Page 22 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son (Brides of Chattan #3)

Chapter Twenty-One

B linding white light surrounded Maggie, awakening her to the throbbing ache behind her eyes. A menagerie of strange birds sang relentlessly joyful songs, which should have made her soar in dips and swirls like her own dear Kes, but her heart was much too heavy to fly.

When she finally wrenched her eyes open, she found herself on a cot as soft as a cloud, in a bright, cheery bungalow with windows drawn open to an ocean breeze and lapping tide. It was the kind of peace that would have been her dream two months ago. Instead, tears dampened her eyes before she could even remember why she was grieving.

Bash.

He’d been arrested by Captain Constantin, would be hanged at the Crown’s convenience. Had it happened already? Was she too late to try and stop it or even say goodbye?

And why wasn’t she with him? Mad had accused her of piracy as she clutched the stolen gold to her chest. But then Bash had stepped forward, taken the blame, sacrificed himself and all he’d overcome—for her .

A door opened, and a women entered, her hair wrapped up in a scarf, her eyes warm but serious, like the picture of Bash’s mother.

Maggie reached for the locket at her throat and found instead a bandage and now the tears streamed down her cheeks and into her ears.

“Dry your eyes,” the woman said. “Best not waste a drop of water left in you. Drink this.”

The woman helped Maggie sit up against lovely plump pillows, and then handed her a cup filled with mild-looking tea, but Maggie’s hand tremored, rattling the china cup against its saucer, so the woman reached out gently and guided it to Maggie’s parched lips.

“Good.” She nodded. “Finish that, and I’ll brew some more. You’ve been terribly fevered. I’ve never seen a body so dried out as you.”

“I’ve been worse,” Maggie whispered. At least this time she could still cry.

“That’s a point of pride, is it?” the woman asked, and Maggie shook her head.

“If you keep the tea down, I’ll bring you some broth later.”

“Thank you.”

“Have a name?”

“Maggie.”

“Ryna,” the woman said. “Don’t you fret, Maggie, I’ll take good care of you until the ship’s ready to sail.”

“Ship?” Maggie asked. Was it a prison ship, then? Would she be indentured in Virginia like Langley’s brother?

“To England,” Ryna explained. “You’re going home.”

More tears burned her eyes, blurring the image of her kind caretaker. “I can’t go back,” she whispered, scrunching her face. Not while Bash’s fate was unknown, not when he might be…

Ryna sat on the side of the bed and took Maggie’s hand sympathetically. “A young woman can always go home,” she said fiercely. “Haven’t you any family?”

Maggie nodded, blinking back tears. “A sister,” she said, “and a cousin.” She couldn’t say why she left her parents out. Would they be as happy to see her as Ellen and Jory? Would relief outweigh their anger? Did she even want their forgiveness?

Squeezing her hand, Ryna nodded. “They’ll be overjoyed to welcome you back.”

And she was right, of course, this stranger. For a moment, Maggie allowed herself to imagine the soft comfort of her sister’s arms, and the ache in her heart cracked wider. What she wouldn’t give to have Ellen beside her right now.

Somewhere in the distance, church bells began to ring, and Maggie realized she didn’t know the date or how much time had passed since the horrible scene in the fragrant, shady Eden. Could those be the bells of St. Andrew’s? Her heart squeezed. She had to know whether the emptiness inside of her was real or imagined.

“Are there a great many pirates around these parts?” she finally asked.

Ryna frowned. “Some. But none will trouble you here.”

“What a relief,” Maggie gasped. “I suppose they’re hanged fairly often?”

“Not so often as they used to be.”

Maggie closed her eyes. “Have there been any today? Hangings?”

There was a pause in Ryna’s voice before she said, “I don’t think so. Why don’t I bring you some more tea?”

Maggie nodded and relaxed against her pillow. At least maybe Bash was safe for now. Had he fought his captors? Slipped quietly away while they were busy with her and Mad?

No. He would never.

Had he gone quietly, then, after trading his life for her own? She had no idea how she might free him, but she’d cling to the hope that he was still alive for her to save .

The next day, Ryna brought her a visitor, the naval captain who had caused so much trouble. For a moment, when his impressive figure graced the doorway in his blue uniform, tricorne hat in his hands, Maggie wondered if she was indeed under arrest for piracy after all but treated gently on account of her sex.

“Captain Constantin,” she rasped, pulling the bedclothes up to cover her borrowed shift.

“Madam,” he said with a curt bow. “I trust you’re improving?”

“Ryna has been most attentive,” she said. “Her teas are quite irresistible.”

A small smile tugged at the captain’s lips. “Yes. She tells me you should be fit to travel in a few more days, when we’re ready to depart.”

“We?” Maggie stuttered. “I’ll be sailing aboard a naval ship?”

“Yes, if you’ve no objection. I should feel more confident in your safety if you allow me to escort you home aboard the Pursuit .”

He was kind, but she wasn’t sure she could stand it. Six weeks or more aboard the vessel responsible for… well… nothing had happened yet. Had it?

“You’re troubled,” he said, reading her face. “I assure you, we’ll be quite unmolested. No pirates would dare?—”

“Of course not. Thank you, Captain.”

He bowed and turned to leave.

“Sir?” Maggie stopped him. “The men I was with?”

“I must apologize for shooting so carelessly close to where you were standing. It was only because I could see you were ill, and because I have remarkably good aim. MacLeod’s shoulder was my target. Ryna assured me you suffered no more than powder burns. Still, I do sincerely beg your pardon.”

“Oh,” Maggie said. She hadn’t remembered it was his weapon and not Mad’s which had rent the silence, sending birds squawking into the air. Putting her hand to her throat she fingered the dressing where he’d cut her. “Then he’s—the captain, that is, he’s?—?”

“Quite dead.”

A sick dread crept into her stomach, and she licked her lips. “I seem to recall you placing us all under arrest,” she said.

Constantin shrugged. “Pirates are hanged, madam. Hostages are not.”

Maggie blinked rapidly, fighting the tears which threatened to overtake her.

“Then might I beseech you, sir, if it’s not too late, to show mercy on the younger man—Bash? Bastian? He is all that is good, truly. He saved my life when I so recklessly stowed away in search of… adventure. He’s kind and gentle though he’s known a life filled with suffering. He was as much a prisoner as I, please. I beg you, and if you cannot,” she went on, giving him no time to answer, because she was too afraid of what the answer might be. “If you cannot show him mercy, then please have mercy on me and allow me to hang alongside him because, you see, I love him. I love him, sir, and I cannot fathom the endless torture of living out the rest of my days without him.”

Through her tears she managed to discern his sympathetic smile. “Pirates are hanged,” he said again. “Hostages are not.”

Then, with another curt bow, he took his leave, and Maggie collapsed into her pillows and wept. She wept until she was flushed with fever, blood pounding in her temples. Ryna quite despaired of ever getting her to stop.

She begged to be taken to the gaol to see him, but she didn’t have the strength, and when at last Ryna coaxed her into sipping some tea, Maggie drifted off into another fitful sleep.

If such a thing were possible, the sun shone brighter and even more cheerfully a week later when Ryna walked Maggie to the port where she would board HMS Pursuit to sail away from Jamaica leaving everything behind.

She had gone out walking the day before, but the gaol was empty except for a drunk sailor sleeping off a rowdy night.

“If you’re here for the hanging, it were last week, miss,” a small boy informed her as she stared up at the gallows.

She’d thrown up then, right there in the street, much to the dismay of the little boy, who wrinkled his nose, stepping back in disgust.

So, she could barely look Constantin in the eye when she was escorted to his quarters.

“Are you well?” he asked with warm concern, directing her to a padded wooden chair.

Maggie nodded. Though her eyes pricked, she didn’t cry. She was all dried out, as Ryna would say.

“I believe this is yours,” Constantin said, sitting down at his desk and pushing an intricately carved chest forward. It was small, about a foot long and half as wide and deep. A fancy brass key protruded from an equally ornate brass lock.

“You’re mistaken.” Maggie shook her head. While lovely, the chest was unlike anything she’d ever seen.

“I’m certain I am not,” Constantin said, turning the key and opening the chest to reveal dozens—perhaps hundreds—of shiny gold coins. Mad MacLeod’s lost treasure.

She looked up at Constantin in confusion.

“The chest is new, I’ll grant you,” he said, with a flourish as though waving away her questions. “But the gold was in your possession when I intervened on your behalf.”

“But…” Hadn’t he been trying to recover this very gold for more than two decades?

“I understand, you must be concerned about the provenance of such wealth, and the belief by some that it was once stolen cargo.”

“Isn’t it?” Maggie breathed .

“No, madam. It cannot be. It’s true the Annabel Grace , of which I was once the guardian, was robbed some twenty-two years ago. However, that gold was written off by the Crown many years hence, and reparations paid to the baron for my failure. As far as the Crown is concerned, it no longer exists. Therefore, this cannot be that gold. So it must be yours. Or else funds left by Bastian’s auntie for his keeping.”

Maggie stared at the chest of gold—more wealth than she’d ever seen in her entire life, but at what cost?

“So much coin,” she whispered. “Could it have been used to buy a man’s life, I wonder?”

“No, madam. Such a thing sounds an awful lot like bribery. You must never repeat it,” he said, eyeing her seriously until she shook her head. “Good.”

He snapped the chest closed, turned the key, and then handed it to her. “For safe keeping. Come. I’ll show you to your quarters. You must be very tired.”

Constantin carried the chest for her and offered Maggie his arm. As he led her through the ship, she tried hard to block out memories of her first days aboard another ship, of the way Bash’s hair curled at the nape of his neck, and the slight swagger in his step. Finally, they reached a cabin with an actual door.

“Small and cramped, I’m afraid. But it has a nice view.”

She nodded her thanks and opened the door to go inside.

A man turned from the window to face her, and her jaw dropped, mirroring his stunned expression.

“Bash,” she breathed, bursting into tears as she flew into his arms, touching his face, his hair, his shoulders, kissing ever part of him she could reach just to convince herself he was real.

She cast a glance back at Constantin who set the chest on a ledge built into the bulkhead and, smiling to himself, quietly shut the door.

Pirates are hanged. Hostages are not.

He’d understood everything after all .

Bash spun Maggie around and they clung to each other, hugging and kissing and crying until Maggie’s knees began to buckle and then he guided her to the tiny bed along one wall and lifted her onto it.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered, clenching his shirt in both fists and refusing to let go until he climbed up beside her.

“I wanted to be,” he murmured into her neck. “Because I thought you must be.”

“But if Mad was shot, then who was hanged?”

“A superficial wound,” Bash explained. “Not enough to prevent the hangman his pound of flesh.”

Maggie began to cry again, in shock as much as relief. Bash kissed her eyelids, murmuring softly, “It’s all right, my love. I’m here.”

They kissed slowly, hungrily. Her fingers shook as she tried to unbutton his shirt, so he took over for her, wrestling out of the garment. Maggie drew a ragged breath, once again marveling at his broad chest, sculpted from years of laboring aboard the Revenge , a chest she had thought never to set eyes on again. He was here. He was whole.

He helped her out of her skirts and stays, and finally his breeches were off, and she rolled onto her back to welcome him, but he continued to take his time, kissing her neck and between her breasts, teasing her nipples into hard little points.

“Please,” she begged, and he grinned that roguish smile and entered her slowly, gently, sliding part way and then studying her with dark, starry eyes before capturing her lips once more and sliding forward to fill her all the way up.

Maggie gasped as lightning seemed to shoot through her and out each finger and each toe.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

“No,” she panted, pressing up to meet him, encouraging him to do the same. “Only I’m afraid if you ever leave, I’ll completely shatter. ”

“Never,” he whispered, his breath hot against her ear as he continued to rock into her like the undulating tide, building, and building, and building until it washed over both of them completely, but instead of drowning it replenished them with the promise of new life and a future ripe with possibility.