Down to one foe. Fortune smiled upon Joelle. Until the cool metal of James’s blunderbuss pressed into her cheek.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her close. “Yer a pirate. Yer gonna plunder my cock with yer mouth. On yer knees.”
“No.”
A baffled scowl drew his brow down. His steely eyes turned crazed. “On. Your. Knees.”
He yanked her arm to make her kneel. She refused.
“You won’t pull the trigger.”
“Won’t I?”
Her smile cranked up a notch. “Heed this, James. If he hasn’t killed me yet, for all the hate he harbors for me in his heart, then Leviathan’s reasons are more important than you. Kill me and he will skin and roast you alive as sure as the sun will rise.”
His upper lip twitched. Ah, yes. He’d seen Leviathan’s cruel hand. No one had amnesty. He dug the blunderbuss harder into her cheekbone, hurting her face.
“But I can ruin ya.” A sinister grin darkened his eyes.
Her smile faded. “Likewise.”
She grabbed his bollocks, squeezing hard through the canvas of his trousers. His sudden wince gave her just enough advantage to pull free. Joelle snapped up the bucket off the floor and swung, cracking it against his skull. James grunted, dropping his weapon. She reached for it.
“Nu-uh, bitch,” he said on an exasperated breath.
He snatched her by the scruff of her tunic and slammed her against the table. The breath whooshed from her. Joelle rolled just before he could slam his fist into the back of her head. She wedged her foot into his gut and, using leverage of the table’s ceiling ropes, shoved.
James stumbled, Joelle lunged for the blunderbuss.
But James was quick, too quick, and he nabbed her by her waist. Together, they hit the floor. Her chin smacked the floorboards and the air left her lungs.
Outside, the two labbernecks chuckled.
“Sounds like James is givin’ it to ’er good,” Aldo said loudly.
“Save some fer us,” called Curly.
Joelle scratched and clawed the dusty floor to reach the weapon. He grabbed her sleeve and dragged her back, rolling her. She swiped her fingernails into his face, his neck.
Muffles and grunts, kicking and shuffling, they tussled. He tried to pin her arms. Just as he got one under control, she popped him in his throat with the other. He jolted, stunned, momentarily unable to gurgle a wheeze. ’twas just enough to heave him off and scramble to her knees for the blunderbuss.
James recovered swiftly. He grappled her. Pain shot through her ribs from taking another fall to the floor. Her finger landed on the gun’s handle. She wriggled and stretched, scrunching her fingers for a better grip.
James flung her over. Surprise marked his mug as she pointed the blunderbuss between his deadlights.
“Get off.”
Slowly he sat back on his haunches, palms raised.
Joelle scooted from under him and rose, not faltering her aim even a fracture. “I didn’t become a captain by darning woolens and serving grog. Don’t think for one moment I won’t put a ball into your skull. Or that you are faster than my pull of the trigger.”
A growl rumbled from his chest. He’d been had. By a woman, no less. Leviathan would have his arse for it.
She liked the idea of that perhaps a bit too much.
“Now do as I instruct and you’ll live to tup a trollop another day. Leviathan willing, that is.”
His jaw tightened. Poor jack was just realizing his trouble.
She moved to the door, gun still on James. “Tell the clods to come in.”
When he did not immediately obey, she raised her eyebrows and her aim.
“Come on in, boys,” James hollered.
“Oh, show mercy!” Joelle cried out like a pathetic virgin. She was damn convincing, too, tamping down a chuckle at her mockery.
As predicted, Curly and Aldo tumbled excitedly into the room. They stopped short when they saw James on his knees with his hands behind his head, sans a naked, pleading wench.
Joelle closed the door with her foot. “Hello, fellas.” She relished their comical shock.
“James, what happened?” Curly asked.
Aldo offered up his thoughts. “Christ, man. How’d she get yer blunderbuss? Is...is she...a witch?”
Curly gasped. “A sea witch?”
“Blazes! We’re done for now.”
“Aye. Done for.”
James let his head fall back in annoyance.
“Put your knives on the floor and kick them to me. Slowly, now.” The labbernecks eagerly obeyed. She tucked the knives into her trousers.
“Aldo, use that cordage there to tie James’s wrists. That’s right.”
James was none too pleased. He’d be even less so in another minute. “Make it tight. Good.
“James, stand up and lean over the table.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.” She lowered her aim to his crotch.
“Best do it, mate,” Curly said. “A sea witch blowin’ off yer tallywags is a terrible curse.”
“Criminy,” whispered Aldo.
“I once heard of a fella,” Curly continued, “who had his bollocks cut off by a sea witch and he—”
“Hist!” James barked. “She’s not a sea witch.”
Aldo shook his head. “Can ya be sure?”
Joelle struggled not to laugh. “Aye, James. Can ya?”
James snarled, but reluctantly turned and bent over the table.
“All right, boys. Tie that extra length of rope under the table to his ankles.”
Once James was trussed up like a pig to prig, she ordered Aldo to remove his fearnought jacket and Curly to tie Aldo’s wrists together. Aldo was to lift his bound hands up and over Curly, putting them into a close hug. Joelle then tied Curly’s wrists behind Aldo’s back. She shuffled them to a hammock and, with much difficulty, made them lie inside. She wrapped their ankles with more rope and knotted the end to the hammock’s hook for good measure.
This was too easy. She examined her handiwork, pleased with the display. The men fettered in the most compromising positions. She stifled a laugh at her creativity, but not her prideful smile. She’d have a grand time telling this tale over with her boys. They’d laugh, toast and celebrate to her. What would Sloan think? Would he find her antics humorous? Or would he chastise her for being too impetuous? She didn’t care either way. Just as long as he was all right.
“Yer a crazy bitch,” James spat.
“Witches always are.” She pegged the lackeys in the hammock with a wild grin. Their eyes grew rounder than twelve-pound shot. She snatched the cap from Curly’s dome.
“Yer on a boat full of heartless rogues,” James said. “Ya can’t be thinkin’ you’ll get away.”
Joelle tilted her head. “I’ll take that as a challenge.” She donned the cap and shrugged into Aldo’s jacket. “I bid you fine blokes a good evening.”
Joelle lurked in the companionway shadows, feeling her way along the corridor. The captain’s quarters would be on the quarter deck. ’twould be tricky to be on deck and cross to the cabin unnoticed. She tucked her wayward strands behind her ear and her braid under her tunic. At the hatch door, she peered out on the deserted deck. The only person visible was the top man sitting high in the crow’s nest.
Voices carried from the bow but did not seem to be coming closer. She hurried across the deck to the captain’s cabin and slipped inside, hoping Leviathan was still in the galley drinking into his cups.
As suspected, the room was empty and Joelle got straight to work.
Chapter Thirteen
Kipp’s body, wrapped in an old sail and weighted with cannon balls, splashed into the water. The white canvas coffin quickly slipped from view into the depths of the drink. Willie made the sign of the cross. Temperate Henri took a long swig of tea from his flask. Sam, quiet as ever, tossed a coin into the swirling wake. Others bowed their heads or whispered farewells and prayers.
V
aleryn turned his back to the open sea, anger pursed in his lips. Ricker patted his shoulder and nodded. The time for grieving was over.
“Back to your duties, lads,” Valeryn said. “We’ve a carcass to catch.”
They’d lost sight of the Mariposa hours ago. With handling the dead and wounded, and maneuvering out of Diablo’s Teeth without running aground again, they simply couldn’t tail Leviathan. He’d managed a good two hours on Rissa and it was unclear where he was headed.
Watson had sailed out too. ’twas a curious thing, the naval ship not attacking Rissa in her vulnerable state. If Ricker understood correctly, it was Watson’s ambition to take down the infamous pirate ship. Perhaps, it was only Joelle that Watson wanted.
’Twas eating Ricker alive not knowing what was happening to Joelle. Or what Leviathan wanted with her. Valeryn didn’t seem to know more than what Ricker had already deciphered.
A lunatic wanted vengeance against Joelle for killing his woman.
Valeryn said Joelle never spoke of Seamus. Only that he was a fisherman who had been murdered. In truth, she shared little about her life before the brethren. Valeryn knew that the small strongbox, map and gem came from her father. He suspected she spent her youth in the orphanage she visited regularly on Montserrat. As with so many things, Joelle kept her secrets close at heart. Secrets even Valeryn wasn’t privy to.
Ricker scanned the open ocean, an endless horizon stretching on in every direction. Joelle could be anywhere out there. Damn it! What had she gotten herself into? Christ. To hold her again, to wrap his fingers into her fiery red hair, to kiss the breath from her. He had to find her. He’d never felt so helpless. Given his history of enslavement, that was admitting a lot. How could he save her if no one knew where to look for her?
“We’re going to keep sailing south?” Ricker asked Valeryn.
“Aye. Leviathan’s led us this far. There must be a reason. A port. A hideout. Something.”
Henri hobbled up. “Ricker here’s a map reader. Have ’im look over the maps. ‘Haps he might see somethin’, someplace that clam breath might be headin’.”
Ricker didn’t see how, given what little he knew. But then, ’twas better than pacing the decks with worry.
Valeryn nodded. “Joelle did say something about the Mariposa terrorizing Trinidad. We know now ’twas Leviathan. We could look at what his next port of call might likely be.” He jerked his chin to Ricker. “Come. Let’s test your skills.”
In the captain’s cabin, Ricker spread out the maps across the table. He and Valeryn pored over them, discussing each isle, each shoal and reef along the way, and which islands had coves or lagoons to hide in, which ports needed pilots, and what resources were available to brigands such as themselves. Based on that information, they decided to set a heading for Trinidad.
“We’ll start there. At the very least, we’ll know if he’s been there,” Valeryn said. “The brethren have a few birds in the pocket there. They’ll know who comes and goes.”
“This whole chase,” Ricker brooded, “the burning fishing boat, the toying battles, luring us into Diablo’s Teeth, making off with Joelle, it seems...planned.”
“I feel it, too. But why? What does this son of a bitch want?”
Ricker sighed deeply. “I wish I knew.”
“Damn, Jo!” Valeryn spun around, slamming his fist into the wooden beam. “Why did you have to keep so many secrets? If she’d just told us about Leviathan once she realized who she was going up against...”
Ricker shook his head, feeling Valeryn’s frustration in her strong-headedness. “Even if she had,” he reasoned, “we can’t predict what a madman will do.”
“We’re all madmen, Ricker.” Valeryn sank into the desk chair. “When something as powerful as vengeance drives us.”
Or love.
By all that was holy, where’d that come from? Ricker pushed the thought aside.
“So let us think like Leviathan.” Ricker paced in front of the desk. “If not kill the person I loathe, then what do I do with them?”
“Torture? Rape?”
Ricker stopped pacing and locked eyes with Valeryn. Unfathomable, to either of them.
“Let’s assume something bigger.”
Valeryn nodded. “Aye.” He stroked his hand over his scruffy cheek. “I might get more satisfaction by profiting from someone’s capture knowing they’d hang.”
That struck a nerve with Ricker. The graying, beetle-browed preacher who’d repented his soul by selling him into slavery flashed in his memory. Could money really be more powerful than revenge?
Ricker drew a hand through his scalp, nodding slowly. “That might be it. He has already proven murderous and he tried to destroy Joelle’s crew and ship. Knowing he is not the only one who wants her for her crimes, as it were, perhaps he intends to bargain a bounty for her.”
Valeryn smirked. “He benefits doubly. A reward for his reward.”
Ricker rushed back to the maps. He pointed to an island. “Grenada.”
“Fort Royal?”
“Aye.”
“That’s due east. Not south.”
“There is a small British toehold there. Not so much a garrison as a small naval station the French locals tolerate.”
“Ah. So if Leviathan wanted to incite a deal, he might go where there is littlest threat.” Valeryn stood, standing taller than a few minutes earlier. “We set our heading for Grenada.”
“And go get our woman.”
* * *
Leviathan’s cabin was smaller than her own, but clean and orderly. Joelle took a quick note of any items that could hide a message. Nothing in the room was unlike what could be found in any captain’s quarters—charts, navigational instruments, utensils. She rushed to his desk, picking up the inkwell, scrutinizing the base, checking for any unseen compartment. She did the same with the candelabra, the lodestone and the scales. She rummaged through the shelves, leafing through books and looking inside jars. Opening the desk drawers, she felt along the backs, the sides, the tops for any give to hideaways. Joelle dug under the meager mattress of the bed and dropped to her knees to check under the chairs nailed to the floor.
Nothing.
She sat back on her heels and wondered if the missive was anywhere in the room or if there was a missive at all. This whole commission had been riddled with uncertainty. Who was to say the letter ever existed?
Joelle saw it then. Had she not been on the floor, she never would have noticed the small plank of knotty wood under the bed’s buttress. She pried her knife into the plank’s edge and popped out the wood, revealing a compartment no larger than a dandy’s buckled shoe. Inside were a rolled piece of paper and a small pocket pistol. She confirmed the paper was the information on the Spanish Armada and stuffed the letter into her corset. She shoved the pistol into her boot. As an afterthought, she ripped a page from the ship’s logbook and swiped a compass and half-empty rum bottle from the desk. Now, to get out of there. She pulled Aldo’s jacket tight and stole out the cabin.
Low-slung, racing clouds crowded out the field of stars. Tendrils of wind curled across the deck. Could be a storm coming. She’d have to work fast before more hands were called to the deck.
Joelle didn’t crouch. She strode across the deck like she had a purpose, a duty to carry out, checking lines and tugging ropes, until she made her way to the side of the ship where a longboat had been secured. This would be the toughest part of her escape—getting the boat into the water undetected.
With a quick glance around, she untied the ropes and lowered the boat. Her arms burned from struggling with the jollyboat’s weight. She hoped the sounds of Mariposa slicing through the black waves masked the squeak of the pulley. Once the boat hit water, and not wanting the vessel to smack against the ship, alerting anyone too soon, she snatched one of the small knives from her waistband and cut the rope.
The boat drifted out on a wake.
She saluted goodbye. “Slán.”
* * *
<
br /> “What the devil is a longboat doing out here?” Henri grunted.
’Twas curious, to be sure. Ricker was asking himself the same thing.
Valeryn slapped shut the spyglass. “Doesn’t look to be anyone inside. We’ll just have to get closer.”
Willie brought Rissa alongside the bobbing craft and Sam snagged it with a grappling hook. It was empty.
“Seas were rough last night,” Henri said. “Could’ve come loose offa ’nother bucket.”
“Nuh-uh.” Valeryn frowned. “That rope has been cut.”
“Valeryn’s right,” Ricker agreed. “By the looks of the clean cut, this boat hadn’t been out here long either.”
“What now, V?” Sam asked.
“Let her go. We’ve no room for another jolly.”
“Wait.” Ricker threw up a halting hand. “Something’s in that bottle.”
Henri scrunched his leathery face, leaning further onto the rail. He tottered, about to lose his footing from the box he stood upon and tumble over the gunwale into the water below. Valeryn caught him by the trousers.
“Damn good eye, boy.” Henri sputtered, smoothing out his brown vest and checking his beard bows.
“Grab it and get back on board, Sam.” Valeryn’s tone grated with agitation.
Ricker cut his eyes to the first mate. He was obviously nettled he didn’t spot the object first.
Sam scrambled over the rail, handing the bottle to Valeryn.
Valeryn held it up to the sunlight, peering into the amber glass. “Looks like paper.” He smashed the bottle against the gunwale. Brown shards of the thick glass littered the deck. He unrolled the parchment.
“Criminy. It’s a page from the Mariposa’s log book. He’s heading for Tobago.”
Joelle was cunning, indeed. But why the blasted world over would she not make an escape on the longboat when she could have? Ricker was altogether angry and proud of her at once. He wanted to shake her, yell at her for being so feckless, and yet, hold her tight to his swelling heart. Madness. Sheer madness.
Valeryn chuckled. “’Tis just like Joelle.”
“Brave and cunning, that one.” Henri swiped his mouth with the back of his shirtsleeve and quickly stuffed his flask back into his vest. “Lass is enough to turn a man to drink. Again. If he were, um, into such inclinations.”
Mutiny of the Heart Page 17
