My Lady Pirate

by Danelle Harmon

  That there was a plan, he had no doubt. El Perro Negro had been in the Caribbean long enough to know that Sir Graham Falconer was not a man to trifle with.

  Now, standing on the deck beside him, he glanced up into the almirante' s swarthy face—and found those dark, cold eyes regarding him.

  The almirante smiled, and the pirate felt sweat break out the length of his spine. I will kill you, those eyes promised. You may depend on it.

  He would too, el Perro Negro knew. The English admiral would not forgive him for his

  treatment of the puta.

  Nor for the insult to his flagship’s crew.

  He looked away, making sure the pistol was snugly against his hostage’s skull. As they’d

  forced their hostage topside, one of the young midshipmen had come running to his aid, only to be felled by a shot from Renaldo’s musket. A lieutenant had then pulled his own pistol—and on a sharp command from the almirante, angrily sheathed it. Only then had Triton's crew—some seven hundred of them, el Perro Negro figured—gone silent, terrified to make a move for fear he would kill their commander in chief.

  Obviously, he thought in satisfaction, they held their almirante in high regard indeed.

  Darkness was falling, and fast. There was no time to waste. Forcing several of Triton’s unwilling sailors to help them, el Perro Negro’s men were already preparing to swing out one of the flagship’s lug-sailed launches on tackles rigged to the great ship’s fore and main yards. With it, they could make a clean escape into the darkness and be away before any of the other ships, or even Nelson, aboard Victory a cable’s length away, knew what they were about. El Perro Negro’s only regret was that he didn’t have time to bring that puta the Pirate Queen along with him. How he would enjoy slamming his own blade into her over and over again before he killed her.

  As for the almirante—

  Once they were well clear of the big flagship, he’d have no use for his valuable hostage. One bullet to the head and the Royal Navy wouldn’t, either.

  “Hurry up, you damned fools!” he snarled.

  High above, he heard the yards creaking as they took the weight of the launch. He tilted his head back to look—

  And Sir Graham made his move.

  A vicious elbow to the pirate’s ribs, a swift uppercut to his jaw, and the pistol flew from el Perro Negro’s stunned grasp. With the desperation of the damned, he dived for it at the same time his hostage did. They both hit the deck at the same time, but it was the pirate who got lucky; snatching up the pistol, he thrust it between the dark and challenging eyes of the man beneath him, screaming, “I’ll blow your brains out for that, you estupido—”

  A voice rang out from behind him: “I believe that prize is mine.”

  Turning, el Perro Negro lunged to his feet. He saw a beautiful woman in purple, the flash of metal through the air—and then, nothing.

  Gasping and twitching, he was dead before he even hit the deck, the Pirate Queen’s dagger buried in his throat.

  Chapter 29

  Stunned, shocked, speechless, Gray lay on his back and stared up at the woman who stood

  triumphantly atop a cannon fifteen feet away.

  For a long, terrible moment, everything was still.

  And then, chaos.

  Officers running to his assistance. A pack of angry seamen leaping on the remaining pirates.

  A short scuffle, a lieutenant shouting wildly for order—

  —and Maeve.

  There she stood, still atop the cannon’s breech, her hair blowing wildly about her face, her head high, proud, defiant.

  Their gazes collided, hers glittering with relief and love, his blank with appalled shock.

  She jumped down from the cannon and walked toward him with the regal hauteur of a

  queen.

  He watched her coming. He didn’t move, though a score of hands were reaching down to

  help him up. Couldn’t speak. Not yet. Again, he saw that vicious dagger scything through the air, true as an arrow. Again he saw the look of high triumph on Maeve’s beautiful, angry face as the blade caught the pirate in the throat. Again, he heard el Perro Negro’s strangled gasp, the sounds of his choking and dying on his own blood.

  And now he saw Maeve standing directly above him, while his officers and seamen stared at her in awe and shock.

  “Excuse me,” she said, smiling sweetly, and they respectfully moved aside so that she could reach down to help him up.

  He looked up at that slender arm, that feminine hand that had thrown the knife with such

  savage accuracy, those golden tiger eyes that shone with love only for him. He saw the knife, arcing through the air once more, saw her standing there on that cannon, never blinking an eye over the fact she had just brutally killed a man— And felt sick.

  He could not touch that hand. He got to his feet, shakily, seeing the knife, flying through the air. Again . . . and again.

  “Sir Graham, are you all right?”

  Her earlier words echoed over and over in his mind. Well, my gallant admiral, it’s about time you learned the difference between reality and fantasy . . . I am a pirate.

  Dear God, he’d just learned the difference. He had thought her piratical antics charming, titillating, and on the whole, harmless. Fantasy. But to have seen her hurl a dagger into el Perro Negro’s throat and gloat over the fact she’d just killed a man . . .

  Reality.

  Cold, brutal reality.

  I am a pirate.

  “Sir Graham!” It was Lieutenant Stern, desperately gripping his elbow. “Sir, I repeat, are you all right?”

  Maeve’s hand was still stretched toward him. He felt, rather than saw, her expression go

  from triumph to bewilderment to hurt as he ignored that graceful hand and moved past her.

  Lieutenant Stern tried to take his arm. Gray waved him off, raked a trembling hand through his hair, and moved toward the hatch.

  He shook off offers of help, felt himself nodding woodenly to anxious inquiries over his

  welfare . . . saw again the knife arcing through the air.

  He felt her eyes on his back.

  “Gray!”

  He could not look at her.

  “Gray!”

  But the admiral kept walking, and did not look back.

  ###

  Stunned, Maeve stood on the darkening quarterdeck, the wind blowing her skirts around her

  bare legs, her hair about her face. She heard the excited talk of the men around her, dumbly accepted their gushing praise and admiration, their gratitude for saving their admiral—and stared at the hatch where he had gone.

  One of the midshipmen was babbling excitedly in her ear but she never heard him. A

  smartly dressed lieutenant was offering to get her something to drink, but she only shook her head, staring at that spot in the deck where Gray had disappeared, and feeling the raw agony of rejection welling up in the very pit of her soul.

  She had seen it in his eyes. Horror and shame—that she had thrown the dagger, that she had reveled in the killing, that she hadn’t fainted dead away as a proper admiral’s woman might have, should have, would have, done. Was she supposed to just stand there screaming like a helpless female while el Perro Negro murdered the man she loved? No, she had taken matters into her own hands when his own crew could not, and saved his life.

  And he had rejected her.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the seamen lifting el Perro Negro’s bloody corpse and heaving it over the side, the red-haired Lieutenant Pearson directing the crew to rig halters to the foreyard for immediate execution of the remaining pirates.

  I didn’t do anything wrong, Gray. I merely saved your life, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Her throat tightened and she blinked back sudden tears. I’d do it again in a heartbeat because, dammit, I love you.

  She stared hard at that darkened hatch for a moment longer and then, her back stiff with

  pride, moved away, fe
eling the great deck moving beneath her feet, the wind clawing at her hair.

  At the nettings, she stood and looked out over the darkening sea. Where her heart had been there was a great, empty void, full of despair and grief.

  He had turned away. Just as her parents would have done had they seen her hurl a dagger and cut down a man. Gray would never want her now, it was clear. Just as her parents wouldn’t if they could see what their headstrong daughter had become after seven years of fighting for survival and supremacy in a Caribbean that showed no favors to anyone.

  “Hello, Father. Hello, Mother”— she was a grown woman now, and “Daddy” and “Mama”

  would no longer do —“I'm sorry you thought I was dead all these years but I’ve been busy roving, pillaging, stealing, and oh, yes, killing. Don’t look so shocked, it’s only been in self-defense or to save the lives of those I hold dear . . . Mama? Daddy! No, wait . . . Wait!

  She saw them turning away in rejection and disgust, refusing to accept this ugly, savage

  monster that had once been their daughter.

  Turning away—as Gray had done.

  Her heart was cracking and going to pieces, the wind lashing her hair across her face. She saw a boat putting out from Victory, and knew she couldn’t bear the condemnation on Nelson’s face, either.

  I am what I am, she thought, proudly, defiantly. So damn them all to hell.

  Her head high, she called for Lieutenant Pearson, and asked him to fire the two guns that would signal Kestrel to come and collect her.

  ###

  Morning came and with it the sounds of footsteps on the deck above, as the crew scrubbed

  and scoured the night’s spume away.

  Maeve opened her eyes and lay staring up at the deckhead while the schooner came awake

  around her. As it was every morning, her first thought was of her father, who had once slept in this very same bunk. She wondered what he was doing now. What her mother was doing now. If they missed her.

  And then she thought of Gray, and his cold rejection of her.

  Sitting up, she put her aching jaw in her hands, her hair spilling into her eyes. Then, she raked the thick tresses back, swung her legs out of bed, stumbled to her washbasin, and began to dress.

  She put on the necklace of sharks’ teeth. She donned baggy breeches, a loose silk shirt, a dark green vest of patterned brocade. Her dagger was gone, still buried in el Perro Negro’s throat; lamenting its loss, she found another to replace it and, on a note of sullen defiance, jammed it into the scabbard on her belt.

  She was just ready to go topside and order her ship to be put about and sailed back to her island, when there was a knock on the door.

  “Captain? You awake?”

  “Aye,” she grunted, miserably.

  The door opened to admit young Aisling, with Sorcha right behind her. Between them they

  carried a tray, a pot of coffee, and breakfast—hot oatmeal, a piece of fruit, and a mug of stiff, bitter ale.

  On the empty plate was a folded note.

  “If it’s from the admiral, I don’t want it,” Maeve said.

  “Oh, it’s from the admiral all right!” Aisling chirped, and despite herself, Maeve felt a quick flutter of hope within her breast.

  “Give it to me, then.”

  She grabbed the note, broke the seal, and saw a paragraph of stilted, crabbed writing that was nearly as bad as Gray’s.

  My dear Captain Merrick, the note began.

  Nelson. She lowered the note in disappointment. Wrong admiral.

  “His lordship had a midshipman send it over just as soon as it got light out, Captain! What’s it say?”

  “Yes, read it! Read it!”

  She turned away, unable to look at the blistering words she knew she would find. He would condemn her, she knew he would, and somehow that hurt just as much as Gray’s reaction had—

  for Lord Nelson, like her parents, like Gray—was all that was good, all that was heroic, all that was honorable and just—all that she, the Pirate Queen of the Caribbean, was not and could never be.

  Trembling, she brought the note up, and her gaze fell to the choppy, left-handed scrawl.

  My dear Captain Merrick, she read again, it is with the deepest sense of gratitude and relief that I send you this note to thank you for once again coming to the aid of the Royal Navy. You acted with calmness, skill, and valour, and had you not thought quickly during the attempted assassination of Sir Graham Falconer, I fear that our service, and our Country, would have found itself lamenting the loss of one of its finest officers.

  “Forever in your debt, Nelson and Brönte,” she trailed off.

  “What’s it say, Captain? What’s it say?”

  Dazedly, she handed them the note. “Read it yourself,” she said quietly, and strode from the cabin.

  ###

  Nearby, in another ship, Sir Graham also lay in his bed as the sun rose over a silver sea and suffused it with the colors of dawn.

  It wasn’t really much of a bed, but rather a swinging box, suspended from a pole and

  enclosed with curtains lovingly embroidered by his youngest sister. Closed off as he was from that beautiful sunrise, his main cabin, and the rest of the ship, Sir Graham was alone with nothing but his thoughts.

  He heard his servants bustling about in the dining cabin just beyond his sleeping quarters, laying out his breakfast, his uniform, and hot water for shaving. He heard footsteps just above his head as Colin’s servants, or maybe even Dr. Ryder, looked in on the flag-captain, who had been moved back to his own cabin after showing marked signs of improvement.

  Maeve.

  No sooner had she departed for Kestrel than Nelson himself had come aboard HMS Triton, having seen the commotion and heard pistol shots from his own ship. And no sooner had the little hero gleaned the details of what had happened than he was singing Her Majesty’s praises— and slamming a blistering broadside of anger into Gray’s disbelieving ears.

  “You damned fool, she saved your life, by God!” Nelson had raged, furiously working the stump of his arm through his sleeve. “Is this how you show your gratitude?”

  Gray flung his arm over his eyes, wishing he could block all of it out. The killing. Last night’s executions. Maeve. Nelson’s harsh anger. But damn it, Nelson hadn’t seen the woman he loved kill a man in cold blood, and delight in the doing!

  He tore the hangings aside and crawled from the cot. The smell of hot coffee and sizzling pork assailed him, making him feel sick. Beneath his feet the deck was cool and damp, and he dreaded the thought of going topside and seeing, in the light of day, the place where his beloved had hacked down a man and then looked at him like a cat expecting a word of praise for laying a dead and gutted mouse at its owner’s doorstep.

  It is time you learned the difference between fantasy and reality.

  He reached up, raked a hand through his hair, caught his thumb on the gold earring—and

  nearly ripped it out on a wave of disgust.

  Suddenly, there was nothing remotely alluring about pirates.

  Nothing at all.

  ###

  On a futile hope that a similar, forgiving note might come from the man she loved, the Pirate Queen decided to remain with the British Fleet for another hour and no more. She went on deck and, as though to defy Sir Graham’s distaste for her prowess at the sport, engaged in a savage sword fight with Enolia that nearly killed the both of them. Then, trembling and exhausted, she collapsed in the shade of the gunwale and sullenly nursed a mug of cool ale.

  Nothing.

  She took out her dagger and pared her fingernails.

  And still, no message came.

  That was it, then. To hell with him. She got to her feet, slammed the mug down, and stormed to the tiller.

  Orla met her along the way, her eyes worried.

  “Put the ship about, we’re going back to the island,” Maeve snarled.

  “But Maeve—”

  “I said, put t
he ship about! ” she shouted, and after a hesitant, mutinous pause, her friend went forward, calling for Kestrel' s foresail to be raised.

  All along the deck, she saw her crew staring at her as though she’d taken leave of her senses.

  Maeve spun around and seized the tiller, drumming her fingers on the smooth wood in angry impatience. Up went the big foresail, and she felt her heart breaking with every inch the long, swinging gaff crawled. Sail spilled to the wind, shook itself out, thundered and fluttered in the early morning sunshine. Shadows swung to and fro over the deck with every swing of the great assembly of spar and canvas.

  Still, no boats putting out from HMS Triton, no alarmed figure appearing on the

  quarterdeck, no signal, nothing.

  She felt raw, wrenching pain clawing at her chest.

  “Put up the main,” she ordered curtly, and as her crew ran to the halliards and began to haul up the throat and peak, she couldn’t help glancing over at HMS Triton.

  Movement.

  A flag, rising skyward . . . another . . . another.

  “Captain! Sir Graham is signaling!”

  “Sir Graham can go to bloody hell and rot there ’til his balls turn black.”

  “We have to get the signal book Captain Lord issued us so we can see what he’s saying!”

  Aisling cried, grabbing her sister and racing below.

  More flags soared up the great warship’s masts.

  “Hurry up, damn you!” Maeve shouted to her hesitant crew.

  She stared over at Triton—and saw a gun port opening along that massive, towering side.

  The snout of a cannon crawled out into the sunshine, its hungry mouth trained on Kestrel.

  “Just who the bleeding hell does he think he is?” she snarled, even as another port opened, and yet, another. She turned just as the Irish girls came running forward, the signal book in their hand. “Give me that damned thing!”

  And there, the last flag, fluttering angrily from the big man-of-war’s mast.

  She flipped through the pages, noting the meaning of each flag even as another gun poked