Romancing the Pirate 01 - Blood and Treasure (29 page)

“Your life is still in danger, Lianna. Threatening to slice open a commodore’s throat is generally frowned upon.” Zane sounded curt. He tried to soften the edge in his voice as he took her shoulders and eased her back into her chair. “Bennington would be well within reason to say he must subdue a dangerous escaped prisoner.” Playfully, he tapped her nose with his finger then kissed her forehead.

“I can help you.”

There was a flare in her eyes. He traipsed on the other side of agitation with her. Frankly, he didn’t care. Not if it meant keeping her out of harm’s way. “No. I will not allow you to risk getting into any more trouble. You will be safe here in the tavern. I have Ben’s word on it.”

Her eyes tapered with anger. “I can take care of myself.”

“This isn’t open for discussion. You are to stay here,” he demanded. He followed Blade past the threshold and turned back to look at her. Damn, if she wasn’t beautiful when she was mad.

“That’s an order.” He closed the door.

“He’s treating me like some bloody child.” Lianna pouted and bore a hard stare at where Zane had stood. “Who does he think he is ordering me about?”

She shot up from her chair and headed straightaway for the door. Trying the knob, she was surprised to find it unlocked.

A sinking feeling settled in her gut. He trusted her. Trusted she would listen to him, to hear he only had her best interest in mind. He would be disappointed in her. But as far as she was concerned, he placed too much in her lap at a time when there was no way she could sit back like some helpless gentry flower.

No. This whole affair had been forced upon her. Now she felt compelled to see it through. Lianna had but one chance to make things right, to find Sadie and give Zane the advantage again. At the very least, she had to try.

She slipped out of the room, stole down the hall and entered the tavern. The sounds of clanking bottles and dishes, the smell of wafting stale liquor, the rants of near riotous inebriates made her stomach sour. She loathed the idea of returning to the life of a bar wench. ’Twasn’t that she felt the job was beneath her. ’Twas more of the insensately roughshod lack of feeling worthy, of craving kindness, she had lived with for so long.

Right now, she didn’t know what her future held. Would she return to tending to society’s underbelly? Or would she stay with Zane? Then what? Sail the seas chasing after some quest? Or would she become something of a widow mourning the loss of her captain whilst he roamed the Caribbean? It may not even matter after tonight.

Lianna skittered her way to the front. She couldn’t believe how headless Zane had been. He really should have locked that door.

She was so busy gloating, she didn’t notice the spilled drink on the floor until her foot slid beneath her. She slipped, reaching for a nearby table to break her fall. The table tipped, sending plates and cups flying through the air and crashing to the floorboards.

“Not again.” She brushed off bits of broken white dish from her dress.

Ben grabbed her arm to help her up. “I’m terribly sorry, Ben.”

“’Tis nothin’.”

But once on her feet, Ben didn’t let go.

“Capt’n Fox told me not to let you leave, ma’am,” he said.

So. He doesn’t trust me that much after all.

She knitted her brow with concern but her voice she kept sweet, cordial. “I’m so sorry then.”

Her apologetic smile confounded Ben. “For what, ma’am?”

“For this.” Lianna grabbed his arm, twisting it high up his back. He yelped when she kicked at the back of his knee, sending him face first to the floor. Fleeing through the door, she took the direction toward the docks. Poor Ben. He seemed like such a nice man. Unfortunately for him, she did what she had to do. She wouldn’t forsake her silent promise to Zane.

“If I were Sadie, where would I go knowing everyone was looking for me?” Lianna asked herself. But then, she already knew.

She neared the brothel where Mae and Annie had propositioned her earlier in the night. Sadie would be less conspicuous if she was dressed like a lady and not jaunting about in breeches. With no place to go, she would be willing to bet that was exactly what the girl would do. Mae and Annie might know where Lianna should look.

“Hands off piss-breath.”

Lianna heard the woman’s unmistakable voice coming from the alley next to the bordello. She peered around the corner just as Sadie flipped a filthy drunk over onto his back, and then kicked him for good measure.

She gave a silent pat on her back for finding Sadie with such speed. To be fair to the boys, they’d have to think like a woman to find a woman who didn’t want to be found. As crafty as they were, she couldn’t imagine Zane or Blade stepping into the proverbial heels of any lass.

“You’re damned lucky I can’t get to my gully fast enough in this accursed costume.” Sadie grumbled inaudible curses and walked away.

Sadie came into better light, rendering Lianna speechless. The pirate lass epitomized pure exquisite beauty in the white frock that contrasted with her olive skin and hugged her slender frame. Long dark hair clipped upon her crown hung in loose waves down to her waist. She had even dabbed a little color to her lips. ’Twas no wonder she could get her way with almost any man. Beauty like that could be just as deadly as any weapon.

Her walk, however, left nothing to be desired. She strode toward Lianna with the grace of a lame ox.

“Well,” Sadie twitted, “Why am I not surprised to see you? I guess I should admire you for your puzzling tenacity.”

“But it’s hard to like someone who has what you want,” Lianna finished for her.
Don’t I know the truth of it.

Sadie chortled. “I don’t want Zane.”

“Not now that you can’t bend him to your will.”

“Bitch.” Sadie walked around her to the street.

Lianna peeled away the gloat and frowned. “Hearken.” She stopped and turned Sadie back to face her. “Let’s put aside our petty differences.” Sadie yanked her shoulder back out of Lianna’s grasp, but Lianna continued her plea. “We could really use your help. If you gave back The Serpent, Zane would see to it that you receive an equal handsome share in the reward.”

“Did Zane send you?”

“No,” she said firmly, still a bit nettled at the impossible captain. “Sadie, with the money, you could buy your own sloop.”

Sadie clicked her tongue, rolling her eyes.

“Won’t you listen to reason?” Lianna implored. She hoped she could get through to Sadie in a way that Zane could not. To reach out to her, not like an overbearing brother, but as a sympathetic sister. “I would help you find the person responsible for your father’s death.”

“Don’t try to humor me,” Sadie snarled. “I don’t need you or anyone else. My ticket to retribution is right here.” She thrust her drawstring handbag toward Lianna. “I’m not about to give it up now. So stop your blabbering and go tell your beloved Zane to stop pursuing the medallion. For once, he’s lost. And I’m already gone.”

“Please don’t do this, Sadie.” Her chance to right all wrongs whirled around to leave. Would she have ever been able to make the venomous lass help them? “You’ll get yourself killed.”

Abruptly Sadie stopped short at the corner of the building. She didn’t move, didn’t speak. A cold feeling coursed down the length of Lianna’s spine.

“Sadie?”

Sadie’s head lowered, looking down, her body slightly bucked forward. Lianna gasped as the blade of a sword pushed out of Sadie’s lower back.

“Uh-oh. Too late.” Stepping into view, Bennington held Sadie suspended with his rapier. “Should’ve listened to the lass.” He yanked the purse from her clenched fist and shoved her off his sword.

A woman in a window above screamed as Sadie crumpled to the cobblestones.

Horrified, Lianna couldn’t move. A tiny voice in her mind yelled for her to run. But she simply couldn’t move. She stared at Sadie’s motionless body. Deep red blood spread through the white cloth of her fancy dress like a blooming rose. Lianna sank down beside her. Brushing away strands of silky hair from her face, Sadie looked so young, a mere child. She gurgled, as if to say something, gazing up at Lianna, the light fading from her eyes. A tear rolled down Sadie’s temple and she expelled a final breath.

Lianna, too, let a tear escape before she turned to glare at the cold-blooded commodore.

“What a shame.” Bennington wiped the gleaming blood from his blade with a handkerchief. “Would’ve been entertaining to keep her around.” He sighed. “Such is the politics of subversion.”

“Fiend.” Two soldiers pulled Lianna to her feet.

“What with the name calling again,” he charged. “Very unrefined. I guess it’s to be expected coming from a stew wench.” He turned on his heel. “Well, come along. Let’s get you fitted for the hangman’s rope.”

Lianna yanked her arms free of the soldiers, but the sharp end of a bayonet prodded her forward.

“You’ve got The Serpent now,” she said. “The smart thing to do is to steal away out of Port Royal before anyone else is hurt. But that’s not your style, is it?” There she went again. Goading a nasty beast. “’Tis all or nothing, right? Got to have Zane, too.”

“You’re right. I do have what I want.” Bennington slipped his hand into the bag and pulled out the gold medallion. He caressed it, rubbing his thumb over the raised foreign words. “Eliminating Captain Fox is just reparation.”

“That kind of greed goes hand in hand with incompetency.”

Bennington whirled around and struck her with the back of his hand. Lianna bit back the sting. Slowly, she opened her eyes. “You won’t kill him.”

“Maybe not. But I’ll be able to hit him where it hurts most. I won’t waste time on trivial formalities or wait for Captain Fox’s gallant arrival to save you.”

Bennington turned around. He flicked the medallion in the air. “Your execution will be forthcoming and unceremonious,” he said, catching it. He paused for a long moment, flipping The Serpent between his fingers like a sly street huckster before pocketing it. “I only hope he gets there in enough time to witness it.”

*****

“Why can’t women just do as they’re told? Why must they always be infuriatingly stubborn?” Zane cursed into the night, numb to every emotion but jaundiced wrath.

He wrestled and suppressed the grief, disappointment, fear, and desperation besieging him as he had cradled his Little Wren in his arms. If he could, he would cowardly go to the nearest cooper, seal up all those unwanted, unforgiving feelings in a barrel and toss them into the sea.

The strumpet who witnessed Sadie’s murder said she overheard the British soldiers speaking of hanging another woman. That had to mean Lianna had found Sadie and now her own life once again hung precariously in the balance.

“I knew better than to leave the door unlocked. I will never forgive myself if…” He pushed the thought aside. Instead, he allowed the transgression in his soul that he had controlled for so long to surge through him, to rise up like the boiling molten rocks of hell. This night, death would be had.

After leaving Sadie, he had surreptitiously made his way to Gallows Point.

He scaled the low brick wall at the edge of the beach on the spit of land jutting into the harbor. The torch-lit square was entirely surrounded by the brick wall, which had been purposely built in the side of the cliff. If some hapless victim managed to escape the hangman’s rope, his only way out would be through the salvo of bullets from the soldiers at the entrance or by hurtling himself into the violent surf and the jagged rocks below.

Zane hid in the shadows of an archway at the far side of the plaza. He sucked in through his teeth. His bonny lass climbed the steps to the platform below the gallows tree. Behind her were Commodore Bennington, Lieutenant Trent, and the hangman.