by C. K. Brooke
“Peter!” Abi screamed, dropping to her knees beside him.
It was as though time slowed. The young man sucked in a breath, his face rapidly paling. A puddle of blood was soaking through his already-filthy tunic.
“Somebody help!” Abi leapt back up, determined to find a jacket, a tablecloth, anything to use for a bandage. She had to stop the bleeding. A few of the crew knelt beside the boy in her place, while the rest clanged swords with their rivals.
Someone blocked Abi’s way. Two beefy hands locked over her waist and hoisted her up into the air. She was thrown over the shoulder of a fearsome stranger who proceeded to alert Hernán: “Capitán, la tengo! La tengo!”
Hernán looked up. Spotting Abi, a victorious grin dominated his features. “Vamanos!” he shouted. “Ándale!”
Abandoning their opponents, the Spaniards heeded their leader, racing for the exit. With a final smirk of triumph, Hernán brought the flat of his blade down over Captain Clear’s head. The man collapsed to the floor in a heap of crumpled limbs, his hat skidding off and exposing limp ginger hair.
“Papa,” Abi bawled. She pounded her captor’s back as he bolted among his companions. But she couldn’t stop him from carrying her out into the humid night.
Chapter 20
James Morrow burst into the tavern just two streets from his inn. He had launched from his rented room as soon as he’d heard it, the shrill screams of a woman. He thought he recognized the voice, and was certain her words were English. If he was mistaken, then he had truly gone mad.
He plunged indoors to find complete wreckage, people arguing and picking up fallen stools and chairs, bloodied blokes nursing flesh wounds. A circle of rough-looking white men, and one black one, gathered around a prone figure, prodding it and murmuring among themselves.
James shoved his way through the crowd. A single glimpse of red hair was all he needed to see. He reached across to the bar top, grabbed a half-drunk goblet of wine, and knelt beside the unconscious man. Then he dumped it over the fellow’s face.
The thugs surrounding him either laughed or reproached him angrily. James didn’t care. It had the desired effect, for the elder captain began to sputter and cough, and carefully propped up on his elbows. His eyes drifted in and out of focus before they settled on James’s face, just spaces away.
James reached up and removed the hat from his own head.
Captain Clear’s face contorted in recognition. “You!”
The Succubus’s crew rustled with the raising of various weapons, but James waved them down. “Where is Abi?” he demanded.
“Abi,” whispered Captain Clear. James’s blood turned to ice at the horror in the older man’s eyes. He tried to scramble to his feet, but was too dazed. James gave him a hand up. “They took her!”
“Who?” James rested his hands over the man’s shoulders, steadying him.
“None of your business,” rumbled Clear. “So you’d best get your face outta mine, before I chop it off.” He gripped the hilt of his cutlass unevenly.
James stayed his wobbling hand. At the moment, the elder captain seemed too dizzy to pose much of a threat. He addressed the others. “Did no one go after her?”
“We stayed behind to tend Peter and the cap’n,” said the one with the eye patch. “But the rest went after the buccaneers.”
“Buccaneers, you say?”
“Aye, we figured it out. They was Spanish pirates what took up a brawl with us, as they don’t fancy us huntin’ their booty on their turf. They took Cap’s daughter as punishment.”
Another fellow nudged him, eyeing James with mistrust.
James indicated the red welt over Captain Clear’s head. “You may want to get some ice over that.” He jogged back to the door.
“Where’re you goin’?” Eye-patch called after him.
James flung open the door. “To rescue Abi!” Heavy boots pelting the ground, he set off to port.
***
Abi swung her legs, kicking anything she could—a shin, a stomach. Eventually, someone held her calves together. So she thrashed.
To her surprise, they were headed to port. She tried to scream as they carried her along the quay, but Raul stuffed his silk kerchief in her mouth. It tasted of expensive perfumes and made her gag. Still, she wouldn’t give up.
When they came to an unassuming ship, docked in a rather concealed area, her eyes narrowed. Buccaneers! No wonder they hadn’t wanted her father going after the galleon. It wasn’t a matter of national loyalty. They simply coveted it for themselves.
She dug her fingernails into the shoulder of the one who carried her up the gangplank, and was rather satisfied when he issued a most un-masculine squeal of pain. Her satisfaction was short-lived, however, for his hand came down over her backside in a burning smack.
As a pair of buccaneers worked to tie her at the bow, Abi tried to channel her inner wild animal. She clawed and scraped, writhing and fighting as she’d never done before. Their commands were a blur of incomprehensible Spanish, speaking over each other too quickly. Several appeared to be arguing, as if trying to convince the others that she wasn’t worth the trouble.
Hernán’s words in the tavern snaked into her thoughts. “Mis amigos and I have never had a red-haired woman before.” She recoiled in disgust mingled with terror. She couldn’t think about what might happen to her next. She tried to count the men on deck—ten, eleven, twelve…Would all of them try to ravage her at once? Bile rose up her throat. She would rather be dead.
Most good Lord, she thought to herself, chest heaving in panic. I know you’ve never heard from the likes of me. And I’m not certain your mercies extend to pirates. But please, if you can do something, anything…
A stampede of boots thundered up the gangplank, nearly deafening her. For heaven’s sake, thought Abi, her eyes stinging. More buccaneers?
But as they flew on deck, silver swords beaming in the moonlight, her heart soared with hope. The crew! They had come after her! Her father’s men took on the buccaneers with renewed gusto, as though the skirmish in the tavern had only been a round of practice. Spaniards fell in heaps of velvet, their fine waistcoats stained with rusty blood.
“Leave no survivors,” growled a voice, and Abi’s body froze, from crown to heel. She knew that voice, from the depths of her dreams, and the soul of her memories. She would never forget it. And she would never mistake it. She’d only thought she was never to hear it again.
She had been so thankfully, spectacularly wrong.
She pushed her voice behind the kerchief, emitting a throaty shriek. A broad figure standing taller than the rest turned at the sound. His eyes scanned across the bow until he spotted her. “Abi.” She saw his mouth form the word.
Tears of gratitude gushed from her eyes as he dashed his way over carnage and shipyard supplies. It was as though nothing could stop him, could keep him from her.
“James,” she cried, the moment he tore the silk from her mouth. With his dagger, he sawed her bindings free. He sheathed it back onto his belt, and pulled her into his burly arms.
Abi hung on to him with the entirety of her strength. “My darling.” Could it really be him? Or had she died and gone to a paradise she didn’t deserve? “I had meant for you to find the treasure on Monhegan!” She pulled back to meet his eyes. “I swear, I never meant to deceive you! I’d no idea my father would dig it up. I tried to stop him, really, I did. I cannot tell you the anguish I’ve—”
He silenced her with his mouth. It came down over hers, moving rapidly, as though compensating for lost time. Abi clung to him, having no difficulty keeping up. His lips were even sweeter, more malleable than she remembered.
He broke away long enough to say, “I know.”
“You do?” Her eyes were round, searching his moonlit ones.
He helped her off the floor and to her feet. Once she’d found her balance, Abi embraced him.
“Why d’ye think I crossed the Atlantic? Would I have done so for a woman whom I’d
believed had betrayed me?” He wiped the tear from her eye. “Nay, but I couldn’t let you go again, and needed to hear the whole story from your lips. And now that I have, I know it fer sure—that you are true.”
James consumed her mouth again, kissing her, long and full. Abi was glad for his arm hooked around her waist, holding her erect. Otherwise, she surely would’ve toppled over.
So spellbound was she, Abi vaguely noticed the tingle of smoke and the glare of torchlight in her periphery. Reluctantly, James loosened his lips from hers. Their heads turned. Before them stood none other than her father and his crew, watching them.
Abi’s jaw stiffened.
“Well, then.” Captain Clear stood over the bodies of the dead buccaneers, arms folded grimly across his chest. Behind him, One-Eyed Will held a torch aloft, lighting the deck for all to see. “So this is what’s been goin’ on.”
James gently released Abi’s waist and raised his wide, empty hands in surrender.
Abi wished he was still holding her. “Papa, I…”
Her father shook his head. “No need, Abi. No need.” He stepped around the fallen corpses of their enemies, circling Abi and James. “I should have guessed, really. The disappearances, the strange behavior.”
“Jim is only trying to clear his name,” asserted Abi. “Simply give him back the trunks we stole from him so that he can return them to the king, in England. Let him prove to the crown and to Parliament that he’s changed.”
Abner Clear cackled, coming to a stop beside Bones. “Are you hearing this, Mr. Bones? My daughter—who is, by the by, proving to possess a brilliant penchant for mayhem—actually believes that our old friend, Dagger Jim, only wants to give the treasure back to its rightful owners?”
“She speaks the truth, Clear,” said James.
“A likely story.” Captain Clear scowled at him. “And what’ll you do as a free man, Morrow? Go after my head, like the privateer you were pretending to be?”
“If he was going to do that, he’d have done it already!” Abi couldn’t eliminate the emotion from her voice. But couldn’t her father see that James no longer wished to be their enemy? Why did he have to be so stubborn?
“Quiet,” her father hushed her. “Jimmy can speak for himself.”
Abi was amazed at the easy command with which James maintained himself, particularly in the face of the angry crew with hands twitching over their weapons. “Actually, I can take a few o’ these heads,” he gestured to the fallen Spaniards at their feet, “and be done with it.”
“And then what?” sneered Captain Clear.
“And then,” James lowered his hands, and Abi’s body infused with unspeakable warmth as he returned an arm around her waist, “I thought mayhap I’d settle down. Take me a wife.”
Abi winced at her father’s scathing laughter. A number of his men joined in, further breaking her heart. When she could stand it no longer, she burst, “Papa, please, you said it yourself. My prospects for marriage are very dim. But here is a man who will have me!”
Her father’s incredulous gape nearly put her to shame. “Have you lost your mind, girl?”
“I have the coordinates,” said James unexpectedly. All heads turned in his direction, including Abi’s.
“You do?” she breathed.
Discreetly, he gave her a single nod. “I can attest,” he spoke to her father, “whoever finds a way to excavate that galleon is a very wealthy man, indeed.”
Abner Clear was listening.
“And I’ll give them to you,” James offered, “if you give me my trunks. Along with her hand.” He squeezed Abi.
The crew murmured skeptically as Abi’s breathing quickened. Oh, please agree, Papa…
At last, her father replied, “Now, why would I be doin’ something like that, Jim, handing my most precious valuables over to my sworn enemy?”
While she might, in other circumstances, have been touched to be referred to as a ‘precious valuable,’ Abi was discouraged by her father’s response. She came forward. “What if…what if you give him the trunks, Papa? And in exchange, he gives you the coordinates? Then he can return to the kingdom, and do what he needs to. By then, we might have found a way to recover the galleon’s booty. And we’ll know whether he’s been honest.”
She drew a breath. “And if he has, will you permit us to wed, when he returns for me?” She turned to James, her eyes adding silently, if he returns. For, would he come back for her? All of this—his journey to Bilbao, rescuing her, requesting her marriage hand—couldn’t possibly still be just a ploy for the Spanish gold, could it?
Well, she supposed there was only one way to find out.
“Come, Papa,” Abi pressed him, “we’ve so much to gain. And if he’s lying, we haven’t lost much. We’ve still got the other loot from—” Her mouth snapped shut at the look Captain Clear gave her. She made a mental note to never again mention the plunder from their other raids, which were hidden among the Caribbean isles. She didn’t miss the lift of James’s eyebrow.
When the crew had been staring at him, dumbfounded, for too long, Captain Clear finally cracked. “Oh, fine, then!” He marched up to James, meeting him nose-to-nose. James didn’t flinch. “Fine! Christ Almighty, you can have the bloody damn trunks! You earned ’em, chasing after them so doggedly all these blasted years!”
“Not to mention, bein’ the first to steal them,” James muttered.
Captain Clear either didn’t hear, or disregarded, the comment. His eyes narrowed. “That galleon had better be exactly where you tell us.” He jabbed a finger at James’s chest. “I’m going to believe it’s there because my daughter says it’s there. I’m gonna be dead-dog crazy and trust that you ain’t making fools of us all. And if you are, man,” his teeth clenched, “I swear I’ll kill you. Mark me.”
Abi swallowed.
“And then,” her father’s voice was a rumble in his throat now, “after you go about your business in England, you had better come back for her.”
James was unblinking. “You will see me again,” he promised. “Sooner than you wish.”
Captain Clear jabbed a thumb toward the blood-riddled floor. “Then off with these bastards’ heads for your trip. If you want your gold, meet us at port with the coordinates, first thing before sunrise. No weapons.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Abi wrung James’s hand. He turned to face her, cupping her cheek, honing in to give her a goodbye kiss.
Her father objected. “Keep your meat hooks off her,” he snarled. “You’ve proven nothing yet.”
“In the morning then, love,” James whispered to her.
Bones and Wally escorted Abi off of the buccaneer ship, while the others remained behind to manage the spoils of the battle. At the quay, she peeked over her shoulder for another glimpse of James. Alas, she couldn’t see past the dark of night.
Chapter 21
Not surprisingly, the tavern wouldn’t have them back. With sour glares, the servers swept up shards of broken clay mugs and chippings from splintered stools, and shook their heads at them. Resigned, Captain Clear’s crew ambled back to port to board The Succubus. At least sleeping on the ship would cost them nothing, and Abi could have her cabin to herself.
She was awash with relief to see Peter on his feet among them. He leaned on Will and Hector for support, with a tourniquet wrapped around his skinny waist. But otherwise, the lad seemed in good spirits. Exhausted, they filed aboard and down to the cabin deck, Abi dragging her feet amidst them.
She reached her cabin door, about to grasp the handle. Before she could, her father approached, his face haggard. His glower was fixed upon her.
She sighed. “Don’t look at me like that, Papa.”
“I’ll look at you however I damn well feel.” He shook his head, muttering to himself. “Can’t believe the lies you fed me. I’ve half a mind not to go through with it—any of it.”
“Don’t renege,” Abi urged him, grabbing his arm. He shook her off. “We made an agreem
ent with James.”
“Stop calling him that!”
Abi crossed her arms. At that point, though, she knew her father was only voicing empty threats. He was curious about the coordinates. They all were.
The man was about to depart for his quarters, but stalled to ask two words. “Why him?”
Abi watched her father, wondering if he was recalling in that moment, as she was, the conversation they’d shared over the voyage. The one about her mother. Her shoulders gave a helpless shrug. “Because I’m…rather fond of him.”
“You’re fond of him?” he repeated dubiously.
“What I mean to say is,” though she felt rather vulnerable, Abi met his eyes, “I am in love with him, Papa.”
Captain Clear blinked, and said nothing more. Appearing worn, he turned his back to her and lumbered off to his quarters. He was surly now, but he would get over himself, she knew. In time.
Abi finally entered her cabin and closed the door. She changed into a plain, oversized tunic that hung to her knees, for she owned no proper nightshift, and lay down on her cot. It felt strange to be lying there, anchored at port, without the expanses of the ocean bobbing freely below her.
She shut her eyes, attempting to doze at intervals. Yet all the while, she remained restive. It was difficult to sleep knowing James was so close by.
Hours passed. The deep of night engulfed the city at large, and the ship was entirely sound. If she concentrated, she could hear the crews’ snores issuing from their shared cabins across from hers. She must be the only one awake.
Unable to lie still any longer, she arose. Pulling on a pair of britches, she contemplated where she might go. Maybe to the galley, to see what new fare the cook had acquired from the market in Bilbao. Or maybe for some fresh air on deck.
The latter appealed more at the moment, for her stomach was overcome with the all-too-familiar queasiness that James Morrow tended to evoke in her. Silently as she could, she crept up the steps.
