My Runaway Heart (34 page)

He ran toward the hold, tearing off his mask, but a man
lunged in front of him so suddenly that they nearly collided. Cursing, Jared
faced his strapping, midnight-haired opponent eye to eye, the same man who'd
helped Lindsay aboard, while his hand moved to his pistol.

"Get out of my way—"

"If you care for her, man, you'll have nothing
more to do with her. Do you understand? Nothing!"

Jared stared into near-pitch-black eyes as resolute as
his own, every part of him fiercely aching to find Lindsay, aching to shove
this man violently from his path. Only when a tall, long-limbed beauty
approached them, cradling in her arms a little girl who looked terrified, did
he realize that he had once seen the young woman before, too, no more than a
month ago in the smuggling port of
Roscoff
, Brittany.

"It's you,"
came
her
incredulous whisper, her lovely brown eyes searching his face. "I couldn't
believe it was Lindsay, and now to see it is you—you saved my husband's life!
Donovan, this is the man who—"

"We've no time now,
Corie
!
Take
Paloma
and wait for me on the other ship while I
go find Lindsay.

As the woman nodded and hurried away, Jared stared once
more into his opponent's dark eyes, the man's voice as determined as before.

"While
I
find Lindsay.
Dammit
, man, will you take her down
with you? No one has to know what you are to each other. I promise we'll do
everything we can to help her. Lie for her if we have to, anything, but now is the
time to choose—before those bloody ships get here and slap you and your men in
irons!"

The deck creaking ominously beneath his feet did more
to sway Jared at that moment than Donovan's words, which he knew rang as true
as the agony tearing at his heart. With a vehement curse, he turned from the
hold and Donovan disappeared down the steep steps, Jared knowing all too well
he was turning his back upon Lindsay just as surely as if they had never met.
But what else could he do?
Have her share
the deadly
fate that awaited him?

"
Cap'n
, that's nearly
the last of
them
!" he heard one of his men cry
out. Jared realized then that the sinking brig was almost deserted. Somehow he
made himself cross back over to the
Vengeance
,
but he whirled around on the deck when a shout went up from the passengers
huddled aboard his ship. A relief so intense filled him when he saw Lindsay
emerge from the hold, followed by Donovan bearing an unconscious woman in his
arms, that it was all Jared could do not to rush back and help them.

Instead he forced himself to make his way to the
quarterdeck as a thundering warning shot hit the water with a huge splash only
fifty yards off the prow, but he paid little heed to the approaching warships.
His eyes were upon Cowan, the stricken-faced Irishman meeting him at the
companionway.

"I'm sorry,
Cap'n
. God
help us, I don't know what came over me. I couldn't give the order not to
fire—not after Dag and the others . . . yet if I'd known that your lady—"

"She's not mine, Cowan, not anymore." Jared
silenced him, dropping his gold mask to the deck. The day had become as black
as the darkness overwhelming his soul as he met Walker's grim gaze. "Strike
our colors, friend. The Phoenix is dead."

***

It was a nightmare unlike anything Lindsay had ever
known.

She had truly thought there would be time enough to
rescue the passengers and crew aboard the
Industry
and yet outrun the approaching warships, which had seemed so far away. But she
had been wrong. Terribly wrong.

Sitting now in an officer's cabin that had been vacated
for her use during the journey to England while Jared and his men languished
somewhere below in the bowels of the mammoth warship H.M.S.
Clementine
, she had never felt so numb.
So numb or so wretchedly helpless, reliving for the thousandth time the
horrible memory of watching Jared being taken prisoner, his head held high even
as irons were clamped around his wrists and ankles.

And all the while
Corisande
had been whispering urgently in her ear. "Say nothing, Lindsay! If they
know what you are to him, they'll take you prisoner, too, and then there won't
be anything you can do for him. At least this way there's a chance, a slim
chance, to help him."

Thank God for
Corisande
these
past three days, and for Donovan, too, although Lindsay had sensed from the
first that he held no sympathy for Jared. It had been such a shock to see them
aboard the
Industry
—and for them to
see her—and she'd barely had a chance to tell them anything before
Corisande
had hissed her to silence.

Then the deck had listed perilously and she had dashed
below to see if anyone needed help; a good thing, too. That poor seasick woman
would have drowned in her bunk if Donovan hadn't followed to help get her to
the
Vengeance
, the schooner barely
clearing the sinking brig before she slipped with an eerie groan beneath the
waves.

Lindsay closed her red, swollen eyes and hugged her
knees, rocking herself on the narrow bunk.

To think Jared had saved Donovan's life in
Roscoff
. She had long wondered about the incredible story
Corisande
had told her weeks ago in London—about the
American and his friends who'd appeared as if phantoms out of the darkness to
help them. It had been Jared all along, more the gallant hero than she could
have ever imagined . . .

"Thank God they believe him to be American,"
she whispered raggedly to herself, that fact truly the one thing giving her any
hope at all.

If it became known that Jared was the Earl of
Dovercourt
and an Englishman, his punishment would be
death, his crimes as the Phoenix the highest treason. But
Corisande
had explained to her, having overheard several officers laying wagers as to the
fate of their prisoners, that Jared, as a privateer protected by letters of
marque
, and the rest of his men—all Americans and neutral
Norwegians save for poor Cowan—would most likely find their lives spared.
Imprisonment would be their lot until they might be traded for British subjects
held as prisoners of war in America or Scandinavian ports.

Yet Donovan knew the truth. Lindsay had entrusted the
crumpled marriage license bearing Jared's name to
Corisande
even before they had boarded the H.M.S.
Clementine
,
and later had told her how she and Jared had met, everything, so surely
Corisande
must have bared Lindsay's story to her husband.
Would he keep her secret? Dear Lord, she could only hope and pray—

A knock at the door to the tiny cabin made Lindsay
gasp, but she felt an overwhelming sense of relief when
Corisande
entered, despite her friend's ominously somber expression.
Corisande
sank down beside Lindsay on the bunk, keeping her voice low.

"It's as I feared. Donovan just told me the
captain won't wait any longer to speak with you—"

"Oh, Lord,
Corie
, no!"

"
Shhh
, Lindsay, will you
have them hear us? We knew this might happen, but I was hoping not until we
reached Plymouth. They're planning to take your husband and his men to
Dartmoor
Prison, where other prisoners of war are being
kept. But the captain insists he must ask you some questions now—no matter that
we made it clear to him from the very start that you're no more than a poor
unfortunate victim of circumstance and that you'd been desperately trying to
escape when you came aboard the
Industry
."

"Sounds like a story I might have thought up,"
Lindsay said with a forlorn smile, tears rushing to her eyes. But if she had
expected sympathy from
Corisande
, she got nothing
more than a sigh of pure exasperation.

"For bloody sakes, Lindsay, I would have thought
by now you'd cried every tear you possibly possessed! How can you hope to help
Jared if you're unwilling to help yourself?"

"I'm not unwilling to help myself," Lindsay
countered, her friend's unexpected dose of temper making her bristle. "How
could you even think—" She fell silent, staring at the satisfied smile
breaking across
Corisande's
face. "You . . . you
said that on purpose, didn't you?"

"Of course I did, silly! You've faced serious
trials before—living eight long years under the same roof with Olympia
Somerset? Braving
excisemen
with me? And what about
that wonderful imagination of yours? I can't wait to hear what you might say to
that pompous captain—"

"You'll be there, too?"

"Only if they intend to keep me away with armed
guards. I wouldn't miss this for anything and besides, it makes sense, given
the horrible wretchedness you've suffered, that you'll need someone to lean
upon."

Staring incredulously at her dearest friend, Lindsay
had to resist her sudden urge to laugh because of the hope suddenly burning
bright as flame in her heart. Instead she threw her arms around
Corisande
and hugged her fiercely, then tensed when a loud
rap came at the door. Yet
Corisande's
hushed voice
gave her the reassurance she needed.

"
Shhh
, Lindsay, and
remember, I'll be right by your side. You've helped me so many times, now let
me help you. Are we agreed?"

Lindsay didn't dare reply, for a pair of grim-faced
officers
shoved open the door. But the cheering glance
Corisande
threw her made her feel, at least for the moment,
that she might not have so much to fear after all.

***

Unfortunately, a quarter hour later, Lindsay wasn't
so
sure as she sat meekly in a leather chair while Captain
Horatio Billingsley paced in front of his desk, eyeing first her and then
Corisande
, who had remained staunchly silent at her side.

"So you say you were abducted in London but you
remember little about the incident."

The man's voice as skeptical as he looked, peering at
her down a long patrician nose as angular as the rest of him, Lindsay gave what
she hoped was a thoroughly distressed sigh.

"How could I, sir? All I know is that I was sitting
in a carriage, waiting for my maid, Gladys, to come out of a hat shop, when a
sickly-smelling cloth was pressed over my nose and mouth—oh, dear, it was so
dreadful!"

"Really, Captain Billingsley, must we go over all
this again?"
Corisande
piped up for the first time,
draping a comforting arm across Lindsay's shoulders. "The poor dear was
drugged, abducted from home and hearth—"

"And when you awoke, you found yourself aboard a
ship," the man cut in, hooking his thumbs in his spotless white waistcoat.
"Is that correct, Miss Somerset?"

"Yes, yes, yes, a ship full of pirates! Cutthroats!
God help me, why must I endure another telling?"

"Because one of the passengers reported to me that
they saw you embracing the captain of that scurrilous vessel, Miss Somerset—the
privateer known as the Phoenix—just before you found it so necessary to 'escape'
to the
Industry
. Now might you have
an explanation for me?"

A tense silence hung in the opulent cabin, Lindsay
realizing with a niggling of apprehension that the time for playing the
long-suffering maiden was past, if indeed she was to convince this man she knew
nothing.

"Embracing him?" she shrieked, startling both
the captain and
Corisande
as she jumped shakily to
her feet. "I ran to him to beg him not to fire on innocent women and
children and I tripped, sir, tripped and fell against him! Yes, he threw his
arms around me, and it wasn't the first time I felt his loathsome touch, God
help me! I'm ruined, I'm ruined forever!"

Her hysteria mounting by the moment, Lindsay advanced
wildly upon the captain even as he took refuge behind his desk, his eyes round
and horrified.

"Miss Somerset, please, we don't have to continue.
Pray spare yourself any further distress—"

"Distress?" she shrieked anew, lifting her
hands to tear at her hair. "Do you know what I've suffered at that pirate's
hands, sir? The gross indignities—and not only that, sir, but he allowed his
men . . . his men—oh, God!"

As Captain Billingsley gasped, Lindsay collapsed to her
knees and began to rock herself, tears slipping down her cheeks that were as
real as the desperation suddenly seizing her. She had to find a way to see
Jared—she had to!

"Don't you see, sir? I'll never know justice,"
she cried out hoarsely through her gut-wrenching sobs while
Corisande
ran forward to comfort her, her friend's eyes as concerned as they were
confused. "That despicable man took everything from me, everything! And I'll
never be able to tell him that I hope he rots in hell for what he did—that I
hope he hangs! Unless you let me go to him, unless I can tell him myself . . .
Oh, please, sir, what other retribution can I hope for?"

Again silence hung, Captain Billingsley looking almost
sick, his face chalk-white. And when he nodded,
Corisande
was ready to seize the opportunity of the moment, tears streaking her own face
as she tried to help Lindsay to rise.

"My husband could accompany her, sir, Lord Donovan
Trent. It's true; what other justice can this poor woman hope for than to lay
bare her pain to her attacker?"

The stricken man nodded once more, leaning heavily upon
his desk as if witnessing their anguish was simply too much for him to bear.
His voice, too, had lost its imperious weight, grown almost hoarse as he
gestured to the two officers who had accompanied the women there.