Page 19 of A Pirate’s Pleasure (Cameron Family #2)
XVI
“D espicable bastard! Scurvy knave. Worse than a sea slime, worse than the densest pile of—of rat dung! You should be sliced to ribbons, disemboweled! Skinned alive, inch by scurvy inch!”
He was dreaming, Roc thought. The storm and the roiling waves were all about him still and he was dreaming that some Harpy had come flapping around above him to torture him awake.
No…he was not dreaming.
It was Skye.
She was railing against him, hollering like a shrew, and tugging upon him, too. His sword…she was stealing his sword from his sodden leather scabbard!
Reeling from the pain in his gut, straining to come awake and to terms with the morning, Roc realized slowly that it was indeed Skye, she was standing over him, her left hand upon her hip, her right hand brandishing his sword, and a bit too close to his extremities, at that. Her eyes flashed like sapphires in the sun, she was as tense as steel. She stood disheveled, her hair a wild blaze about her, her skirts torn and shredded, her feet bare. If she weren’t so enraged, he would have smiled. She was in a sorry state, except that, even so, she was more captivating than ever. Her legs were bare to her thighs, her breasts strained against the damp material of her bodice, and she might have been some pagan creature from a far barbaric time.
He stared at her blankly. She hissed some other ungodly name his way, and her toe landed hard against his midsection again. His own temper bubbled and soared and skyrocketed with him, exploding like some witch’s brew.
He groaned, and she kicked him anew!
He pushed up from the sand in amazement.
“Skye! What the hell is the matter with you?”
“You!” she told him.
Then he touched his face. Half of the beard was there; half of it was gone. He muttered out an expletive and pulled away the remaining false whiskers, wincing as he did so. He was weary. His head was splitting and he ached from head to toe and she was standing there abusing him verbally—and physically—with a vengeance.
“Get up!” she commanded him, bringing the point of his own sword close against his jugular. His eyes narrowed with a flash of anger as he came slowly to his feet, facing her. “I should dice you into tiny pieces, and save the hangman his efforts. My God, the things that you did to me!”
“The things that I did to you!”
“Oh, Captain-Lord-Cameron-Hawk! How could you! How dare you! Hanging will be far too good a fate for you!” She started walking forward in her vehemence, and with that razor-honed blade so close to his throat, he had no choice but to back away from her along the sand. He’d never seen her this angry. He didn’t know if she would or wouldn’t use it.
“Give me the sword, Skye.”
“Give you the sword? You must be out of your mind.”
“You don’t want me to kill me—”
“Kill you!” Her brows shot up eloquently. “Kill you? Oh, my dear captain! I’m longing to kill you, but torture comes first! I should love to see you stew in boiling oil, or perhaps have your fingers and toes and other protrusions chopped off, one by one—”
“Madame—” he began warningly.
“No! Let’s see, who shall I kill, Lord Cameron? No, my legal husband, a member of the peerage, no…’tis the pirate I should kill. Captain Hawk. The scurvy knave, the rogue, the—”
“Your lover, Lady Cameron?” he inquired with a long, taunting drawl. She hesitated and he continued, daring to put his fingers upon the cold steel and move it away from his throat and bear slowly down upon her in turn. Once more they moved across the sand, with his voice rising in deep angry tones. “Ah, yes! Captain Hawk, the Silver Hawk. That dastardly villain who so crudely and brutally raped you upon your first meeting. That was the description of what came between us, wasn’t it? Is that what you told your husband, milady, when you threw yourself so completely upon his mercy when trying to disavow your marriage?”
They came against a palm tree. She gasped, startled, as her back hit it. Then her jaw locked and the sword whistled as she smoothly retrieved the blade from his touch. The edge just drew a thin line of blood against his thumb and he made a furious sound like a growl. It did not daunt her in the least. The blade was next to his throat once again.
“You son-of-a-bitch! You were cruel and brutal when you seized that ship! You and your announcements that the crew were free to take Tara and Bess…but that I was yours! Thrusting me into that dark chamber, seizing my clothing—”
“I thrust you into my cabin because I wanted you safe from the crew. They are good men and loyal, but a captain always needs to take care. And I seized your clothing because they were damp and you might well have gotten pneumonia.”
“I might have had some choice in the matter.”
“Give me the sword, Skye.”
They had come back center on the sand. They circled one another very warily.
“And on that island—” she began.
“What on that island? What? Go ahead, tell me! Was I cruel on the island, brutal? Ah, yes, that’s where I forced you into my arms.”
“You did force me—”
“Never, lady, and hence your wrath against me! My God, I had the patience and restraint of a saint—”
“Of a saint!”
“Of a saint. And I warned you time and again, and still you came to me. Vixen, you came to me.”
“You knew about—you knew about the marriage!” she charged him.
“Yes, I knew. Of course, I knew. ’Tis my wife I came to rescue.”
“And ’twas your wife you seduced?” she snapped.
A slight flush of color touched his cheeks. “I didn’t intend to.”
“Oh!” She stamped her foot against the sand and prodded the sword further against him. “You slimy, seafaring bastard! You went running from my house to bed another woman, knowing that I would come after you! Don’t you ever, ever think to touch me—”
“There was no other woman.”
“Liar! We both saw her; her hair was red—”
“I hired her, merely to irritate you.” The words were a mistake. Her hand shook. The steel touched him ever more closely. “Skye, give me back my sword!”
“Never! When I give you this steel, Captain Cameron-Hawk, you are going to feel it beyond a doubt.”
“There was no woman. But you—you, my love, my dear, darling devoted wife—”
“I never claimed to be a devoted wife!” she spat out. “I was forced to be a wife, just as I was forced to be a pirate’s possession!”
“Ah, but the wife didn’t mind going off to make a bargain with a pirate. Promises, my love, remember!”
“You are the most despicable man ever!” she hissed.
He ducked down, seeking to retrieve his sword. She sent it slashing dangerously through the air and he quickly danced back a step, circling her. “ Me , milady! Me? ”
“You! This double life of yours! Well, I promise you, sir, they will hang you just as high as the Silver Hawk, even knowing that you are Lord Cameron! You were supposedly my father’s friend! And you stole his ship anyway. I should slice you from groin to neck for that alone.”
“Oh, so that’s it, lady! The hurt is sexual indeed! Slice him to pieces and make sure you damage the man!”
“’Tis your heart I’d like on a platter!”
“Is it, milady? I seized your father’s ship from One-Eyed Jack, lady,” he reminded her tensely. “I seized you from him and his band of murdering cutthroats!”
“And you took me to Bone Cay!” Tears were suddenly stinging her eyes, and she didn’t want him to see them. She blinked them back furiously and kept moving, watching him very warily at all times. She should kill him. She should kill the pirate Silver Hawk right then and there. He would deserve it.
“Give me the sword, Skye!”
“No!”
Suddenly he drew his long knife from the sheath at his calf. He smiled, his eyes glittering silver. “Then slay me,” he told her.
“Stop it!” she commanded as he feinted toward her with the short broad blade. Hers was by far the better weapon, and she did know how to use it. “Stop it or I shall have to kill you!”
“Come, come, love! Aye, the temptation is great for me!” He dove toward her. She reeled back, slicing at his blow, and their steel clanged together loudly. She swirled around, ready for the next attack. He was coming at her now with a new vengeance. “I should catch you now and beat you silly, madame, redden your aristocratic and sashaying derriere—”
“It’s been done before!” she reminded him, her teeth gritted.
“Ah, but the pirate had the pleasure, and not Lord Cameron. Not the injured husband.”
“Injured husband!” She was so startled and incensed that she stood still. He lunged, and she was forced to leap back, just barely parrying his blow. “Injured husband indeed!”
“Injured husband. Seduced so sweetly by his angelic and long-suffering wife, just so that she could viciously render him unconscious with a liquor bottle!”
“I had to—”
“You had to! Ah, yes, render Lord Cameron senseless so that you could run off into the arms of another man. To promise to bed him as happily and givingly as a lark for services rendered!”
“Oh, how dare you!” she shouted, and for the moment, she had the advantage again. She moved across the sand in a flurry, and the air cried out with the force of swords and steel as she backed him far across the beach to palm tree again. “How dare you! Fine! You hired a whore just to lie naked with you in a bed to taunt me!”
“Aye!” he cried. “And you were distressed that the Silver Hawk had lain with another woman—not that he asked you to be the adulteress to come to him!”
“You bastard, you deserved it! I asked you to leave me be as my good and strong and loyal husband—I warned you about the other man and the fact that I could…that I could carry the Hawk’s child. But you! You waited until I slept, and then you seduced me, after all that I had said—”
“Exactly, milady! Those words mattered until you meant to leave me for the Hawk—then you came and seduced me! What of your morals then, eh, Lady Cameron?”
“How dare you—” she began again, but he saw his chance. He had unnerved her, and her grip was slack. He surged forward, catching the tip of his sword with tremendous force. The reverberation of it traveled down the steel and she cried, dropping the blade.
“I dare whatever I please, milady!” he assured her. “You are my wife, remember?”
She stared at him in fury and looked to the sword upon the ground.
They dove for it together.
Skye grappled desperately in the sand to reach the blade. His long bronzed fingers closed over it first, tossing it aside. She tried to reach it. He cast himself against her and they went rolling across the sand. When they came still again, he swiftly straddled her, pinning her beneath him, pinning her to the ground. She writhed and fought against his strength, squirming and kicking, and succeeding only in making the sand fly. Eventually she was gasping for air, and still his prisoner, exhausted and beaten. She stared at him defiantly. “You will hang, sir!”
He cocked his head inquiringly. “And will you come to the spectacle, my love? Will you watch, and perhaps shed a tear or two?”
“I’ve nothing to say to you. You’re a rogue.”
“And you’re a cunning, manipulative seductress, so which of the two of us is more at fault?”
“You!”
“Milady, I—”
“You! You knew all the while what was going on! You led me on time and time again, and taunted me on purpose. You knew that my soul was in agony and you—”
“Agony! When were you in agony, my love?”
“Oh, never mind! Just get off of me now, and leave me—”
“Get off of you! Well, love, this is typical. There I lay, sleeping deeply after having saved your life, plucking you from the cruel and icy fingers of the sea! Then you come up with your very tender toes and nearly dislocate the whole of my rib cage. You take a sword to my throat, and nearly slice open my veins. Now I am on top again, and so we should quit the fight. Well, no, milady, it does not work that way. I owe you, remember? I owe you for nearly splitting my skull with that bottle, for leaving me to nearly drown in a pool of rum. For trying to sever from my body various protrusions. It is not over! You will talk to me, and you will listen—”
“I will not listen!” she snapped. “Ever, ever again! I will be free from you, and so help me, I will see you hang! All of those innocents you have fooled! Lieutenant Governor Spotswood believing in you so deeply! How could you! Lord Cameron! You had everything that you could have wanted! But you had to be a pirate anyway. Robbing, stealing, plundering—”
“Raping?” he suggested nonchalantly.
Skye cried out an oath and tried to fight him again. Tears stung her eyes as she writhed and scrambled beneath him. She had so little of her gown left, it was awful. Her shift and shorn petticoats rose about her and she felt his damp thighs clamped hard against her bare hips. She went still, staring at him. He smiled slowly, a devil’s taunting, promising, sensual grin. Her heart sank. She could not deny his looks, his appeal. She could not deny the rippling, muscled strength of his arms, or the trembling that seized upon her when he stared at her that way, so very aware of her skirt climbing, and of the distress it caused her.
The silver glitter in his eyes was as wicked as the rogue’s curl of his smile. With tension all about him, he leaned toward her. “A pirate’s life, ah, yes, milady! The rogue’s way. I’m fond of it, yes, I am! Take what a man will, love where he desires, have what he wants! It’s a good life, it is! Surely, I will hang for it—and certainly, I will hang, too, for the deceit I played on you!”
She gasped suddenly, staring at him, twisting again with new vigor. “You are a—a despicable sea slime! Oh! Lord Cameron never doffed his clothes, not even to make love, because you were afraid I would know, that I would find some little mark, that—oh!”
“Yes, it was difficult,” he said nonchalantly. “Most difficult. I couldn’t have you in the dark—not with your fears, love. That’s why the pirate tried so hard not to touch you.”
“The pirate touched me again and again!”
He shrugged. “Yes, well, the part of Lord Cameron inside the pirate’s clothes didn’t want to think that his beloved wife would fall into the arms of another man.”
“I didn’t know that I was anyone’s wife!” she spat out. “Oh, you bastard! You cannot put this on me!”
He leaned low against her, his eyes still wickedly alive, his smile near to a taunting, sensual sneer. “I can do whatever I will, milady. I am a pirate, remember?”
She shook her head furiously. “You will never have me again.”
“You are still my wife.”
“I disavow you!”
“It isn’t that simple.”
“So help me, sir, if you ever touch me again, it will be rape!”
“Ah, but my lady,” he murmured, “you forget so much! The dread pirate Hawk has already taken you by force, why not again? Your words, milady, not mine. And Lord Cameron surely owes his bride the thrashing of her life. Then there is the main thing, and that is your father. You were willing to sell your…er, virture—or what was left of it—to find him first—”
“Oh!” she flared, twisting anew. Her skirt climbed completely and she was bare to the waist and they both knew it. He arched a single brow tauntingly.
“You do make things easy, love. Shall I beat you first, and make love to you—excuse me, that’s force you into my arms, I mean—second? Or the other way around? Promises, promises! I am supposed to find your father, you know, for the sweet promise of your willing—and eager—arms.”
“Someone should really skewer you through!” Skye announced.
“Should they? Tell me, then, what happened to this tempest inside of you? What of the gentle feelings you bore the Hawk for being tender in the dark? What of the truth that you whispered to Lord Cameron in the forest about your fears? What, lady, of the sweet seduction you played in that room? You told the pirate Hawk that you loved your husband. What of those words?”
She narrowed her eyes carefully, her heart hammering inside her chest with a fierce beat. “Lies, sir. Lies. And that is all!” she said flatly. “Issued about the one man to avoid the other, sir, and that is all.”
He shook his head and lowered it against hers. But he wasn’t laughing anymore. His features were tense and serious, his eyes were dark, shadowed smoke. “So you care nothing for either man, milady, is that what you’re saying?”
“Aye, I care deeply! To see them hang, as one and the same!”
His fingers tensed around hers, his mouth tightened grimly, and for a moment Skye was truly frightened. He had had his fill of her, and he was finished. Perhaps he would play the pirate in truth and slit her throat. Or perhaps his role would be that of the grievously injured husband, and he would strike her where she lay. Thunder touched his features, anger, deep and sure. She did hate him; she despised him for all that he had done.
But she had fallen in love with a man, too. With tenderness, with caring, with flashing silver eyes, and with startling courage against all odds. She had fallen in love with flesh and blood, and she had lain in paradise, be that paradise an island, or a bower within the woods, or a bed upon a soft mattress with white silky sheets. He would hang; and she never be able to bear it.
She closed her eyes, and waited for his blow.
It never came. He released her and came to his feet, and caught her hands and none too gently dragged her up before him. “I am in love with you,” he told her softly.
“Love!” she cried. “What can you know of or mean by love, after what has been done!”
“I’d have died to save you any number of times.”
“You risk your life each time you sail!” she retorted. “You chose your course in life! You risk your throat every time you step upon the shore of New Providence!”
“What of your father?” he demanded curtly.
“What do you mean?” she asked, faltering.
“You wanted me to find your father.”
“Yes, and I still expect you to do so!”
“Under the same conditions.”
“What?” Skye cried out.
He didn’t reply right away. He asked her another question instead. “What if I could prove myself to you, milady?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What if I could explain my deeds?”
“You shall never explain your deeds to me. And you will hang, eventually, I know it. Lord Cameron or no.”
His eyes flashed with renewed anger. “One day, milady, so help me, I will see that you rue those words. For now, however, we will return to the business at hand. The pirate is better suited to finding your father, so the pirate I will remain. You may have my cabin to yourself, milady. But the bargain stays the same. When your father is found and rescued, you had best come to me laughing, your hair draping your shoulders, your clothing at your feet.”
“Bastard!”
“Are we agreed?”
“I hate you!”
“Hate me, love me, have it as you will. Until I do hang, madame, you are mine!”
A sudden noise, the cocking of a pistol, sent them both flying around. Skye gasped softly, for they were no longer alone upon the sand.
Logan was there. Captain Logan.
Logan, with two of his henchmen at his side, standing before them.
“I beg to differ with you, Hawk!” Logan announced. “I intend to take her. The lady will be mine.”
Roc drew Skye around behind him in an instant, holding her there. He watched Logan very warily, for the man had two pistols aimed straight toward him.
Roc’s sword and knife lay in the sand. His pistols were lost to the sea and his powder was sodden anyway. He had nothing, nothing at all with which to fight.
“Move away from the lady, Hawk!”
Behind him, Skye shivered. There was no help; no help anywhere at all. Logan had all the power, and he knew it. He was elegantly dressed in a crimson velvet coat and high black boots, and his hat bore a dashing plume. Skye wondered from where he had pilfered his finery, then she did not care. His lip was curled in an evil grin, and he scratched his chin with the hook he wore for a hand.
He would kill the Hawk, she thought. With the greatest pleasure and relish, he would kill the Hawk, probably ripping him open from groin to gullet with the very hook he wore because of the Hawk’s prowess with the sword.
The henchmen with him were not so dandified. They were both young men, in their early twenties perhaps, one blond, one dark. They were both barefoot, in knee breeches with no hose, and in coarse cotton shirts. They were both smiling, too, glad of this confrontation.
Logan’s smiled deepened. “Dear, dear, how have we come to find you here? And engaged in this oh, so touching scene!” He laughed to his companions. “Methinks that the lady is no creature of ice! She comes in this fight to the pirate, knowing him so, so well! It seems that the Hawk did teach the lady the finer points of love, which is well enough—I shall enjoy her the more.”
“You’ll never touch her, Logan!” the Hawk snapped.
“Oh, I think I will,” Logan replied pleasantly. “Damn you, Hawk, but you have always been a cocky bastard. The lady is behind you, and you are unarmed, and I have here six pistols and three swords at my disposal. I knew that the girl would have to come if I had her father, and that you would have to come after the girl. I hadn’t expected you to fall so easily into my hands, but then the weather was helpful, was it not? And then you two were so engaged with your private affairs that you mightn’t have heard the sound of a cannon explosion. Ah, dear lady! But you have done what I never could, you stole the Hawk’s guard away. Thank you, my dear. I do appreciate that, and I will be happy to show you just how much!”
“No…!” Skye started to cry, but then she was stunned when Roc turned around and slapped her hard across the face. His strength was so great that she went crashing down to the sand, the breath knocked from her, her flesh burning.
“Shut up!” he hissed down to her. Then he turned his attention to Logan. “Take her—you want her so badly. Take her, have done with it!”
“How rude, Hawk! I shall take her. Your ruse will not work.”
“Over my dead body, only, shall you have her!”
“That will be fine,” Logan chortled.
Roc shook his head. Skye’s mind continued to swim. She wanted to kill him; she abhorred the thought of Logan.
She could not begin to understand the brutality of Roc’s attack.
“She’s just a woman, Logan!” Roc called out. “Mine, because I took her. But she’s no better or worse than any other. Having her will give you little pleasure!”
“I’ll decide on that!” Logan said. “What is this, anyway! I do intend to shoot you and have her. When I tire of her, the others may have her. You will be dead. What will it matter to a corpse?”
“If you kill me, you’ll never have the treasure that One-Eyed Jack took off of the Spaniard.”
Logan hesitated, his eyes going very narrow against his cadaverous features. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play games with me, Logan. Jack pirated the Spaniard, Dona Isabella out of Cartagena! Everyone knew about it. They talked about it on the islands for months. Why do you think I was so determined to go after the Silver Messenger? To take a single merchant sloop? You’d be daft, man! It was Jack I wanted, Jack that I was after. Oh, Logan, you speak of death! Jack died slowly, I tell you! He had taken the Dona Isabella , and buried all that Spanish gold. Gold that you can’t even begin to imagine, Logan.”
“The Dona Isabella? With the—the Inca gold?”
Roc smiled slowly, folding his hands over his chest. “Aye, Logan, and that’s a fact. I’m the only man alive who knows where to find it.”
“How do I know that?” Logan demanded.
“I’m telling you that it is so.”
Skye stared up at him. She didn’t know if it was the truth or not. She didn’t know anything at all about him anymore. She was aware only that her choices now lay between two different hells.
Roc wanted Logan to think that she didn’t matter so much to him, that she was something to be owned and used, and abused if the mood so struck him. He wanted to save his own life. He was, beyond a doubt, a scurvy bastard.
But, so help her! She could not stand the thought of Logan. What was happening?
Logan cocked his head, staring at Roc. “What is then, a play for time? I keep you alive to take me to this treasure of Jack’s—then I slay you anyway. I take the girl, and I find my entertainment, then I ask Spotswood or Lord Cameron for the ransom on them both, the lady and Lord Kinsdale. Any way that one looks at it, Hawk. I win.”
Roc shook his head slowly. “You don’t take the girl. She’s mine.”
“What good will she do a corpse?”
“She’s mine. She stays with me. We head on to the meeting here in North Carolina across the island and we go to someone to mediate.”
“Mediate!” Logan protested.
“Aye, mediate. Blackbeard.”
Logan started to laugh. “You’d give her over to Blackbeard?”
Roc shrugged. “If rumor has it right, he’s fourteen young wives. He’s women enough.”
“They say that he’s the fiercest murderer of us all.”
“They say—but I know the man. He’d never harm her. And if he swore to me that he’d see her safe back to Virginia, then that is exactly what he would do.”
Logan hesitated. “I won’t—”
“It’s the only way, Logan. It’s absolutely the only way that you’re going to have the pleasure of killing me and acquiring the treasure, too.”
“It’s too risky, Captain,” the dark-haired man murmured to Logan.
“Risky! What, have you become a coward, Logan? We live at risk, we thrive on risk. Aye, come on, and it is a challenge! I dare you, Logan, take the chance!”
“Send her over to me!” Logan demanded.
Roc came over to Skye, reaching down for her. She lowered her eyes, not about to touch his hand. He had gone insane. She had been there when he had dueled with One-Eyed Jack. The pirate had died cleanly in the fight. There had never been any discussion about gold whatsoever.
Or was there gold? Did he know of it some other way? Had he come after One-Eyed Jack and the Silver Messenger because he had wanted a bigger prize? Because he needed Jack dead? She didn’t know. Her head was still reeling, and she didn’t trust him, not in the least.
And still, she was in love with him. Even with her face still stinging, even as she wondered about his double life, certain that he would hang. She did love him.…
She started to scramble to her feet on her own, but he wrenched her up and held her close to him. “No. I will not send the girl to you. We do it my way. She’s mine.”
Logan hesitated a long time. “I will kill you when we get that treasure. If you’re telling me the truth, Hawk, I will shoot you clean and simple. If you’ve lied to me, then I’ll have you staked out, and I’ll rip your flesh from your body inch by inch with my hook. Savor that, Hawk. And pray that you find that treasure.” He pocketed his pistols.
“I haven’t lied to you.”
Logan shrugged. “Then keep the girl. Enjoy her until your death.” He smiled suddenly, watching Roc. “You’ve lost your beard, sir. Was that to please this lady?”
“It was hot,” Roc said. “I do nothing to please anyone, Logan, and you know that.”
“’E looks an awful lot like the other one now,” the dark-haired pirate said, eyeing Roc up and down.
“What other one?” Logan demanded.
Roc tensed; Skye felt it as his arms tightened around her.
“’E looks like the high-and-mighty lord, like his kinsman, Cameron.”
“You’ve seen Cameron?” Logan said sharply.
“At a distance, aboard his ship.” The dark-haired fellow grinned. “Eh, Logan! ’E’s trying to look like her husband; he’s trying to be a gentleman.”
Logan cackled, bending over. Roc’s fingers tightened on Skye’s arm. “Not a word!” he warned her. “Not a word!”
“I should let him skewer you!” she hissed.
“Then think, milady, of what he will do to you!” Roc warned softly. Icy trails sped along her back. He was right. Whatever her anger, he was right.
“And don’t he look pretty, minus the whiskers!” Logan said at last. “Didn’t work, though, eh, Captain? Not from what I heard. The lady ain’t too pleasured to be with you!”
“She’s pleasured enough.”
“Then come on,” Logan said, his eyes riveted on the both of them suspiciously. “We go to Teach, and we sign our agreements. Don’t you go against me, not a hair, Hawk. I’ll shoot her down where she stands if you betray me, and that will be a fact.”
“I won’t betray you, not on this.”
“Then walk!” Logan commanded.
Roc turned, seeing the direction that Logan indicated. Skye pulled back.
“Where’s my father?” she demanded of Logan. “Is he alive? Have you harmed him?”
“He’s alive, and his dignity is ruffled, and perhaps he has a bruise or two. That’s it, milady. Now, if you will please? There’s a feast going on behind those dunes, and we’ll be a part of it this night. Move, Hawk.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Skye insisted.
“What?” the Hawk demanded.
“Bring me my father. I’m going to sit right here until you prove to me that he’s alive.”
Logan looked to Roc. “Get her moving, Hawk. Or we’ll end it here and now.”
“If you kill my father,” Skye cried, “then I will not care.”
“Move her!” Logan ordered.
Roc dipped low, striking her in the midriff with his shoulder and tossing her over. “Stop it!” she railed, beating against his back. “Stop it, put me down, don’t you see that he’ll kill you anyway! We have to—”
“We have to shut up!” Roc roared to her. He spun around, searching out Logan. “Lead the way, damn you, will you, please!”
Logan, cackling, stepped forward. He started out walking and Roc followed. Skye continued to protest, rising against him, until he slammed down hard on her rump portion. The action did not hurt her so much, but it reminded her that she was very poorly clad, and that her position was very precarious.
Life had become precarious.
But she didn’t trust Logan, and she was certain that Roc had gone mad. He didn’t intend to hand her over to Logan, but he did intend to hand her over to Teach, to Blackbeard, while he went off to get killed by Logan himself. It was insanity.
She fell silent as they walked along the dunes. It seemed that they walked forever and ever. The water, though, was always at their side. Pirates needed water, she thought. The land was death; the water was their salvation, their escape.
What was Roc planning…?
“Hear the music?” Logan asked suddenly. He spoke to Roc, who grunted. Skye strained to hear, and the sounds of a fiddle came surely her way. The music grew louder and louder as they walked.
Then she pushed against Roc’s shoulder and saw that they had come to a small shanty village. Sparse, crooked buildings made carelessly of thatch and logs lay about a beach where dozens of longboats had been drawn.
Dozens of spits had been set up on the beach. Joints of beef and pork turned and roasted upon the spits, along with numerous fowl and venison. Huge kegs lay about; kegs of ale, Skye thought.
There was a platform in the center of the shantytown. Edward Teach, Blackbeard, with his chinful of illustrious whiskers, sat there as if he sat upon a throne. Before him stood the fiddlers, tapping their toes to the music.
And upon the platform, a woman danced.
She was black-haired, with a lithe slim figure, a startling grace, and a full, firm bosom that rose high against her cotton blouse. She was barefoot and laughing, and she danced like a young doe, like a healthy young animal. The men watched her and cheered.
She was not the only woman there. Others sprawled about with men, leaning against kegs, falling beneath the platform, sitting on the porches of the shanties.
Logan stood behind Roc and smiled at Skye as she lay high against her husband’s shoulders.
“The ball, milady, the pirates’ grand ball! Welcome. We do not often dare to come so brazenly together on the mainland, but then certain figures of power in North Carolina have been known to turn deaf ears to the sounds of our musicians! Isn’t it grand? Not many silks, not many satins, and the petticoats are limited, but we do enjoy ourselves! Welcome!”
There was something about his eyes so hideous that she shivered.
Roc spun around to face Logan. “Remember,” Logan warned him. “You play anything other than straight with Blackbeard, and I will shoot and kill this girl who means so little to you!”
“I’ll play it fair. Go.”
“You go. I’ll follow behind with my pistol cocked and aimed for the lady’s back. And don’t forget. A good number of the men you see about will be off of my ship.”
“I’ll remember,” Roc said. He started to walk. Skye clung to him. Drunken men pointed their way. Some laughed. Some called out. “It’s the Hawk! It’s the Hawk, and ’e’s brought a lady here, can you imagine.” Chortles rose up, ringing upon the air. “Damme, but the man would dare anything, anything at all.”
“My pistol’s aimed at her back, remember!” Logan said.
Roc kept walking. As they neared the platform, Blackbeard’s attention was drawn to them, and he leaped to his feet. “What? Ho, there, it’s the Hawk, is it not? Aye, and with the lass I was ever so charmed to meet as of late!” His big, bellowing voice rose over the music and over the sounds of the dance. Blackbeard pulled his pipe from his mouth and reached for Roc’s hand. “Welcome! We’d thought you’d avoid this place, since you don’t much care for the Carolinas, sir! Do you see my Carlotta? My latest ‘wife’—she dances for me now. Sit and watch, enjoy. Now there’s some warm blood for you, me boy!”
Logan stepped around Roc. “We’ve come for you to be mediator. The Hawk is my prisoner. He’s to take me to a treasure, if you see the girl home. We’ve agreed it, sworn upon it.”
Roc set Skye down upon her feet. Blackbeard gave her a captivating smile. “Lady Kinsdale—no, Cameron, I’ve heard. Anyway, my lady, you’re most welcome here! A flower among us dregs of humanity, and I do mean it!”
“Teach, will you swear to me to see her home?” Roc demanded.
“With my blood. You carry out your bargain, and I’ll see her home. I’ve no wish to hurt a woman, sir, of that you are well aware.”
“But he comes with me!” Logan cried. “I want it agreed in blood!”
“Raise your arm!” Blackbeard commanded to Roc.
Roc lifted his arm. Blackbeard took his knife and Skye could not help but cry out as the pirate slashed her husband’s arm. A trail of blood oozed out. Roc did not protest; he didn’t say a word. Blackbeard slashed his own arm and placed it next to Roc’s. “Sealed in blood. You owe Logan, and by my honor, I owe you. Now tell me, Hawk, how did you let this scurvy piece of dog meat get the best of you?”
“There’s no excuse, Teach. He just did.”
Blackbeard swirled around to Skye. “Come, sit with me, we’ll drink together.
“I’ve no wish to drink with you or any of your kind!” Skye spat out.
“A feisty one, yes, I do say!” Blackbeard laughed. He leaned low against her. “Girl, I’m all the hope you’ve got here, do you understand?” He raised his voice then. “Hawk! You come, too.”
“He’s my prisoner, bound by blood—” Logan began.
“Yes, but this is my party, my pirate’s ball, and I’ll not have you leaving with my guests, not tonight. Hawk, you play out your devil’s bargain in the morning, and God and Satan be with you both! For now, come with the girl, and watch my beloved dance!”
He pulled the two of them along to join him on his platform. Skye was dragged down beside him on the one side and Roc on the other. The fury of the music increased to a tempestuous tempo. The girl danced ever more swiftly.
A mug was pressed into Skye’s hands. She looked into the drunken eyes of a middle-aged, buxom woman with her bodice torn in two. The woman smiled and started to laugh. “Dearie, dearie, a lady! We’ve a lady among us! Let us take her, Blackbeard, and she’ll not be a lady much longer, I’ll warrant.”
The woman reached for Skye, tearing at her bodice, Skye screamed, trying to draw away. Her chair fell over. Her head cracked against the platform, and she was dazed.
“No!” There was another sound of thunder as a second chair fell back. Roc was on his feet. He came to stand before her, his booted feet planted hard, his hands upon his hips. “She’s mine; she’s mine this night, and she’s Blackbeard’s promise of safe conduct when this night is over. No one touches her. No one but me. She’s mine, and ’tis my night, and I’ll have her in peace from the lot of you scurvies and whores!”
He bent down and lifted her from the floor. “No!” she whispered in desperation.
He barely glanced her way but turned to Blackbeard. “This is your party, Captain Teach! I’m your guest this night, and would request quarters, sir, if I may!”
The pirate Blackbeard laughed and nodded. “Aye, Captain Hawk! If it’s a dead man you’re to be, you should have this night! Every man gets a last request before the gallows!”
“Wait!” Logan protested. “I did not say—”
“Tomorrow, Logan, you may take the Hawk. Your prisoner, sir! Tonight, he gets his last request!”
Blackbeard indicated a building fifty yards from the platform on the beach. Roc leaped down from the platform with her in his arms and began striding toward the waterfront shanty. Pirates and their doxies applauded and laughed.
“She’s a tough one, Captain!”
“Aye, there, lad, feisty but fun!” Roc agreed. Skye hit him, slapping him just as hard as he had slapped her against the cheek. She was just barely aware of the guffaws rising from the pirates sprawled about them with their half-clad drunken whores.
“Take her, Captain!”
Roc, staring at her with fire in his eyes, quickly replied, “I intend to, lad, I intend to!” He lowered her down. Skye screamed, shocked and alarmed as she fell hard upon the sand. He bounded down upon her, seizing her hair in a rough grip, holding her still to his pleasure as he ravaged her lips with his mouth, all the while raking his hands over her breasts.
Laughter arose, whistles and catcalls. He leaped up, jerking her back to her feet, then forcefully into his arms. “I intend to this very minute, lads!” he cried.
“No…!” she gasped. Her lips were swollen and bruised and she had never seen such reckless disregard in him before. She gritted her teeth and beat against him in a sudden, desperate fear.
“No!”
“Shut up! Damn you, shut up!”
His eyes lit upon hers, silver and hard. “Open your mouth again and I swear you shall learn something of brute force this very night!”
Skye opened her mouth. She shivered uncontrollably but fell silent to the warning in his eyes.
And Roc dashed up the steps to the shanty and kicked open the door. She was alone again with him, with the pirate, with the lord. With her lover, with her husband.
Alone…
With the very devil himself…