by Paula Quinn
“I do like Mr. Pierce,” she said. “He is kind to me and he always seems to be around when I need him, but ’tis the only explanation I have.”
Was his father right all those years when he spoke of Alex’s mother and how easily she had abandoned him? Were all women heartless, merciless creatures? And when the hell would he learn? His heart wanted to believe her. He didn’t want to think he’d been duped yet again. But his heart was untrustworthy. It was what had gotten him here for the second time. This time, he would escape with more than a shred of his heart intact. “Go find yar cousin, Miss Grant. Ya’re both leavin’.”
Returning to the helm, he relieved Cooper and ordered him to remove Miss Grant from the poop deck.
When she was gone, he thought about her accusations against Sam. Kyle, too, had asked him if he trusted his closest friend. Why were they both trying to turn him against his friend? Did they think to blame Sam when Alex found the map missing?
He laughed at the idea of it, but he felt miserable. He didn’t remember feeling this bad since… Madalena. Hell, he shouldn’t have trusted Caitrina. Why hadn’t he learned his lesson? Of course she wanted his map. Many people wanted it. His father was killed because he wouldn’t give up the whereabouts of the Quedagh Merchant.
“Why are we racin’ fer Colony’s Lady?”
Alex turned to look at Sam coming toward him. He wouldn’t tell his friend about Caitrina’s and Kyle’s suspicions. They were unfounded and ridiculous. But he did tell Sam about finding Caitrina with his map.
“What explanation did she give?” Sam asked him.
“One I do not believe. I want her and her cousin off the ship and put to Scotland or France under Captain Henley’s care.”
Sam was silent for a bit. then sighed. “I must say in her defense, Alex, I don’t believe either of them fool enough to think they could steal yar map.”
“It doesn’t matter. I won’t sit around waiting for her to take more than me treasure. ’Tis time to send both of them off. We have serious business to get to.”
They sailed close to Colony’s Lady and boarded without exception. After being invited on deck, Alex shared a drink in Captain Henley’s cabin. He wasted no time in procuring safe passage home for Caitrina and Kyle. Understandably, Henley wanted a barrel or two of water to compensate for the two additional mouths aboard his vessel. Alex threw in extra wax and ten crates of fruit, since it was the first thing to spoil.
“I heard from a trader in Spain that there was a man from the ship Excellence askin’ questions about ya.”
“What kinds of questions?” Alex asked him.
“If anyone had seen ya or heard anything about ya.”
Excellence, the majestic man-o’-war sailed by Captain Harris of the Royal Navy, whom most pirates knew.
“D’ya know in which direction his ship sailed?”
Henley shook his head. “He’d already left by the time I reached Spain.”
All right, so Harris was in fact on his trail. It stumped Alex how quickly the navy had picked up on him, but it was good to know just the same.
Caitrina boarded the ship like a queen going off to visit a neighboring country. She wore her skirts and carried her shoes in her hands. She didn’t spare him even the briefest of glances beneath her thick chestnut tresses, nor did she offer him a last word in her defense.
It pricked Alex deep in the heart. He wanted to curse or tear a beam loose and cast it into the sea. He hated sending her away. He hated the thought that she hated him for doing this. But he hated even more that she’d tried to steal from him, that she’d been lying to him the entire time she was here.
Kyle had been informed of what was happening by his cousin and shook his head at Alex as he was taken past him.
“I thought ye wise,” he said. “But ye’re a fool, Captain Kidd.”
“Aye,” Alex agreed. He was indeed a fool to trust them, to take them in as part of his crew, to believe they were only after adventure. “But no more.”
Finally he felt her eyes on him, hot with anger. He shouldn’t have, but he looked at her. It was like looking at a priceless jewel, unattainable to all. But he’d wanted her. Hell, how could something so beautiful be so cunning?
Would she be safe with Henley? Aye, she would. Alex had known the scrawny captain for years and had never seen or heard of him being cruel to a woman. Still, he waited while they were taken belowdecks and then he stepped up beside his old mate. “There’s one other thing. If any harm is brought to them ya’ll make an enemy of me and I’ll cut out yar heart. Savvy, John?”
The short captain gave his word, but Alex paused as he turned to leave and a thread of foreboding passed over him.
“Captain?” Gustaaf came up beside him after he crossed the planks connecting the decks. “Are you sure you want to leave her with those men?”
No. No, he wasn’t sure. But he didn’t want to be reminded of it. How could he let her back on his ship when she wanted to rob him?
“She’ll be safe with Captain Henley and she has Kyle with her.”
“With respect, Captain, you are wrong about her. She would not deceive you in the way you believe.”
So, she’d found time to tell Gustaaf why she was leaving the ship. Alex looked at him blandly. “Did she not climb the ratlines against me orders and keep it from me?”
“She has a spirited nature, Captain, but she is not a thief.”
Well, the first part of that statement was true, at least. She did indeed have a spirited nature. Before he could stop himself, Alex’s guts wrenched at the thought of her disobeying his every bloody word and the way she stood up to him and pleaded on Gustaaf’s behalf when he’d caught her on the ratlines. He thought of her smile, alluring beyond description. The passion in her temper and the fire in her kiss. He looked around the deck of the ship he loved and it seemed dull and lifeless.
“Captain—”
“Don’t argue.” Alex called out orders to his crew and immediately they continued on their course, leaving Colony’s Lady behind them. “Let it go. She will be returned to her home and no harm will come to her.”
“Captain.”
Alex cast him a dark look.
The giant Dutchman backed away, but he wasn’t gone for long. Within fifteen minutes he came banging on Alex’s cabin door.
“His name sounded familiar to my ears but I couldn’t place it, Captain,” he said the instant Alex opened the door. “Did you say Captain Henley? John Henley from New York?”
Alex nodded, his expression changing from anger to terror when Gustaaf held on to the door frame and groaned from deep within his chest.
“Captain, we have to go back.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
This is my fault.” Trina looked out the single porthole in the tiny cabin she occupied with Kyle. She watched Poseidon’s Adventure sail away across the waves, taking with it her dreams and desires. Captain Kidd was one of those desires. She wished she could have convinced him of her innocence, so that her dreams of visiting faraway lands could be fulfilled. But she’d failed, and in so doing, robbed Kyle of his adventure, as well.
Going home wasn’t what was breaking her heart though. She could live without seeing the West Indies or the Caribbean and tasting some of their flavorful life. She’d lived without it before—not entirely happily, but she’d lived.
No, it was him. He was leaving her, casting her away like the bones of old seagulls. She thought he felt the same for her as she felt for him. But what did she know of men, save what she told herself? Alex grew up as a pirate. He didn’t have the loving kin she had. He cared for no one.
She would never see him again and he didn’t care.
“Dinna’ blame yerself fer this,” her cousin said beside her. “But explain to me again about the door in his wall.”
She swiped a tear from her cheek and turned from the porthole to look at him. “’Twas small and square in shape. It hung open.” She described again for him how she went to it with
the intent to close it, but temptation overcame her. She didn’t realize it was his silly map until he arrived.
“I didna’ open the door,” she told him. “I dinna’ know how it came to be open, save that Mr. Pierce was alone in the cabin when we arrived.”
“Ye told the captain this?”
“Aye,” she told him. “But he scoffed at my insinuation against his friend.”
“As he did mine,” Kyle agreed.
“I think Pierce is the brother or relative of Captain David Pierce, who took one of Gaza’s pups. D’ye remember him?”
“Aye.” Kyle nodded, listening to her. It reminded Trina of games they used to play of figuring out the secrets of others, before there remained no one new to play it on. “Do ye think the captain knows?” he asked.
“If he doesna’ know,” Trina replied, “that means he’s been well deceived fer a decade. Is Samuel Pierce that good at hiding his true motivations, cousin?”
Kyle would know.
“He might be. He is difficult to read beyond his outward loyalty to the man he might be betraying.”
“Ye admire his talent,” Trina guessed. She knew Kyle, the son of a great spy, would appreciate someone of the clever caliber that Pierce would have to be in order to keep such an enormous truth hidden.
“That’s not what’s in question here.” Kyle swayed her back to the topic. “The question is why the deception? It makes no sense.”
“Is there always a reason fer it?”
“Always,” he told her.
“Well.” She sighed. “We will never know what it is.”
The door opened and Captain Henley entered the cabin.
“If you would both follow me to the upper deck.” He smiled, turned, and left as suddenly as he’d appeared.
Trina exchanged a glance with Kyle, then followed him out the door.
They’d barely exited the hatch when Kyle was hoisted up the rest of the way and snatched from Trina’s reach. She tore her skirts getting up the stairs to the deck in time to watch six men lift her cousin off his feet and carry him to the railing.
Trina bolted forward and screamed as Captain Henley’s order reached her ears and they tossed Kyle overboard.
Just like that. Just like that he was gone.
The first two men to reach her and put their hands on her were dispatched with swift kicks to the groins and fingers in the eyes. Possession of their daggers was easy once they were on their way down. Disarm. The first rule her mother taught her. Don’t wait. Defeat. She sliced their blades across their throats and waited for the next two. One of them pulled out a pistol and aimed it at her. She flung a blade and without watching where it landed turned and jumped down the hatch.
She closed the door of the cabin and bolted it, then fell against it. Dear God, this was real. They threw Kyle overboard, to his most certain death. For what man could survive the sea? She swallowed a sorrowful groan. He was dead and it was her fault. If she had never gone aboard Alex’s ship… This wasn’t the time to fall apart, not if she wanted to kill the bastard who gave the order. And Alex knew this man?
She had one dagger. She looked around the room for any other weapon. She heard the rush of many footsteps on the stairs. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. She had to ready herself. They were coming to her through a narrow doorway. She knew what to do when they broke in.
“Come out of there, Miss,” Henley called down. “I promised my men the pleasure of your body when I’m done with you.”
She had to kill him, and before anyone touched her, she would join Kyle in his watery grave.
She wiped her tears away. “Come get me, ye scurvy, flea-infected arse of a rat, whose own mother carved out her insides just to ensure she never spat out such vileness again!”
“Ah, you curse like a pirate.” Henley laughed. “I hope Captain Kidd didn’t have his way with you before I do. I’m hoping you’re a virgin.”
“I’m hoping ye value yer organ so that when I cut it from yer body—” Someone smashed his body against the door. Trina ran to it and waited against the wall beside it. But silence reigned. No one tried to get in. She listened. She waited, her muscles drawn tight and her heart pumping in her ears. Kyle was gone because of her. Her wonderful Kyle. She wanted to fall to her knees and weep for a month.
If only she could live long enough to kill another man. The one who put her here and cost her dear Kyle his life.
Alex cursed Caitrina for betraying him, and himself for not giving a damn and turning his ship around to go and save her. He had to. After what Gustaaf had told him, he didn’t spare his decision a second thought. John Henley, a slave master?
Dear God, he grieved, what had he done?
Alex shouted the change in the direction of the sails that would bring him to Henley’s ship the fastest.
According to Gustaaf, Henley’s name was mentioned many times while he and his sister were held captive on Captain Charlie Roberts’s slave ship.
Alex’s heart rumbled in his chest with the thought that he had placed Caitrina into the hands of a slave master. By now, she may have been violated. Kyle was likely dead. No! He had to get to them. They weren’t that far behind and they soon caught sight of Colony’s Lady in the distance.
He thought of her under Henley’s heel and groaned at the fire in his belly. “Me thoughts tell me I’m mad, Sam.” He didn’t know why he admitted such a thing to his friend, but he wanted someone to tell him he wasn’t.
“I think ya have been racin’ toward madness since the night ya met her.” Sam didn’t look up from sharpening the blade of his dagger. “I don’t like her on that ship either. I must be mad as well, because I agree with yar decision to go back fer her.”
Alex hoped it wasn’t too late. “Race the wind, mates!” he bellowed.
“Thirteen port!” Sam shouted, giving the direction of the wind. They sailed hard over frothy waves. It would be only moments now.
His eye spotted something he’d been trained most of his life to look for. Arms flailing in the waves. His heart banged once then paused, stilling his breath. No! Alex’s mind railed against his vision. He ran to the rail to get a closer look. “Man overboard!”
Alex didn’t pause but dove into the water. He moved with expert precision and extra strength and urgency in the deadly current. But the figure had stopped flailing.
Alex wasn’t one to ask anything of God, but he did now. Let him be alive. Let him be alive. Please.
Kyle! His heart battered against his chest while he swam. When Alex reached him, he took up the Highland lad against him and turned them both back toward Poseidon’s Adventure. He saw Gustaaf lowering a rope ladder over the side, and swam toward it.
The Dutchman lowered himself over the edge to grab Kyle’s lifeless body. He hoisted him into the boat and Alex followed right behind. Sam watched, pale and silent. When Alex reached the deck he left Kyle in Gustaaf’s competent hands while he returned to the rails and searched the seas for Caitrina’s body. Every instant grew more impossible to bear as the fear of finding her facedown in the waves gripped him.
“Kyle!” he demanded the half-revived man. “Did they throw her over?”
Her cousin cursed and tried to sit up. Gustaaf held him down as they caught up to Henley’s ship. “I don’t… I don’t know.” He fought against Gustaaf’s strong arms. “We have to get to her.”
“How does right this moment sound?” Alex asked and then sprinted to the quarterdeck. They were close enough to Colony’s Lady that he could leap onto a long, dangling rope and swing himself over the waves and onto her deck without breaking stride. Kyle, Sam, and Gustaaf soon followed. Alex hoped the Highlander wouldn’t get them all killed.
It didn’t take him long to realize what a true benefit Kyle MacGregor’s sword arm was to his side, despite his near drowning. They took down ten men on deck within minutes, but without finding her.
When Kyle turned toward one of the hatches, Alex followed him. Slashing their way through a rou
nd of men on the stairs, they descended, leaving a trail of bodies behind them, and met Captain Henley standing at a cabin door. When he saw Alex, he paled. When he saw Kyle, he near fainted.
“I…” Henley began, then paused as his bleak future flashed before his vision. “She…”
Alex didn’t wait but kicked the door in. Upon entering, he dodged the swipe of a blade to his neck and then another to his arm. He leaped away from the doorway and turned to her blade held high over her head.
“Caitrina!” He held up his palm to her. “’Tis Alex. We’ve come to get ya.”
“She killed three of my crew from that doorway,” he heard Henley tell Kyle.
Aye, his lass was courageous, and she was alive. The relief of it near made him dizzy.
“Alex?” She blinked in the low light as if she couldn’t trust the good of her eyes. Tears gathered almost instantly beneath her lids. “Kyle is dead.”
“I live, cousin.”
Alex lost her to the Highlander’s arms, but he didn’t mind. She’d thought her cousin dead, and to discover he lived was a celebration to be relished. Besides, Alex had other matters on the ship that needed his attention. He would see to Caitrina when they boarded Poseidon’s Adventure. She was alive and seemingly unharmed. That was all that mattered. He knew she had had to fight for her life. He would never forget the terror in her eyes when he broke through the door. She had obviously had to keep Henley and his mates at bay for as long as she could. Fighting them off, killing them as they entered. Threatened, afraid, and alone because of the position he had put her in. He’d understand perfectly well if she never spoke another word to him. If she didn’t, he deserved the torment of it. He never thought he’d lose his heart again. He’d been careful not to. But it was clear to him now that he’d failed. It was hers and he didn’t want it back.
He still wanted answers though. He wanted to know her intentions from the beginning. He wanted the truth. But later, after she was safe again. Nothing else mattered presently.
He handed her off to her cousin while Gustaaf cut down another three sailors in his path with one swing of his mighty axe. Sam waited on deck with a bloody-nosed Henley gripped in his fist. Alex wasted no time and showed Henley no mercy, cutting him down where he stood. “Let the rest live!” he called out to Gustaaf and the others. “Let them fight over who’s to be the new captain. And let’s get the hell out of here.”
