A Wedding by Dawn (6 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HEY
MANAGED
FOR
a day, and then another, and another, until India began to wonder if they might succeed at this after all. They’d known William was all right when he’d begun pounding on the door and shouting before the first night was through.

The carpenter had filed enough of a space beneath each door to slide plates of food and low-lipped trays filled with water, like one might give a cat.

“I’m worried that there’s been no sound from William’s cabin since this morning,” India said to Millie, as the setting sun spilled into the captain’s great cabin at the end of the third day.

“Did you expect him to pound at the door without ever giving up?”

“I don’t know
what
to expect.” India rubbed her arms and paced by the windows.

“We’ll make Sicily by tomorrow midday,” Millie said testily. Already the wind had softened, and they both knew they would be lucky to reach Sicily by nightfall tomorrow. “We’ll put them out, and they’ll be ashore in an hour or two. Nothing will happen to them.”

“I only wish I could say the same of us,” India snapped.

But by noon the next day, the wind had died completely overnight, and it showed no sign of returning.

India licked her finger and anxiously held it up, but the only sensation was the warm Mediterranean sunshine. “Nothing.”

“It will pick up,” Mille said, working her fingers absently around her wrist.

“Is that optimism I hear?”

“Pragmatism,” Millie snipped. “The wind has to blow sometime.”

But above them the sails hung limp while the ship floated calmly on a sea disturbed by the barest ripples. Below, the crew lolled about on deck with nothing to do but watch her and Millie stand helplessly on the upper deck and wait for a breeze to catch the sails.

India held William’s spyglass to her eye and studied the distant green ribbon that was Sicily.

“The crew is getting restless,” Millie said under her breath.

“I
know
that.” India cast a wary glance toward the bow, where fifty men controlled only by their desire to return to the Valletta taverns had stopped lolling and now milled about impatiently. She caught the boatswain’s eye and lifted her chin the way Katherine had always done, and was satisfied when the boatswain turned away.

India studied Sicily once more. “How far do you suppose it is really?”

“Too far. Putting them in the longboat here would be murder.”

“You’re right—the wind will pick up. It’s got to.” India said it mostly to reassure herself. “Perhaps I should order another keg opened.”

“A third keg? They’ll all be drunk.”

“But occupied.”

“Oh, yes. That’s the perfect—dear God.” Millie’s hand flew to her chest, and she gripped her wrist tightly. “India, look there.”

At the bow, the twenty-seven crew members had all gathered together in a huddle. Without the crash of waves and the snap of canvas, the voices carried easily to the upper deck in an increasing crescendo of discontent.

India touched her pistol. “If they mutiny...” There would be little she and Millie could do to stop them.

Millie watched the group through eyes that had grown fearful. “They could do no more in charge of this ship than we can—nobody can control the wind.”

India thought of the brawl in the tavern at Valletta and felt a chill despite the warm sunshine. It would take mere seconds for hell to break loose aboard this ship, and the crew could throw them overboard or simply kill them and be done with it. Or worse.

From somewhere below deck came the sound of a small explosion. India snapped her attention to Millie. “A pistol shot.”

“Who could be shooting?” Millie asked frantically.

And another.

Moments later—too soon to reload—another.

India counted heads rapidly. “All the men are on deck.” Which meant it had to be William...
and
Nicholas Warre. “Bloody hell—it’s them.”

Bang!

Fear surged through Millie’s voice. “We can’t let them escape. We can’t!” Her frantic eyes fixed on the deck below. “What’s happening now?”

The group broke up, and the entire horde of men was heading toward the upper deck.

Bang!

India judged the distance, but she would never get past them to the stairs to see who was shooting. And at what. But it was a good guess the target was the door. A loud pounding—louder than any fist could make—confirmed it.

India’s heart raced. Millie was absolutely right: they could not allow William to escape. India drew her pistol at the same time Millie drew the one she’d taken from William, and together they rushed to the stairs and aimed down at the men gathered on the quarterdeck below.

“What is the meaning of this?” India called down.

“Just want to talk about this wind,” the boatswain called, taking the first step with a dozen men behind him.

“Do not come any closer!” Millie aimed her pistol at the boatswain’s chest.

There was another pistol shot from below. More violent pounding. If they did not go below quickly, William and Nicholas Warre would soon come above.

“There’s nothing to discuss, as you well know,” India told the men. “We shall be underway as soon as we have a breeze.” Angry faces outnumbered them six to one. “Return to your posts at once, and as soon as we are underway there will be more rum for everyone!”

Bang!
Another shot from below.

“Clear off,” India commanded. “Can’t you hear those shots? If I don’t go below immediately, you’ll all be strung from the yards for piracy when Captain Jaxbury escapes.” Oh, God. Oh,
God.
And she and Millie would be strung with them.

“T’aint us that locked up the captain,” someone called out.

They didn’t clear off. Instead they crowded up the stairs. Too late she realized she should have resorted to her pistol while they were still gathered below. “Do not cross me,” she shouted. “One of you will die—who will it be?” She only hoped it wouldn’t be her—her and Millie both, moments after she fired a shot. But if she waited...

Below, more pounding. And hacking.

The sound of ripping, splintering wood.

A burly sailor stepped forward, and she shifted her pistol toward him. “Are you volunteering to die for the others?”

The sailor stopped.

A warm bead of perspiration trickled from her temple to her jaw. Stalemate. The glassy sea shone behind the men as far as the eye could see. The ship made no sound.

Except for voices from below. Male voices.

And hard, solid footsteps.

“India...” Terror edged Millie’s voice.

“I know.”

“We’ve got to go over the side.”

“And then what?”

Suddenly the sailors’ attention shifted behind them, to the stairs—the quarterdeck. A shot fired, and all hell broke loose. Millie fired back. A man screamed, and the crew rushed them. For two heartbeats India had a dead bead on a man’s chest—Lorenzo’s chest. A voice in her head screamed,
Murderer!
In her hesitation, the moment was lost. Angry hands grabbed her, tore her pistol away, shoved her roughly toward the stairs. Above the voices she heard Millie scream.

And then—
“Enough!”
William’s deafening command rose above everything.

At first they ignored him in their frenzy. But he pushed onto the upper deck, bellowing at them to cease. Right behind him was Nicholas Warre—with a pistol.

Men were explaining, pushing her and Millie toward the front of the crowd, calling out “We got ’em, captain” and “Kill the pirates!”

A moment later they faced Nicholas Warre and a William she scarcely recognized as the lighthearted sailor she’d known for years. Fury had turned his eyes cold, his face expressionless. He barely spared them a glance before descending to the quarterdeck. He stalked to a massive coil of rope, took up the end and began winding.

Nicholas Warre stalked after him. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”

Now the crew shoved and crowded down the stairs, dragging India and Millie with them. India lost sight of William, but not before she’d seen the noose taking shape in his hand.

An uproar went up among the crew—shouts of “Hang ’em!” and “Let ’er swing!”

The world constricted to a small red spot in her vision. Perspiration ran down her face. Hands—men’s hands—she barely noticed them.

Millie’s screams came to her through a muted fog.

“Have you gone mad?” Nicholas Warre demanded. “You can’t kill them.”

William ignored him and kept winding. His usually laughing mouth was grim, and she knew him well enough to recognize that he did not want to kill them.

Breathe.
Breathe!
She fought for control, to stand tall instead of dissolving into hysteria. But William could rightfully kill them, and he would, because it was the only way to prove his authority in front of the crew.

Nicholas Warre yanked India from the sailor’s grasp. “You will not murder my wife, Jaxbury.”

“I’m not—” The protest leaped to her tongue despite her fear.

He silenced her with a violent yank. “Quiet!” he hissed in her ear. “For once in your blasted life.” And then, “My wife is
my
responsibility,” he said fiercely. “
I
shall mete out the consequences for what she’s done.” He looked down at her with the most awful expression and added loudly, “And I assure you they will be severe.”

The fog of terror cleared just enough to realize what he was doing: he was trying to give William a way to change his mind.

He dragged her toward William amid cries of “Hang ’em!”

He jerked her even closer. “When I threaten him, beg him for your life,” he ground out under his breath. “And prepare yourself.”

For what?

Nicholas Warre raised his pistol and leveled it at William. “You will not touch my wife. I shall take her below and punish her as she deserves.”

Beg. “William,
please—
”

“Silence!”
Nicholas Warre’s arm lashed out, and he backhanded her across the face. The force of the blow knocked her to the deck amid wild cheers from the crew.

Prepare herself to be
struck.
Hot, burning pain shot through her cheek, and she didn’t have to pretend to cry.

William stopped winding the rope. He looked at her, and he laughed as though there was nothing more amusing in the entire world. “She can suffer for moments,” he said to the crew at large, holding up the noose, “or she can endure a lifetime of punishment. Very well, Warre. Not going to interfere in the business between a man and his wife. Take her below and do your worst. But keep her out of my sight until Marseille, or I’ll not be responsible for what happens.”

Nicholas Warre yanked her off the deck. But now William turned his attention to Millie.

“No!” India screamed. “Millie!”

Silent tears streamed down Millie’s face. As William approached, her wide brown eyes rolled in terror like an animal sensing slaughter.

“Quiet,” came Nicholas Warre’s command in her ear.

“William,
please!
You know what she’s been through! You saw it with your own eyes!” Nicholas Warre shook her hard, dragging her toward the stairs. She fought him rabidly.
“Millie!”
Let Nicholas Warre strike her again—it didn’t matter. “Will you finish what her brother started?” she screamed, crying so hard she choked. “Will you?”

But now Nicholas Warre had her in the stairwell, shoving her down the hatch, and she grabbed for the stairs to keep from falling while desperately trying to stay on deck. “I can’t leave her,” she sobbed. “I have to stay!”

Nicholas Warre held firm. “You will not stay and watch this.
Get your arse below.
”

“Millie!”

* * *

M
ILLIE
STARED
AT
William, unable to speak. Unable to feel. It was as if she watched him from somewhere else, coming toward her. Behind him, the noose lay like a dead snake on the pile of rope.

There was a hot sensation on her face. Hot and wet.

Tears.

She saw herself crying as though observing herself from the upper deck.

Sounds rushed through her ears—so many sounds. Voices, voices, voices. Screams—India’s screams as Nicholas Warre dragged her away.

She needed to say something,
anything
to change William’s mind, to at least show she was not afraid, but her throat would not work.

Forgive me.

The words raced through her mind, seeking an escape, but her mouth would not open.

“William, no!” India was screaming. Barely coherent, barely intelligible. “Millie!”

Millie looked at William and saw her brother Gavin. He came at her like before, and there was no way to stop him. She could only prepare herself for the blows. This time, she did not have to wonder if she would die. She thought absurdly of the school at Malta, that she would never see it now, and felt fresh tears slide down her cheeks.

William stopped in front of her, and she made herself meet his eyes. Dear William, who had stood by her bedside with Katherine and Philomena while she lay nearly dead from Gavin’s fists. They had shown her nothing but kindness. But she could not live on their charity—she could not.

So she had stolen from them instead.

William’s lips curled, and he crossed his arms across his chest. The crew began to chant.

Hang her!

Hang her!

Hang her!

But William silenced them and laughed the demand away. “Only look how small and frail she is,” he called. “If I allowed myself to be taken by this woman,
I
am the one who should hang for my weakness.”

A roar of protest went up from the crew. Her mouth was so dry she could not even moisten her lips.

“Silence!”
William bellowed. “I will give you your satisfaction yet.” He looked at Millie. In those blue eyes she saw a mixture of rage and regret. “Bring the lash.”

CHAPTER NINE

B
RING
THE
LASH
.

The order sent chills down Nick’s spine and sent India into hysterics. He felt sick to his stomach—sicker than any waves could have possibly made him. Jaxbury was taking this too far. Yes, they’d committed an act of piracy, but they hadn’t injured anyone.

Well, except William.

He dragged India kicking and screaming toward his cabin, veering past it when he saw the mangled door that he’d shot and hacked to pieces in his escape. He went to hers instead.

“Release me! I must go above!” She was a dervish in his arms, kicking and wrenching violently this way and that. “Let go of me, you bastard!”

“Be still!” he barked. “Would you go above and meet the lash yourself?”

“Yes—
yes!
” The warning became an idea in those panicked blue eyes. “I shall take Millie’s place!”

“Don’t be a fool!” The idea of India under Jaxbury’s lash made him feel a protectiveness he’d sworn never to feel again after Clarissa’s betrayal. He cursed and kicked the door shut.

“He can’t lash her. He
can’t!
” India broke free and lunged for the door, but he grabbed her away. She flung out a fist and caught him in the shoulder.

“Enough!” He grabbed her arms.

“She almost died, and he
knows
she did—he
saw
what she looked like when her brother was done with her. Get out of my way!”

“You are
not
going up there.”

She kept struggling. “Cretin! You will have to strike me again to stop me!”

“Do not tempt me!” But God knew he’d barely been able to force himself to do it the first time, and if her life had not depended on it—

A bloodcurdling scream filtered through the boards above.

“Millie!”

Somehow he managed to keep hold of India.

“He’s going to kill her!” she screamed. Rage burned bright red on her cheeks beneath a stream of tears. She was close to breaking completely—it was there in her eyes. Vulnerability. Helplessness. Terror.

“He won’t kill her. Jaxbury himself has spared her life—surely you see that. He cannot do more, not and maintain control of the ship. You know that as well as I do.”

There was another horrifying scream.

“I can’t stand it!” India let go of him and covered her ears. “I can’t!”

Nick wanted to plug his ears, too. There was a roar—a cheer from the men, and he wanted to be sick. And suddenly India wasn’t fighting anymore, she was cowering like a child with her hands over her ears trying to block out the awful sounds.

The need to protect her churned up from a place very deep—a place he’d never been quite able to control. A woman in distress wrenched him like nothing else. He braced her head in his hands the way one might do when scolding a child, making sure his palms covered hers over her ears.

It wasn’t enough. He needed something more—some kind of noise to block out the awful sounds.

“It’s past time you surrender,” he shouted. Perhaps it would be enough. “All this bloody nonsense, stealing ships and sailing around the world—you’re bloody lucky anyone is willing to marry you at all. You’re damned near spinsterhood as it stands—”

Another scream.

“—and everyone knows a girl’s marriageability decreases exponentially with every month that passes, never mind all this nonsense about giving away one’s virtue—but of course you’re too naive to know what
that
entails.”

She just blinked at him, so he kept shouting, louder—hopefully—than the sickening clamor from above.

“I ought to let you go—straight back to your father, who can find some other fool willing to marry you! Would you prefer that? Some fat, old lecher with a taste for deviance—” Good God, what was he saying? “—who will want to do things to you most whores wouldn’t do? Someone who truly
is
ancient, and
then
you’ll find out about the degradation of a man’s body, and don’t I wish I could see your face when you get a first look at
that—
”

India’s blue eyes fixed on him in horrified desperation as she clung to his shouted nonsense.

“—but of course I shan’t, because we shall be wed the moment we set foot in France—”

The men shouted even louder on deck. Tears welled up in her eyes. Ah, God—he needed some other way to distract her, so he did the only thing he could think of that was sure to infuriate her beyond reason.

He kissed her.

A full-on plunder of a kiss that was guaranteed to enrage. He dug his fingers into her hair, keeping his hands over her ears, and invaded her so completely she would have nothing left to wonder about kisses when it was through.

No working up to anything, no taking anything slowly.

Just him consuming her—ah, Christ, she tasted better than he’d imagined—and forcing her to engage with him and regretting it when she did, because her lips were as soft and sensuous as they looked...and too late he realized he couldn’t do this and forget about it later, and he had no idea what the bloody hell to do next if this didn’t get her fighting again.

Which it wasn’t, because she wasn’t struggling or kicking or trying to bite him. She was leaning into him. Letting him devour her.

Another tortured scream shrieked through the deck above.

And he couldn’t do this anymore, because he was ravishing her innocent tongue, and her untutored response was killing him, and his body had no conscience. It didn’t give a damn about torture and lashings. It was responding to her, and nothing could be more wrong.

He tore his mouth away, breathing harder than he should have been. In her stunned blue eyes he saw confusion, outrage, despair and—God
damn
it—desire.

He aimed straight for the outrage. “The moment we set foot in France,” he said harshly, “you shall be mine. And
then
you will discover the true meaning of—”

“I don’t care.”
Instead of running for the door she grabbed his shirt and tried to shake him. “She doesn’t deserve this—you must do something! You must! All she ever wanted was to be a physician, to attend that devil-blasted school—”

“What? What school?”

“The surgical school. At Malta. All she’s ever wanted was to be a physician, but then Katherine returned to England because of
your stupid bill of attainder—
”
now
she was fighting him “—and Millie went home, and her brother nearly killed her because she’d sailed with Katherine, and you’ve got to
do something
to—”

Another scream. What if Jaxbury was so angry he
did
kill her?

“—
stop him!
I’ll do
anything—
I’ll marry you the moment we reach France. I won’t protest, I won’t fight you, if you will
go above and stop the lashing!
”

It was a desperate promise she would never keep. But Jaxbury was taking this too far, and the sounds coming from above were more than he could take—never mind that if anything happened to Miss Germain, life with India would be a special level of hell all its own.

But those desperate blue eyes were staring at him as if he were her only hope in the world—God, but he was a fool—and it didn’t matter anymore that she wasn’t as vulnerable as she looked. “Stay here,” he finally told her. “Do
not move.
”

He opened the door, but just as he stepped into the passageway there was a commotion in the stairwell. They were coming down. Jaxbury had Miss Germain by the arm. Men crowded at the top, and Jaxbury barked at them to return to their posts or they’d get the same.

Miss Germain’s shirt was still on, but she clutched her waistcoat to her bosom. Her knuckles were white in the black fabric, and her face was strained and ghostly. Jaxbury barely spared Nick a glance as he brushed by and ordered Miss Germain into the cabin where India waited. The back of Miss Germain’s shirt was cut to ribbons and seeped with blood.

Jaxbury ordered a cabin boy to bring ointments and bandages from the infirmary and to tell the ship’s carpenter to come and repair the lock.

Nick didn’t need to ask if that was necessary. The expected shrieking and pounding from inside the cabin never came, and the silence was worse than India’s worst fit.

“Breeze is starting to come up,” Jaxbury told him. He looked about ten years older than when they set sail, and there was no trace of his usual humor. “Putting you and India out at Marseille, Warre—one of the men will row you to shore.”

“What of Miss Germain?”

Jaxbury’s lips thinned. “She’s none of your concern.”

The hell she wasn’t. The past half hour had made it clear she
was
his concern—at least, if he ever hoped to keep India in check. As dangerous as the two of them were together, trying to manage India if she were separated from Miss Germain would be next to impossible.

But there might be a way to work this to his advantage, and if the situation was as he suspected, he was not above profiting from it.

* * *

M
ILLIE
STUMBLED
INTO
the cabin, and India’s voice failed. It was too awful. There was no way Millie could lie in the hammock, so India snatched a pillow and blanket and started to spread them on the floor.

“Just let me sit in the chair,” Millie whispered.

India positioned it for her and helped Millie lower herself to the edge of its seat. This was not the time to cry—it would only make Millie feel worse—but sobs she couldn’t control shook her chest. “Forgive me.” She backed away, fisting her hand against her mouth trying to gain her composure, but the sight of Millie torn to shreds and the memory of her awful screams was too much. “I couldn’t stop him.... There was nothing I could do.” And then, “I will kill him.” Rage exploded through her, and she rushed for the locked door. “I will kill William with my own hands!” The rough boards bit her skin as she pounded with her fists. “Do you hear me, William? I’ll kill you!”

“India,
stop.
”

Millie’s hoarse voice cut her to the quick. India’s hands stilled against the wood, and she stood there, breathing hard with her hands pressed helplessly against the boards. She didn’t want to stop. But there was nothing more to be done.

She let her forehead fall against the door, felt the grain press into her skin. “What can I do?”

“There is nothing left to do.”

There had to be. There
had
to. Finally India turned away from the door.

“Oh, Millie—your back.” India couldn’t stand it. She looked away. “I wanted to die, listening to you.”

“He told me to scream,” Millie said quietly. “Before he started. He told me to scream as if my limbs were being torn from my body, and he would stop at five.”

“To satisfy the men,” India realized.

Millie nodded. Tears of anger leaked from her eyes, and her quiet voice broke. “I didn’t want to scream. I never did when Gavin hit me—not once.” Her face burned with anger and shame. “I would rather have had twenty and kept quiet. But I knew—” Now she began to cry. “I knew I could well die...from twenty.”

And William had known, too.

As dreadful as this was, it could have been so very much worse. And William would have had the right. They
were
pirates. On any other ship, their bodies would be swinging from the yards.

India sank onto the bed, leaned forward and buried her face in her hands.

It was too much—she couldn’t take this anymore. She couldn’t have the kind of life everyone else had, and she couldn’t be left alone to have the only kind of life she wanted, and Nicholas Warre had no right to destroy what she’d worked so hard trying to accomplish—not that it would ever have worked, or that she and Millie would not have failed completely even with a new crew.

But she had nothing else. Nothing.

Millie sniffled. “Did he punish you terribly?”

“No.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “No, he did not.” And she could scarcely think of what he
had
done.

What it felt like to have his arms around her. To lean on him. To have him pull her close and—oh, God—
kiss
her. Deep inside there’d been a feeling that she wasn’t alone, and that somehow he could make the horror go away and everything would be all right.

She’d felt...protected.

“I suppose he decided the situation was punishment enough,” she said, picking at a fingernail while a new feeling curled inside her, sneaking into secret places she’d always made certain nobody could find.

“Your eye will be black by morning,” Millie said.

Already it was swelling shut, and India’s face throbbed and burned where he’d hit her. “He could hardly marry me and collect Father’s money if I was killed by a mutinous mob,” she said. He had only been defending his hope of the money he would receive by marrying her—he wasn’t defending her for her own sake.

Except that he hadn’t needed to cover her ears and try to keep her from hearing the horror of Millie’s punishment.

But he had.

And now there was no going back and un-feeling what it was like to have someone defend her, no matter the reasons.

Millie let out a long breath and closed her eyes. “Perhaps you ought to negotiate with him.”

“
Negotiate?
He’ll accept nothing less from me than marriage, Millie.”
The moment we set foot in France, you shall be mine.
That was what he’d said.

And she’d told him she didn’t care.

It wasn’t true.

She’d told him she would do
anything.
Even marry him.

He couldn’t possibly have believed her.

“If you agree to stop fighting him—” Millie sighed “—he might agree to give you some of that money and allow you to live independently.”

“Oh, yes—and renege on that agreement the moment he’s got the money in hand.” She could still taste him. The skin beneath her lower lip still burned a little from the scrape of his unshaven jaw, and her lips felt a little bruised. “We’ll escape as soon as we arrive in Marseille,” she told Millie. “We’ll find a way to quickly return to Malta before William can ready the
Possession
to sail. We could yet steal it from under his nose—or at the very least, sneak aboard long enough to retrieve your money.”