by Louise Allen
‘I see.’ Nathan studied her flushed face. ‘What has changed?’
‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t trust you, even now. You won’t tell me what you really are.’
He grimaced. ‘I tell you what it is safe for you to know. And you are right, men want to kiss pretty girls, it is one of the failings of the sex. And I think you are a handful, although I don’t think I’d describe you as a brat. You don’t have to make declarations of trust, Clem, I’ll do my best to get you out of this, and, when I do, we’ll see what the Governor can do to make things right.’
She shook her head, not at all comforted by the thought of the Governor’s assistance.
‘Try not to worry—if he cannot hush this up, then I’ll marry you. I don’t think I’m much of a bargain, but marriage to me is probably better than life as a ruined woman.’
‘Marry you?’ A bucket of cold sea water wouldn’t be much more of a slap in the face. Clemence bit her lip and struggled to preserve some dignity after that comprehensively well-meaning and damning proposal. She had told him she trusted him, against reason, and he thought she was asking him to take care of her when all this was over. And, of course, that meant marriage, so the wretched man was being noble about it.
‘Thank you, Mr Stanier, but no. I doubt a young lady could expect a less romantic offer of marriage. I told you that I trusted you, not that I was looking for a husband. Please be assured that I will not put you to the trouble; I would walk the streets of Kingston, rather, than marry a man like you.’
‘Clemence, damn it—’
She ducked away from his outstretched hand. ‘Excuse me, I’ll just go and check I know where all the weapon chests are below deck.’ And find a corner in the dark to have a good weep.
‘Clem!’
She ran. Behind her she heard McTiernan. ‘Mr Stanier! When you have quite finished failing to control that boy, perhaps you would be so good as to join us?’
Chapter Eleven
Nathan was still cursing himself hours later when he went down to the cabin to snatch a few hours’ sleep. The pain in his back as he eased cautiously down to lie on his stomach on the bunk was an almost welcome distraction. From across the cabin came the sound of Clemence attempting to breathe as though she were asleep and not lying there confused and wounded by his tactlessness.
A demon of temptation whispered that he should go over there, take her in his arms and make love to her. His conscience told him that doing that could only make things worse; besides, he was in no fit state to make love to a virgin as she deserved to be loved. Which thought produced the inevitably uncomfortable result.
Damn, there went any hope of sleep. The one thing he had been resolved upon was that he must protect her, not hurt her, and instead he had leapt to conclusions and in trying to reassure her he had managed to both wound her and shatter the confidence between them. And come daybreak she was going to need that confidence.
The fact that her violent repudiation of his proposal made him not irritated, or relieved, but disappointed, was not lost on him. If she were not having unwise feelings, then he most certainly was. But increasingly the idea of marriage to Clemence, young as she was, ignorant, too, of the realities of life to a man who made his living at sea, was becoming strangely tempting.
He lay, dozing fitfully, part of his mind noting the ship’s bell counting the hours, vividly aware of the pattern of Clemence’s breathing as she finally slept.
When a thin light began to show through the porthole he got to his feet, methodically working the protesting muscles, wincing as the healing lash marks stuck to the bandages.
It was better than he had feared and once the action began he would not be so aware of it. He’d fought with a bullet in his upper arm and a sabre slash down his thigh before now. Nathan laid out his pistols on the table and quietly began to strip them down and clean them. More than his life was going to depend on them today.
When he could not leave it any longer, he went to her bunk and laid the back of his hand against her cheek. ‘Clemence.’
‘Mmm?’ She turned her face against his hand like a cat, a smile curving her lips, eyes closed. Nathan saw the exact moment when she recalled where she was and what had happened yesterday. He took his hand away and turned back to the table, unwilling to see her eyes on him, for her to see him lift his own hand against his cheek for a fleeting moment.
‘Time to get up. Stay near the head of the companionway and then, when we’re about to grapple her, go down to the orlop.’ He wanted to say take care, for all the good it did, but his voice seemed to be failing him and he needed to be out of there.
The door handle was in his grasp when she spoke. ‘I just want to say, I do trust you. And, good luck, Nathan.’
He should turn, talk to her, but he found he could not. Something was tight in his throat—it felt, impossibly, like his heart. Somehow he got the door open. ‘Thank you.’
Superstition maintained that when something was going absolutely to plan, then disaster could not be far away. By that reckoning, he was in for a bad time, Nathan decided, watching the merchantman Bonny Lass tack and turn ahead of them, harried by the light guns of the skiff blocking the open sea. The gap between the islets beckoned, temptingly. Unless they had a man in the top-mast crow’s nest, then they would never see the danger shimmering beneath the waves, not if they were the ship McTiernan believed them to be.
Closer and closer they drew, gaining on their prey. ‘Terrible sail handling,’ Cutler remarked as Bonny Lass lost more way.
‘Panicking,’ Nathan suggested, one wary eye out for Clemence, loitering by the dark mouth of the companionway. Don’t overdo it, he thought urgently as though he could reach James Melville, his old friend, captaining the decoy in his shirtsleeves with no gold lace to betray his true identity.
Long minutes passed as the two ships closed. He could see them in his mind’s eye as though from the peak of Lizard Island, two elegant toys skimming across the green-blue ocean without a hint of the carnage that was about to be unleashed.
Bonny Lass slid into the trap. Nathan felt himself hold his breath. Had he miscalculated? Was the smaller ship going to clear the sand-bar? And then it struck as though it had hit a wall and Sea Scorpion, responding to the helm, swung round to come up alongside it.
Nathan spun on his heel; the mouth of the companionway was empty. Clemence had gone. He drew his pistol and turned back, one target in mind, but McTiernan was already down the steps, dodging amidst the mêlée. Cursing, Nathan followed Cutler, searching for a clear shot.
Clemence was buffeted by the men running up from the gun deck to join the hand-to-hand fighting above. That one last glimpse she had of Nathan, pistol in hand, seemed burned into her mind as she stumbled down, snatching a lantern as she went.
The key was still on its hook and behind the closed door she could hear shouts. As she tried to unlock the door something heavy hit the inside, sending the key tumbling from her fingers. Doggedly she tried again and it came open, bringing with it the men who had been trying to break it down.
One of them lunged for her throat. ‘Johnnie Wright! It’s me, Clemence Ravenhurst!’
She hardly recognised him. The mate of the Raven Duchess, his face white and pinched, his eyes wild, stared at her, hands still raised. ‘Miss Clemence?’
‘Yes. No time to explain, Johnnie—we’re alongside a naval vessel. Can any of you fight? I know where there are weapons.’
‘Aye, we can fight, can’t we, lads?’ There was a roar from behind him, then they were tumbling out of the hold, bearded, stinking, out for blood. Clemence turned and ran up the companionway, her scarecrow army at her heels.
‘Here.’ She gestured at the open weapon chests. ‘Hurry!’
They stampeded past her up to the noise of shouting, shots, the grinding of the two ships against each other. Panting, Clemence pulled her knife out of its sheath and followed.
She couldn’t see Nathan, but she could see McTiernan, Cutler at hi
s side, fighting surrounded by bodies. There were blue naval uniforms, officers fighting hand to hand, seamen she didn’t recognise who must be part of the decoy’s crew. Splinters flew up from the deck at her feet and she saw marines in the rigging, firing down. A hand descended, pulled her back through a door.
Street wiped blood off his meat cleaver and showed his teeth. ‘Your Mr Stanier’s not what he seems, boy. Told me to look out for you. You reckon I ought to heed him?’
‘He’ll help you, if you do,’ ’ Clemence promised, craning to see past the cook’s bulk. ‘He said you’re the best of the bunch. You can’t want to follow a man like McTiernan, surely?’
‘He’s my captain, I don’t turn my coat, leastways, not while the bastard’s alive and breathing.’
A shadow fell across the doorway, a sailor, pistol in hand, the barrel pointing directly at Clemence. Trapped against the stove, she threw up her hands in a pointless gesture of defence; after all this, she was going to die here, now. It seemed impossible to feel such terror and still be conscious. She wanted to live, she wanted Nathan and now it was all going to end in noise and blood and smashed bone and agony—
The gun went off, the sound loud in the confined space, her heart seemed to stop, beside her an earthenware pot shattered. He had missed. In the second it took her to realise she was still alive, Street raised his hand wrapped around a long-barrel pistol. The man took the shot in the face, falling back, dead before he hit the deck as Clemence, sickened, reeled back with a sob of terror, her vision filled with the image of what the bullet had done to human features. That had been a man. That had almost been her.
Then there was a scream, lost in a tremendous crashing, the sun vanished and the whole mainmast of the decoy ship began to fall. Clemence ducked away from Street’s hand, dived through the door and saw Nathan in the stern as the mast came down between them.
Clemence’s slight figure was lost in the descending mass of spars and canvas. Nathan began to move forward, parrying a descending sword. ‘Hulme!’ he shouted into the face of the lieutenant wielding the weapon.
The man pulled the stroke. ‘Sir!’
‘Pass the word, there are captives from the hold fighting on our side.’ He raised his pistol, fired and a man about to stab a midshipman fell off the rail with a scream. ‘I’m going forward.’
‘You’re going to hell.’ It was Cutler, blood dripping down his face, his cutlass in his fist. ‘You bloody spy.’ He gestured with one hand, beckoning Nathan forward like an alley bruiser with a victim. ‘Come on and die, Stanier.’
Nathan had no loaded weapons left, his cutlass had broken off five minutes before as he sliced at a pirate and hit a cannon on the down stroke.
‘Sir!’ Hulme was holding out his own sword.
‘Thanks, but I’ve no time for this.’ The dagger came out of its sheath as though it were oiled and his eyes were still locked with the first mate’s when the blade thudded into the man’s chest.
Nathan yanked it out and was running before the big body collapsed on to the deck, dodging through the knots of fighting men. The fallen mast blocked one end of the deck from the other as effectively as a wall—a shifting, treacherous wall full of traps and tangles. He turned aside, swung out into the rigging and began to climb.
The pain flashing across his back was like fire as he reached and stretched but he kept going, heading for the ropes dangling from the first spar. He couldn’t see Clemence, but he could see McTiernan, cold as ice, his blade cutting down men all around him.
Then a scarecrow of a man pushed his way through to confront the captain. What he was yelling, Nathan couldn’t hear as he climbed, bullets flying past his ears, but he saw the contemptuous ease with which McTiernan felled him with a sideways sweep of his cutlass, raised the weapon for the death blow.
And out of the smoke and confusion Clemence appeared, a broken spar in her hands. She swung it, even as Nathan shouted her name, and McTiernan’s blade stuck into the wood. The man yanked it towards him and she went with it, into his lethal embrace.
He was still below the dangling rope. Nathan jumped, reaching with a yell of pain as the wounds on his back split open, but he had it, swinging across the barrier of the fallen mast. At the height of the swing he let go and hit Sea Scorpion’s limp foresail, one hand scrabbling for a handhold, the other slicing into the canvas with his dagger. The weapon held him for a moment and then began to cut down. All he could do was hang on, trying to control his descent with his feet as he slid towards the deck.
Below him was a blur of movement, but he could hear Clemence screaming defiance at McTiernan, and then he saw her, her hands locked around the man’s sword hand with desperate strength, while he shook her back and forth like a terrier with a rat.
Nathan landed, staggering, behind them and launched himself at McTiernan’s back just as the man swung Clemence round, taking Nathan off his feet. He seized her as he fell. ‘Let go!’ She fell with him and he dragged her up and behind him, turning to face the pirate with the realisation that the only weapon he held was one small dagger and the man was too close for a throw.
‘I’m going to slice you open and drag your guts out in front of your eyes,’ McTiernan hissed, lowering his cutlass to weave a dizzying pattern.
‘Clemence, run.’
‘No.’ She edged further round and he realised that she was effectively trapped. If McTiernan took him, she had no escape.
The man lunged, the point of the weapon slicing through his shirt, across his belly like a whiplash. Nathan recoiled back, shifting his balance, searching for an opening, aware that if he had to, he could take the blade in his body to give Clemence a chance to get free.
‘Stanier!’ It was Melville.
Nathan looked up in time to catch the thrown sword and drive McTiernan back with one slashing stroke. He took Clemence’s arm and almost hurled her through the opening.
‘Melville! Catch!’ There was no time for more as McTiernan leapt forward with a roar, Nathan’s foot slid on the blood-soaked deck and he went down, flat on his back.
‘Nathan!’ Clemence bit, screamed, struggled, but the burly man in the blue uniform simply wrapped his arms round her, hauled her to the side and thrust her at a marine.
‘Get him below. Guard him.’
She did not make it easy, and the marine, confused about exactly who he had got hold of, was not gentle. There was a sickening moment when she hung over the gap between the two ships as they ground together and then more hands took her, bundled her below, thrust her into a cabin. She heard the lock turn and hurled herself at the door, hammering at the panels. ‘Nathan!’
The explosion hit her before she heard it. A great blow, like a hurricane striking, then the side of the cabin blew in, at first very slowly, as if in a dream, and then, as the noise came, with a thundering crash. Something hit her head, she was aware she was falling, then, nothing.
‘Miss Clemence! Miss Clemence, wake up do, miss!’
Eliza? She must have overslept; Papa would be impatient if she was late for breakfast. Clemence made an effort, then realised that the drum beat thudding through her was a monumental headache.
‘Eliza?’ She managed to open her eyes a crack. There was the familiar face of her maid, her face contorted with worry. Perhaps she was ill. But she was never ill. Something was wrong.
‘Miss Clemence, there’s so much trouble and grief, you must wake up!’ Yes, something was wrong. Uncle had dismissed Eliza. Papa was dead. Nathan was—
‘Nathan?’ Hands took her shoulders as she sat up, pillows were heaped behind her. ‘Where am I?’ This wasn’t her bedchamber, this wasn’t the cabin.
‘The hospital, Miss Clemence. And there’s a guard outside and they do say you were one of the pirates’ women, and it’s only because you are a female that you aren’t in the gaol with the rest of them that got captured.’
‘I’m not,’ she managed, before Eliza held water to her lips. ‘What happened? Is the Sea Scorpion taken?’
>
‘Sunk, Miss Clemence, and most of that crew of scum with her, two days ago. I’m working for Mrs Hemingford now and she does charitable work in the women’s wards once a week and I saw you being carried in, yesterday.’ Eliza, her dark face anxious, shook her head. ‘I didn’t think it was wise to say I recognised you, not with Mr Naismith about. I don’t trust him, the way he made me go without letting me see you. I knew you’d speak to me first if you wanted to dismiss me.’ She helped Clemence drink again. ‘I said I’d like to come down and help some more, and Mrs Hemingford, she’s a good Christian woman, she said I could.’
Clemence struggled to absorb it all. Nathan was either dead or in prison. If he was free, he’d have looked for her. Now she would have to look for him. She tried to ignore the clammy feeling of fear in the pit of her stomach and looked down at her body. Her bindings and all her clothes had gone and she was clad in a coarse cotton nightgown.
‘Eliza, can you get me clothes? I must wash and dress and go to the Governor.’
‘How are you going to get out, Miss Clemence?’ Then the maid grinned and got to her feet. ‘I know, don’t you fret, I’ll not be long.’
Somehow Clemence managed to keep calm until Eliza returned half an hour later. ‘It’s not decent, her in those men’s clothes,’ Clemence heard her saying to someone outside. ‘You let us in and we’ll have her looking like a God-fearing woman, at least.’
The lanky white woman with her hair in a turban was carrying a bundle on her shoulder while Eliza lugged in a pail of water. ‘My friend Susan,’ she said with a jerk of her head to her silent companion. ‘Can you get up and washed, Miss Clemence?’ She began to rip the sheet into strips. ‘These’ll do nicely to tie up poor Susan.’
