“Who is she?” Captain Dundee demanded. Without waiting for an answer, he shouted at Celine, “Who are you?”
Before she could answer, the black pirate spoke up in a kind of pidgin English. “Not good fo’ you, dis one. Dis be de one will curse you.”
“Shut up!” Dundee ordered.
If Kujo was affected at all by Dundee’s fury, he gave no sign. “She got the looks of a jumbie about her. Dem eyes. See trew you. See trew me, trew time and back. Jumbie, she is, dat sure.” Kujo crossed his arms over his chest and kept his distance from her.
His words startled Celine. This African, who undoubtedly possessed some mysterious talent of his own, had somehow divined that she had a gift.
His words did more than startle Captain Dundee—they struck terror in him. The pirate leader was now standing stock still, staring at Celine as if he were facing the very jaws of hell.
Cord struggled against the rope around his wrists but could not so much as budge his hands. He had resigned himself to his fate, certain that his life had been cursed from beginning to end. He was never going to see St. Stephen again, never going to get home to walk along the shore or dive beneath the turquoise waves. He would not live long enough to find one moment of peace or to forgive himself for Alex’s death. He was not even going to have time to bed his wife.
Those had been his thoughts before Celine had stumbled on deck, her skin a ghastly greenish white, her hair sticking out like a dozen hummingbird’s nests pressed together, her eyes wild. She looked for all the world exactly like a ghost—the jumbie the pirate Kujo claimed she was. The sight of her had nearly scared the purple satin pants off Captain Dundee. Cord was close enough to discern that the man was trembling more from fear than anger. Fear had a distinct smell about it.
Tied up like a goose on the way to Christmas dinner, Cord knew that any attempt to help Celine was out of the question. All he could do was watch as Dundee questioned her.
The pirate’s voice had gone up a good octave. “What are you doing aboard this ship?”
“Traveling to St. Stephen.” She faced him squarely. Even she was forced to look down at the man. The only outward sign of her nervousness was the way she kept her hands clamped tight on the neckline of her nightgown. She did not so much as glance in Cord’s direction, nor did she give any indication that they were in any way connected.
Across the bow Captain Thompson protested, but no one paid any attention. Celine lost her footing, lurched forward and grabbed Dundee for support. As she clutched the man’s upper arm, her color faded until she was white as one of the sails luffing overhead. She appeared to fall into a trance. Her eyes were unfocused, as if she were gazing at something no one else saw. Dundee sputtered and clawed her loose, shoved her back and put a good three feet between them. He was sweating profusely, the thick coils of his plump neck ringed with dirt that streaked his collar.
“Stay away from me …”
“I’m the one.” Celine spoke so softly Cord had to strain to hear. “I’m the one you have feared for half a lifetime.”
Dundee shook more violently, fighting to maintain control. His gaze whipped about the ship. Cord was afraid Dundee was going to lash out at Celine, and struggled with his bonds.
She continued speaking softly, furtively to Dundee. “Long ago, a fortune-teller told you a woman would be your downfall, that you would die because you would wrong her and she would then curse you. Your whole life you have held yourself away from women because she told you that one day you would meet a woman who would call a dreaded curse upon your head. I am that woman.”
The way Celine was staring at Dundee frightened even Cord. He half expected the pirate captain to run screaming over the side. Even the forbidding Kujo shifted nervously and cautiously backed farther away from Celine.
“Take her! Throw her to the sharks!” Dundee screeched in panic while Celine continued to stare through him. Cord was wringing wet with sweat. She had pushed too far. He would be forced to stand by helplessly while she was tossed overboard and drowned. Beside him, Edward whimpered.
“You have wronged me, Captain Dundee, and now you’ll pay.” There was strength and fury in her voice. “This man”—Celine pointed at Cord—“is my husband. You were about to hang him, were you not?”
“Cut him loose!” Dundee ordered. “For the love of Christ, somebody cut him loose!” When no one moved to obey, Dundee pulled a long saber out of the scabbard at his side, stretched up on tiptoe and sliced the rope above Cord’s head.
For the first time since Alex’s death Cord found himself glad to be alive.
“You think that will appease me?” Celine threw back her head, grabbed her hair with both hands and laughed the wild haunted laugh of one demented. Then she pointed at Dundee.
“You are cursed, Captain Dundee, cursed to die a wretched death more terrible than any mind can conjure. You will die at sea in a terrible storm. Your bloated corpse will be fish bait.”
“No! No!” Dundee was no longer shouting. He stared unseeing at Celine and shook his head from side to side. The emerald earbob in his left ear glinted in the sunlight. He continued to clutch the deadly saber. Celine had pushed Dundee too far. She was within range of his saber and, much to Cord’s dismay and disbelief, she would not shut up.
“You will meet your fate this very day …”
“No!”
“Yes! There is nothing that can be done to save you …”
Cord watched Dundee flinch, saw his eyes narrow into slits in his round face. Overwhelming fear was about to become anger fueled by a sense of inevitability. Cord had to warn her that the man believed he had nothing to lose.
“Celine …,” he tried.
She never glanced Cord’s way. “Nothing will save you now, Captain.”
Dundee raised his saber.
Celine raised her voice. “Unless …”
Dundee hesitated, watching her closely. His fear was back, but it was coupled with desperation.
“What would you have me do?”
“Take your crew and leave this ship and everyone aboard it unharmed.”
“And you’ll remove the curse?” He held the saber at the ready.
Celine shrugged and shook her head. “Even I cannot change what fate has decreed. Only you can do that, Captain Dundee. Only you.”
“How?”
“Give up your pirate’s life and do only good.”
“I don’t want to die,” he moaned.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Her tone held a note of resignation and inevitability.
“We all die, Dundee. But you won’t die today, nor will your death be as miserable as the one you’ll deserve if you continue down this path of murder and mayhem.”
His hands still bound, Cord watched helplessly as Dundee stared at Celine and alternately clenched and unclenched the hilt of his saber. Celine still looked more like an apparition than a seasick young woman, but she stood calm in the face of the pirate’s deliberation.
“You say I’ve got to change?”
“Definitely.”
This idea seemed to pain him more than the threat of death. He cast aside his fear to question her. “How do I know you speak the truth?”
“Because I know things about you no one else could possibly know.”
He cocked his head. “Prove it.”
Celine stared up at the sky. As if she had summoned the wind, the sagging sails luffed. The ships, anchored and lashed together, strained against one another. The slight breeze ruffled the streaming ends of her hair. The hem of her gown billowed around her slim ankles. She used the change in the elements to heighten the drama. Holding her hands stretched out before her, she let the breeze thread through her fingers.
“One day, when you were a small child, your mother took you to a county fair in Cornwall. You ate a pasty that had gone bad and nearly died. You had a puppy you loved dearly. You called him King. Your mother’s name was … Mary. There’s not another living soul on this side
of the sea who knows these things.”
Dundee’s hand was shaking so badly he nearly dropped his saber.
“Change your ways, Dundee, from this moment on, or everything I’ve told you will come to pass before sundown.”
He sheathed the saber, turned away from the sight of her and began barking orders.
“Kujo, bring the men.”
“And Dundee …” Celine called after him.
He paused just as he was about to swing over the rail. When he looked back, fear still kindled his eyes.
“What is it now, you she-witch?”
“Get yourself some new clothes.”
Eight
As soon as the crew of the Adelaide was released and the last pirate had swung over the side, Edward and Foster rushed over to Cord and Celine. Flustered, Foster began sawing at Cord’s bonds with the paring knife until Captain Thompson nudged him aside and had Cord free almost instantly.
“God damn it, Thompson, we could have all been killed.” Cord said, letting loose the fury that had been consuming him.
“I suppose you think we should have fought it out armed with paring knives and skillets?” Thompson argued.
Cord refused to back down. “It wasn’t your neck in that noose.”
Celine stepped between them, laid her hand on Cord’s arm and said, “I think I need to lie down.”
He shook off her hold, then grabbed her arm and shoved her toward the saloon. Edward and Foster followed in their wake.
“What in the hell was that performance all about?” Cord shouted.
Exhausted, Celine did not try to answer until the four of them were crowded together in her cabin. Edward and Foster hovered behind Cord, who stood over her like an avenging angel, demanding an explanation.
“You should thank me for saving your neck instead of hollering at me.” She sat down on the bunk, folded her arms beneath her breasts and met his glare with one she hoped was just as intense.
He anchored his hands on his hips, intent on bullying her, but she refused to let him. “If that idiot Dundee didn’t frighten me, what makes you think you do?”
His eyes darkened. His lips thinned. He turned to Foster and Edward, who were trying to disappear into the woodwork.
“Leave us,” Cord told them.
The servants left.
“Now. I want to know why you left the safety of the cabin when I expressly told you not to. I want to know how you were able to scare the hell out of Dundee. Do you know him?”
The brief respite of calm had ended and they were under sail again.
“May I lie down, your royal highness?” she asked.
Cord quickly stepped away from the bunk. “Are you going to be sick?”
“Not if I lie down.”
“Then by all means.” He waited until she was settled before he pressed. “Start talking, Celine.”
“First of all, I left the cabin despite your orders because I wanted to. Everything was too quiet. For all I knew, all of you might have been killed and I was alone on a ghost ship. Secondly, I have never laid eyes on Captain Dundee before today.”
“Then how did you know those things about him?”
“Let me finish.” Stalling for time while she tried to think of a plausible explanation, Celine draped her arm over her eyes and said weakly, “I’d like some water, please.”
She could tell from his pause that he was about to refuse, but then she heard him move. Celine’s mind raced. She could not tell him the truth—he would think her mad if she tried to explain her ability to read the past. It would be easier to let him think that she had known Dundee, but how could she make him believe she’d had an association with such an unsavory character?
By the time Cord had handed her a cup of water and she’d slowly drained it and given the empty cup back to him, she had her answer.
“Every English child has gone to at least one county fair and I’d wager that every one of them has gotten sick on a bad pasty at one time or another. I simply made an accurate guess.”
“How would you know about English fairs? I thought you were from Boston.”
She sighed. “I lived in England as a child.”
“I suppose it was a lucky guess that he was from Cornwall, too?”
“Dundee’s accent gave that away,” she said.
“What about his mother’s name?” Now, he thought, he had her.
“Mary is one of the most common names in England.”
“And the dog named King?”
“I guessed at the name. Every boy has a puppy.” She looked him square in the eye.
“I had a monkey.”
“Which jumped to your tune, I’m sure.”
Cord shook his head. “I can’t believe you had the gall to brazen it out.”
“I didn’t have much choice, did I?”
“What if it hadn’t worked? What if he’d never gotten sick over a pasty or lived in Cornwall?”
She couldn’t very well tell Cord that she had actually feigned stumbling so she could purposely touch the pirate in order to learn something of his past. She had experienced the vivid scene where Dundee’s mother took him to the fair and he became ill, an incident lodged in his earliest memories.
Nor could she tell him that her powers had enabled her to divine that years ago some fortune-teller had predicted that Captain Dundee would one day be cursed by a woman, a curse that would ultimately be connected to his death. The prediction had greatly influenced Dundee’s life. Celine merely coupled the information she had channeled with the drama she had often witnessed during Persa’s finest fortune-telling performances.
“Answer me, Celine. What if it hadn’t worked?”
She shrugged. “Then you would have hung and I would probably have been ravaged by the entire pirate crew, chopped up and fed bit by bit to the sharks.” She propped herself on an elbow and smiled up at him. “Then again, you told me earlier I wouldn’t tempt a shipwrecked sailor, so I probably had nothing to fear in the way of ravaging. Now the crew is safe and so are you.”
She shot him a questioning glance and looked away before adding, “I suppose there is still a chance that I’m in danger of being ravaged when and if this godforsaken crate ever reaches your island.”
A hint of a smile teased his lips.
“A very slim chance,” he told her. He let out a pent-up sigh and tried to relax. “You are insane, you know that, don’t you? Any other woman would have been cowering beneath the bunk, but there you were, in nothing more than that damned flopping nightgown, toe to toe with a cutthroat maniac—”
“Dressed in satin, don’t forget.”
“In purple and yellow satin.” His slight smile broadened.
“You look better when you’re not frowning so.” She had not thought he could be any more handsome.
“Was that meant to be a compliment?”
Cord walked over and sat down beside her, so close that his backside pressed against her hip. In a move that surprised her, for it bordered on tenderness, he reached out and attempted to arrange her tangled hair. He gave up almost instantly.
“It appears I owe you my thanks,” he said.
“Actually you owe me your neck, but I will settle for a little kindness.”
“You are a strange woman, Celine.”
“You are far from a model husband.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking while I was standing there on deck trussed up like a turkey.” His expression darkened again. “I should have stayed with you, protected you during the attack—it would have been the honorable thing.”
She shoved her hair out of her eyes and watched him closely. He was frowning now, no doubt going over the whole incident in his mind.
“Some might think the honorable thing would have been to put a bullet in my brain as soon as it looked like all was lost.”
“That entered my mind. It gave me something to think about while I was waiting to hang—wondering what they would do when they found you, hoping they would
be merciful, knowing they wouldn’t. Killing you first would have been the honorable thing to do.”
“Then I’m glad you aren’t one to rush to do the honorable thing.”
“That’s how we ended up married, you know. For once in my life I did the honorable thing.” He turned around to look at her. “Why did you do it, Celine? Why did you go through with this marriage?”
“My guardian … died very suddenly. I wanted to get away, to change my life. I told you how I came to be at your grandfather’s home that night.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.
“We make quite a pair.”
He had said the words to himself, but she heard them. Unlike last night when she was trying to fight off seasickness, she used his being lost in thought as an opportunity to study him closely.
Cordero was exceedingly handsome, of that there was no doubt. He had the suntanned, rugged look of a man who spent much time out of doors. Unlike many wealthy planters’ sons, he did not appear unaccustomed to physical labor. His shoulders were broad beneath his white shirt, and his hands were strong. He had a firm jaw. Far too often for her liking, his eyes had a far-off, brooding look about them.
She wondered what it would take to make a man like this truly happy. Was there a woman alive with enough love to give to heal the hurt and anger he carried inside?
Before she was aware of what she was doing, she reached out and gently touched the back of his hand, compelled to learn more, to know why he always seemed so lost, so closed off from the world.
Cord looked at her in question, then at her hand where it lay over his. She thought he might draw away, but he did not move. Celine felt the familiar dizziness, felt herself slide into a dreamlike state as she slipped into his mind.
A beautiful woman in an outmoded gown danced in a luminous froth of waves on a silver sliver of sand beneath a starry sky.
A wave of overwhelming love hidden somewhere in the deep shadows of his memory poured through Celine, but the haunting image and joyous feeling vanished like smoke as a rapid pounding on the cabin door shook her from her dream state. Cord had no time to ask the question she read in his eyes.
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