At least that was the one consolation in this whole mess that had sidetracked him from a course set for home.
That is, that it had indeed sidetracked him from a course set for home.
Now, Diego himself was manacled and on deck, guarded by his crew and vowing to take them to the pirate’s island lair. It would delay Kieran’s much-dreaded return to Massachusetts, but it was a valid delay—or so he told himself. Even so, was the price of that delay worth the temporary postponement of anguish that it offered? The price, of course, was that he was now stuck with and responsible for Miss McCormack.
He rested his arm over his eyes, trying to keep out the light filtering in from the stern windows. Yes, he was stuck with her. Stuck with playing knight in shining armor for her. Stuck with a headache, his worries, and a building resentment toward his brother that he had, up until recently, refused to recognize or address.
Connor….
Connor, who had been at the helm when Kestrel had come across the pirate brigantine.
Connor, whose rash and reckless actions had brought about her loss and their parents’ deaths.
Connor, whom everyone had loathed when he and the news of Kestrel’s sinking had made it back to Barbados. In those dark and awful days, Connor’s only ally and friend had been his wife Rhiannon…and Kieran, who had defended and sheltered him when others only wanted to excoriate him. Connor had managed to redeem himself with a spectacular act of even more recklessness that, this time, had gone in his favor, and while others had forgiven him, Kieran’s anger toward his older brother had continued to quietly emerge from beneath the numbness under which he’d buried it all these months. He’d tried to ignore it, to pretend it didn’t exist, but it had come out today—and in front of Liam, too. Finding this gang of pirates that had been as much responsible for his parents’ loss as Connor only brought that anger roaring to the surface like bubbles unleashed from deep underwater.
Stop thinking and sleep, for God’s sake. Just sleep.
But his brain refused to rest. Connor had sailed to England so that Rhiannon could be present for the birth of her sister’s baby, but he would not stay there forever and Kieran knew that a confrontation back home in Newburyport awaited them both, whether he wanted it or not.
Sleep.
Despite the heat, he drew up the blanket, pressing it down atop his eyeballs and sending his world into comforting pitch-darkness. Eventually his thoughts quieted and slowed, and finally stopped altogether.
Kieran Merrick slept.
Chapter 6
Journal of Captain Kieran Merrick, 18 May, 1814
Trade winds steady, making good progress toward this damnable island, log registering nine and a half knots. A squall that came out of the darkness last night drenched us all, including the most stubborn woman that God ever created, Miss Rosalie McCormack. Told her to leave the deck and take shelter below, but she insisted she was needed getting the mainsail reefed and the topsail down and, much to my disbelief, made herself as useful as any one of the crew. Otherwise, she’s stayed out of my way and I’ve stayed out of hers and I must confess, I prefer it that way. She is, of course, a female, and probably finds me as dull and uninteresting as any other member of the fair sex ever has. I am not, after all, my brother, who would have her eating out of his hand by now, simply because he could.
Satan’s Landing, it was named. Or so Diego Escobar, who pointed out the green smudge of land that lay two miles off Sandpiper’s plunging bows, called it.
They sailed around the island, noting its geography, its towering limestone cliffs, its look of bristling inhospitableness. There was something dark and menacing about it, and for the first time since his argument with Liam, Kieran felt a twinge of unease about his decision to come here. ’Piper was small, and in a match with the powerful brigantine that had been Kestrel’s final enemy, her only advantage would be her ability to flee like a greyhound. Even now Kieran could sense her nervousness, though she didn’t question his decisions or fight his hand on the tiller. But he was taking no chances. He ordered every gun loaded and run out, the swivels at the bow manned, and every seaman in his crew armed with pistols, cutlasses and knives from the weapons chests on deck.
“Still think we ought t’ have gone back to Barbados and got Sir Graham’s help,” Liam said. “I don’t like the feel of this.”
“Two days down to Barbados, maybe more with this wind, another two days to get back here. Do you think that Miss McCormack’s brother and crew have the luxury of time, Liam?”
“I don’t know. But I’m uneasy, I am.”
Kieran was, too. But, as Sandpiper cruised warily closer, keeping the wind such that she could make a quick escape if need be, the harbor formed by a protected cove through the coral reefs proved to be empty.
The big brigantine was nowhere in sight.
Miss McCormack joined them at the helm, saying nothing.
“Looks uninhabited,” Liam mused. “Leadin’ ye on a fool’s venture, he is.”
“Take the tiller,” Kieran said and moved to the side, where he plucked a telescope from the rack and held it to his eye. He scanned the empty beach. White sand in the hot sunlight. Crystalline waves breaking against the shoreline. A wild tangle of jungle, the colorful flash of a parrot as it moved from a banyan tree deeper into the forest and there—his eyes narrowed—a charred pyramid of wood between the water and the tree-line.
An abandoned cooking fire?
“Not so uninhabited after all, Liam.” He reclaimed the tiller and passed the glass to his second in command. “Have a look.”
Liam took the glass and raised it to one eye.
“What do you see, Lieutenant Doherty?” Miss McCormack was looking from the beach to Liam’s face, pointedly ignoring Kieran. “Any trace of my brother?”
“Looks like a campfire, lass. Some debris on the beach, fresh footprints. Recent activity, I’d say.”
“Do you think they’re still there?”
Kieran willed himself not to shoot her the annoyed glare she deserved. You ought to be asking me, not Liam. He’s not the captain and decision-maker here. I am. But even as he thought it, he saw her gaze cut helplessly to his to gauge his own reaction, and knew she was deliberately baiting him with her pointed refusal to acknowledge his authority here. His mouth tightened yet further. If she were a man, he might just toss her overboard right about now and appease a hungry shark or two.
“Don’t know, lass. Don’t like this one bit, I don’t.” Liam shut the telescope and returned it to the rack. “Afraid of a trap, I am.”
Diego Escobar turned from the rail and approached. He was chewing a plug of tobacco, his eyes dark and feral beneath a stained hat.
“Well?” Kieran demanded.
“I got us here. Now you take me ashore.”
“The brigantine’s gone.”
“Si, she is.” The pirate’s cold, merciless eyes challenged him. “Looks like you’ve got a choice to make, Capitán. Send me ashore and go on your merry way, or come with me and see what answers might be awaiting you somewhere in that jungle.” He raised a brow. “What’ll it be, eh?”
Kieran’s gaze settled once more on that distant campfire. Don’t do it. Unload this rascal and if the island’s deserted, he’s marooned and the hell with him. Go back to Barbados and let Sir Graham deal with this, as Liam advised. But the very fact that the pirate was challenging him to set him ashore argued against the possibility he’d be marooned. No, that island held secrets and if Kieran sailed off, they would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Don’t do it.
He had a sudden memory of his father’s kind, laughing eyes, his mother’s warmth. A raw, gnawing ache tightened the back of his throat.
Answers.
Yes, kicking this human rat off and going on his way was the right thing to do. The wise thing to do. The prudent thing to do.
But Kieran knew with ever fiber of his being that turning around and sailing away from these answers, were there a
ny to be found, was also the last thing he’d do.
He turned to Joel, who was waiting expectantly with several crewmembers. “Drop the hook and ready the boat,” he said tensely. “I’m going ashore.”
* * *
Liam Doherty stood silent and grim-faced as he watched Kieran go to the weapons chest and choose the tools of protection should trouble be waiting for him on that island. A cutlass, instead of the sword he usually wore. A brace of pistols in his belt and another pair which he knotted, pirate-style, in a scarf and slung around his neck for easy reach. A blunderbuss, capable of discharging a spray of lead that would take down anything in its path. A cartridge case full of powder and shot, which he slung over his shoulder.
Liam was tempted to repeat his earlier warnings. But for all his thoughtful caution Kieran had a stubborn streak, and Liam knew that the more he appealed to his captain’s good sense, the more likely he would be to rebel and do the opposite.
It had been Brendan who’d sailed the newly-built Sandpiper down here to the Caribbean while his youngest son Kieran, for whom Brendan had designed and built the ship, served as second-in-command. It had been Brendan who’d gotten Sandpiper past the British blockade not once, but twice. Brendan, always wily and smart, always able to get men to follow his command with nothing more than an appeal to their sheer, bloody confidence in him who’d gotten them here. And now he was gone. Kieran had something to prove, Liam knew, and he also—whether he realized it or not—had something to prove to Miss Rosalie McCormack.
He stole a glance at the young woman. A beautiful colleen she was, her burnt-orange hair glinting in the sun beneath a straw hat. Worry and hope warred within her beautiful bluebell-eyes. Of course she was hopeful; maybe they’d find her brother. But was her concern for that same brother, or for the determined young captain who was about to lead a small party ashore to discern her sibling’s fate?
Kieran himself had other matters on his mind. He adjusted his sword belt and quietly watched Joel and the three seamen he’d personally picked for this venture begin to clamber down into the boat, already bobbing in the swells below. He would leave Sandpiper in Liam’s capable hands while they checked out the island.
“Got plenty of water, lad?” Liam asked.
Kieran touched the flask that rested in a sling against his hip. “Enough.”
“Watch out for snakes. Quicksand. Angry natives. Wild—”
“Yes, Liam.”
“—boar. Cannibals. Poison darts. Ambushes.”
“Yes, Liam.”
“You don’t know what’s on that island.”
“I’ll find out soon enough.”
“Ye know I’m not liking this.”
“I know you’re not. But I’ll be back before nightfall. If I’m not, then you can start worrying. Until then, stow it.” He smiled to take the sting out of his words and laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “’Twill do neither of us any good.”
Joel, down in the boat, called up, “Ready to shove off, Captain.”
Kieran nodded. He glanced at Diego, jerked his head toward the boat waiting below, and watched as the brigand, his hands loosened for the descent, nimbly skirted the rail, several pistols trained on him in case he tried anything he shouldn’t. Then he turned to the old Irishman. “Take good care of our ship and Miss McCormack, Liam.” He checked the flint on one of the pistols. “Keep a watch out and fire one of the guns to call us back if you spot trouble. God only knows when that brigantine will return.”
Miss McCormack joined him at the rail. She had her pistol in hand and was now pulling up the hem of her skirt to tuck the weapon into a leather strap she’d tied around her calf. “I’m going with you.”
“Oh, no, you’re not.”
“I can wield a firearm as well as anyone. I’m an excellent shot.”
Unbidden, Kieran’s mind flashed back to his first meeting with this woman in the merchantman’s cabin and the pistol ball that had nearly taken a chunk out of his neck. “Forget it.”
“You might need me.”
Kieran made a noise of frustration and swung a leg over the rail. He was determined to ignore her, but she was relentless.
“You’re doing this for me,” she added. “For my brother and our crew. I should be there to help protect you should things go wrong.”
He paused, one leg still over the side, and for the first time he felt amusement—genuine hilarity, really—tugging at his mouth instead of the irritation this female had, so far, only been able to draw from him. “Protect me?”
She faced him unflinchingly, though her freckled skin turned just a bit red. “Yes. Protect you,” she added, drawing out the second syllable of the word as he had done.
Kieran just looked at her flatly; beyond her stiff little shoulder, he could see Liam eyeing him, lips twitching. He saw the men down in the boat grinning, felt irritation beginning to flood back in. Maybe they found this amusing. He most certainly did not.
“Well?” she prompted.
The island looked deserted, the brigantine nowhere in sight. Kieran was armed to the teeth, and so was his shore party. Miss Rosal-irritating McCormack was in no danger, nothing that he and his men couldn’t handle.
So let her come along. She’ll get hot and bothered out in the tropical heat, she’ll start complaining once she begins to sweat, and you’ll end up having the last laugh.
“Very well, then,” he muttered. “Need a hand down into the boat?”
She looked him straight in the eye and smiled. “Not on your life. After you, Captain Merrick.” Challenge glinted in her blue-violet gaze. “After you.”
* * *
Rosalie could smell the sun-baked paint of the sloop’s hull, could feel the rope biting into her palms and the undersides of her fingers as she nimbly descended the rope ladder. She was probably making a mistake with her insistence on accompanying Captain Cranky, but she had to know Stephen’s fate.
Unfortunately, there was only one space left on the only available thwart, and it was next to Kieran Merrick.
Damn. Picking up her skirt hem, she settled down and watched as Joel put an oar against Sandpiper’s sleek black side and pushed off. The boat cut quickly through the water as he put his strength to the oars, the sandy seabed, strewn here and there with pink and gold coral that looked close enough to touch, passing beneath them.
She tried not to think of how close Captain Merrick’s shoulder was to her own.
The tide was going out and it rocked the boat a bit, shoving her shoulder against his, his thigh against hers. Bump. Bang. Bump. She stiffened. Damn the tide. Damn the lack of space in this boat. Damn the pirates who had captured Penelope and put her into this position of trying to make herself still and small while the most stunningly handsome man on the entire planet happened to be sitting right next to her. A man who obviously thought she was a burden, beneath his notice, and—a pang went through her—probably far too plump for his liking.
Oh, dear God, but life was unfair, was it not?
Bump. Bang. Bump….
Heat was beginning to boil somewhere in the vessels that carried the blood to and from her suddenly quickening heart, and she felt an awareness of him in areas of her body she’d prefer not to think about at the moment, areas of her body that—
Bump—
She clamped her legs together so hard that they began to tremble. Out of the corner of her eye, she could just see his face, shadowed beneath his wide-brimmed felt hat. He was studying the approaching beach, unaware of her clandestine perusal. Unaware that she was looking at the wedge of tanned skin at his throat. At his thick, dark hair, loosely curling beneath his hat, so like she fancied a romantic poet’s like Byron must look. A quietness of manner beneath his ill temper that was somehow soothing and definitely reassuring. Broad shoulders, stubble beginning to come up on his handsome jaw with the progression of the day. No irritation now, in that strong, sensitive face with its faraway eyes. Nothing but a deep anguish in their amber depths—and a despe
rate hope.
But why? And for what?
Surely her brother and Penelope’s crew didn’t mean that much to him, did it?
She looked away, and tried to watch him out of the corner of her eye. But he had become aware of her perusal, or maybe just irritated all over again by her presence…or her chubby leg bumping against his.
The mask was back in place.
She directed her gaze toward the approaching island and tried not to think about the man beside her.
Chapter 7
With the oars in Joel’s strong arms and Briggs, Watts and Kieran, cradling the blunderbuss, keeping a sharp lookout for danger from the shore, it was a fast row from Sandpiper to the strip of beach, now falling into shadow as the sun moved behind the thick trees of the forest. Diego said nothing as he sat beside them, chewing a wad of tobacco and occasionally spitting over the side. Birdsong stopped as they approached. A low-hanging cloud of mist scudded up over the treetops and Kieran, the back of his neck prickling, felt something ominous. They glided into the shadows that were now spreading over the beach, the boat’s bow lodging in the sand while its stern swung gently around with its arrested momentum.
Joel lay down the oars. Everyone jumped from the craft, feet splashing in the surf. The very air was silent. Still. Menacing, as though they were being watched. Kieran had all he could do not to rub at the hair rising on the back of his neck, but instead he stood in the breaking surf and turned to assist Miss McCormack out of the boat. Everything in his being wanted to send her straight back to Sandpiper and the protection of both Liam Doherty and the sloop’s guns. But no; she was here, and waiting. He reached out a hand to assist her. She looked at it for a long moment, as though debating whether to accept his assistance before finally tucking her hand into his like a queen deigning to favor an underling. Perhaps she, too, felt the sudden sense of foreboding.
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