Page 13 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son (Brides of Chattan #3)

Chapter Twelve

J ust as it had a week and a half ago when the men had converged on their stations and worked as a single organism to turn the ship through the wind, everything happened all at once.

Pirates swarmed around the brigantine, like busy ants intent on their work, adjusting the sails and readying the cannons, preparing themselves for war. The crew of the Woebegone Whale would have easily spied them by now, just as surely as the Revenge had marked her prey.

The trick was to pretend to be a Dutch merchant vessel with no interest whatsoever in Willy Walsh as they sailed calmly past his sloop until they were close enough to hoist the Jolly Roger and demand surrender.

Unlike last time, Bash didn’t ignore Maggie to focus on the horizon, nor did he observe his men with a close and careful watch. This time he only had eyes for her, as a battle seemed to rage within himself, the muscle in his jaw twitching beneath his scar, where the dimple Maggie loved so much ought to be.

“What shall I do?” she asked, desperate to be useful. “Shall I climb the rigging to keep watch? Bash…? Sir?”

“I’m thinking,” he replied, though to Maggie it looked like he was merely glowering into her soul.

“Not the rigging. I forgot,” she corrected. “The gun powder. Langley said when the cannons come out, it’s my job to keep the powder bags full.”

Bash sighed. “It should be. Aye.”

She nodded. The task sounded simple enough. She could be quick, as long as it wasn’t too dark below deck. She certainly wouldn’t be permitted to race around with powder and a candle lantern together. “I can do that,” she said. “Show me to the magazine and I’ll get to work.”

Bash cast an assessing gaze over her whole person making her tingle with anticipation.

“Come with me,” he said, grabbing her hand and leading her swiftly to the hatch, his face the fiercest she’d ever seen.

“Langley said it’s already apportioned in flannel cartridges?” she asked, but Bash neither confirmed nor denied Langley’s words. “How many do you think I can carry at once? One per cannon? Or must I try to carry more? I’m strong. I can do it.”

Still no reply.

Maggie couldn’t make out a thing as he led her on a winding path through the belly of the ship. The magazine was certainly well hidden, but then she supposed it would have to be, to protect it from the blast of a well-placed enemy cannon.

“How many guns on a brigantine?” she asked, hurrying to catch up, unsure how she’d ever find her way out of this labyrinth again, let alone quickly enough to suit the gunners.

“The Revenge has fourteen,” he answered gruffly, “but someone else can worry about all that.”

“What do you mean?” Maggie asked, stopping short, though he kept walking. When he didn’t break his stride or even glance back at her she called, “Stop,” and just as he’d promised in his berth last night, he froze right where he was standing. Oh, to be back in that cozy alcove now, with none of this pirate business to get in the way. “It’s my job to carry the powder, Bash,” a reminder for herself as much as for him.

“Your job is to stay safe,” he growled in a strained voice.

Maggie made her way to him like a salmon upstream as she tripped over the corners of boxes and crates like her first day in the hold. “I’m not a child. I can help.”

“This isn’t a game.”

“I never meant it was.”

“Lead balls. Expandable bar shot. Swords—they pierce through skin like it’s nothing and thirst for blood. You are flesh and bone,” he pleaded.

“So are you.”

“This is my lot,” he muttered, taking her hand once more to continue on.

“Then it’s my lot, too,” she protested. “Did I not choose it when I signed the articles to become part of the crew?”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Then explain it to me. Where are we going if not to the magazine?” she asked, hating how small and needy her voice came out.

He was silent for a moment, filling the chasm between them with the sound of ragged breathing.

“I swore an oath to protect you,” he finally said, his voice the same low tone that betrayed his lust last evening. “So far I’ve done a piss-poor job of it. Christ. I will see you safe.”

Nothing made any sense. How would hiding with the rats keep her safe if the ship sank because she hadn’t been there to pull her weight? “I’m safest by your side,” she said, reaching out towards his voice in the darkness and finding his cheek, her thumb stroking the length of his scar. “Don’t you think there’s even the smallest way I can help?”

He turned his face to kiss her palm.

“I’m taking a party aboard that ship,” he whispered. “You’re safest as far from me as possible. You promised me you wouldn’t fight.”

He had tricked her into that promise, and she wanted to rage at him, but then he gently, lifted her hand away from his face, pressing his lips to the pulse point inside her wrist, before lacing his fingers through hers, and she allowed him to lead her forward once more.

Maggie’s skin burned where his lips had touched her, bringing back the flood of sensation and emotion that had surged through every limb as he tasted her last night. Then he’d seemed eager to be as close as possible, never parted. Now, in the face of imminent danger, he would push her away while he ran headlong into the fray? She may have promised to hide only an hour ago, but the notion was completely untenable now.

“I rescind my promise,” she said.

“That’s not how promises work,” he countered with an eerie, almost detached calm in his voice. “Elsewise they wouldn’t be promises.”

Finally, he stopped walking and released her hand to run his fingers along the bulkhead, fumbling with some sort of latch. Then a door popped open, a priest hole hidden deep within the hold, and he pushed her inside.

Maggie swallowed. “Have I done something wrong?” she asked, unable to hide the quiver. Was he angry that she’d told everyone about seeing the Whale , when he alone hoped to avoid engaging with the vessel? “Is it because?—”

“I need you to trust me,” he said, following her into the too small space and pressing his forehead to hers, and somehow that was all the answer she needed.

Trust? She owed him that much after the way he’d risked his neck to save her. How could she not honor such a request? Trust—he might be the only person in all the world who she trusted with her whole heart. She couldn’t let him go out there to face battle with any doubt on that front .

Raising up on her toes, Maggie crushed her lips against his, and he kissed her right back, hungrily, desperately. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair, trying to get closer, to climb inside him if she could and never let him go.

He ran his hands down her face, her sides, up her back. He caressed her bottom, her belly, her breasts, still frustratingly bound.

Maggie let go of his neck to memorize the shape of his taut arms and the ridges of his chest. Emboldened, she went further, grazing his crotch, rubbing the steel-hard length of him through is breeches, and he hissed.

Catching her right wrist, Bash moved her hand away from his erection, so she reached out with her left, but he caught that one too, pinning them both above her head with one strong hand as he pressed her against the bulkhead.

“May God forgive me,” he seemed to sigh, as he kissed down her throat and then up again to suckle her ear. With her arms still pinned above her head, he dipped his other hand into her breeches, right past her smalls, to cup her so his palm pressed deliciously against her favorite spot, and as she squirmed wantonly, he thrust a finger inside.

Maggie was shocked by how easily he entered her, how deliciously wicked it felt to welcome him in. Keeping pressure against her outside, he began to stroke her on the inside, and tiny little gasps escaped her lips, a pressure already building and begging for release.

Rocking against him—finger, palm, and shaft—Maggie found herself moaning as loudly as she wanted to, a surprising sound that almost seemed to come from someone else’s throat. Then her moans became a high-pitched sort of mewling the likes of which she’d certainly never uttered before, as her cheeks burned and tears trickled down her face.

So deep inside the ship that even the noisy chaos of battle preparations couldn’t reach them, Bash didn’t try to swallow her whimpers, but instead, buried his face in her neck, kissing everywhere as her panting grew more desperate until she shook, body and soul, and he finally released her wrists and held her in his strong arms, keeping her upright despite her legs having turned into jelly.

Slowly Bash eased her to the floor, where she sat like a puddle, and pressed one last kiss to her forehead.

“I will come back for you,” he swore.

“You promised to teach me the rules of Ruff,” she rasped.

He nodded, and as he closed the door, a shadow slipped in and settled, warm and purring, in Maggie’s lap.

“Mrow?” Custard asked, licking her arm with his rough tongue, and Maggie held the cat close and waited.

Leaving Maggie behind was the hardest thing Bash had ever done, and his regret was only tempered by his self-loathing. Had even an hour passed since he swore to Dutch he wouldn’t touch her again before his control had fled like smoke on the wind?

His only intention had been to stow her in his secret hiding place, safe from dangerous orders as well as ruthless men. But then she had kissed him like she knew there was no tomorrow, like she, too, felt the heavy cloud of dread that this would be the last time they’d meet in this life, or certainly the next. He couldn’t leave her down there with any doubt about his feelings—feelings that were almost too big and too powerful to name.

Back on deck, he tried to push her from his thoughts. These next few hours would be fraught, requiring every ounce of his attention. He must be at his best in order to make good on his vow to return for her. By God, he’d do it or die trying, and that meant no lingering lust nor guilt nor regret, there wasn’t space or time.

The Revenge drew within firing range, but the Whale gave no sign of concern. She gave no sign of anything much at all.

Indeed, when Bash peered through his spyglass, he could make out not a single soul on board. The sloop seemed almost adrift, and his nerves jangled like alarm bells sounding a fire.

They raised the Jolly Roger, but no white flag was hoisted in response, nor did the ship attempt to flee.

“Anything?” Dutch asked.

Bash shook his head. “She looks like a ghost.”

“You don’t believe in ghosts.”

“I don’t.”

“But?” Dutch asked, reading his mind or his mood. Maybe both.

“But if I were a certain naval captain, I would think this a mightily clever lure to catch old Mad MacLeod.”

“Now you believe in his persecution fantasy.”

Bash put his spyglass away and turned to Dutch. “I don’t know what I believe. Six years ago, when we made the run up to New Orleans?”

“I remember.”

“The Pursuit came out of nowhere. Like she was waiting for us. Like she knew where we’d be.”

“Could have been waiting for anybody,” Dutch reasoned. “We were just the anybody who happened along.”

“Aye. If it had been the French navy, I might agree with you. But a British ship right there? So far into French territory? Mad’s paranoia didn’t seem so mad to me after that.”

“And now?” Dutch asked.

“Outside New Orleans, I stood at the railing and looked through my glass, and I’ll swear to my last breath I saw the bastard Constantin staring back at me. He lifted his cap like he was saying hello. Maybe he’s as mad as the captain. Maybe he just enjoys the chase.” Bash’s words voiced a line of thought which had haunted him for half a dozen years, finally given form as he spoke them out loud.

But Dutch didn’t look at him like he was crazy. “You think it’s a trap.”

“It would be a brilliant strategy, would it not? Especially if Walsh took the pardon as we always believed. And these rumors floating around like sardines? Send him out on his own. Reel us in. Hell, maybe Constantin started the rumor about Walsh finding Mad’s gold in the first place.”

“You put a great deal of faith in the navy man,” Dutch said, taking Bash’s spyglass to have a look of his own.

“Maybe. Could be I’m as mad as old Neil, but I’d believe it’s a trick before I believe there’s a single coin on board that sloop. And you know as well as I do what’ll happen when there’s not,” he mumbled.

“You’re a fortune teller now?” Dutch quipped, and Bash looked at him hard until his old friend tilted his head in acquiescence. “Would it be the worst thing for the crew to decide there’s no bounty to be had?”

Now Bash shrugged. “Suppose it depends.”

“Why have we not fired?” the captain bellowed striding up the deck. “What are you waiting for?”

Bash and Dutch exchanged a glance.

“What?” Mad asked when he drew even with them.

“Have a look,” Dutch said, tossing him the spyglass.

Mad swept his gaze across the abandoned deck, then collapsed the scope. “Excellent,” he said, slapping it against Bash’s chest. “Take a party aboard and check it out.”

“Aren’t you even the slightest bit concerned it may be a trap?” Bash countered.

Mad shrugged. “You’re trained for battle. Don’t get caught with your breeks down. It’s only a trap if you let yourself be trapped.” He grinned the charming grin that probably won over his ladies in each and every port. Bash was immune. He hated everything about the man, including his smug smirk.

“Can I ask?” he pressed the captain, feeling reckless. “What’s the end game? If we find no gold?” His challenge was clear. They both knew there was no gold.

The grin stayed in place, but Mad’s eyes hardened. “Best hope you find something,” he said dangerously.

That was a threat too. Come back with something of value or don’t bother coming back at all.

Bash eyed Dutch once more. “Ready the pirogue,” he called, moving aft with the quartermaster on his heels. “I’ll not take us close enough to tether. Duffy, Samson, Langley, with me.”

His vanguard was comprised of the three youngest aboard, but they were loyal to Bash, and together with Dutch, they were the men he trusted most in all the world. As they fell into step behind him, though, Bash couldn’t help feeling like one was missing. Maggie was hidden away in the hold where he’d left her, God willing, out of harm’s reach. Her absence was like a hole in his armor, he realized too late, but he couldn’t worry about that right now. She was safe.

They collected cutlasses and daggers and settled into the pirogue to row silently over to the Whale .

“Why’s she so quiet?” Langley whispered, but no one had an answer for the lad.

Bash braced himself for cannons or pistol fire as he pulled the oars, but none came, which only made him grind his teeth harder. He tried to lose himself in the rhythm of exercise, but his scalp tingled with anticipation, and all too soon he was putting out a hand to still the rowboat from banging against the Whale ’s hull.

Duffy threw a grapple expertly over the side of the sloop, and they shimmied silently up and over, but the deck was as empty as it had looked from afar. No pirates hid behind barrels or up in the rigging. There was no one, only a few pigeons cooing in their cages to greet them .

Bash had never heard of pirates carrying pigeons. He shivered in the noonday sun.

“Those to eat?” Samson whispered, and Bash put a finger to his lips, demanding silence, cutting off further discussion of the paltry amount of meat on a pigeon.

The sloop was in pitiful condition. Sails hung slack and torn, the lines hopelessly fouled. Bash glanced back and Dutch nodded his agreement. Something wasn’t right. A ghost ship indeed.

They continued to scour the deck for secret hidey-holes, and then had no choice but to descend into the damp, slippery bowels of the ship, flipping their eye patches up as they went.

Her ghostly emptiness gave Bash the sense of retreating deep into the belly of an actual whale. It was far more unnerving than an armed resistance would have been, with iron exploding overhead and swords flashing out of every corner.

The galley was filthy, the larder nearly empty except for a few sacks of moldering oats.

“Sure as beans they all died of something catching,” Langley whispered.

“If there were sickness, we’d be stepping over bodies,” Duffy replied. “This here’s some kind of Flying Dutchman shite.”

“Stay vigilant, lads,” Bash reminded them so they wouldn’t let their guard down. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“We’ll see,” Duffy murmured.

The cargo hold, like the larder, was also empty but for two bone-dry rum barrels and some more rancid grain. Samson looked at Bash askance, and he shrugged at the young man.

“Wouldn’t keep a hoard right out in the open, would you?” he muttered. Samson just shrugged back at him. This was new for everyone.

The crew area was likewise deserted, with dirty hammocks still strung as though waiting for their earthly occupants to return. Chill after prickly chill ran down Bash’s sweaty spine like warning shots .

They cleared the entire deck, searching for any sign of secret compartments or dusty old chests shoved innocuously into cobweb-covered corners, but there was nothing and no one. Even the rats had fled.

“Captain’s quarters?” Bash suggested and Dutch nodded.

With his guts roiling, Bash led his little party back the way they’d come, Dutch pulling up the rear. He was proud of how stealthily the lads prowled through the dark, barely allowing a single creak in the unfamiliar passageway. Hopefully they’d reach the captain’s quarters and find old white-haired Willy passed out drunk where they could truss him up and deliver him to Mad. Even better if he were sat atop a pot of gold like an Irish fucking leprechaun.

Silently, they turned down another passageway and Bash’s nerves went on the highest alert. Someone or something else was here with them, hiding in its own familiar darkness.

He froze, and Langley tripped into the back of him with a grunt. Then a blinding flash flew out of the shadows accompanied by a shout and a searing pain the likes of which Bash had never fathomed. He fell back onto Langley, who stumbled into someone else.

The party became a tangle of limbs and shouted curses.

Sweat pouring down his face, Bash extracted himself from the jumble and got to his feet. Then the flash of a blunderbuss temporarily lit the passage, blinding him just as he caught a glimpse of wild, white hair careening away.

Then nothing.