by Jayla Jasso
Hauste’s visage turned menacing, and he spoke through gritted teeth. “I am in no mood for games, Spaniard. You know what I seek. You were seen with her in Santo Domingo a few nights ago.”
Marcano shrugged. “If you are speaking of your ward, I am sorry to tell you she was kidnapped during a pirate raid just as we left Santo Domingo. She is probably dead by now.” He straightened to his full height and folded his arms across his chest. “However, even if she were still with me, I would never give her over to you against her will.”
Hauste regarded the captain with a venomous glare. Before he could reply, a movement at the far end of the Amatista caught his attention and his gaze shifted in that direction. He smiled. “My, my, it appears we are being visited by a ghost, then.”
Marcano’s heart dropped to the pit of his stomach as he turned to see Jolie standing just outside the door to his quarters, dressed in one of the muslin gowns he’d given her. Her hair blew loosely about her shoulders in the breeze as she stared at Hauste, horror on her ashen face. She fastened confused, frightened eyes on Marcano. He knew she must be wondering why he had lied to her about Hauste being dead. Loathing flooded Marcano’s being for this cold-blooded, inhuman vulture of a man who caused such a look of terror on his beloved girl’s face.
He turned to glare at the Englishman. “She is alive, Hauste, but she is no man’s property. She is free to choose her own life now, and she has chosen to stay with me. We are planning to marry.”
“You forget, Spaniard, that I hold your gold nugget. Surely you are not such a fool as to give up an irreplaceable treasure in order to marry a penniless orphan girl.”
“Surely,” Marcano flung back, “you are not such a fool as to think that you can take her from me with this pitiful excuse for a sloop and this scurvy crew of traitors you have paid to carry your overripe jowls across the Caribbean. I will sink you before you can raise a white flag, Englishman.”
Hauste grinned dangerously. “You are mistaken once again, Spaniard. The vessel that will sink today is yours.”
Rooted to the spot, Marcano waited for him to make a move. A cold smile spread across Hauste’s face as one of Marcano’s crewmen yelled out, calling everyone’s attention to the opposite side of the brigantine. “¡Mira, Capitán!”
Marcano turned to peer into the hazy, dark fog off starboard. Just emerging from the shadows, a battle-ready brigantine was swiftly cutting its way through the waves toward them. He reacted instantly, racing down the staircase to the main deck, shouting a rapid succession of orders in Spanish at the top of his lungs. Guillarte remained on the forecastle, and several men rushed to starboard side to aim the swivel cannons and ready their muskets.
Marcano tore across the main deck toward Jolie, who stood frozen atop the quarterdeck watching the scene unfold. The first cannon shots from the enemy brigantine exploded in the waves just feet away from the Amatista. “Get back inside!” he yelled up at her, taking the stairs two at a time.
She didn’t budge, instead throwing her arms around his neck when he reached her and clinging to him frantically. “I’m staying with you—I don’t want to live if he kills you!”
“No one is going to die, muchacha,” Marcano swore, wrapping her trembling body in his arms and turning to shout another command over his shoulder at his men.
The crew of the sloop had maneuvered their craft closer and were attempting to board. Marcano grabbed Jolie’s hand, pulled her with him to the door of his cabin, and pushed her inside. “Stay there,” he ordered , then rushed downstairs to the main deck.
The battle between the two brigantines broke out in earnest. Cannon and musket fire filled the air on both sides, a thick sulfur smoke beginning to rise. As Marcano fired off a shot from a musket, one of his crewmen fell at his feet, shot through the chest by a pirate from the sloop; Marcano knelt at his side, but he was dead. Multiple cannon shots from the enemy brigantine broke through the hull of the Amatista, taking some of Marcano’s cannons and gunners down. Marcano’s gun crew could barely get a shot off before more cannon shots sailed through the side of the Amatista, and she pitched precariously.
Guillarte hurried down the stairs below decks to check damage while Marcano began firing his pistol at the boarders from the sloop as fast as he could load it. Many fell back, but a fresh wave of pirates doggedly climbed over the balustrades and began to engage in hand-to-hand fighting with Marcano’s men, swinging swords and cutlasses wildly.
Marcano felt the Amatista dip dangerously to the starboard side, and realized she was in danger of sinking if they didn’t defeat the other brigantine soon. A few feet away, a pirate ran another of Marcano’s crewmembers through with his blade, and Marcano turned to see that it was Belardo. He drew his cutlass and charged forward to slice the pirate’s neck and shove him aside, then knelt at Belardo’s side. Belardo clutched at his wound, blood pouring over his fingers.
Marcano cradled his friend’s head, angry tears stinging his eyes. “No, amigo, not like this,” he choked.
“Perhaps we...” Belardo groaned. “Perhaps we should have stuck with piracy, Capitán. I think it was...less dangerous.” He fell limp in Marcano’s arms.
Marcano looked up, tears blurring his vision. All around him lay the carnage of his crew, with more falling to the deck each second. He laid Belardo down gently and rose to his feet, holding his cutlass. With a furious cry, he charged the nearest cutthroat. The pirate crumpled at his feet, and Marcano attacked another, a blinding rage filling his every vein and muscle, driving him forward like a toro let out of the gate.
How long he fought like that he didn’t know, but at some point almost everyone around him lay wounded or dead. Hauste appeared before him in the billowing smoke, his few remaining hired pirates behind him, poised with swords and cutlasses drawn. The Englishman advanced a few steps forward, taking care to avoid losing his balance on the slanting deck of the Amatista.
Panting, cutlass in hand, Marcano wiped his sweaty brow on his bloodstained sleeve, and quickly surveyed the damage. Most of his crew was down, dead or dying from their wounds, any survivors probably below decks fighting fires and desperately attempting to patch holes in the hull. He glanced back and saw Jolie and Joaquin shrinking against the side of the main deck house, clinging to the balustrade and to each other.
Marcano turned back to face Hauste. “You are a spineless, barbaric snake, a man without conscience, Hauste. A coward who hires treacherous reprobates to do your fighting. Why don’t we settle this between ourselves, you and me? Man to man.”
Hauste threw back his head and laughed. “You amuse me greatly, Spaniard. I have no need to fight you. You are already defeated. Look around you, you arrogant jackanapes.” Hauste then shifted his gaze to Jolie, beyond Marcano’s shoulder. “Come, Jolie.”
“No.” She gripped the balustrade with a white-knuckled hand and took a breath, forcing herself to speak louder. “I’m staying with Captain Marcano.”
“My dear,” Hauste said, his voice dripping with false patience, “this brigantine will sink within the hour. I will not permit you to stay on it and die. You are coming with me.”
She shook her head. “No!”
Hauste turned to address his men. “Hold the captain.”
The pirates surged forward. Marcano slashed at them with his cutlass, but there were too many of them, and his weapon was soon knocked out of his hand. Someone’s sword sliced across Marcano’s midsection, cutting his shirt open to reveal a horizontal crimson line across his abdomen, from which blood rapidly began to pour. Another attacker dealt a violent blow to the side of his head with the handle of a cutlass, and he dropped to his knees, reeling forward against pairs of grimy hands which gripped his arms to hold him up. He felt his eyes rolling back a little, but he shook his head and fought to maintain consciousness.
Hauste stood above him, hands on hips. “I suppose you think your courage is to be applauded, Spaniard. You certainly seem to enjoy pain. Now, before I rescue my ward, I would like to
clear up a little matter in her presence, for the record. Did you sail as a pirate in the year 1723?”
Marcano blinked, attempting to focus. Perspiration and heavy sulfur smoke stung his eyes, and he knew he was losing a lot of blood. The fuzzy image of Jolie’s terrified face and the triumphant, gloating face of the Englishman loomed before his dazed view. “You son of a whore, desgraciado hijo de puta,” he muttered thickly.
One of the nearby pirates kicked him viciously in the side, doubling him over until his forehead touched the wooden planks. He struggled to raise himself back up, with the pirates still holding his arms.
Jolie cried out, broke away from Joaquin, and rushed toward him, but Hauste caught her arm in his beefy hand. She struggled frantically, watching as one of Hauste’s men reached down and grasped a handful of Marcano’s hair to jerk his head back. He felt a rivulet of blood running down the side of his neck from the head wound; the pain was intense, but he managed to refocus his eyes on Hauste.
Hauste held Jolie firmly in place and addressed the Spaniard again. “Did you or did you not sail as a pirate eleven years ago? Answer me!”
“I did,” Marcano rasped, hoping he would just get to the point.
“On what vessel, pray tell?”
Marcano sucked in a deep breath, fixing his glare on the Englishman’s face. He forced his voice out through cracked lips. “Let her go, Hauste.”
“I’m losing my patience, Marcano. Your answer is of vital importance to Jolie, especially since you say she wants to marry you. What vessel did you sail with in 1723, you bloody bastard?”
“Espada del Diablo. The Devil’s Sword.” Marcano’s voice broke, his chest heaving with labored breathing.
“Ah. I thought as much. Jolie, I give you the murderer of your parents. James and Jeanette Scarborough were killed when the Devil’s Sword sank their passenger ship in the year 1723.”
Jolie stared up at her guardian, open-mouthed. Her gaze shifted to Marcano’s face.
He feebly shook his head. “No, Jolie…” he managed, beginning to lose the fight to stay conscious.
“Don’t deny it, you son of a jackal. Their ship was one of many the Devil’s Sword sank in those days.” Hauste turned on his heel, jerking Jolie along with him. “Let’s go.”
She fought him, screaming and kicking. “Nooo!”
He clamped his thick arms around her tiny waist and dragged her with him toward the balustrade. Suddenly, Joaquin ran forward and jumped onto his back, wrapping his skinny arms around the huge Englishman’s face.
Hauste reeled and almost released Jolie’s writhing body. “Get him off me!”
Two of the pirates rushed to grasp the infuriated, frantic boy’s arms. Joaquin kicked and clawed, drawing blood from Hauste’s neck with his fingernails. The pirates eventually managed to haul his struggling body to the deck floor, where one of them punched him in the face with a heavy fist. When they stepped back, Joaquin lay limp and still.
Jolie screamed, a lengthy, blood-curdling scream that ended in a tormented sob.
It was the last thing Marcano heard before something blunt crashed against his skull, and he slumped to the deck, in blackness.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jolie’s cheek hit the hard surface of wooden floor planks. She heard the door slam behind her and the click of someone bolting it from the outside.
She lay still, her eyes wide but unseeing, her hair splayed across the planks and over her fingers where her hand lay flat against the floor. The cabin was dark, but she had a very clear image in her mind’s eye—Gabriel’s bloodied face, his pained blue eyes, his blood-soaked shirt, his head rolling limply to the side as he struggled to maintain consciousness.
Were those glazed eyes the same ones that had looked at her with such tenderness and joy only hours before? Those broken, bloodied lips the same that had kissed her everywhere until she was a quivering mass of desire? That ragged, cracking voice the same that had whispered passionate words of love all the night through?
And could those gentle hands that had lovingly caressed her body be the same hands that slew her mother and father? Jolie stared blankly into the darkness, unable to contemplate the answer to that question, her aching heart determined to remember and love Gabriel no matter what the answer was. Something inside her had ripped in half when Hauste dragged her off the Amatista, and she felt it as strongly as a physical blow. It was love and loss, fear and hatred, anger and grief, stronger than any emotion she had ever felt. It was so stifling that she couldn’t cry and was barely able to breathe.
She lay still until the first faint light of dawn began to filter into the room. Perhaps Lord Hauste would kill her soon and the nightmare would end. With Gabriel and Joaquin gone, she didn’t want to live any longer.
Dead. Dead, all of them, everyone she loved on that beautiful ship; and the brigantine had died with them, still sinking into the cruel depths even as Hauste’s sloop sailed away. Despair blacker than Jolie had ever felt overcame her, and after a while tears finally came, brimming over in her eyes, running across the bridge of her nose, dripping onto the floor planks under her cheek.
She could hear shuffling overhead and occasional voices but the noises had no meaning, no importance. Hauste could do whatever he wanted with her; no insult or abuse he could inflict would hurt as much as losing Gabriel and leaving the wonderful fantasy world she had been living in for the past several days. Hauste would never destroy her more completely than he already had; he had crushed and annihilated every dream she could ever wish for. She could have lived the rest of her days with Gabriel Marcano in Spain, happy and blissfully ignorant of the possibility that the man she loved had been on the pirate crew that attacked her parents’ ship.
She lay motionless and quiet, tears streaking her face, her eyes staring vacantly into the distance.
#
Lord Hauste unbolted the door to the small cabin and swung the door inward. He scanned the room and found Jolie huddled against the back wall, sitting on the floor between the end of the bunk and a small desk. He strode in and shut the door behind him.
He stood with hands on hips, taking in her blank stare and pale cheeks. She didn’t look up. Her tangled, stringy hair hung down on either side of her emotionless face, her folded arms hugging her knees against her chest.
Hauste sighed, feigning compassion. “Dear God, Jolie—what has that Spanish bastard done to you? You must have suffered a terrible fright when he kidnapped you.”
No response from the listless girl. The Englishman pursed his lips and considered what to do. Finally he pulled a chair up, seating himself in the center of the room facing her, and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
“I know it seems the end of the world, watching those men die—especially the blue-eyed Spaniard, who may have charmed you into thinking he was the answer to all your girlish dreams, but Jolie,” Hauste admonished, “you are safe with me now. And I have decided not to punish you for helping those slaves escape. I came to this decision because it will be well worth it when you tell me how to find El Vencedor.”
He waited for some response. Jolie lifted her head, still staring at some unseen point before her, and straightened her back against the wall.
“There is no El Vencedor,” she answered tonelessly.
“Jolie, I will not tolerate your attempts to protect this thieving renegade.”
“There is no El Vencedor,” she repeated, more firmly, at last meeting his gaze. Her eyes were completely devoid of emotion. She returned her vacant stare to the empty space before her. “I duped you into believing there was an El Vencedor in order to take the attention off my own thievery. I am El Vencedor. Hang me.”
Hauste studied her through narrowed eyes. After a moment, he smiled coldly. “Do you expect applause for that Covent Garden performance, Jolie? Do you really expect me to believe that you could have done all the things El Vencedor did? Come now, think it over. Why sacrifice yourself to protect this criminal? You decide what you wish
to tell me, but decide well.”
She made no response.
Hauste spoke again. “At first I thought this Captain Marcano was El Vencedor, but after I began to ask around about him, I discovered that he couldn’t have been in Crab Island all the time that El Vencedor was stealing my slaves. Now, Jolie, eventually you’ll come around. I’ve been too gruff with you at times, but that is going to change. It did something to me when that Spaniard took you away—”
“He didn’t take me; I ran away. I went willingly. I begged him to take me away from you.”
“Jolie.” Hauste struggled to maintain his facade of patience. “I don’t know what sort of tricks this Spaniard has played on your mind, but one day soon you will realize you should never have trusted him.”
“Trusted him?” She met his gaze with a cold stare. “I loved him.”
Hauste’s anger began to rise. “That whoreson bastard took advantage of your innocence, didn’t he? He deflowered you!”
“What of it?” she flung back. “Why don’t you just throw me into the sea? I would rather join him in death than to stay with you in life.”
Outraged, Hauste sprang to his feet and seized the chair with a furious movement, hurling it against the side wall. It clattered loudly in the small cabin, one of the legs snapping in two, but Jolie didn’t even flinch. She met his furious gaze calmly even as he stalked closer and towered over her. He cast a withering glare over her huddled form. “I had not thought you such a slatternly whore that you could still love the man who murdered your parents in cold blood.”
“Yes, you may call him a murderer if you like. And what are you? You have murdered many, and I am certain you are contemplating killing me right now.” She tore her eyes from his face and stared into the distance. “It is too late, Hauste, for I am already dead.”
He glared down at her, fury consuming him. Unable to contain himself, he reached down and hauled her to her feet by her upper arms, shaking her violently.
