Merline Lovelace (6 page)

The crew’s sullenness vanished in a round of hearty laughter. They basked in their captain’s reputation with the fairer sex almost as much as they relied on his seamanship. Jamie’s mouth curved in a grin as well, although when he thought back to that long-ago episode, he acknowledged silently that it was rather the other way around. He hadn’t diddled the admiral’s wife as much as she’d diddled him.

From the moment he’d joined the crew of
HMS Dove,
Arabella Cathwright had hounded him. She’d made no secret of the fact that she’d bedded every other officer in her husband’s command. She wouldn’t rest until she’d added the newest lieutenant to her trophy rack.

To be truthful, Jamie hadn’t exactly resisted the skilled assault. Arabella’s midnight hair, milk-white skin, and so-talented mouth had pleasured far nobler men than Lieutenant James Kerrick. None of those men had been discovered in her bed, however. The admiral had been too cowardly to demand satisfaction by challenging his wife’s lover to a duel, but he put an end to the blackguard’s commissioned status quickly enough.

Her brief, sordid affair with Jamie had destroyed what little remained of Arabella Cathwright’s reputation. He wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen to Sarah Abernathy…if he could help it.

“I don’t intend to reveal the lady’s identity,” he told the smirking crew. “I do intend to put her on the first ship we hail making for Macao.”

“Good enough,” one of the seamen muttered. “Women aboard ship is bad joss.”

“Very bad joss,” the ship’s carpenter exclaimed. “Damned if the blasted female ain’t already brought pirates down on us! Look to starboard, Capt’n.”

Jamie spun around. His jaw clamped shut at the sight of a war junk in full sail beating out from shore to intercept them.

With ships from around the world sailing into Canton for the trading season, the pirates that fed on the merchantmen like sharks gathered as well. Almost one European ship in three fell victim to the marauders each year, their cargoes seized and their crews tossed overboard with throats slashed. For that reason, Jamie had added extra cannon to his ship’s armament. The sharp-hulled
Phoenix
could outrun or outgun almost any junk in these waters.

Jamie didn’t need his brass telescope to see that the huge, seagoing vessel bearing down on them carried considerably more firepower than most. His blood began to pound with the thrill of impending battle. He had enough confidence in his schooner’s maneuverability and his crew’s skill to know he could circle around and blast the predator out of the water. He’d lead him a merry chase in the process, though, and…

His racing thoughts scudded to a stop. He had a passenger on board. An unwanted one, it was true, but not one he could expose to unnecessary risks.

Damn the woman!

His mouth tight, Jamie turned back to his crew.
“Crowd on the sails. Let’s show this rice hauler our heels.”

The men’s faces reflected varying degrees of astonishment. Never before had the
Phoenix
run from a fight, especially one with the mangy scum that preyed on other ships. Any seaman worth his spit would rather sink a murdering pirate than piss. Only the first mate dared question Jamie’s order, however.

“Are we not agoin’ for him, Captain?”

“No, we’re not.”

When the brawny Irishman frowned, Jamie jerked his head toward the hatch leading to the officers’ quarters. Liam Burke grasped the situation immediately. Turning, he thundered orders to the crew.

“You heard the captain. Smith, get the steam up in the donkey boiler! Hardesty, ready your men to raise all sails.”

Since the first mate had been known to lay about with his beefy fists when the crew didn’t move fast enough to suit him, they scrambled to obey.

Cursing the absent missionary and his eldest daughter with equal approbation, Jamie conferred with the Chinese pilot. Second Harvest looked disappointed at being told to lay a course that would take the
Phoenix
clear of its pursuer, but obeyed without question.

They made their escape, but not without cost.

The master of the junk knew his trade. Working his ship with a skill Jamie could only admire, the pirate strove to catch his quarry. In a daring move, he spread his sails so far to the wind that the ship’s rail cut water and his crew dangled from the sheets like monkeys. The added burst of speed gained him enough on his prey to fire his heaviest cannon.

The ball tore through the schooner’s rigging and slammed into the deck, throwing up a shower of splinters. Undaunted, the crew of the
Phoenix
hooted in derision and shouted obscenities at their pursuers. Jamie ran a quick eye over the damaged rigging and knew it would hold. Shouting at the crew to stand ’ware, he brought the ship hard over. Pulleys creaked and lines slackened as the massive, swinging booms began to cross the deck.

From the corner of one eye, he saw his first mate stagger. A foot-long wooden splinter protruded from his shoulder.

“Liam! Down, man!”

Jamie’s warning came a second too late. The huge aft boom caught Burke a glancing blow to the head. He crumpled soundlessly.

“Get him below!” Jamie shouted.

His gut knotting, he brought the
Phoenix
around. The wind caught the specially rigged topsails, then bellied the mainsails. The schooner lifted almost out of the water and skimmed the waves like a gull.

Within the space of a few minutes, the crew had cleared the tangled wreckage from the decks. Within not many more, the junk had dropped so far astern that Jamie could give the wheel back to the helmsman and go below decks.

Worry over Burke clawed at his stomach. The brawny Irishman was more than his second-in-command. He was the only man Jamie counted as friend.

A onetime blacksmith, Liam Burke had been shanghaied from a pub in Dublin. He’d left behind a wife and three children. After five years of involuntary servitude in the Royal Navy, he’d returned to learn that
his family had died in the potato famine. Broken, he’d been drowning in sorrow and his own vomit when Jamie, newly stripped of his rank and his career, had found him face-down in a ditch. With nothing left to lose, Burke had joined ranks with the former lieutenant. Eight years and uncounted adventures later, he still mourned his family, but no longer tried to drown himself in drink.

Sliding down mahogany handrails worn smooth as glass, Jamie hit the companionway deck. A quick glance at the end of the narrow hall showed his cabin door shut tight.

At least the blasted female had the sense to stay where he’d left her. No doubt she was quaking in fright, wondering what in God’s name was going on above decks. Good! Maybe a healthy dose of terror would teach Miss Abernathy to keep to her skirts and her Mission House.

His boots sloshing in the inch or so of water that had come in with the storm, he headed for the officer’s mess. The stench of singed flesh emanating from the saloon told him that the ship’s cook had cauterized Liam’s shoulder wound. He only hoped that the blow to the head hadn’t shattered the first mate’s skull. Jamie’s dog-eared copy of
The Ship Captain’s Medical Guide
offered little useful advice for head injuries.

Two long strides took him to the mess. He stopped on the threshold, stunned by the sight of an unmistakably feminine form in blue cotton trousers bent over the figure on the table.

“What the devil!”

Sarah paid no heed to his exclamation.

“I warned you what would happen if you left your cabin,” Jamie began, advancing into the saloon.

She twisted around, impatience stamped across her face. Only then did he see the bright red blood that colored the front of her robe.

“Yes, yes, I know,” she snapped. “You’ll strip me naked, lash me to the mast, and lay a strap across my shoulders. But I do wish you would wait until I finish stitching up your man’s head!”

S
arah turned her back on the captain and resumed her task. Gripping the bone needle in fingers slick with blood, she dug it into ragged flesh. She pushed, then pulled, and tried not to wince when the thick black string threaded in the needle’s eye stubbornly refused to follow through the hole. Gritting her teeth, she tugged harder.

The man stretched out on the table stiffened. “Are you…soon done, lass?”

“Soon, Mr. Burke.”

He nodded and took another swill from the brown glass bottle clutched in his good hand.

The stink of rum and sweat and burned skin clogged Sarah’s nostrils. Taking a shallow breath, she pinched together another inch of the gaping temple wound.

“A few more stitches,” she promised softly, then dug the needle in again.

Straithe stood close by her elbow, too close, watching her as a keen-eyed kestrel watches its prey. Sarah tried to push him from her mind, but his nearness ate at her concentration.

Drat the man! She’d not soon forgive him for his
threats…nor for the way he’d left her to stew and dither and fear about what was happening above decks!

Her mouth thinning, Sarah recalled her startled shriek when a cannon had boomed across the water. She’d heard the shot strike, heard as well the crew’s shouts and the clatter of rigging hitting the deck. Like the veriest coward, she’d huddled in the cabin, unsure what to do except pray.
Most
fervently.

An agonized groan in the companionway had cut her off in mid-psalm. Fighting the fear that clawed at her throat, she’d listened intently. Another moan spurred her to action. Even with the captain’s threat hanging over her, she couldn’t stay in the cabin. She’d nursed her mother through too many childbirths, tended her family through all their ills, and assisted her father in his ministries too many times to sit idly when someone was in pain. Pulling on her still-damp clothes, she’d gathered her courage and gone to offer aid.

The bloodied Burke had welcomed her soothing hands and calm voice. The ship’s cook, a much scarred man with skin the color of darkest ebony, had scowled ferociously. Sarah had overcome his obvious resistance to her presence by simply ignoring it.

The man had come to appreciate her aid quickly enough when he sealed the holes in the mate’s shoulder with a red-hot spike. Sarah had thrown herself across Burke and held him down. She’d held on to her stomach, too, although the taste of bile still lingered in her mouth. After she’d thus proven herself in the cook-cum-surgeon’s eyes, he allowed her to reattach the jagged flap of skin to Burke’s temple…her fingers
being so much smaller and more nimble than his, he admitted grudgingly.

Now, something close to approval glinted in his black eyes. “Those be right dainty stitches, Miss Say-rah.”

His deep accent gave her name a musical twist, making it sound like a song.

“Thank you, Okunah.”

Jamie listened to the brief exchange in mounting disgust. Miss Say-rah, was it? So much for his misplaced efforts to conceal her identity from the crew!

And how the devil had she wormed the African’s name out of him? The man had sailed aboard the
Phoenix
for three years now. He rarely spoke, and never mentioned at all his life before he’d gone overboard off the coast of Madagascar to escape a slaver. He was far handier with a twelve-pounder than a cook pot, but none of the crew dared tell him so. And none, to Jamie’s knowledge, had been made privy to his tribal name. Until this moment, even the captain had referred to him only as the African.

His brow furrowed, Jamie watched Sarah finish her stitching and smile down at her patient.

“That should do the trick, Mr. Burke.”

With the captain’s aid, Liam swung his legs over the side of the table and sat up. Jamie held him steady while his nurse wrapped lint bandages around his forehead. When she finished with his head, the mate gingerly rotated it. Then he lifted his arm to test the wound to his shoulder. The movement brought a wash of sweat to his brow, but a moment later he slid off the table and aimed a shaky smile at his benefactors.

“My thanks to you both.”

“You should rest, Mr. Burke!” Sarah protested.

He flashed her a grin. “It takes more than a whittle o’wood and a knock on the noggin to keep me down, lass. I’ll be seein’ to the men. And,” he added with a glance at Jamie, “the captain will be seein’ to you.”

“Aye, I will.”

Jamie waited until the other men had departed the mess. Across the bloody table, his unrepentant stowaway lifted her chin in a way that signaled stormy weather ahead. He eyed the tendrils of dark cinnamon hair straggling over her shoulders and the blood staining her hands. His mate’s blood. First things first, he decided grimly.

“I’ll add my thanks to those of Liam Burk.”

Surprise flickered in her brown eyes. “I have some skill in patient care,” she replied warily. “When I heard his groan, I had to offer my services.”

“Your skill has won you a reprieve from the strap.”

“And so I should hope!” With relief came a measure of tartness. “Really, Lord Strai—”

“Aboard this ship, you may address me as Captain.”

“Really,
Captain,
I think you should know that I do not care for threats.”

“Nor do I, Miss Abernathy. That was a promise. One I shall fulfill if you disregard my orders again.”

She bit her lip at the flat assertion. To her credit and Jamie’s considerable surprise, she dipped her head in acknowledgment.

“I understand. The master’s word must be law aboard ship.” She hesitated, then forced a small smile. “But can’t you stop addressing me as Miss Abernathy in that odious way and tell me how we’re to go on? Surely you don’t intend to keep me confined in that cabin for the whole voyage?”

“I intend to put you aboard the next ship we hail that’s making for Macao.”

“No!”

He cocked a black brow. “Did I not just hear you acknowledge my absolute authority?”

Ignoring his sarcastic and wholly rhetorical question, she came around the table. “Please, Lord Straithe…Captain. You must let me come with you.”

“It’s too dangerous, as this chance meeting with pirates should have shown you. What’s more, I won’t answer for my men with a woman aboard.”

Her breasts rose and fell beneath the stained robe. “But…”

“I said I’d make an effort to find your father and I will…whether you trust me or not to hold to my word.”

She flushed a bit at the caustic comment. “Perhaps I spoke too hastily when I said I couldn’t trust you.”

“Perhaps you did. There’s honor even among thieves, Sarah.”

“I will take your word for that, at least!”

His eyes gleamed sardonically. “Will you?”

Belatedly, she seemed to realize that tossing insults at him would hardly achieve her objective.

“It’s not just a matter of trusting you to find my father,” she said slowly, with obvious reluctance. “When the call takes him, he doesn’t always…listen to the voice of reason.”

From his previous dealings with the gray-bearded fanatic, Jamie thought she’d understated the matter considerably.

“So even if you do locate him, he may not come away with you. I’m sure I can convince him to return home.”

To Jamie’s ears, she sounded anything but sure. Suddenly, the disdain he’d felt for the missionary who’d stormed aboard to rant at the crew for their loose ways hardened into acute dislike. However strong his call, the man had no business going off and leaving his family to fend for themselves.

“Please allow me to come with you,” his daughter pleaded, laying a hand on Jamie’s forearm in unconscious appeal. “I’ll stay out of sight in the cabin, I promise, and cause no trouble.”

He started to point out that she’d already caused trouble enough. His men wouldn’t soon forget that he’d let a pirate sail off in search of other prey. Nor, he realized, could Sarah Abernathy remain a shrouded, unknown entity in his cabin. She’d already exposed herself to the African. The rest of the crew would soon learn of the redoubtable Miss Sarah.

Jamie didn’t utter the scathing comment, however. The feel of her hand on his arm stilled the words before they were formed. The feel of her hand…and eyes that seemed to melt under his.

He’d seen that soft, feminine look before. Many times. The admiral’s wife had practiced it with an ease that had made a young, overeager lieutenant almost spill himself in his britches. The women Jamie had taken to his bed in the years since Arabella Cathwright were masters at such wiles.

The gentleman he’d once considered himself might have yielded to that look. The man he now was demanded more than just a look.

“Are you sure you thought this business of coming with me all the way through, Sarah?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you share my cabin, you’ll also share my bed.”

He’d wanted to shock her, and he did. Her mouth dropped, then she snatched her hand away and hastily stepped back.

“I certainly won’t share either,” she replied roundly. “If I must, I’ll sleep on deck.”

“Oh, aye,” Jamie drawled. “You’ll bed down under the stars, with the rats nibbling at your toes and the crew queuing up to take their turn with you.”

Flags of color rode high in her cheeks. “Perhaps Mr. Burke or Okunah will stand my protection, since it appears the captain won’t.”

“Mr. Burke and the African will do what I tell them,” Jamie said flatly.

“Well, there is one person aboard this ship who will do what
I
tell him. If I leave the
Phoenix,
so does Second Harvest, and you, sir, can go…go hang!”

Jamie didn’t respond any better to threats than his unwanted passenger did, but her sputtered imprecation took the fire from his chest. Was that the best broadside she could aim at a man?

“Go hang?” A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “No doubt I shall. And if you stay aboard the
Phoenix,
I warrant you’ll pick up far more colorful ways to curse me than that.”

“No doubt I shall!”

His grin widened at the tart way she threw his words back at him, and Sarah’s breath caught somewhere in the middle of her throat.

Good heavens! If she’d needed convincing that the rumors about Straithe’s scandalous past were true, this sudden, rakish grin would have done the trick. Only a woman with vision clouded by age would remain unmoved by those glinting blue eyes and white teeth.

Sarah hadn’t reached quite that sorry a condition,
and she certainly felt his impact. Heaven help her, she felt it! But she was made of sterner stuff than Straithe’s past conquests. Squaring her shoulders, she bit to the bone of contention between them.

“So, captain, do I sail with you to find my father?”

He hesitated for so long that she began casting about in her mind for further arguments.

“I suspect I’m going to bitterly regret this,” he said at last, “but, yes, you do.”

“Thank you. And do I take this cabin, or another?”

With a sardonic smile, Straithe offered her the use of his cabin and his bed and such items as she could find in his sea chest to replace her bloodied clothes. He would sling a hammock in his first mate’s cabin, he informed her…close at hand, should she change her mind and desire his company.

“I won’t!”

“Stranger things have happened,” he said with a provocative lift of one black brow.

After her uncomfortable night in the rope locker and her tumultuous morning in the surgery, Sarah wanted nothing so much as water to wash with, clean clothes, and something to fill her empty stomach. She accomplished the first two goals easily enough. A thin, one-eyed seaman who introduced himself as John Hardesty brought her a bucket of seawater a short time after the captain’s departure. Sarah scrubbed her skin until it tingled and lost all traces of red.

Wrapped in a length of thick cotton batting that served as a towel, she knelt before the captain’s sea chest. The lid creaked when she opened it. A faint scent of cedar drifted up from the neatly folded shirts, coats, and trousers. Not wishing to delve too deeply
into his personal effects, Sarah lifted out a white linen shirt and a pair of fawn-colored trousers. The trousers hugged her hips with shocking intimacy, but the shirt hung down to her knees and afforded her a modicum of modesty. It also, she discovered to her dismay, clearly showed the dusky tips of her breasts through the fine linen. She dug into the sea chest once more and retrieved a fancifully embroidered vest.

A long, painful battle with the captain’s silverhandled brush freed her hair of most of its tangles. Searching for something to tie it back with, she peeked into the chest once more. She found just what she needed deep in a side pocket…a slender, black velvet ribbon.

When she drew the ribbon out, she discovered that a painted cameo dangled from one end. Sarah tipped it to the light and gazed down at a portrait of a ravishingly beautiful woman with clouds of soft brown hair and creamy skin. The unknown beauty could match Abigail in perfection of features, Sarah readily admitted, but the impish smile in her jade green eyes suggested that she wouldn’t come close to the younger Miss Abernathy in sweetness of disposition.

Curious, Sarah turned the cameo over. The inscription on the back promised that Jamie would always,
always
be held in the heart of the woman who inscribed herself as Dorcas.

Her lips pursing in disapproval, Sarah tugged the cameo free of the ribbon and dropped it back in the pocket. The trunk lid closed with a slam.

Some time later, a knock on the cabin door summoned her to dinner. With the
Phoenix
running before a stiff wind and the captain at the helm, she had only the injured Mr. Burke’s company in the mess. After a
few swallows of an inedible stew made with rice, mushy vegetables, and something she sincerely hoped was chicken, she excused herself and tumbled into the silk-covered bunk.

Her second morning aboard the
Phoenix,
she gathered her courage and ventured above decks. She stepped out of the hatchway to the sight of sunshine sparkling like diamonds on the sea. It took a few moments for the busy crew to notice her. When they did, she was treated to a chorus of mutters and hostile glances.