in any event to choose the course that will take us both clear of this hellish place, whether she will have aught of me or not.”
For a space Ruark stared down into the sparkling blue-green sea and thought how much it resembled those eyes that had led him to this corner of the universe and still beckoned with the promise of a reward beyond his ken.
The schooner slid against the dock, and when the ropes were secured to the quay, Harripen strode across the deck, clapping his hands as he loudly called, “A wager for the first wench tossed on ‘er back, me ‘earties. Which do ye say? A sovereign on Carmelita.”
A sharp grunt came from the stern. “Have ye no eyes in yer bloomin’ head, mate? The Trahern wench I’ll put me wager on. ‘Twould take me not but a thrice count to roll her on her arse and give ‘er me all.”
“Aye,” a derisive snort answered. “And should ye beat Robby for a turn on her, ye’ll find his sticker in yer back.”
Shanna remained motionless, giving no outward sign that she was affected by their crudity, but inwardly she quailed, and her mind recoiled. Her night had been unpleasant enough, but she realized it was only her potential value as a hostage that had kept her from an even more unpleasant one in the captain’s cabin or the crew’s quarters, if not both. For that small respite, at least, she had Ruark to thank.
Ruark gave little attention to the banter. He accepted the men’s talk as just that, at least for the time being. As long as Pellier was alive, Ruark was well aware from where the real threat came. Warily he watched the Frenchman approach Shanna and began to saunter forward as the man placed a long leather thong about the slim column of her throat. Then suddenly, without warning, Ruark found his own way blocked by the broad, hairy chest of Pellier’s apelike mate and three of the hands he had seen warping the ship in. Ruark elbowed one aside to force his way, but with a wide grin drawn back from uneven, gapping teeth, the mate moved again to stand before him, and over his brawny shoulder Ruark caught Pellier’s evil smile directed briefly toward him.
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