Sam smirked in agreement.
“’Tis good, then, we coves drink deep and oft,” Valeryn said. “Except you, of course, Henri.”
What was wrong with these fellows? Joelle was in danger and they acted as if she were out braving a Moroccan street market. He recognized that sometimes ’twas safer to stay close to the enemy. But blazes! Not on the bastard’s bloody ship.
Was she that strong? That crafty?
Shit. She may be strong, may be shrewd. May even be willing to put herself in harm’s way. But she was still in danger, still a woman. Dare he say, his woman. His skin prickled, his chest constricted. He had to get to her.
“Aye, well and good, well and good.” Ricker’d had enough of the jovial chit chat. “How far away are we from Tobago?”
Valeryn repeated the question in a holler up to Willie manning the helm.
“Maybe four glasses,” Willie replied. “Three if the winds pick up in the noonday sun.”
“Set our course for Scarborough, Tobago.” Valeryn nodded. “Let’s make haste, boys. Our captain is waiting.”
Men on the sheets scurried about shifting sails. Rissa tilted her bow two points toward the island nestled in the southeastern Caribbean.
“Not Scarborough,” Ricker said.
“Oh?” The tip of Valeryn’s lip twitched downward. “Why not?”
“Rockley Bay on which the town sits has a stanchion hidden in the coast’s hillside. Charlotteville in Man-o-War Bay is more likely where he’s heading.”
Valeryn leaned his hip against the railing. “What makes you think that?”
“Deeper waters. Not to mention the folks there tolerate illicit affairs more than those in Scarborough.”
“All right, then.” Valeryn’s tight lips hardly moved. “Charlotteville, Willie. Take us to Charlotteville.”
The slight change in direction brought a welcome breeze, cooling the sweat beading upon Ricker’s forehead. Ahead of Rissa, the mid-morning sun reflected off the water’s bright, glittering surface, momentarily blinding him. Stifling, uncomfortable and unable to see what lay ahead. Exactly how Ricker felt at that very moment. Unlike every other day in his miserable life expecting nothing more than the sun to rise and the hope for freedom, his lack of vision agitated him greatly.
“Why ya suppose that barnacle’s headin’ to Tobago?” Henri asked, scooping broken glass into a pile with his crusty bare foot.
“’Tis a good question, for sure.” Valeryn glanced down at the log page in his hand. “I have an idea, though.”
“It’s under British rule,” Ricker said.
Henri groused. “I don’t understand.”
“Tobago is also sympathetic to turncoats,” Valeryn offered. “He would have to drop anchor where he wouldn’t be arrested on the spot as a spy, pirate, or other perceived enemy of His Majesty.”
“Exactly,” Ricker concurred. “Leviathan may be seeking asylum. Though I’m not entirely sure that’s what the arsehole is up to.”
“Agreed.” Valeryn nodded. “Don’t feel right. But I can’t figure any other reason. Guess we’ll just have to get to Tobago to find out.”
* * *
Crouched and hidden within the coils of rope under canvas, Joelle breathed in the strong odors of mildew and baking sea salt. She fought back a sneeze, cupping her nose into her fist. Leviathan was not four feet away at the rail, rubbing his thumb over the frayed end of the cut rope. His lackeys stood around him like repentant children. Aldo rubbed at the back of his black hair. Curly nervously shifted his weight from foot to foot. James, with his arms crossed over his burly chest and feet planted apart, stared angrily out at the horizon.
“I have underestimated that little bunter. Just as I have ye, James.”
James slowly turned his focus upon his captain, a snarl rearing up his lips. Whatever retort he had on his tongue, he had thought better than to speak it.
Leviathan let go of the rope—it swung away, still dangling from the pulley. He wrapped his hands on the rail so tightly, Joelle wondered if his grip would obliterate the wood into tiny splinters.
“Ya three idiots have blundered me plans. ’tis inexcusable. I’ve yet to decide what to do with ye.” He licked his pursed lips. “Since Shep was killed in our first battle with Rissa, I can’t do without ye, James. Ye can thank the mackie in yer afterlife. Pity. I want nothing more than to put a bullet in yer brisket for this. Curly?”
The bungler stepped forward, brows pinched in worry. “Aye, Capt’n?”
“Yer service is no longer needed,” he asserted.
“Capt’n. She’s a sea witch, she is.” Curly’s words, laden with panic, tumbled forth.
Leviathan snapped to Curly. “Ya fool.” He pointedly looked to James and nodded to the sea.
Curly’s eyes rounded. “But, sir!”
Without hesitation, James grabbed Curly by the scruff and waist and tossed him over the bulwark. Curly cried out, a splash quickly followed.
Joelle closed her eyes and sent a hasty prayer for the seaman’s soul. With the Mariposa under full sail, the thrashing and gurgling screams thankfully didn’t last long.
Leviathan let out an impassive sigh and turned to Aldo standing stock still. “Ye won’t make another mistake, will ye?”
“No, sir,” Aldo choked.
“Outta me sight, ya scat.”
With that, Aldo was gone.
“What now, Capt’n?”
James had regained some of his brutish confidence. Fool.
“We sail to Charlotteville as planned.”
“You sure he’ll be there?”
Who? Who will be there? Who the hell do you have in your wicked game?
“He’ll be there,” he said with no small measure of certainty.
“We don’t have the woman,” James pointed out.
“Yet.” A fiendish grin curled into Leviathan’s matted beard. “I’ve something that will have her back in my web. I’ve something better. Something she cannot live without.”
From his waistcoat, he retrieved a small—what was that?
Joelle’s heart seized to a stop.
“An emerald and a map.”
Chapter Fourteen
Joelle stretched behind a stack of barrels and baskets beside the Charlotteville dock house. The warm sun baked her skin and dried her clothes and the weapons wet from her swim to shore. The Mariposa had been anchored in Tobago’s waters since mid-morn. Leviathan, the wretched whoreson, was just now rowing to shore.
Ugh! How she wanted to embed a rusty, dull gulley knife into his shriveled evil heart. Knowing his vile hands had touched her strongbox made her want to vomit. Though she still had the key, Leviathan could have used a boarding axe to hatchet it open.
He knew what she kept in the box, knew how much it meant to her. At one time, he even sided with Seamus over not selling the gem. But his interest in the emerald had grown and she’d become increasingly suspicious with the way he’d eyed the box. She had stopped talking about it and hid her treasure away.
Leviathan must have recognized the box in her cabin when he’d come for her. Why hadn’t she put it away? Stupid. He’d pay for stealing it.
Oh, yes. He would pay.
Joelle shrugged back into her jacket as Leviathan and his cronies climbed from their boat. They strode down the quay and ducked into a tavern at the end of the main avenue.
Just as she was about to rise from her hiding spot, a ship rounded the jut of land on the far side of the bay. She chuckled.
Rissa.
The boys must have found her message in the empty longboat. She watched her ship’s anchor silently plunge into the water. ’twas uneasy and daunting, the Rissa and Mariposa sharing the bay. Two devils just out of reach to smite. Smaller vessels sailed in and out between, unaware of the taut, precarious threat, as no colors flew on either ship.
The Rissa, no doubt, was prepped and ready for any action, be it battle or easing off into the Caribbean away from Tobago. Joelle wouldn’t make them
wait long. She’d find out who Leviathan was to rendezvous with, retrieve her strongbox—with any luck, it would be a deadly confrontation—and steal away.
She slipped James’s blunderbuss into the back of her breeches, making sure the jacket covered it, and rearmed herself with the pocket pistol and knives. Joelle strode down the dock, snapping a hat off a sleeping fisherman. She pulled the wide-brimmed hat low and her collar high, effortlessly folding into the folks of Charlotteville. Ducking into the back alleyway behind the tavern, she paused at the door.
Would she kill him?
’Twas a damn good chance.
* * *
Ricker, Valeryn and Sam entered the Frigatebird Inn. Ricker’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light. Four Rissa lads followed them inside and fanned out. A few men at the bar spared a passing glance in their direction, but settled back into their conversations and their cups. ’twas no music in the place. Instead, talk was small and the only other noise was a card game and the keep’s clink of glass. Not the most lively of taverns.
Leviathan, with half a dozen lackeys, occupied a table near the back.
“Let’s do this,” he said. Ricker took the lead despite Valeryn’s temporary position as captain. He wasn’t Ricker’s captain. With Joelle’s safety at risk, he didn’t give a shit about ranks.
When Leviathan spotted them, he slouched into his seat, draping his arm over the chair’s back. Tensions were so tight, the very air crackled with each movement.
“Well, well. Ya black dogs survived, did ya? To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“No pleasure,” Ricker chortled.
Valeryn stepped around Ricker. “Unless having yer ugly mug bashed pleases you.”
Sam smacked his malletlike fist into his palm. Where his face lacked emotion, his ebony eyes flashed with anticipation. Ricker was glad he fought on the same side as the beast.
“Ya didn’t come all this way just for a fracas. Reckon ya fellas are after something more valuable than a few broken bones.”
Valuable. What an odd choice of words. Aye, there was no doubt they wanted Joelle back. Christ, how he wanted her back. But the wretch spoke as if she were a pawn for some greater reward. Their suspicions were coming true. The black-haired devil had more profitable ideas for Joelle.
“Aye,” Ricker said, “and you’d be wise to accommodate us.”
Leviathan laughed. “Nay, I don’t think I will. Not to ye blokes. If yer captain wants her precious map and emerald, she must show herself.”
Now it was Valeryn’s turn to laugh. “She escaped you? Ho, ho!”
Even Sam gave an amused snort.
“That could only mean she hid amongst you while you thought she’d gotten away in the longboat,” Valeryn boasted.
Where the hell was she? Could she still be hiding on the Mariposa? No. Ricker doubted that. She was a woman of action, not hiding. Instinctively, he scanned the tavern looking for any sign of the red-haired minx. He caught Valeryn and Sam inconspicuously doing the same. She was nowhere to be found.
Though he was relieved Joelle was free from the scoundrel’s grip, Ricker was furious Leviathan had stolen her most personal possession. She wouldn’t rest until she had her small strongbox back, or die trying. Because it meant so much to her, he’d risk his own life to recover it for her.
The acrimonious humor faded from Leviathan’s smugness. He fidgeted in his chair, bristling, indeed, with the humiliation she’d been under his nose and he didn’t know it.
“So how does it feel to be hoodwinked by a woman?” Valeryn asked.
The first mate was angling for a fight. Just like Valeryn, Ricker itched with the thrill of a good bout.
“Yer hasty with assumptions,” Leviathan answered. “I have her strongbox, I have the upper hand.”
Ricker gripped the edge of the table, bringing his sneer eye-level with the prick. “Nay. You do not,” he said. “We’re here to collect.”
“The Caribbean brethren take larceny against one of their own very seriously,” Valeryn said.
“You will hand it over,” Ricker warned, “lest you apprentice directly some unfortunate lessons in thievery.”
Leviathan’s smugness returned and his sneer skated from Valeryn back to Ricker. “’Tis not ye who’ll dole out the lessons, boy. Tell me, how’s the nick on yer throat?”
“Awaiting a remedy.”
Leviathan rolled his head to a brawny fellow at his side. “James, a remedy, if ya would.” He tilted his head toward Ricker.
No sooner did the man pull his pistol than Ricker flipped the table. Mugs and drink took to the air. Men were on their feet. Some headed for relative safety, others swarmed in swinging. Rissa boys, Mariposa boys and, Ricker suspected by the large number of fists flying, a few local boys, too, clashed into a brawl. James was already lunging for Valeryn. Another crony was going for Valeryn’s flank. Sam fended off two attackers.
Ricker tossed the table aside to get at his enemy. Leviathan, having fallen backward out of his chair, scrambled to rise, stumbling on the chair’s leg. He clutched Leviathan’s collar and hoisted him up. Before he could hit him, James whirled Ricker around and planted his fist into his jaw. The sudden but fleeting pain traveled the length of his jawbone. A bitter taste of blood coated his tongue. Ricker delivered his own punishment, cracking James’s nose. All his strength, all his emotions for Joelle ruptured in that one swing.
With James at his feet, Ricker turned back to Leviathan, anxious to give the bastard his lesson.
He froze.
Most of the others continued fighting, but Valeryn and his opponent ceased, facing Leviathan, too. Well, except Valeryn gave the lad one last crunching blow, folding him to the floor.
Leviathan’s eyes were mere slits, his hands raised in surrender. Behind him, Joelle had pressed a blunderbuss into his lower back.
Blazes! Where had she come from?
Ricker couldn’t hear what she had said to Leviathan over the ensuing broil. But if he read her lips correctly, she had demanded her box. The fool appeared to respond with something about seeing her in hell. She smiled. ’twas a scary smile. For a moment which seemed suspended by time, her gaze met his. She spoke in Leviathan’s ear and prodded him to move sideways and backward to the rear of the tavern and likely out the back door.
She planned to kill him in the back alley.
Ricker took a step to follow. James blocked his path, swiping at his crooked nose, an addled glaze to his bloodshot eyes. The cur was about to get his nose bashed in the other direction for standing between him and Joelle. And she was almost to the door with Leviathan.
Without warning, a lone man with his hat low on his brow swung away from the bar just as Joelle passed him and stuck a pistol to her temple.
In that instant, the fighting in the inn died.
Even the locals sensed the danger spiking in the room was about to tip to deadly.
“Smithy,” ground out Valeryn.
Ricker cast a questioning look to the first mate.
“Our rodent go-between,” Valeryn explained.
The ragtag man peered out from under the hat’s brim. Beneath his steady scrutiny of the room flickered fear, cowardice.
Shit. A skittish craven with his finger on the trigger in a room full of dangerous pirates spelled disaster. ’twas too risky for anyone to move. Everyone knew it.
Joelle was calculating her next move. It was written in the severe set of her mouth, the far off unfocused look in her eyes.
“So there is no Lord English?” Joelle said to Smithy. “You’ve been working with Leviathan all along?”
Leviathan tried to look over his shoulder, but Joelle jabbed the gun deeper into his back.
“No, no, Capt’n Quint. There be a Lord English, all right. Just I’ve...a new employer.”
Royal Navy soldiers poured into the tavern and filed along the walls, their muskets drawn on every warm body.
Blast it! Ricker did a mental calculation. Even if the Mariposa and Rissa fello
ws joined forces, they were still outnumbered. If anyone was to get out alive, they had to try.
A silhouette blackened the bright sunlight streaming through the door. A white feather atop the man’s tricorn hat fluttered in the breeze. He took two deliberate steps inside and scanned the room. In full naval captain’s uniform, Watson stood tall and straight, his hand resting on the ornate guard of his sword. “Anyone not belonging to the ships in the harbor, you have three seconds to disappear.”
A handful of locals skittered out the door, taking wide berths around soldiers and pirates alike.
Scanning who was left, Watson gave himself a self-serving nod. “I do say, it must be my lucky day.”
“I got ya Quint, Capt’n Watson,” Smithy said excitably. “Just like ya wanted.”
“So you did, Smithy.” Watson tilted his head in acknowledgement, but gratefulness lacked in his tone.
Joelle scoffed. “Can’t catch me on your own so you hired a simpleton.”
Ricker ground his teeth, wishing Joelle would keep her mouth shut before she got herself shot.
Watson grinned. “Not entirely, my dear.”
Leviathan stepped away from Joelle and her blunderbuss, a triumphant smile splitting his whiskered mouth. Watson tossed a pouch to the Mariposa captain. Coins jangled with the catch.
What the devil? Ricker glanced to Valeryn who seemed just as confused as he by the alliance.
“What’s this about?” Joelle said. “Watson has your leash?”
“Nay, puss. Mixing business with pleasure.” Leviathan pocketed the coins and took the blunderbuss from her hands. “I turned you over to the Royal Navy for a nice reward.”
“But you didn’t catch her,” Smithy spoke up, “I did.”
Smithy’s declaration went duly unheard.
“Hardly retribution against me,” Joelle said.
He shrugged. “It will do. You and your crew will still die, rotting on the gallows. This way, I pad my strongbox with coin. Now, I’ll just need someplace to keep my money. But where? Oh, I know.” He retrieved Joelle’s box from a pouch under his waistcoat.
Mutiny of the Heart Page 18
