Pirate In My Arms

by Danelle Harmon

  But at least he’d said nothing about returning to piracy, and she told herself that his lawless days were over. She made herself believe them. And as she sat before the fire this mild night in May, making a coat for him while he was out walking the beach, she gave thanks for that.

  She was just sewing one of the last buttons onto the red broadcloth when the rattle of the door latch startled her. Hurriedly, she shoved the coat behind her—after all it was to be a surprise. The door opened and Sam came in, bringing with him the heady, salt-tanged scent of the sea and a draft of cool air that made the fire jump, flare, and finally settle back down again as he closed the door behind him.

  But she needn’t have feared that he’d seen the coat. His eyes were distant, shuttered, and he appeared to be in no better spirits tonight than he’d been for the past fortnight. Withdrawn. Unapproachable. Needing comfort, but unwilling to ask for it, unable to find it.

  He indicated the fabric she’d been trying to hide. “What are ye making?”

  He was far more astute than she would’ve given him credit for. “A new petticoat.”

  “Oh. Nice.”

  He didn’t ask to see it. He wasn’t interested in it. Maria swallowed tightly, feeling relieved, but somewhat hurt. “You’ve been down to the wreck again,” she stated quietly.

  “Aye.” He stood on one foot, the other rubbing the sand from his wet ankle.

  “Why do you torture yourself so? You can’t bring them back.”

  “No, I can’t, damn it, but I’d sell my soul to the devil if only I could!” He began to pace, that awful, back-and-forth motion that was starting to drive her mad. “Those bloody villagers,” he snarled, his temper rising with the speed of his pacing. “I’d like to carve their blasted gullets out, every last one of them! Everything they’re taking from the wreck is mine, and I have no way to claim it!”

  She winced at the thunder in his voice. “Sam, please. We’re fortunate that you’re alive.”

  “You call this fortunate?” he exploded. “To be stuck in this damned room all day just so that bloody idiot sent by the goddamned governor doesn’t see me, let alone your addlebrained villagers? To be stranded without a ship? Just how long do you think it’ll be before Doane ventures up here to check out the rumors of my ghost? Or Southack himself? God’s teeth! I can’t stand this confinement any longer! I have to get out of here!”

  Helplessly, Maria watched as he paced back and forth, back and forth. But oh, the magnificence of him in such a fine rage: dark eyes snapping, lips drawn tight, head high, and spine as straight as a frigate’s mast. “Sam, please. Come here and sit down. I don’t like it when you act like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Angry.”

  “And why the hell not?”

  “Because it frightens me, that’s why.”

  That, at least, brought a smile to his dark features—the barest quirking of his lips, but a smile nonetheless. But then he grew sullen again as he dropped down beside her and sprawled before the hearth, his head resting upon her knees, his eyes staring up at the ceiling in frustration.

  He took her hand.

  Squeezed it.

  “I’m sorry, princess,” he said morosely. He brought her hand to his lips. His kiss was tender against her knuckles, the wiry softness of his beard eliciting little shivers as he pressed her palm against his cheek and held it there for a long time. “I don’t ever wish to frighten you. Others, maybe, but never you.”

  The silence stretched, the fire mellowing his temper. At length, Maria murmured, “And I’m sorry, too.”

  “For what?”

  “For the fact that you’re stuck here in this little room all day with nowhere to go, nothing to do. For feeding you weeds. For…for everything.”

  “’Tisn’t your fault,” he said at length. “I don’t want ye to be blaming yourself for anything. If it hadn’t been for you and your weeds,” he added with a smile, “I’d be dead now. Besides, one of these days Paul will be back. Today, tomorrow—who knows.”

  Maria stiffened. “Does that mean you’ll be leaving?” She caught her breath, for she didn’t have to be a prophetess, a soothsayer, or even a witch to know what his answer would be.

  “Aye, I’ll be going with him.”

  Thick silence followed. She shut her eyes and bit her lip hard, her dreams disintegrating like smoke from a dying fire. He had no plans of making a life with her. He had no intention of becoming an honest man. She’d been wrong about him—dead wrong. Sam Bellamy was a pirate, and a pirate he’d remain. Her hand, still folded within his and pressed against his cheek, began to tremble, and then she heard his voice, quiet and demanding as he looked up at her and saw her eyes flooding with tears.

  “I want you to go with me, princess.”

  She caught her breath and stared down at him, unable to think, unable to speak. Go with him? Aboard a…pirate ship? Oh, lord, she couldn’t. Don’t ask this of me, she thought. Please, Sam, don’t do this to me. She would stand by him, follow him anywhere. Anywhere, that is, but onto a pirate ship and into a life of crime.

  “Don’t you like ships, Maria?” he asked, frowning as he looked up at her stricken face.

  “I… I like them very much.”

  “Are you afraid to leave home?”

  “No. No, ’tisn’t that either. There’s naught for me here, anyhow.”

  “Do you no longer care for me then?”

  She gazed down at him helplessly. “Oh, Sam. What do I have to do to prove how much I love you? Don’t you understand? It’s not you, it’s not the ship. It’s—it’s the profession.”

  “Aah.” He gazed up at her. “Piracy. Is that it, lass?”

  Maria nodded.

  “It bothers you that much, then?” And when she didn’t answer he smiled, as though that was the least of his problems. Her spirits sank as she realized that in all probability, it was. Sitting up and reaching for his cider, he said, “Pirate or not, Maria, I’m still the same old Sam. The same one who intends to marry you.”

  “No, Sam. You’re not the same.”

  “Granted, I’ve been a bit under the weather lately, but I’ll be all right once I have a deck under my feet and a ship to command.”

  Her despair was mounting by the minute, the reality of her shattered dreams making her reckless. “No, you’ve changed. You used to smile, to tease me, to laugh. You used to be friendly, but not anymore. Now you’re moody, angry, unpredictable. You remind me of a shark caught in a tidal pool.”

  He laughed then, for that was exactly how he felt. “You can hardly blame me, Maria. How would you feel—”

  “There was a time when you’d take me in your arms and love me ’til I couldn’t think straight, but not anymore,” she whispered. “You haven’t shown any interest in me, Sam, not one bit since you’ve been back, and don’t tell me it’s because you’re not strong enough yet. You’re out there walking that beach every night.”

  “What?”

  “All you care about now is a dead ship, dead men, and drink. I hate it!”

  He set his jaw, angry now. “I know I’ve been preoccupied lately, but as I told you, once I get a deck under my feet I’ll be fine.”

  “And what kind of deck? A pirate ship’s deck?”

  He clenched his fists at his sides.

  “Piracy! That’s all you think about, isn’t it? You’re obsessed with it, and look what it’s doing to you, to us! We don’t talk, we don’t touch, and everything I say seems to anger you! It’s to the point I don’t even want to be in the same room with you! You couldn’t care less about us! You drown yourself in cider, you’re wearing a hole in the floor with that awful pacing, and nothing I say or do makes a bit of difference. You used to have dreams, ambitions—now, all you can think of is what was, what might’ve been. They’re gone, Sam! Whydah, your crew, piracy, all of it!”

  “Nay, not piracy,” he said with a wicked gleam in his eye.

  “Why? Why must you return to that thieving life?�
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  “And what do you find so distasteful about it, Maria?”

  “Distasteful?” She leapt to her feet, no longer caring that he might see the coat. “For heaven’s sake, a pirate is the worst kind of criminal the devil ever created! Enemy of the Crown, threat to honest commerce, opponent of sane, lawful government, and thief, murderer, and defiler of everything God stands for all wrapped up in one dirty, stinking package! You expect me to condone it?”

  By the stubborn set of his jaw and the way he began to tap his empty tankard against his kneecap she knew he was on the verge of losing his patience with her. “Come now, Maria. Is that all you think we did, sail around killing people?”

  “Well, didn’t you?”

  “Hell, no! We robbed them! And if they surrendered their ships without a fight there was no need to harm them!”

  “I don’t care! What has it brought you? Your entire fortune lies buried beneath the waves and all but two of your crew members are dead, and you want to go back to it?”

  He frowned, staring at her. What had she said? That not all of them had died? But she was in a full-blown fury now, her accusations hammering at his nerves, his ebbing patience. “Oh, you think there’s nothing wrong with it, do you?” she raged. “Do you seriously believe that? What about the robbing? Did you ever stop and think about the poor people you stole from? ’Tis wrong, Sam! Wrong!”

  Oh, she’d done it now. Anger was flaring in those dark eyes, and his mouth was a slash of fury. “I’ll have you know, Maria, that those we robbed from were far from poor.” His voice was icy. “Scoundrels they are, men who don’t give a bloody damn for those who are starving in the streets as long as their own tables groan with food. Men who turn a blind eye to the abuse, the mistreatment heaped upon those who sail their stinking ships. They make laws to protect their interests and then make more laws to punish those who are bold enough to break the first ones! If anyone is ‘poor,’ ’tis the lads who serve aboard their ships! I’ve been there, Maria! I know what it’s like! And by God, I’ll never serve such scurvy, scum-ridden bastards again!” With a savage oath, he flung the tankard across the room, where it smashed against the wall and clattered to the floor. “And people think that men take up piracy for the riches alone? Hah! Riches be damned! At least we treat our own well!”

  “Just because someone is rich doesn’t give you the right to steal from them, and nothing you can say will change my feelings!”

  “And nothing you can say will change mine! Now, are you going with me or not?”

  “Nay! I’ll not go with you and participate in such evil!”

  “Damn it, Maria! Do I have to show you a ship full of abused wretches to make my point? England treats her seamen worse than anybody and I have the scars on my back to prove it!”

  “And how did you get them? As punishment for thievery? Mutiny? Stealing?”

  “No, damn you! Insubordination!”

  “Somehow, I’m not surprised!”

  He turned and slammed his fist into the door so hard she heard the wood crack beneath the blow, then he leaned his forearms against it and stared at the floor in a last, desperate attempt to control his anger. She remembered the clean-shaven, faintly disreputable—but honest—man she’d known a year ago. A man who’d promised to return to her, and had; with a hoop of gold in his ear and darkness in his heart.

  He muttered something she didn’t catch, something she wasn’t so sure she wanted to hear.

  “What?”

  “I said, I did it for you.”

  He straightened up and faced her with defiant eyes. “Did it all for you,” he continued harshly. His dark stare pinned her. “With every ship we took I thought of how your eyes would light up when I gave you my share of the spoils. How happy you’d be, how excited, how much you’d love me. I promised I’d return with enough silver and gold to make you a princess, didn’t I? And I did. It would’ve been yours, every damned bit of it.”

  She tucked a stray hank of hair back beneath her cap. And then she looked up at him, her gaze steady, firm, and resolute.

  “I wouldn’t have wanted it, Sam.”

  “What?”

  “I said, I wouldn’t have wanted it.”

  Nothing she might have said could have wounded him more. Her words hit him like a slap across the face. “What do you mean, you wouldn’t have wanted it? I spent a whole year amassing that treasure!” Blind rage surged within him, and he turned on her. “A whole bloody year, and this is all the thanks I get for it?”

  “I just told you I didn’t approve of piracy. How could you possibly think I’d accept its ill-gotten spoils?”

  “Because I’d forgotten just what a tedious model of righteousness you are!” he exploded, the thunder in his voice making her shudder. “And had I remembered, I sure as hell wouldn’t have come back here just to lose everything I worked so damned hard to obtain, to have it all thrown back in my face by an ungrateful wench who’d just as soon poison me with birch bark! Go ahead, live by your blasted, righteous rules, but ’twill be a cold day in hell before I do the same!”

  He stormed to the bed, flung the pillows aside, and snatched up the two pistols that Paul had given him. Maria watched in horror as he began to ransack the room. The cupboard doors were flung wide. Bottles of herbs and plants went crashing to the floor. Cursing, he slammed the doors shut, then attacked the chest at the foot of the bed.

  Maria lunged to her feet. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for something.”

  “What? If you’d bother to ask before tearing my house apart maybe I’d tell you!”

  “Like you’ve told me everything else I’ve wanted to know?” He spun on his heel to face her, his face a mask of rage. “My dagger, woman! The one that Paul gave me! Where is it?”

  “What dagger?” she asked with an innocence that didn’t fool him at all.

  Dark eyes narrowed. He grabbed her arm, his fingers biting into the tender flesh. Rage burned in his eyes and Maria could see there was no sparkle in them now. Was this the pirate captain who’d walked the decks of the Whydah, then? The real “Black” Sam?

  Bravely, she said, “So, is this how you intimidated those who dared defy you, Captain?”

  He yanked her forward. “Where…is…my…dagger?”

  She’d be damned if she’d tell him! “And where are you going that you can’t live without it?”

  “To rescue my men!”

  “What men?”

  “The two that you said survived the shipwreck! No doubt they’re being held in the local gaol and if I don’t get them out no one will! Now, where the hell is my dagger, damn it?”

  But Maria wasn’t moving. “To rescue your men, huh? Well then, you’d better take more than just a pair of pistols and a dagger! There are more than two who need rescuing!”

  He loomed over her. “What the hell are you saying?”

  “That ship whose name you called out in the midst of your delirium while you lay thrashing in my bed with fever? The one I thought was another woman, of all things—”

  “What about her?” he snarled.

  “The seven pirates you put aboard her are also alive!”

  And as he stared at her she went on with uncharacteristic ire, the loss of her dreams making her say things she knew she’d regret. “That wine ship, a pink, went down the same night as your Whydah did, but at least those fools had an excuse for wrecking their ship when you did not! They were drunk! Drunk on Madeira wine!”

  He went deathly quiet. His knuckles whitened around the pistols. His expression was terrifying. Never, ever before had Maria seen him look so fearsome. Afraid now, she began to back away.

  Very quietly, his voice dangerously low, he asked, “And where, my dear, might these men be held?”

  “In…the Boston gaol.”

  “And where,” he continued in that same frightening, menacing tone, “were they kept before that?”

  “In the Barnstable gaol,” she said in a small voice.

>   “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “It wouldn’t have done any good. You were in no condition to rescue them!”

  “Damn you for the conniving little witch you are! If ye’d told me about my men earlier I could’ve saved them! But no, you deliberately waited ’til it was too damned late for me to do anything! Now I have to go all the way up to Boston!” He turned, shoved a chair out of the way, and continued his search of the room, ripping open her blanket chest and hurling its contents to the floor, so intent on finding the knife that he didn’t even realize that one of the things he so ruthlessly tossed aside was little Charles’s swaddling clothes.

  “Stop it, Sam!” she cried, terrified in the face of such a violent temper.

  He seized her arm. “My dagger, woman! Where is it?”

  “Unhand me, you—you savage! You’re hurting me!”

  But he didn’t let go, merely yanked her forward and up against his chest. He glared down at her, his eyes fierce. “You should have told me where it was, Maria, and I would’ve gone easy on ye! Miserable, stinking pirate that I am, I always reward those who offer no resistance! A bit of gold, a chest of silver, makes no difference to me!” He yanked her closer, his angry eyes just inches from her own. “But ye don’t want those things, do ye? Not if they’re the spoils of piracy! What the hell do ye want, then? What, no answer? If you’d told me where that damned dagger was I’d give ye something far richer than a damned sack of coin! Something ye’ve been begging for all along!” His gaze locked onto hers. “Something you’re still begging for!”

  And she knew by the hunger in his eyes that silver and gold were not what he offered. She remembered that hot, simmering look, knew it well—and had no illusions about what he was implying.

  “Damn you, Sam Bellamy! You’re nothing but a scoundrel, a rogue, an ill-bred—”

  He didn’t allow her to finish. He laughed, and before she could twist her head away his mouth came crashing down upon hers, bruising her lips and sending hot, pulsing sensations tearing through her body despite her terror, her own anger. He drove her head back, pushing his tongue into her mouth, taking her lips, her mouth, her very heart just as he had any other prize he’d ever wanted: ruthlessly, mercilessly, and without quarter.