Virgin Star (32 page)

Shalyn gasped in utter terror.

Yet the back of his head faced her. He couldn't see unless he turned around. Stiff with tension, she supposed 'twas hard enough to hold his weight in a handstand on a rocking ship, let alone to start turning circles. Still she lay as rigid as stone, fear pumping hard and fast through her blood as she watched this. More when he lifted onto one hand, and after a minute, switched to the other.

The men in the room were very familiar with Seanessy's unusual acrobatic agility—-it was famous. The only time they were compelled to watch was when he did it atop horses. This did not even rate a comment.

Strange images filled his mind as he stood upside-down. The missing books. The missing stowaway. The missing fruit. The wet tooth comb he found in the morning. The erotic dreams of Shalyn dancing in the silence of the ship. Oliver's interest in something under the bed.

Blood started pumping into his heart and it was not from his upside-down exertions. He came gracefully to his feet. He stepped over to his clothes trunk and removed his hairbrush from the velvet shelf. He pulled one mercilessly long crinkled gold hair from the bristles. He inspected it.

He waited a long moment.

Waited for a coherent thought to rise above his rage.

"Sean, 'tis your move. I believe you are doomed."

Shalyn felt her heart finally slow its pounding. She began to recover from the fright. Mercy! That was close!

Seanessy stood as still as a stone statue waiting for this precious coherency. No such civilized idea came to him as the rage felt swift, powerful, consuming.

In a sudden eruption of violence, he swung his clenched fist into the hard wood wall. The thick board cracked. Pain shot up his arm, and it felt extricating.

The men all stopped and looked to where he stood. In a voice much changed for the control he placed on it, he said, "Get out!"

Shalyn gasped unseen. Who did he talk to like that? Why? The game? Why, he must have lost!

Huh! What a poor loser!

"Sean, what the devil?"

A deadly silence filled the room as the men greeted the sudden outburst as any sane man reacted to an unexpected violent madness. Butcher and Hamilton looked around the room for the source of Sean's wrath.

Yet there was nothing.

"I am warning you, Shalyn. For the love of your life, girl, do not make me lay hands on you."

'Twas as if he were mad! Butcher and Edward exchanged confused, even frightened glances as they realized Sean talked to someone who just wasn't there.

A sound came from under the bed.

A figure emerged. Butcher took one look. "Oh, Lord ..."

With eyes downcast, Shalyn rose to her feet. Her face blanched white. She looked a hair's breadth from fainting and her knees started trembling.

Seanessy just stared at the reality of her presence: the tight thick braid of gold hair, the ashen face, the downcast eyes, the breeches and the shirt that covered a figure he was trying so hard to forget.

The girl's whole wretched scheme lay before him. Starting with her feigned theatrical indisposition the day he sailed, the empty trunk of books, the missing food, his tooth comb being wet every day, the long hairs he found in his brush, the poor dog pining under the bed, the scent at night, and the strange dreams of Shalyn moving in the darkness with the grace and beauty of an angel.

He swung away, moving swiftly to the rum bottles neatly lined on a shelf, secured from the motion of the sea by a tight cord. He took one out, ripped off the top, and put it to his lips.

Then he heard: "Seanessy, I'm ... I'm sorry, but I—"

"No. Do not speak. Do not say a word. Butcher, you are to take care of this problem: you may do this by tossing her over the side or keeping her the hell away from me. Just do not let me see her. For God's sake, do not let me see her again."

Butcher quickly led the girl out.

The captain's door opened just as the pink light of dawn spread its long arms across the sky. Seanessy stepped out. Shrewd hazel eyes swept the clean decks, examining the position of the morning crew and the rigging of the masts. Little skipped his notice. The swift-moving clipper sailed over huge swells beneath an early morning sky, its great sails billowing in a strong north wind. A good two days past Gibraltar and fifty miles off the Gold Coast, the ship continued sailing at unprecedented speed.

Seanessy stood at the railing, staring at the breathtaking blue of the sea. The elements—wind and water and sun—converged to form a sailor's dream. He had logged close to fifty thousand ocean miles and of all those trips, this was the best. For many crew members it would be the first time they grasped the full glory and speed and power that belonged to the finest of oceangoing sailing ships.

He closed his eyes against the strong brisk wind. 'Twas indeed a sailor's dream as they headed south, but a nightmare if he turned around, as he fully intended to do. He had to.

He cursed Shalyn softly under his breath.

Seanessy lifted himself agilely onto the quarterdeck. He picked up the horn and called down to his men: "Step alive, mates! I need a full one-hundred-twenty-degree turn. Heading: Gibraltar."

He began calling out the rigging to individual crew members, ending at last with: "Hanson, get you up the rat line with an eye to any more cracks!"

The two dozen crew members had all turned, and now stared up at Seanessy on the quarterdeck. He stood feet apart, looking down. Showered in sunlight and with the wind blowing his long blond hair back, he looked like a mythological Nordic king standing atop the magnificent ship. Yet his eyes were still wild with rage, as if he had decided to war with God Himself. No one moved. A few men exchanged confused glances. Because they knew he couldn't mean it. 'Twas a jest ...

Seanessy's gaze narrowed dramatically, and in a vicious whisper he said, "The day I give an order twice is the day I rig a keelhaul!"

The men stepped into action all at once.

. Butcher lay still in his hammock and closed his eyes, willing his heart to a slower pace. Another hour or two of sleep would do him good. Yet he felt that rousing pace of a waking state. 'Twas no use.

'Twas a problem, this girl. He'd spent nearly two hours just trying to figure out where the lass might sleep. Needless to say, the sleek lines of the ship harbored no separate passenger room for women—space was not just at a premium on board but often fought over by the crew. Almost all the crew slept in the fo'c'sle or crew's quarters, which was a small space for so many men, nothing but a chaotic array of hammocks and trunks. Shalyn could not sleep there, of course—that would bring a riot. Then there was the officers' quarters where he lay now, the same size as the fo'c'sle but for a quarter of the men. She could not sleep here either. Then there was the carpenter's room.

'T’wasn’t that any one crew member would risk Seanessy's wrath to hurt the lass, but the sea did strange things to a man. Add a couple of cups of rum and if truth be told, the Queen's mother could cause a problem. So after considerable deliberation and maybe a half-hour of bargaining with Knoll, he managed to settle the lass in the carpenter's room. Oliver settled down with her. That would keep her safe.

With a sigh, he gave up the pretense of trying to sleep and swung his legs over the hammock. The trouble was Sean. The trouble was that Sean's trouble was a hundred times more trouble than most men's. Sean's rage was more rare than a day without his laughter, and yet those few times it surfaced, it was enough to stop an advancing army.

He heard the distant call of Seanessy's voice shouting out the orders. His features changed with alarm. Curse it! He meant to turn the ship around!

Butcher was pushing his large feet into boots when Edward burst through the door. Fury changed the handsome features; he was livid: hands on hips he demanded of Butcher, "A woman did this?"

"Aye. A woman."

"Seanessy's not the only man ready to rig the keelhaul for her. Half the crew's spitting mad."

"Then I'll have to make it clear that the man who so much as looks at the lass cross-eyed meets the sharp point of my revenge."

Edward did not take Butcher's threat lightly. In a subdued voice he said, "She's that special?"

"Aye. Enough to inspire Sean's own madness. A madness that is turning the ship around as we speak."

Edward wanted to see this girl, a girl he had heard so much about. "Where did you put her?"

"Carpenter's room."

"Can you talk some sense into the man?"

"Edward, you don't understand. Sean's doing the right thing. Ah, hell." He looked away, hands on knees. "I've known Sean for over ten years. I've seen the man in every conceivable condition and predicament: glad enough to buy a town full of men enough drink and women to last a week, outrageous enough to laugh as he battled ten heathens waving the sharp edge of their sabers at him; I've seen him rouse a hundred men to their feet, shaking fists and cheering, I've seen him charm the aristocracy and blind beggars alike, I've seen him fighting mad and dead drunk, I've even on occasion seen him dead serious. And I've seen him melt the hearts of a hundred ladies, and yet rarely remember a name the next day. In all this time I have never seen him as he is with Shalyn."

In frustration, Edward sighed. "Well, what is the problem?"

Butcher pushed the other boot on and stood up before answering. "The problem is she is far too young and far too fresh for Sean. The problem is the unhappy fact that she is most certainly mad; she has no memory past this idea that some band of cutthroats is chasin' her, that she has to get to Malacca." He shook his head sadly. "And I suppose the biggest problem is that Sean is madly in love with the lass. And love is one thing Seanessy doesn't know how to fight."

Shalyn tried to slow the race of her thoughts. She stared unseeing at the small space of the carpenter's room. Knives and hammers, sickles, picks, all manner of wood beams and saws cluttered the tight space around her. She curled up in the corner, struggling not to cry.

He had ordered the ship turned around. She had not expected this. He was so angry he thought to punish her by leaving her in Gibraltar. She would be returned to England and Kyler. She would never get to Malacca.

He did not know what it meant to her. She had to reach Malacca or die in the trying. Aye, she would die in the trying.

She had to change his mind or ... die in the trying.

Die in the trying ...

The ancient Chinese voice in her mind said, "The paradox of courage is that one must be a little careless with life in order to keep it ..."

Suddenly she knew what she had to do.

Shouts sounded from topside but neither Butcher nor Edward at first gave any mind to the sudden clamor. They were resolved to get the ship to Gibraltar as fast as possible. Butcher and Edward climbed the narrow staircase leading to the deck. "I'll have the swing shift man the rigging for the first three hours—" Edward stopped a moment. "What in blazes now?"

The two men rushed out onto the deserted deck, gazes riveting to the quarterdeck where over half the crew gathered, watching something. Oliver barked from below like the world was about to end. Edward's call joined so many others, it was lost in the roar of the men shouting at someone. Butcher went up, pushing through the crowd to Hamilton's side. He stopped in his boots; he felt the sick lurch of his heart. He couldn't speak; for his life he could not now speak.

Edward came slowly to his side, staring, seeing everything at once. Butcher still could not find his tongue. Hamilton too knew not to move, and, terrified not everyone would have the same sense, he stretched out his arms to hold everyone back.

"For the love of God, girl," Ham said, but that was all. No more words manifest from his mouth. For there were no words to express the fear felt by every man watching, desperate as they were to make the leap that would pull her to safety. Yet the courage shining in the darkened pools of her eyes proclaimed her determination.

The girl's eyes would live in their minds forever: They shone with the courage of any ten men watching, an unnatural fierceness in a man, unheard of in a woman. She stood on the rail, light as a feather and just as vulnerable to the goodly breeze blowing across the bow, bare feet apart, one arm holding the bulwark. The grasp of that slim arm was all that stood between her and a horrible death of falling a good twenty-five feet in front of a seven hundred ton vessel.

"Fetch Captain Seanessy—I will speak with him!"

Edward snapped his fingers and whispered between gritted teeth, "Ten men to the rafts. And, my God, somebody get the cap'n!"