Page 8 of A Pirate’s Pleasure (Cameron Family #2)

“You bit me! You stomped on me, and then you bit me! Apologize!”

“I can’t!”

He was about to pull her skirt up for more intimate contact with her flesh. Crimson, Skye squirmed her way from him so that she fell to the floor at his knees. She stared up at him, dazed. “Please, stop!”

“Apologize!”

“All right! I’m sorry that I bit you!”

She lowered her head, despising herself for having apologized to a pirate. He stood up, and she saw his boots as he walked by her.

“I’m sorry I bit you!” she cried out, adding softly, “I wish that I could have boiled you in oil.”

He was back beside her, lifting her chin. The silver in his eyes danced and the devil’s smile was back upon his lips, so sensual that she trembled with warmth even as she swore that she hated him.

“I cannot wait to return,” he told her very softly. “We can explore all of these secret yearnings of yours.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but he had already turned away and was gathering his papers again. He swung back to her, his eyes narrowed. “Behave, Skye. I am warning you.” His long strides brought him to the door. He swung about and stared at her hard one more moment, and then he turned to leave. She never heard the doors close with such a shattering force before.

Despite his warning, or forgetting it, Skye leaped up and raced to the window seat at the port side of the ship which faced the island. She hesitated there, wondering why he was so determined that she not open the drapes, then she set her hand upon the material, just to peek out. She shivered slightly. They were close to the shore, and she could see a great deal very clearly. All manner of persons lined the docks! Fishermen hawked their catches while a curious array of men and women walked the streets. Two scantily clad women looked down from a shanty balcony to beckon laughingly to a tall lad below. Barrels lined the steps before the thatch-roofed dwelling. Arm in arm, a man and woman lumbered along, then fell, drunk, upon each other in the street. Dandies strutted about in brocades and velvets. They wore knee breeches and silver-buckled shoes and silken hose and scarves and magnificent plumed hats. And yet some of these very dandies walked with near-naked seamen. They wore eye patches, and many a man had a stump for a leg.

She gasped suddenly, realizing that the finery was most probably ill-gotten gain. These were not gentlemen that she observed, but pirates, and probably the very worst of the lot. The Silver Hawk had come here to do business.

Just as the thought passed her mind, she drew back quickly, letting the drapery fall.

A longboat was moving out, away from the ship. The Silver Hawk was within it along with a dozen or so of his men. She had no desire to be caught by the man. She did not know quite what he would do to her, but she did not care to discover what it might be. Not after everything that had just passed between them. He would do anything, she thought. Dare anything…

He would come back. To her. No matter what she did. And she did not know how long she could bear the emotions and sensations that he brought raging within her.

She inhaled deeply, thinking of the island.

The lure of the place fascinated her. She waited impatiently, biting her lip, until she was sure that the longboat had reached the docks. Then she looked out again.

A second longboat had left the pirate ship. There were a good forty or so of the Hawk’s men going to shore. She didn’t think that he sailed with a crew of more than fifty or so. Few men would have been left aboard.

The Silver Hawk must have believed that no man would molest his property in the pirate haven.

Skye drew the drapery once again. The sun was setting, and the shantytown did not appear so tawdry or so dangerous. Someone was lighting flares to line the docks and the distant beach.

The longboats had reached shore. Someone came up to the Silver Hawk, offering him a silver horn to drink from. There was suddenly a burst of revelry upon the shore and men crowded around him.

She let the drapery slide back into place. A slow, burning heat had set fire deep inside of her, and she longed to leave the Hawk’s cabin. Leave this atmosphere dominated by his presence. Her cheeks flamed as she remembered his words that he might decide to keep her. Then he had told her that no woman was worth much in silver or gold.

Perhaps all pirates felt that way. Somewhere here she could strike a deal. She could promise a sailor a huge quantity of money for her safe passage to Williamsburg.

But she couldn’t even leave the cabin! she reminded herself. She was locked in. But she wasn’t alone. Someone was with her. She knew it. Robert Arrowsmith? She hoped fervently that it was that young man left behind to guard her.

She was being absurdly reckless! she warned herself. She was waltzing into danger. The island was not populated by gentlemen. It was inhabited by cutthroats and rakes. They might not offer her help, but only the gravest danger!

But what danger could be greater than this she already faced? Lying with a man who threatened her with much more than the sins of the flesh as night after night passed by. Oh, indeed, he threatened her very belief in herself, he threatened her dignity and her pride, and assuredly, her very soul.

She leaped to her feet and paused a bare second. Then she hurried to the door and knocked strenuously upon it.

She would see him hang! she swore to herself. Indeed, she would see the Silver Hawk dance from a rope, so help her God!

The pub was called the Golden Hind in honor of a man that many of their brotherhood deemed to be the greatest pirate of them all, Sir Francis Drake. It sat far back from the market; to the left lay the sands of the beach and to the right were the docks where a man could purchase almost anything he desired. A ship could be repaired here, knives could be honed, weapons acquired. Flesh could be bought as easily as a fillet of fish, and even a murder could be negotiated if a man so desired. But there was honor among thieves, for the men here had their own twisted code of ethics, and upon the island, a pirate’s property—stolen though it might be—was sacred.

Usually. But private wars did arise.

And this night, since his adventures with One-Eyed Jack, Silver Hawk knew he might be called upon to defend himself. He had, however, made his intent to take the Silver Messenger clear, and so he was the man with the right to the spoils. Jack was the offender, and a man was expected to slay an offender.

Tonight the Golden Hind was in raucous full swing. Fiddlers played upon a dais, rum flowed freely, and it seemed that the best names in the business were all in attendance. An up-and-coming man who was rumored to hail from Bristol—Edward Teach, who was known more notoriously as Blackbeard—held court at a far rear table. A man nearing forty, or so the Hawk determined, he was known for being ruthless, though not so deadly as the late Captain Kidd. Anne Bonny, her youth fast fading, sat nearby with her own grouping of louts. Whores freely strode about, pocketing the loot tossed about by the drunken pirates.

William Logan, a lean, mean bastard with blackened front teeth and a steel claw for a right hand, sat at a table with a few of his henchmen. A dark-haired whore perched upon the arm of his chair, but Logan gave her little attention. He stared broodingly at the Hawk.

“There’s one to give us trouble,” Robert Arrowsmith murmured as he entered at the Hawk’s side.

The Hawk shrugged and took his place at a center table along with his men. He frowned, noticing that a man hastily entered the establishment and came up to William Logan, stopping by his side and speaking hastily. It disturbed the Hawk, though he wasn’t sure why. Some sixth sense of danger sounded an alarm, but he held his ground.

What was going on? The question would have to wait.

Captain Stoker, sometimes called the “governor” of the island, sat before him and his men. He was an older man, bearded and graying, but he was built like an old Saxon warrior, and had a body to reckon with in a fight. He was grave as he spoke to the Hawk.

“There’s some as don’t like the idea o’ Jack bein’ dead, and you know that rightly. We’re not out to murder our own number, Hawk, and that’s a fact, it is.”

The Hawk leaned across the table, skewering a piece of roasted lamb from a trencher in the center. His eyes met those of Captain Stoker. “Jack was well aware that the Silver Messenger was mine. I laid claim to her back here in March, the very day we learned that she had set sail from England!”

“Jack spoke of it first—”

“Jack mentioned the ship, sir. He was interested in the Spaniard, La Madonna , out of Cartagena, at that time!”

“Still—”

The Hawk slammed his knife, meat and all, into the table, and stood. “Listen to me well, me hearties!” he called, his voice ringing out. The music ceased. In seconds, the room came silent. Every man and woman looked at him, some with trepidation, and some, the Hawk knew, like Blackbeard, with interest. Some would respect his stand, and some would whisper behind his back. “One-Eyed Jack is dead, that is a fact, and that he died by my sword I do not deny! But I did not seek his death, he desired the fight, for he disturbed what he knew to be my intention, my prize. He died in combat with me, and me alone. He died by the very rules we all know here within our hearts. If any man here—or woman”—he interrupted himself, bowing to Anne Bonny—“cares to dissent with my words, I am ready to listen. Face me now, for whisperers will know my wrath!”

A fist slammed against the table. William Logan stood. The Hawk faced Logan. They had grappled once before, in this very room. Logan had wanted an English ship, and the Hawk had seized it first. They had dueled here with cutlasses.

And Logan had lost a hand before Captain Stoker had stepped in to end it all.

Logan wanted blood now.

“The ways that I sees it,” Logan said, “Jack was already aboard the Silver Messenger . He had claimed the ship for his own. He had done battle, and he had taken the prize.”

The Hawk planted a boot atop a bench and leaned forward casually. “He knew the prize was mine. The ship was not secured when I came aboard. Jack could have given way, and sailed clean and free. He chose to fight. And he died.”

“So you’re saying, Captain Hawk, that one of our brotherhood has the right to another prize?”

“It was my prize.”

“His prize—that you seized from him.”

“The overfine logic is yours, sir.”

“What’s logic?” a drunken whore whispered, and hiccuped.

Logan bowed low to the Hawk. “Logic, sir! As you will have it!” He turned, and with his men in tow, he exited the establishment.

No one else moved for quite some time. Then a young pirate, an Englishman, rose and spoke quietly. They said that his name was Richard Crennan, but whether that was true or false, no one knew. Men left their homes to seek their fortunes, dreaming of riches. Most of them thought to return to their homes one day, and so they seldom used true names, or gave out true facts regarding the towns from which they had hailed.

The Hawk liked young Crennan. He was a gentleman pirate, so they said, and hailed from a good family somewhere. Like the Hawk, he made money on his hostages, and disdained murder.

“I say that this matter is well and done!” Crennan called out. He raised a pewter mug. “We all know the Silver Hawk. He laid claim to the Silver Messenger out of England, I know well, for I was here, in this very room, when he did so. He did not betray our articles of brotherhood! He fought a fair fight. I say, gents, that that is that!”

“Here, here!” came a voice. It was Blackbeard, the Hawk saw. The man was a bloody cutthroat, but a strong ally nonetheless.

Hawk turned to Anne Bonny. “Madame, I crave your opinion?”

She smiled. Once, he thought, she had been a young thing. With dreams similar to those dreams that haunted other young maidens. He did not know what had drawn her here.

“I saw, Captain, that you have presented yourself well. The matter is done, and the facts established.”

“I thank you, Mistress Bonny!”

He sat again. The proprietor made an appearance again, bringing wine and bread and more lamb to the table. “Hiding out lest there be trouble, eh, Ferguson?” the Hawk inquired, amused.

“Captain Hawk, I tell you, the roof is thatch, since you fine sirs do continually see fit to duel and set fires. My tables are ramshackle, easily replaced. My hide, though tough, is not so easy to replace, and so, good sir, yes! I disappear at the slightest hint of trouble.”

The Hawk laughed and poured more wine for Captain Stoker. “Ease up, Cap’n! The matter is settled now, and peacefully at that.”

“Logan will not let it lie. Already, he seeks to carve your heart from your body, you know!”

The Hawk waved a hand in the air. The musicians began to play again. A harlot shrieked with glee as a seaman poured a trickle of wine into the valley of her breasts. Laughter rose, and the night was made merry once again.

The Hawk picked up a pewter goblet of wine. “He will simply never have a piece of me, Captain, you needn’t fear.”

“I fear this warfare among us, for it will bring destruction down upon us.”

Robert Arrowsmith glanced quickly at the Hawk. “How?” the Hawk asked with an easy smile. “Why, I hear tell that the governor of North Carolina is in league with a certain one of us! A man to be bribed, so they say. We, in this our Golden Age, shall reign forever.”

Stoker shook his great head broodingly. He shrugged. “In the Carolina waters, perhaps, we find a certain safety. But in Virginia that damned Lieutenant Governor Spotswood seeks us out like bloodhounds!”

“So they say.”

Stoker smiled, finding some amusement in the matter. “He will have to intrude upon Carolina to destroy us, though, eh?”

He started to laugh. The Hawk glanced at Robert, and then he started to laugh, too. He patted Stoker strongly upon the back. “Aye, Captain, he’ll have to do just such a thing!” He sobered. “Now, to business, sir. I need canvas, needles, coffee, and fresh meat. And rum. Can you see to it all?”

Captain Stoker raised a hand, calling to one of his clerks. A little man hurried to them with an inkpot, quill, and paper, and sat down to take the orders.

For the moment, peace and laughter reigned.

It was not Robert who had been left aboard the ship to guard her. When she slammed upon the door, it was soon opened, but it was opened by a huge, burly Frenchman.

“Mademoiselle!” he cried, looking at her warily. He was like Samson out of the Bible, she decided. He had a head of dark curls and warm brown eyes. His size was intimidating; his eyes were not.

“Monsieur! Forgive me! I feel so ill of a sudden. I must have some air!”

“Ah, but my lady! Sacrebleu! The captain would have my head. You are to remain here.”

“Ooooh!” she started to moan, doubling over. “I feel so very ill, I must have air.…”

“ D’accord! I will take you out. Come, lean on me!”

She offered him a sweet, pathetic smile and leaned heavily against him. He led her out to the deck. She inhaled deeply, gasping, bringing in air. This was easy. Much, much easier than she had imagined.

He brought her to the railing. She leaned over, clinging to him, gulping for air. She also looked around herself. The ship was almost empty. She looked up. There was a man in the crow’s nest. She looked across the water. There were still men upon the dock. Someone was pointing their way. She felt a shiver seize her. Night was coming on quickly. Darkness was falling. Perhaps this plan of hers was not so well advised.

She looked down. The ladder was still in place from the deck to the water, and a longboat waited there, tied in place should it be needed. The temptation was too great to be resisted.

“Mademoiselle! Speak to me, are you better?”

The Frenchman’s attention was entirely for her, and he was desperately worried. She felt a twinge of guilt, but ignored it. She sank down upon one of the barrels near the rail. “Oh, monsieur, I am much better, truly!” she said. He was by her side. She offered him a flashing smile, for it was then or never.

She reached down and drew his cutlass quickly from the scabbard that laced around his waist. Before he could move, she had brought the point to his very chin.

“Monsieur, forgive me, but I will be free this night!” she told him.

“Mademoiselle!” he said, and he tried to move. She pressed the point against him, drawing blood, and he went still. “Now, come, sir!” she said softly. “We will take the longboat to shore. If you cross me, I will skewer you through. I will do so unhappily, for you appear to be too kind a man for this life you have chosen, but I swear that I will gladly slice you open, nonetheless.”

He said nothing. She pressed her point still further.

“Am I understood?”

“ Mais oui , mademoiselle—” the Frenchman began, but he broke off as the sound of an explosion suddenly burst through the night.

Skye leaped to her feet, backing away from the Frenchman. There was a huge thud and she screamed as she saw that the sailor in the crow’s nest had fallen to the deck, his shirt crimson with the spill of his blood.

“ Mon Dieu— ” the Frenchman said, ignoring her and spinning around to see from where death had sprung.

A man was halfway over the railing. He tossed a still-smoking pistol to the deck and drew forth a second flintlock weapon, aiming it their way.

He was a hideous soul, Skye thought, her heart hammering. He was dark and surly; a scar marred his right cheek. He wore a hat pulled low over his forehead, but it did not hide his eyes. They were pale and cold. He smiled, and his mouth seemed a black cavern, and his teeth looked awful and fetid. The leer gave him such a bearing of cruelty that she trembled.

Then she saw his left hand, or the very lack thereof. A deadly-looking hook protruded from his coat sleeve.

He aimed his pistol straight at the Frenchman. Without a sound or a word of warning, he fired.

Skye screamed with horror as the Frenchman went down in a pool of blood. She stared at the fallen man, frozen.

The hook-armed pirate crawled aboard. She had the Frenchman’s cutlass. She needed to lunge quickly and fight. She needed to make the attack. It was her only hope. She raised her sword.

The hook-handed pirate looked past her, allowing his smile to deepen. “My pet, but you are sweeter than gold!” he said softly, and then he nodded.

Skye swung around, but too late. She barely saw the man who had come up behind her. There was a blur, and then nothing more. She was struck upon the head, and the world faded as she fell. The last thing she saw was the blood seeping over the deck. Then it all went black.

She heard the sound of waves lapping nearby. She became aware that she was rolling backward and forward herself, and that oars were striking against water. She opened her eyes. Darkness still surrounded her and she realized that she was wrapped in a suffocating, rough wool blanket. She struggled to free herself from its confines. The blanket fell away and she faced the pirate with the hook again. He aimed his sword with deadly accuracy against her throat and she sat still, watching him. “So the Silver Hawk sought the Silver Messenger, ” he mused. “I do wonder if you were the prize he sought all along. He was careless to let you be seen, my love. Very careless. Had Brice here not seen you peeking through the window, I’d never have thought to find you. And then, my dear, you came straight to the deck, making the whole thing so very easy for me. I do thank you.” Behind her, his accomplice continued to stroke the water with his oars. She said nothing, and he idly picked up a golden curl with the point of his sword. “My dear, I am so very pleased to have found you! Not only shall I have my opportunity to slay the Hawk now, but I shall enjoy you as I’m sure you can’t even begin to imagine.”

“Over my dead body!” she whispered vehemently.

He leaned toward her. “Yes, my dear, that is quite possible, too.”

Skye quickly changed her tactics. “I’m worth a fortune. If you keep me safe and return me—”

“I’m so sorry, my dear. This is vengeance, not finance. Brice! Row more quickly. I would not have the Hawk leave the Golden Hind before I can show him that I hold his prize.”

He was deadly, Skye realized with a sinking heart. He was cold, as if no blood flowed through his veins.

And he was revolting; from his fetid breath to his icy eyes, he made her skin crawl. She had sought to flee one knave only to stumble into the arms of a monster. Her teeth chattered.

She wanted to die.

She leaped to her feet suddenly, praying that the boat would tip. She could swim, but she would rather drown than go any further with the horrid monster who sat before her.

“Grab her, Brice!” he roared, leaping to his feet. The longboat teetered precariously. It careened over.

She pitched downward into the warm, aquamarine sea. They were almost to the dock. If she could just swim…

But she could gather no speed, for her skirts were dragging her down.

A hand grabbed her hair, tugging painfully. She screamed, and drew in water. Coughing and sputtering, she fought only to breathe. She was being dragged along through the water. Light wavered before her eyes. She was wrenched upon a wooden dock, surrounded by voices and kissed by the balmy warmth of the night. She closed her eyes and opened them.

And stared into the evil glare of the hook-handed pirate.

She spat at him, struggling to rise. He swore, and tossed a new blanket over her face. She was being smothered again, but she could still fight with her limbs, kicking and scratching.

But she was dragged up and cast over his shoulder and held there forcibly.

“Don’t fret, my dear. You will see blood run soon enough,” he promised her.

They drank, they laughed, they ate. The whores flirted, and they laughed at their antics. A buxom blonde promised Hawk the finest night of his life, and he told her that her words were a challenge indeed, but all the while he was thinking of another woman. One who was young and fresh and radiant and possessed the most glorious eyes.

And somehow she was able to touch him in a way he had never imagined. Touch him with her innocence, and yet evoke the most pagan and sensual thoughts that had ever come to plague him, to burn him. The whore whispered something, and he laughed. Then his laughter faded as the front doors to the establishment were suddenly cast wide open again.

He leaped to his feet. The whore fell to the floor, ignored. His hand lay upon his sword hilt where it rested within its scabbard upon his hip.

Logan had returned.

And he wasn’t alone. He swaggered into the building, a blanket-draped, struggling figure held over his shoulder, his pistol raised in his free hand.

“Hawk!” he called. “You say it’s just to seize one another’s prizes? Well, sir, I have seized one from you, and in honor of our late brother, One-Eyed Jack, I demand of the brotherhood that this prize shall be mine in your stead!”

And with that, he cast his struggling bundle upon the floor, wrenching the blanket away.

To the Hawk’s eternal horror, the Lady Skye Kinsdale appeared, scrambling frantically to her feet, pausing only when she saw the assemblage of rogues before her. Her hair was a tousled sunburst, damp and curling to her face and shoulders. Her gown was ragged, drenched, and torn, and her beautiful eyes were wide and brilliant with horror. She stood before them like a shimmering star in the horizon. Disheveled, she was still the lady, tall and straight, her pride radiating from her in the beautiful colors of life that separated her from the riffraff that filled the room. Her very beauty separated her from it all.

She was, indeed, a prize.

God in heaven, how in hell had she come to be there? the Hawk wondered in fury. He had to save her, he determined.

Just so that he could throttle her himself!

She spun to flee suddenly. Logan pushed her forward. Laughter broke out. A seaman rose to stop her when she lunged anew. And then another man rose, and another, and she was nearly encircled.

It was time for him to step into it. She lunged anew, and he left his table. The next time she lunged, she fell to the floor at his feet. She was quick. She braced her palms against the floor to rise, then paused, seeing his boots.

She looked up. Her eyes met his. She inhaled and gasped. He did not know if she trembled to see him, or if the dazzling liquid in her eyes was meant as a plea to save her. His heart leaped and careened to his stomach. They were in deadly danger now.

She had betrayed him somehow. Despite his threats, his words of warning, she had betrayed him.

He smiled icily. “Well, milady, do not say that you were not warned!” he whispered furiously. But there was no more that he could do then.

Logan had drawn his cutlass, and was stepping toward him.