by Gaelen Foley
Rotgut was intrigued. But he needed proof that Nick was really the gunrunner he claimed to be.
“Come aboard, I’ll show you the stock Angelique sent me to sell. In fact,” he said, giving the Geordie a hearty clap on the shoulder, “I’ll give you a crate of Baker rifles as a token o’ good faith.”
Rotgut was still seemed suspicious, but he agreed to come aboard the Santa Lucia and take a look. After all, Nick had done nothing threatening. The hostility he had shown toward Rotgut before they had been properly introduced was to be expected among criminal colleagues.
So, Rotgut joined him in the dory, and Nick put out again for the Santa Lucia. Soon they had both climbed aboard. Phillip and the crew watched silently as Nick led the shifty-eyed stranger down to their hold, where the crates of guns were stacked. He cracked one open and showed him the ten shiny rifles inside.
“They’re yours,” he said with a generous flourish. “I’ll even throw in some ammunition for you. Think about my offer.”
Rotgut was pleased, but Nick kept their visit short, especially when he saw how interested Rotgut was in the light, nasty, always-useful howitzers. He lidded the crate again and nailed it shut with the store of black powder and bullets inside. Then he hefted it abovedeck and carried it over to the crane, where he strapped it in to be lowered to the dory.
“My pleasure, where do you want it?” he asked.
“Might as well take it to my boat. And . . . perhaps since you couldn’t snare the barmaid, I can repay the favor in kind.” He grinned. “Would you like to see my merchandise?”
Nick laughed. “More than you know.”
As soon as they had the crate securely in the dory, Dolan pointed to his ship anchored farther out.
Ah, Nick thought, the infamous Black Jest. A merchant vessel, it was smaller than a frigate—about ninety feet long—but rigged like one, and three-masted.
Nick rowed toward it, biding his time. It was going to be difficult seeing those poor girls paraded before him like cattle for his choosing, but at least now, he knew which ship belonged to Rotgut.
“So what do you fancy?” the slaver asked as he pulled against the oars. “Blondes? Brunettes?”
He grinned. “Don’t really care, long as she’s got bottom. Spirited filly is more fun to tame, I always say. But . . . I suppose I am partial to redheads,” he added wistfully without quite meaning to.
“Well, you might be in luck,” Rotgut said with a snort. “You’d probably like the new one I got in. Redhead. Fighter! Got her through Limarque, actually.”
Nick nearly dropped the oars in shock at this casual remark. He stopped rowing for a second, suddenly queasy with the waves.
“Somethin’ the matter?”
“No, no.” He slammed himself back to his criminal role. “Now you’ve piqued my interest.”
“Well, if you want her, she’s yours. More trouble than she’s worth to me. Too much of a handful for me to be bothered with. Besides, my clients don’t usually have much use for anything over thirty.”
Nick nodded, but was so horrified by his near certainty that Limarque had handed Virginia over to Rotgut to be auctioned as a sex slave that he couldn’t say a word.
If this was Limarque’s way of apologizing for the misunderstanding, giving Nick a scare, but ultimately, making it relatively easy for him to get her back, that was not going to let the French bastard off the hook.
Limarque was now officially a dead man.
And if he had tortured her to reveal her father’s codes, then his death was going to be very painful and very, very slow.
Despite Nick’s years of hiding his emotions, it was difficult to mask his seething hatred, fury, and revulsion as they neared Rotgut’s ship. Thankfully, a plume of seafoam splashed up and hit him in the face. It helped to clear his head and focus on the task at hand.
When they reached the Black Jest, he counted five gunports along the ship’s flank. They’d be mirrored on the other side, so ten cannons, he thought, as well as two swivel guns bristling off both the bow and stern.
In short, they were quite efficiently armed.
Some of the slaver’s men let down a ladder, while others rigged the davits and lowered a line tipped with a chunky hook. When it reached the dory, Rotgut grabbed it and secured the hook to the strap around the crate of rifles.
As the crew began hoisting the crate up onto the deck, Nick tied the bow line of his rowboat to the bottom of the ladder. Then he and his odious new friend climbed aboard.
He immediately counted up the armed men he saw, noting a rifleman posted in the crow’s nest. About thirty crew on deck, but there were sure to be at least another dozen below. You couldn’t sail a vessel of this size without at least forty or fifty men, he thought.
With an unfamiliar knot of pure, cold fear in the pit of his stomach, he reminded himself he was Jonathan Black and flashed a cocky smile as he opened the crate to show the men. While they admired the fine weapons, he loaded one so Rotgut could test-fire it into the air.
It took all of his considerable self-discipline to hand the loaded rifle over to their captain instead of aiming directly at the bastard’s head and demanding that all the girls be set loose, including Virginia.
Of course, that would have been extremely foolish.
He had a knife in his boot and pair of single-shot pistols at his waist, but that would only take care of four of these devils. He doubted they’d give him time to reload.
He dared not take the risk with Virginia aboard, nor with Rotgut’s cannons within firing range of the Santa Lucia, where Phillip waited.
All that mattered was getting her safely out of here, and if Rotgut was willing to simply hand her over, that should soon be accomplished.
Rotgut fired skyward and murdered a seagull for no particular reason. His audience applauded, and the slaver nodded in approval, well pleased with Nick’s gift.
“Crate ’em up again and take ’em down to the arms locker,” their captain ordered one of his men.
“Would you like some help?” Nick offered, stepping forward in the hopes of getting a look around to find out exactly where the girls were being kept.
“That’s all right,” Rotgut said, clapping him on the back. “Your turn now.” He turned and barked another order: “You two!” He gestured at a pair of seadogs standing by. “Fetch the redheaded wench from Limarque. Bring her here. And watch yourselves! She’s mean. Of course, our friend here likes a lass with spirit.” He laughed heartily, but Nick could only manage a taut smile, his stomach churning with dread at what sort of condition he might find her—the woman he loved.
A few minutes later, he could hear her coming even before they had brought her topside. “Take your hands off me, you disgusting brutes! I can walk by myself, thank you very much!”
Heart in his throat, Nick could have wept to hear the fire in her voice. Whatever they might have done to her, she hadn’t lost her Scottish fighting spirit, and he nearly dropped to his knees to thank God for it.
“You hear that? A proper hellion, that one,” Rotgut said with a smirk. “Hope you know what you’re in for.”
“Oh, I think we’ll manage just fine,” the mercenary Jonathan Black murmured, arms folded across his chest as he waited for his prize.
She burst up from the hatch still wearing the same gown in which he had last seen her weeks ago, in that Paris alley. She was pale and thin, the wind running riot through her auburn hair, which hung free, but her eyes had never blazed so wild, the cobalt blue of the Adriatic all around them.
Nick forgot to breathe from the minute that he saw her.
He had only a moment to steel his expression before she noticed him standing there in her angry scan of the decks.
She went motionless.
The two crewmen holding her arms laughed at how she had frozen at the sight of him, mi
sunderstanding the reason for her shock. They took it for terror.
Nick held her stare in fierce warning, willing her not to give away the truth of the bond between them.
He glanced at Rotgut. “Well, well,” he said. “Very nice, indeed. I’ll take her.”
The slaver gestured to the men to bring her closer. Virginia stopped fighting, staring at Nick in amazement, her complexion gone even paler, her eyes wide.
He could not bear to hold her gaze for long for fear that his relief and his love for her would be written all over his face. Or worse, that he would give in to the overwhelming need to take her in his arms and hold her as tightly as he could, forever.
“Aye, here’s the hellcat I told you about, Black,” Rotgut said, nodding as he, too, looked her over. “She’s yours if ye want ’er.”
Nick put out his hand to her. “Come here, woman.”
The soft-toned order seemed to jar her out of her daze. “Why?” she forced out.
Nick figured she was just playing along with the charade. Clever. No doubt she wanted to run into his arms, but she kept her wits about her.
After all, a woman ought to be reluctant to be presented as a gift from one criminal to another.
“I’m taking you home with me,” he replied, trying not to sound too strangled by the lump in his throat.
She stared at him soulfully, an anguished mix of joy and sorrow warring in her eyes, but she made no move to come to him though the sailors had released her.
“Come!” he ordered, waiting with his hand out to rescue her, every nerve ending thrumming with crazed protective instincts.
But either she was taking the charade of resistance too far, or, he thought with a sickening feeling, she was even more traumatized than he had anticipated. For, to his amazement, she shook her head slowly and once more, gave the answer: “No.”
Chapter 22
Gin could not take her eyes off him.
Everything in her longed to run to Nick and fling herself into his arms.
Fraught with emotion and fragile after all she had been through, she was shaking from head to toe with the shock of seeing him again, especially since she had been half-certain he was dead.
Boundless love flooded her at the sight of him.
But her refusal to go with him was genuine, and as she held his stare, she saw him gradually realize that.
The confusion in his dark, fiery eyes gave way to a flash of understanding. Disbelieving fury filled his face. “Come to me! Now,” he repeated in a hard tone. God only knew what lengths he had gone to to save her.
But she shook her head again, her heart in her throat, for she knew what she had to do.
Perhaps he was catching on. He glowered at her like he would wring her neck, and it wasn’t just for show. “I gave you an order, wench,” he warned, while his midnight eyes pleaded with her, Don’t do this to me.
She balled her fists at her side and held her ground, refusing to budge. The men snickered at her show of obstinacy, but Nick’s eyes narrowed.
He cast a cold glance at Rotgut. “Might I have a moment alone with the wench to apprise her of her situation?”
“Be my guest! But don’t go rogering her in my stateroom,” the captain drawled with a coarse laugh, gesturing toward the door on the quarterdeck.
While the crew laughed, Nick closed the distance between them with a few angry strides and grasped her by her arm. His touch was blissful, his nearness heavenly, even though she could tell he wanted to throttle her.
“Like to borrow a belt, Black? Give her a few snaps on the hind end, eh? That’ll get her in line.”
“Not necessary,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Go on, ye little spitfire, go with him!” Rotgut taunted her, as Nick escorted her none too gently into the stateroom. “Willful witch, now you’ve met your match, haven’t ye?”
The moment Nick had closed the door of the cramped, messy stateroom behind them, he turned to her in bewilderment. “What do you mean, no?” he whispered.
Gin couldn’t hold back. She launched herself into his arms; he caught her up hard in his embrace, and she clung to him in trembling secrecy and silence.
She ran her hands almost frantically over his head and shoulders, glorying in the solidity of him. “You’re a miracle,” she breathed as she held him hard. “I can’t believe you’re really here. I thought I’d lost you,” she whispered with a small sob.
“I’m here, sweeting,” he soothed barely audibly. Then he cupped her face and pushed her back gently to examine her for signs of injury.
Thankfully, the black eye she had received from Limarque was long gone. She did not wish to stoke the wrath he already felt.
As they stared into each other’s eyes, Nick touched her hair with a mix of adoration and fury on her behalf. He took her face between his hands and kissed her on the forehead with exquisite gentleness, then on the lips.
She closed her eyes. The man melted her entirely.
When he pulled her into his arms once more, she rested with all her soul against his chest. He stroked her head in soothing reassurance as he held her. “It’s all right. You’re safe now,” he whispered.
“Oh, Nick. I’ve missed you so much.”
“And I, you. More than you’ll ever know.” He kissed her head again, cradling her in his arms. “But there’ll be time for kisses, sweeting. Right now, I’ve got to get you out of here. I’ve got a ship waiting just a stone’s throw away. Rotgut and I have made an exchange of gifts, y’see, some of my guns for one of his women. Now, let’s get the hell off this ship before he changes his mind.”
She warded him off when he started to draw her toward the door. “Nick—I can’t.”
“Why? What are you talking about?” he whispered.
“I can’t abandon these girls! They don’t have a chance without me.”
His jaw dropped. He stared at her incredulously, then blurted out, “I’ll drag you!”
“Please don’t. Can’t you see? As one of Rotgut’s prisoners, I’m in the best possible position to help the others escape. Nick, please. I can do this—with a little help. Show me you believe in me like my father never did.”
“So that’s it?” he whispered in outrage. “You always wanted to be an agent, and now you think this is your chance? Are you mad, or do you think this is a game?”
“Of course not!” she whispered back. “But I can’t walk away from these girls just to save my own skin! We’ve got to do something!”
“I’ll do something,” he corrected with a glower. “You’re a lady, for God’s sake! And you’ve already been through enough. Let me take you to safety first, then I’ll send for a contingent of Marines. There’s a base on the other side of the island—”
“What island? Where are we?”
“Corfu. Adriatic. We’ll come back here in force and stage a raid—”
“Absolutely not.” She shook her head. “As soon as they see you coming, they’ll kill the girls and burn the ship to hide the evidence. It won’t work.”
He scowled at her, amazed by her retort. “Well, what do you propose, then?”
“I don’t know!” She searched his face in frustration. “What would an Order agent do? What would you do if you were in my place?”
“Well, that’s easy. I’d take over the ship.”
His answer startled her. “How?”
He shook his head. “Forget it. This is madness. There is no way I am leaving here without you.”
“Darling, listen to me.” She clasped his lapels, gazing up at him. “If Rotgut is allowing you to take someone off this ship, then you have to take the little girl, Rose.”
His midnight eyes flared at this news. Then he let out a low groan of doomed exasperation and dropped his head back to glare at the ceiling.
“She’s just
a child, Nick. Please. You have to get her out of here, not me. I can fend for myself and help protect the others.”
He could not seem to speak for a minute. Then he looked into her eyes, his own churning with frustration. “You’re serious.”
“Of course I am,” she whispered. “I am Virgil’s daughter, and I will not leave these girls behind to die.”
He shook his head at her, at a loss.
“Nick, please. You’ve got trust me.”
“After you lied to me about the whole reason for this mission?” he retorted in a whisper. He visibly checked his impatience with her and gave her a hard look. “I know about your father’s journal. You should’ve told me.”
She winced. “I know. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have kept anything from you. I won’t in future. Please forgive me.”
His gaze softened and he ran his hand down her arm with a comforting touch. “Of course I forgive you. But, honestly, woman! Charging into that alley on that horse . . . You should have stayed out of it.”
“They were going to shoot you! Was I to let them?”
“Never mind, we’ll talk about it later.” He captured her chin, lifting her head again to search her eyes. “Are you all right? You seem remarkably yourself after everything. More than I expected.”
She nodded, pleased with his assessment. “I’m well enough. You?”
“I’m fine.” He hesitated. “Has anyone . . . hurt you?”
She knew what he was really asking. If she had been raped. “Limarque tried. It didn’t go well for him.”
He seemed taken aback, then he melted at her dry reassurance.
With a soft laugh, Nick shook his head, pulled her close again, and held her tenderly. “That’s my girl.”
She smiled, dizzied by the bliss of his embrace.
He kissed her forehead as he sheltered her in his arms. “Sweeting?” he murmured after a moment. “About your father’s book—I’m afraid I must ask. Did you give Limarque the codes?”
“No.”
