Desire in the Sun

by Karen Robards

  "Blimy, Silas, did you hear that? The cheek of 'im!" Speare's pistol steadied, its muzzle pointed squarely at Joss's chest. "I'll ask ya once again, mate. Who be ye?"

  Joss was silent for a moment. Lilah held her breath. The answer he finally gave caught her by surprise.

  "The name is San Pietro, Captain Joss San Pietro, late of the Sea Belle. My ship went down in a storm off these shores a week or so ago. I'd be much obliged if you'd take me to your captain so I can claim the hospitality of the sea."

  The two pirates were evidently as startled by the calm audacity of Joss's words as Lilah was. They looked sideways at each other, then back at Joss with suspicion plain in their faces.

  "What should we do, Speare?" Silas asked.

  "Blimy, Silas, how should I know?" He looked Joss over. "We're missing two shipmates. You seen aught of them?"

  "I've seen many of your shipmates over the past few days. Hell, they've been all over the island, and I've been watching diem. But as to two in particular, no, not so as I noticed. Now, as I mentioned, I'd like to talk to your captain."

  Silas and Speare glanced at each other again. Then Silas shrugged. "Hell, let Cap'n Logan sort it out."

  Speare nodded. "Come on, then, you. But I warn you, try any kind of trick and you're a dead man."

  "You've no need to fear me, gendemen," Joss said placidly, lowering his pistol and then, to Lilah's horrified astonishment, tucking it carelessly in his waistband. The two pirates seemed to relax slightly, though they still regarded Joss with extreme wariness. Their pistols never left him.

  "You go on ahead." Speare motioned to Joss to precede them down the trail. Joss complied, with Speare right behind him. It occurred to Lilah that in a matter of seconds she would be left totally alone! Before she could decide what, if anything, she should do, Silas fell in behind Speare and they were marching Joss away down the trail.

  XXXV

  When the men were gone, Lilah remained motionless for a few minutes, not knowing what to do. What would they do to Joss? It was inconceivable to her that they would at any point just let him go. Maybe he meant to overpower Silas and Speare farther down the trail, before they got in sight of the Magdalene? But he had put his pistol in his waistband, while both of the pirates had theirs trained on his back. It did not seem likely that even Joss could get the better of two armed men in the space of time it took to descend to the beach.

  The question was, what could she do to aid him? Showing herself would achieve nothing. There was nothing she could do, and that was the hard truth.

  When the voices had receded sufficiently, Lilah squirmed out from beneath the sheltering undergrowth and made her way cautiously to the edge of the cliff. The men were already out of the range of her vision. She moved to the opposite side of the promontory overlooking the beach. And she was still crouched there when Joss emerged from the cliff path, followed by the two pirates, who still kept him carefully covered with their pistols.

  If Joss was going to try anything, he had at best only a few more minutes to make the attempt.

  The trio headed toward the bay. The distance was too great to permit her to hear anything of what was said, but the pirates motioned Joss toward another man, who sat under a palm at the edge of the beach. At the trio's approach, the man rose, fumbling for his pistol. When Joss and his captors stopped walking, the four men appeared to exchange only a brief bit of conversation. Then the fourth man picked up a scarlet flag from where it had been lying beside him in the sand, and by waving it overhead seemed to be sending a signal to the brigantine. A short while later a small punt with two men at the oars headed from the ship to the beach. As it approached, Joss was herded into the surf and pulled aboard the punt. Silas and Speare followed. The oarsmen reversed directions, pulling for the Magdalene. Joss sat in the stern as though he hadn't a care in the world while Speare's pistol kept him under guard. Not by the slightest gesture did Joss reveal any nervousness, though he must have feared for his life.

  As the punt reached the ship, Lilah watched with her heart in her throat. Joss, a tiny figure in the distance only identifiable because of his black hair, climbed a dangling ladder to the deck, where he was grabbed by two pair of hands and pulled from her sight before he had done more than sling a leg over the rail. When he was gone, she stared blindly at the other men ascending the Magdalene"1s ladder. A huge knot formed in her stomach. She was so frightened for Joss her insides churned.

  As the afternoon progressed, nothing happened. Though she watched the ship with eagle eyes, there was no sign of Joss. Lilah's fear was relentless, both for him and for herself, too. With Joss gone, she was alone and very vulnerable. If he should be killed, or if the Magdalene sailed away with him on board, she might be alone for days, weeks… forever even! The thought was terrifying. Being marooned with Joss was almost fun, a kind of exotic, romantic adventure. Being marooned alone, with no idea of Joss's fate, would be a nightmare of the worst sort.

  Afternoon turned to evening, and still Lilah crouched, watching, on the promontory. She was hungry and thirsty, but she dared not move in case Joss somehow managed to get word to her. As the shadows lengthened, search parties straggled onto the beach, where the waiting pirate signalled for a punt with his scarlet flag. By nightfall, she thought most of the men were off the island.

  She was alone in the dark.

  The Magdalene bobbed gracefully on the midnight blue waters of the bay, lights shining from her portholes. Lilah toyed with the thought of swimming out to the ship under the cover of darkness. She knew this was ridiculous and extremely dangerous, but she felt as if she would go crazy if she did not do something! Perhaps she could at least determine if Joss was dead or alive…

  Then a punt was launched from the Magdalene with two men in the prow and two at the oars. It headed toward the beach. As the punt drew closer to shore she thought that one of the men in the prow looked like Joss. Her heartbeat stopped, speeded up. Torchlight illuminated broad bare shoulders and black hair, a heavily muscled chest above a narrow waist and tattered black breeches. And there was something about the way he moved his head…

  But Joss, if Joss he was, did not appear to be under any kind of restraint. As far as Lilah could tell, no pistol was trained on him, and he was talking easily to the man who sat just behind him. Crazily, hope began to bubble inside her.

  As the punt reached the beach, the men jumped out and splashed through the shallow surf to shore. The two who had been manning the oars dragged the punt behind them. When they were all on the beach, the man who might or might not be Joss pointed up toward where

  Lilah crouched, and said something to his companions. All four men looked in her direction. Appalled, Lilah scooted back.

  When she looked again, the black-haired man and one other were heading up the path from the beach. The others stayed behind.

  Panic churned in Lilah's stomach, her breath was labored. What in the name of heaven was she to do? Run? Hide? Had Joss been tortured into revealing her presence? Was that man even Joss?

  If it was, he would not reveal her existence without a good reason. If he was leading the pirates up to her hiding place, then perhaps it was because they had misjudged everything. Perhaps the pirates were harmless. Perhaps they were honest sailing men, and not pirates at all.

  And perhaps pigs could fly.

  Lilah remembered the black-haired woman, and shuddered.

  She could hear the men coming up the path. Listening to the low rumble of their voices, she no longer had any doubt: The taller one was Joss. She would recognize that voice anywhere in the world, under any conditions.

  They stopped on the path just below. Crouching, Lilah scooted to the spot where she and Joss had spied on Speare and Silas-had it only been a matter of hours ago? It seemed like centuries!

  Only one man stood there. The moon had gone behind a cloud, and it was too dark to tell which one he was. But there was only one, of that Lilah was sure.

  She quickly scooted for cover even as a
tall dark shape strode into the clearing.

  For a moment she stared, dry-mouthed, as the shadowy figure looked around. She was almost certain it was…

  "Lilah!" came the hoarse whisper.

  "Joss!"

  Lilah scrambled from her hiding place and flew across the intervening space to throw herself against him in a paroxysm of relief. He caught her in his arms, and hugged her to him for just an instant.

  "The captain-Logan-insists that I join the crew," Joss explained in a whisper. "The only thing that kept them from stringing me up or putting me to an even more unsavory end is the fact that I can use a sextant. That makes me valuable, at least until they get where they're going. I told them that I was captain of a ship that went down off these shores during the storm that wrecked us, and that I and a lone shipmate were the sole survivors. You are the shipmate, a cabin boy named Remy. You're my young nephew, and I promised your mother I'd look out for you. You're slow-witted by nature, and the wreck left you positively addled. You haven't spoken a word since. The ship was the Sea Belle, out of Bristol. Can you remember all that?"

  Before Lilah could reply, a voice floated up from below.

  "You still up there, San Pietro?" The question was heavy with suspicion.

  "I sure as hell haven't taken wing over the ocean," Joss shot back. "I'm explaining things to my nephew, so he won't be frightened out of what few wits he has left. We'll be right down."

  "See that you are! I ain't standin' here all night!"

  Joss turned back to Lilah, urgency in his gestures and lowered voice.

  "They don't trust me, but they need me, and it's either go with them or be killed. You'll have to come too, never forgetting your role for a minute. Not one minute, you understand? You're my addled nephew Remy, and you stick to me like a shadow. Got it?"

  Lilah nodded, her throat tightening with fear. She was actually going to join the pirate crew-as an addled boy? Could she play the part for days on end without slipping up? It seemed absurd, impossible. She had never really thought to have to put her boy's guise to the test. But as Joss said, what was the alternative? If she gave herself away, it would almost certainly mean death for them both. Lilah thought about that for an instant, then lifted her chin with determination. She could play the part, because she had to. There was no choice, for either of them.

  "I won't slip up."

  Joss nodded. Looking around once, moving quickly, he pulled the kerchief from her head, and caught the thick braid of her hair in his fist as it tumbled down.

  "What are you doing?" she whispered, wincing and catching his arm as he yanked at her tender scalp.

  "I hate like hell to do it, but all this hair is just too damned much of a risk. If they find out you're a female…" His voice trailed off. She knew the risk as well as he. With a twisted expression that told more than words how much the action pained him, Joss pulled a knife from his breeches and began sawing through the thick braid. The painful tugging on her scalp brought tears to Lilah's eyes, but she made not so much as a sound of protest. Joss was the one who looked sick scant moments later as he stood there staring at the severed rope of silvered hair that lay across his palm.

  "It'll grow back, silly." She felt a ridiculous urge to comfort him even as her fingers moved in increasingly appalled exploration over the ragged bob he'd left her with.

  "I know." With a breath like a sigh he too ran his hand over her shorn head.

  He stepped past her and with a pair of long strides carried the shimmering braid to the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean. For just an instant he held it tight in his closed fist, as if savoring the feel of the silken strands one last time. Then he drew his arm back and threw the glimmering rope as far out to sea as he could.

  As the braid fell from sight he turned back to look at Lilah.

  "San Pietro? You still up there?"

  "We're coming now."

  Even before he finished speaking, he bent down to scrape off some of the slimy fungus that grew along the base of the rocks by the edge of the cliff. Straightening, he crossed to Lilah and caught her chin. As she looked up at him wordlessly he smeared the oily fungus into her scalp, spreading his fingers to work it through the choppy cap that was left of her hair. Then he grabbed a handful of dirt, and rubbed that into her hair too. That done, he wiped his dirty fingers over her face with quick, rough movements.

  "Ow!"

  "Sorry." He retied her kerchief and studied her a moment.

  "God help us," he said under his breath, "but that's the best I can do. Remember, don't speak, and keep your eyes down. You're addled and frightened. And for God's sake, don't act shocked at anything you may hear, or see. A blush could ruin us. Stay close to me at all times, like you're afraid of everyone else. Understand?"

  Lilah nodded. Staying close to him and pretending to be afraid would require little in the way of acting. She was terrified, and she had no intention of letting Joss out of her sight if she could help it. She needed him now, as she had never needed another human being in her life.

  He looked down at her for an instant longer, his expression grim. Then he caught her chin in his hand, and kissed her. Before she could respond, he headed down the path, and she followed.

  They rounded the turn in the path. The pirate who had escorted Joss stood there, smoking. Lilah hung her head and allowed one shoulder to droop, giving her what she hoped was a scrawny, concave appearance. The stone in her boot wedged under her insole, making her limp real. Joss moved as if he hadn't a worry in the world, while her heart pounded so loudly that she was afraid the pirate might hear it.

  "Took you long enough," the pirate grumbled as Joss came up to him and Lilah hung a little back. Even though she kept her eyes downcast, she was tinglingly aware of the hard look he ran over her. She devoutly hoped that the confining strips of cloth and the loose shirt and jerkin were enough to conceal her shape. As the man's eyes swept her body, it was ail she could do not to cringe.

  "Get over here, Remy, and try not to be such a bloody little coward," Joss said with evident disgust, reaching out to catch her by the shoulder and yank her across the few feet of path that separated them. Stumbling, she ended up standing beside him, his hand on her shoulder, her head hanging. Darkness shrouded the three of them, providing her some protection. Lilah was concentrating so hard on acting addled that when a nightbird screeched close by she didn't even jump.

  "This gentleman's name is Burl," Joss said to Lilah, overemphasizing the words as if she were hard of hearing. Lilah stared at the ground, managing to work up enough saliva for a creditable drool. As it dribbled from the comer of her slack mouth and dropped to the ground, Joss made a disgusted sound even as his hand on her shoulder gave her a secret, applauding squeeze. The pirate looked away with revulsion.

  Then, to Burl, Joss said, "This is my nephew Remy. His ma thought a sea voyage would make a man of him, but you can see what's come of that. I'm not looking forward to taking him back to her. He's in worse shape than when he left, and she's sure as hellfire going to blame me."

  Lilah, knowing that she couldn't stare at the ground forever, grunted and rolled her eyes, trying to shrug out from under Joss's hand. He let her go, frowning as she squatted at his feet, tracing aimless patterns with her finger in the dirt path.

  "Half-witted, ain't he?" Burl said, and shook his head. "Well, let's get on back to the ship. Cap'n'll be glad to see that he won't have no worries about your shipmate causin' trouble."

  "Get on your feet, Remy." Joss's tone of controlled exasperation was well done, Lilah thought. She pretended not to hear him, concentrating on tracing more circles in the dirt. There was just the right amount of roughness in the jerk with which Joss finally hauled her to her feet. As soon as he had her up, Lilah squatted again, and went back to her task. Burl guffawed. Joss cursed, and yanked her up for the second time. This time he kept a hand twisted in her collar.

  Burl, grinning at Joss's struggle to keep his idiot nephew on his feet, stood back so that Lilah
and Joss could precede him down the path. Lilah limped and stumbled, drooled and sagged. Joss let go of her collar to grab her upper arm and keep her going that way. Burl followed, seeming to accept her for what she pretended to be without a qualm. As she let Joss drag her along, Lilah found to her surprise that some of the edge had left her terror. She had played her part, and played it well. Burl seemed to be convinced that she was Remy, an idiot boy. Of course, the real test was yet to come. She had yet to spend any time with any of the pirates, or appear in the harsh light of day.

  Fooling the entire bloodthirsty crew of the Magdalene would be difficult. But she didn't think it would be impossible. Not anymore.

  XXXVI

  Joss's mouth was dry as he watched Lilah climb the ladder onto the pirate ship. She made a great show of fumbling at the ropes, keeping her supposedly bad leg stiff as she hauled herself upward. Positioned behind her, he had an eagle's-eye view of her backside, as did the other men in the boat. He breathed a silent sigh of relief. In the baggy breeches, there was nothing to reveal that she was a female. Her waist was small, but then so were the waists of many a scrawny lad. With the oversized shirt hanging outside the breeches, and her dress ripped into that ragged jerkin on top of that, her shape was almost impossible to determine. He only prayed to God that the cloth binding her breasts would hold. If it did, if she remembered to keep her eyes down, limp whenever she moved and remain constantly mute, they had a small chance of pulling this off. He hoped.

  "Step lively, Remy," he shouted.

  Lilah continued her slow pace up the ladder as if she had not heard. Joss shook his head for the benefit of the onlookers.

  When Joss reached the deck, Lilah was at the center of a crowd of pirates, being looked up and down by none other than Captain Logan himself. They formed a loose circle in front of the forecastle, and four flaming torches lit the small area so that it was almost as bright as day.