The Pirate and the Pagan (50 page)

Very deliberately his hands tightened on her bottom and he rotated her erotically upon his hardening shaft. She gasped at the thrill which shot up inside her and knew he was trying to make her mindless, using his sex as his weapon. She had mistakenly thought all barriers between them had been swept away. He had given her all of his body and part of his soul, but his mind was locked away from her.

She reached her hand down between them, felt the crisp hairs of his groin, and withdrew him from her sheath. She cried out at the sharp, quick loss of exquisite fullness, and as their eyes met she saw his were filled with furious anger.

“You deliberately spoiled the most beautiful fucking either one of us ever experienced in our lives!” he ground out between clenched teeth.

She was covered with guilt, for indeed it had come close to being the most beautiful loving she’d ever experienced and she couldn’t bear it to be so. Ruark’s lovemaking had been the best and that’s the way she wanted it to stay. She was momentarily overwhelmed by her faithlessness to her husband. As if she’d done it deliberately to hurt him. My God, even if she’d lain with the King, it wouldn’t have been as bad as giving herself to his brother! She snatched up the towel to cover herself and ran belowdecks, feeling the fury in his accusing green eyes burning into her back as she ran. She slumped down upon the bed with both her mind and her emotions in chaos. A tear slipped down her cheek. She didn’t like herself very much at the moment and knew she needed to take a good hard look at herself.

Why had she let herself fall into another man’s arms so quickly? When Ruark rejected her, her loss had been so devastating that she had immediately replaced him with a replica of himself. She felt ashamed that she had needed a man so badly. Hell and furies, she’d always managed on her own before she’d met Lord Ruark
Helford. Admittedly she’d cheated, stolen, and lied, but in a man’s world you did these things to even the odds a little. She’d found the courage to smuggle, she’d had guts enough even to play highwayman, therefore she should have had enough spirit to go on alone without a man in her life. She didn’t need either of them. To hell-fire with all men!

T
hat night the ship docked at Le Havre and she saw Rory leave the ship in black cloak and mask. She had no idea what time he returned, she only knew that he did not join her in the exotic silk-hung bed. When she emerged into the bright morning light, Rory stood at the wheel garbed in white from head to foot, with the Union Jack flapping in the stiff breeze from the top of the mast.

Yesterday seemed like a specter seen through a glass darkly. Today there was nothing sinister about the ship or the man at its helm. He looked boyish, carefree. He waved and called to her, “Come up and navigate.” She was about to shake her head when out of nowhere came a deafening boom and a splash. A great cry went up as the deck suddenly filled with the crew and two went up the masts quick as monkeys.

Summer’s heart drummed in her ears as a quick stab of fear shot through her, but it was immediately replaced by an excitement she could hardly contain. She saw Rory gesture for her to go below but she blithely ignored the order and ran up to the quarterdeck. She did not run to him for protection, but went there to get a better view. Rory was looking through his telescope and his voice boomed to every corner of the
Phantom:
“It’s a Dutchman.” She
imagined she heard relief in his voice, and relief on the faces of the crewmen.

“We’ll fight!” He shouted his decision, and the crew let out a cheer that was deafening. “Get below,” he told Summer.

“No!” she defied him.

“This deck will run with blood,” he told her graphically.

Her eyes narrowed with the excitement of danger. He was so bold, so brave, she wanted to watch him take the prize. “I want to see you fight!”

“You may see me die,” he pointed out.

“Heaven doesn’t want you and the devil is afraid you’ll take over,” she threw his own words at him.

He looked at her and grinned widely—she was every bit as courageous as he and he admired and loved her for it. Then he had no more time to think of her and knew she would understand. He thundered his orders and every last man anticipated them. Skillfully he maneuvered the ship quickly enough to allow one of his gunners to put a broadsider into the oncoming vessel, and Summer could taste the pitch he had used to light the gunpowder in the cannon. A victory shout went up as the cannonball found its target in their enemy’s belly. There was no way such a small hole would sink them, but it would keep some of the Dutch crew busy stopping the seawater from gushing in.

Summer’s hand went to her waist and she felt relief as she felt the hilt of her knife safely tucked there. Rory’s crew comprised every nationality, but whether they were black, yellow, or brown, they were armed in identical fashion. Each man held a cutlass in one hand, a pistol in the other, and a belaying pin or cudgel tucked into his belt alongside his knife.

They climbed the lines of the rigging like circus performers, some even holding their weapons in their teeth while they got a better grip on the lines with their hands and knees. Summer’s head fell back to watch them and she shaded her eyes with her hand. She assumed they were climbing the rigging so that when the two ships came alongside, they would swing over to the Dutchman and board her, but as the tall sailing ship loomed over them she realized in a moment of panic that the smaller
Phantom
was much lower than the tall merchantman and it would be the Dutch who would board the
Phantom
and the battle would be waged on her decks.

Rory and his crew had known this all along and were high in the
rigging so they could jump the sailors once they came aboard the
Phantom.
There was a sickening thud and shudder as the two vessels came together and Summer realized she stood alone on the deck of the
Phantom
as the Dutchmen swarmed aboard. Should she flee or stand and fight? Her feet were rooted to the spot as she watched two men advance upon her. From nowhere a line swung down past her and the sailor on the end of it kicked one of the enemy in the throat while disemboweling the other with a low cutlass slash across his stomach. The man’s innards spewed out and splattered Summer’s canvas pants while she looked on in helpless horror.

Screams and shouts intermingled with curses, cries, and wild laughter. Shots whistled through the air and steel clashed against steel and flesh. Men everywhere were engaged in desperate battle but she had no way of telling which were the enemy. A sailor advanced upon her with glinting sword, but her feet slipped on the blood of the deck and she ducked her head under his arm. Her knife was in her palm and she whirled about and brought it up in a vicious slash to rip open his arm from wrist to elbow.

This was no exciting adventure; the reality was a living nightmare. It was blood and guts and brains. It was death and maiming and gaping wounds. It was screaming and groaning and weeping. It was madness!

Three men were almost upon her when Rory swung down and knocked her from their path. She sprawled onto the blood-slippery deck, the wind knocked from her lungs. Rory stood over her and fought off the enemy. One took a ball through the temple, another lost an arm as Rory slashed his heavy cutlass with all his powerful strength. The third man he disarmed and ran him at swordpoint up onto the quarterdeck, where he lashed him to the mast with a rope. Then in a flash he was back to scan her anxiously then thrust her behind him while he dispatched another to hellfire.

With their captain taken and half their number slaughtered, the Dutch surrendered. The crew of the
Phantom
prodded them overboard and a magnanimous Black Jack Flash cut the ropes which sent a longboat splashing down among them. Only two of Rory’s crew were dead. Eight were wounded and a dozen had minor injuries which they ignored from sheer bravado.

Summer was shaking all over as she helped to bind up the wounded. Rory’s white clothes were stained red from head to foot. “You were very brave,” he said solemnly.

“I didn’t know … I had no idea what it would be like,” she said shakily.

“I know, love … you wouldn’t listen … you had to learn the hard way.”

“Rory … forgive me … I thought you had gone over to the enemy.”

He shook his head. “You still don’t understand. I didn’t take the ship because she was a Dutchman, I took her because she fired across my bow. If she’d been English, I would have taken her just the same. I am a pirate.”

Her eyes lifted to the captain still lashed to the mast. “What will you do with him?”

“Probably turn him over to Ruark along with the ship.” He grinned at her. “But not before I strip her of every last piece of booty.”

She staggered a little. “Go below and bathe and rest if you can. We have our work cut out for us up here,” he said.

She looked down at herself in dismay. “Does the smell of blood ever wash off?” she asked him quietly.

“Not really,” he said, shaking his head sadly.

    That night they didn’t make love, but he clung to her in the great bed in a towering need. Their closeness brought him some small measure of sanity in an uncivilized universe. It was hours before peaceful calm descended to slow his thudding heart and racing pulse. By dawn she had given him back his powerful strength.

“I think you’ll be glad to get back on land again, won’t you?” he questioned.

She hesitated, not wanting to hurt him. “I love the sea … but perhaps we are too close to Holland in these particular waters.”

“I’ve been thinking about sailing to New Guinea for gold. Would you go with me, Cat?”

She thought of her baby and wondered how he could ask such reckless behavior of her. “I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “I would need time to consider such a thing.”

He stretched and laughed and kissed her deeply before he went abovedecks to again take over the helm of the
Phantom.
By late afternoon they had sighted England and Summer came up on deck. She was vastly relieved to see everything had been swabbed and scrubbed to remove all evidence of the recent carnage. The gulls
and terns circled and screamed overhead as she climbed to stand beside Rory. A stiff breeze was blowing his black-and-white-streaked hair about his shoulders and he seemed lost in thought.

“Where are we?” she asked, and her words brought him back from the distant place his mind explored.

“That’s the Isle of Wight,” he answered.

“When will we arrive in London?” she asked.

His eyes sought hers. “I’m not taking you to London. When it’s dark, we’ll sail into Southampton, which is only twenty miles from Salisbury where the court has moved.”

“To hell with the court, I want to go to London,” she argued.

“London is still a pest hole. Believe me, the moment the plague starts to disappear Charles and the court will return to the city.”

“But I must see if my brother is all right. I’ve been away too long now.”

“Cat, your duty is to yourself and my son that you are carrying. My business is in Southampton and yours is in Salisbury, and you will obey me for once.” His face was stormy and she thought better of arguing with him. She also realized that his self-assurance was so great he didn’t believe the child she carried could be anyone’s but his.

It took most of the night to make port, for first, of course, he moored the Dutch merchantman in a safe haven where he could empty her of the spices, ivory, and gold she had brought from the Guinea coast of Africa.

Summer went below to write a letter. She could not bring herself to tell him to his face the decision she had made. Her thoughts had slowly sorted themselves out day by day until she had come to a final conclusion. There were more foul days at sea than fair, and though they had enjoyed a fantastic liaison, it was over.

Black Jack Flash was a superb adventurer and lover, but he was not the right stuff for husband or father. Summer and her baby would become anchors about his neck until resentment would destroy them. She faced the truth for once. She wanted Lord Ruark Helford for husband or she would do without.

In the note she bade him goodbye and told him she loved him too much to chain him. She bade him sail the seven seas and urged him to go to Guinea for the gold he so much wanted. Then she hid the note where he would not find it until they had parted.

At dawn he put Summer on the coach for Salisbury and told her he would make contact with her in a week’s time. He lingered over
his goodbyes, kissing her deeply, then grinned and dropped a pouch of gold coins into her lap. “You’ll need this,” he whispered. “Gambling will be the only diversion in Salisbury.”

She waved until he was out of sight. Then she sighed deeply and resolutely opened the heavy coach door and climbed down.

“Hey, missus, get back inside, we’re ready to leave!” ordered the coachman.

She gave him a cold glance. “Are you speaking with me or chewing a brick? You’d be better occupied unloading my trunks and putting them on the coach for London.”

    Summer was set down in deserted streets upon arrival in London. Its citizens had barricaded themselves against the horrible death, so that it looked like a ghost town. A disgusting smell hovered over the city like a charnel house. Vendors no longer hawked their goods in the streets. Horse-drawn drays and wagons no longer plowed a path between crowds of citizens bustling about London in pursuit of her wealth. Most of the shops were shut up tight as a drum, for who would purchase a wig when the hair likely came from a corpse? Who would buy clothes or even jewelry which had adorned a plague victim? Who wanted furniture from an infected house? Summer was unable to hire a chair to carry her to Cockspur Street, since the chair stands had all closed, so she offered an old man with a handcart a gold piece to cart her trunks through the empty streets while she walked beside him.