Teresa Medeiros (36 page)

Determined not to repeat the mistakes of her earlier debacle, Lucy charged in the opposite direction. She had little chance of escaping undetected in a launch. Her only hope lay in assuming the Royal Navy was in pursuit. If she could somehow disable the ship or reach the lower gundeck and send up a signal to alert them to the
Retribution
’s whereabouts, rescue might be imminent.

If Gerard didn’t shoot her first.

She brushed aside that glum thought to continue her maddening trek. Lucy had learned her way around a massive seventy-four-gun ship-of-the-line almost before she’d learned to walk, but the design of this modest schooner confounded her almost as badly as its captain did.

She tripped twice, stumbling over steps painted in contrasting colors, the exact opposite of how steps ought to be painted. An upward-slanting ramp led to nowhere while a promising quirk in the passageway brought her in a complete circle. Her heart nearly burst from her chest when she came face-to-face with her own reflection in a perversely placed mirror.

The precious moments ticked away, each sounding a knell of doom to her freedom. Her resolve weakened, but it was too late to return to the great cabin and nurse the lump on Apollo’s brow. She couldn’t find her way back if she tried.

She collapsed against the bulkhead, tempted to plop down in the middle of the passageway and wait for Gerard to find her. He’d already betrayed her trust,
broken her heart, and stripped her to near nakedness. What more could he do to her?

Plenty
.

That unvarnished truth spurred her feet forward. Ghostly shades of the
Retribution
’s crew leered at her out of the shadows, their imagined visages growing more dastardly with each frantic footfall. Her flawless recall provided her with a tidy catalogue of the tortures Mr. Defoe claimed pirates delighted in inflicting on their more rebellious captives: tying them to the windlass and pelting them with glass bottles; forcing rum down their throats until they stumbled overboard and drowned; filling their mouths with flammable oakum and setting it afire.

And those were only the atrocities they committed against their own sex.

A hoarse sob of frustration was wrenched from her as she once again came face-to-face with her fear-bleached countenance in the mirror. She slammed a fist into its mocking surface.

Lucy jumped back in shock as the mirror dropped to reveal a ladder recessed into the bulkhead behind it.

Hardly daring to believe her good fortune, she squinted upward into the forbidding shadows. Surely no one would have gone to such lengths to disguise a ladder that led to nowhere.

With fortified resolve, Lucy scaled the ladder and pressed her hands against the planking above. Her nimble fingers quickly located a narrow seam invisible to the naked eye. She bit back a triumphant crow, finally feeling as if she deserved to wear, if not the mantle, at least the gloves of some bold Gothic heroine.

The moment of truth was at hand. She coiled herself as high as the ladder would allow and braced her sweaty palms against the trapdoor, hoping to maintain
an element of surprise should her exit be witnessed by one of Gerard’s crew.

With one fluid lunge, she gave the trapdoor a tremendous heave and sprang out of the gloom of the hold like a jack-in-the-box.

Sunlight seared her pupils, blinding her. Even more astounding than the light was the warmth. Moist and cloying, it enveloped her in a smothering blanket, forcing her to gasp for her next breath and wonder where the frigid English winter had gone.

She had reason to be thankful for that hard-won breath, for when her vision finally adjusted to the wealth of light, she found herself standing nose to nose with the leering gargoyle of her darkest fears.

Lucy screamed.

The gargoyle screamed louder. The horror staining his freckled features mirrored her own.

Lucy clapped her hands over her ears, fearful his shrill keening would pierce them. Too late, she realized she’d burst not onto the lower gundeck as she’d hoped, but onto the quarterdeck, the most visible of the upper decks. Through a haze of terror, she was vaguely aware of a pale blur behind the gargoyle and other figures perched on the fo’c’sle and in the rigging, frozen to a state of shock by the unfolding drama. The startling ebony of the sails flapped like a mourning canopy over their heads.

Instead of leaping at her, brandishing a cutlass as she expected him to do, the squealing brigand stumbled backward, landing hard on his rump. The impact mercifully cut off his scream, but restored his voice, an all but unintelligible Irish brogue.

“Saints preserve us, Pudge. ’Tis a banshee for sure.” His grimy finger signed a clumsy cross on his breast.

The bespectacled man behind him edged toward the rail, his pasty rolls of flesh quivering like an undercooked
crossbun. He gazed at her in awestruck wonder. “Not a banshee, Tarn, but a Valkyrie come to escort us to the halls of Valhalla. By George, we’re doomed!”

Their nonsensical gibbering preyed on Lucy’s nerves, melting her fright to confusion. Noticing the familiar butt of a pistol protruding from the Irishman’s breeches, she advanced on him.

He scuttled backward like a threatened crab. “Don’t desert me now, Pudge! We’ve been through too much together.”

His snuffling companion inched nearer to the rail.

Heartened by their blatant cowardice, Lucy snatched the pistol from the lad’s breeches. His eyes rolled back in a blend of terror and near religious ecstasy. “Sweet heaven, deliver me, she intends to have her way with me!”

Pudge hooked one plump leg over the rail. “A succubus! I knew it!”

“Aye,” the Irishman wailed. “Beautiful and terrible she is!”

A cool voice, shaded with amusement, sliced through the escalating hysteria. “An apt description, Tarn. A pity I didn’t think of it myself.”

Startled, Lucy swung the weapon around, pointing it straight at their captain’s treacherous heart.

G
ERARD LEANED LAZILY AGAINST THE mainmast, an infuriating study in nautical elegance. His black breeches clung to his lean legs, tapering down into a pair of dashing jackboots. His white shirt gaped open at the throat and was covered by a dark blue jacket, probably confiscated at gunpoint from some hapless Royal Navy officer. Its shiny brass buttons reflected the sunlight, dazzling Lucy almost as much as his mocking grin.

“Good morning, Miss Snow,” he said, as if she weren’t brandishing a weapon that could permanently wipe the smirk off his face. “The air below getting a little stale for your refined tastes?”

Tarn’s shout nearly startled her into dropping the pistol. “Save yerself, Cap’n! She ain’t human. She’s a succubus with a taste for male flesh. Don’t stray too close! She might try to have her way with you.”

Gerard’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “I should be so fortunate.”

Lucy had almost forgotten the man straddling the
rail. “Perhaps not a s-succubus after all, sir,” he offered timidly. “A s-s-siren. If she opens her mouth you’d best cover your ears, for her voice is so beautiful, it will drive you mad with longing.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, stop it!” Her dubious patience at an end, Lucy gave them all cause to wish they’d covered their ears. “Stop it, I say! I won’t tolerate another minute of this rubbish! Do you hear me?
Just stop it!”

Her tone of command froze them all. If Lucien Snow had taught her one thing, it was how to bellow an order. For a moment there was no sound at all but the eerie whisper of those bizarre black sails.

Lucy Snow had had enough. Enough of shifting loyalties. Enough of being the butt of jokes she didn’t even understand. Enough of being bullied by men. Her gaze darted wildly between the three men nearest to her.

She turned the pistol on the Irishman. “Get up! Get up this instant and stop groveling. What’s the matter with you? Haven’t you any pride?”

As he climbed sheepishly to his feet, a buried memory threatened to surface. A nervous snuffle drew her attention away from it.

She waved the pistol at the man clinging to the starboard rail. “And you! Climb down from there right now. And stop sniveling,” she barked, “or I’ll give you something to snivel about.”

He obeyed, still looking as if he’d like to burst into tears.

She swung the gun back around on Gerard. While she’d been distracted, he’d glided a foot nearer to her without appearing to have moved at all. Just like the phantom he was purported to be.

Her voice dropped to a dead calm. “Don’t take another step, Captain, or it may very well be your last.”

Gerard nodded toward the pistol. “That thing’s a bit more lethal than a letter opener. You won’t have quite the margin for error.”

It wasn’t the gun or even the threat of death that captured Gerard’s attention. It was Lucy herself. She was too incensed to be conscious of her scant attire, but the wind was taking great delight in molding the delicate chemise and drawers to her taut curves. Pudge, with his abiding love of mythology, had been closest to the truth. With her bare, shapely legs braced against the swell of the deck and her long, blond hair whipping in the wind, she looked every inch a wronged Norse goddess gunning for vengeance.

Her gray eyes flared with murderous emotion. Her generous mouth had tightened in a sneer. Gerard thought she’d never looked more magnificent. He wished the Admiral could see all the spirit and spunk he’d fought so hard to repress come boiling to the fore. Being held hostage to her whims in front of his men should have infuriated him, but his frustration was tempered with fierce pride.

“Did it ever occur to you that the gun might not be loaded?” he ventured. “Do you really think I’d let a muzzy-headed lad like Tarn ram a loaded pistol down his breeches?”

Lucy’s confidence wavered, but she remembered only too well how convincing Gerard could be when it suited his selfish purposes. “If it’s not loaded, then you won’t mind if I pull the trigger, will you?”

Gerard’s rueful smile conceded her victory. The wary gazes of his men bored into her.

“If you value your captain’s life, gentlemen, then I suggest you shorten the sails and drop anchor. We’re going to sit right here and wait for a Royal Navy ship to happen by,” When they made no move to obey, Lucy steadied her arm against the dragging weight of
the pistol “Do it or I’ll put a ball of lead right through his miserable heart! I admit it’s a poor target, but it will have to do.”

The men glanced uncertainly between her and Gerard. All it took was the faintest shake of his head. Not one of them so much as twitched another muscle.

“I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m afraid my men obey only my orders.” Gerard’s kindness was even less tolerable than his mockery.

“Then
you
tell them to do it.”

He folded his arms over his chest, his expression almost pitying.

Lucy’s trigger finger jerked as Apollo stumbled into sight, holding a dripping rag to his head.
“You
mustn’t blame the little missie, sir. It’s all due to my own clumsiness. I’d still be out cold on the cabin floor if Kev—”

Gerard’s eyes narrowed in warning, giving him time to realize it was not the little missie in jeopardy, but his captain. Apollo’s great liquid eyes darkened as if Lucy had somehow disappointed him. He moved to stand behind Gerard, a reproving sentinel.

Their united front intensified Lucy’s desperation. Perhaps if she chose one of his weaker men …

“You!” she said, cornering the man who’d tried to jump ship. “You’re the sailmaster, aren’t you?” she asked, recognizing the leather apron stretched over his distended belly.
“You
shorten the sails.”

He shuffled his feet and tucked his head like a shy pouter pigeon, declining to answer. There was something familiar about his quaint, steel-framed spectacles, something that made her heart contract with nostalgia.

“All right then, you!” she exclaimed, pointing toward the muzzy-headed young Irishman. “You’ll be the one to …” Her command faded as she studied the dirt rings around his freckled neck. “You,” she echoed softly. “You’re the one who applied for the
position as my bodyguard. The one Smythe booted down the front stairs.” The pistol wavered as she studied the familiar faces of the men around her. She pointed an accusing finger at a lithe Oriental man. “You’re the one who broke Captain Cook! And you—you’re the fellow who pilfered the silver.” A hysterical laugh escaped her. “Where were you that day, Apollo? I’m sure I would have remembered you.”

“My penmanship is legendary,” he admitted modestly. “I forged the Captain’s references. Oh,” he added, flexing his mighty hands. “And I
detained
the genuine applicants until he was hired.”

The legends were true, Lucy thought. The
Retribution
was crewed by ghosts. Resurrected ghosts their captain had used to worm his way into her life. How could the Admiral have resisted the self-assured Mr. Claremont after being besieged by such bumbling applicants?

Tarn appeared nearly as shocked as she to recognize her. “Why, miss, I never would have known you. The last time I saw you, you was—”