A Pirate's Possession (5 page)

And he swore silently because at one time he'd considered Claire to be his. Knowing she'd given herself to another rather than wait for him still had the power to cut him if he let it. He shifted his eyes to his hands.

The crew was on deck, awaiting Nate's orders. There was a moment of surprise when they looked from each other to Nate. Since it was the first time he'd brought a stranger on board, he'd expected their surprise. Luckily he knew he could depend on their loyalty. And with Claire's hat covering her features and the men's clothes she wore, his crew didn't suspect she was a woman. For now, he had one less worry, though he didn't doubt her gender would be discovered easily with the morning's light. Hopefully by then he'd have figured out what in blazes he was going to do about her.

“Hoist the anchor, drop the canvas. And douse the lights,” he said of the lamps that flickered along the gunwale. “I suspect we're going to be followed, let's not give them a target.”

His men nodded, then dispersed to their duties. Though he could see Claire gaping at him in surprise, he ignored her and turned to Vincent. “Take the helm, I won't be long.”

“What are you going to do?” He nodded toward Claire.

Nate sighed. “Hell if I know.”

Vincent grinned, and before Nate could do more than shake his head at him, he'd moved to the quarter deck, where he pushed a crate up to the wheel before standing on it.

Nate turned to Claire. With some of the lights not yet extinguished, the fury on her face was unmistakable. Her eyes were narrowed and cold, her mouth was pursed. Her hands were tight fists at her sides.

“This is your ship?” she gasped.

“Come with me,” he said and moved past her.

She grabbed his arm. “Wait a minute! Is this yours?” She gestured with her other arm; her gaze never left his.

“If you want me to answer, you'll have to follow me.”

He pulled her hand off his arm and walked around the boom to the base of the quarter deck, where he opened the hatch. Claire glared at him but soon followed his instructions.

“Close the hatch,” he instructed as he made his way through the small darkened cabin to the table, where he lit a cluster of fat candles.

As the flames flickered to life, the silver plate beneath them shone. Though the light illuminated the cabin, there wasn't much to see. A large bed dominated a corner, shelves for his maps had been built into the back wall behind the table. Behind the ladder were a few trunks for his belongings. Five chairs were tucked around the table but he ignored them for now, as he did with the mess on it. He shoved aside his breakfast dishes, his ink and quill and the papers he kept anchored down with a metal trinket given by his best friend's wife. He faced Claire. In the small of the cabin her anger pulsed like a beating heart.

“This is yours? Your ship, your cabin? Seems you've done well for yourself. You'll forgive me if I don't congratulate you on your success,” she sneered.

He couldn't help looking her over from head to toe. A wide hat covered in layers of grime, a face that was thinner than he remembered, dirty, mended clothes that hung on her slender body and leather boots that were worn white where her toes pressed against the sides. Though he couldn't help wondering what had happened to her, and feeling some concern for her, he wasn't ashamed of what he had either. It would take more than her scathing glare to change that.

“Give me your bag, Claire.”

Her eyes went round as moons. “Why?”

“I want to see what's in it. I'm not foolish enough to let you onto my ship armed. Not after you've already threatened my life.”

“What makes you think I'm armed?”

“Let's just say I've done enough gambling for one day. Give me your bag, Claire.”

“You really want to see my underclothes?”

Hell, he was a man, wasn't he?

“Just hand me the bag,” he sighed.

“If you want to see what's in this bag, you'll have to show me the map.”

She'd threatened to shoot him, was an unwelcome presence on board his ship, and still she had the audacity to try to bargain with him? She'd played him for a fool once, did she really think she could get away with it a second time?

“I didn't bring you here to negotiate,” he growled.

She pulled out a chair and sat in it. “Then you've wasted your time.”

“Claire.” He leaned over her, forcing her head back. He saw himself reflected in the depths of her blue-green eyes. “Do you really think I can't get it from you if I try?”

She glared at him, then snarled. Looping the bag's strap over her head, she shoved it at him. He grasped it, surprised at the weight of it. He opened it and dumped its contents onto his table.

Along with a blunderbuss and a dirk, there was a small bag of ammunition, an undershirt, an extra change of clothes—as dirty as the ones she had on—soap and a hair-brush. He took her weapons and ammunition and stuffed the rest back in her bag. He dropped it onto the table. She grabbed it, placed it onto her lap, and settled her hands protectively over it.

“Happy now?”

“No.” How could he be, he wondered, when seeing her turned him inside out? He hadn't ever expected to see her again and here she was, in his cabin, within arm's reach, and a part of him couldn't help thinking that if she hadn't betrayed him, she'd have been his wife by now.

“This is your own doing,” he said instead. “You wouldn't be here if you hadn't followed me and tried to steal the map.”

“Don't think I don't regret that,” she spewed before stomping her way up the ladder and disappearing on deck.

Nate dropped into a chair, spread his long legs out before him, and sighed deeply. He had questions, lots of them. They bombarded his brain and pulsed at his temples. What had happened to her? Where was her husband? Why hadn't she waited for him the way she'd promised?

After all this time he finally had the map. And through some ironic twist of fate, Claire was with him.

“God,” Nate thought as he threw his head back and closed his eyes, “what in hell am I supposed to do now?”

 

 

Dammit. The lights on the other ship vanished one by one. James looked up, cursed the clouds that obliterated all but a sliver of moonlight. Three men gone, the map was on another ship that knew it was being followed, and there wasn't enough moonlight to keep it within sight for much longer. The best James could do was douse his own lamps and follow their current direction, hoping it would be good enough. A part of him knew it wouldn't be.

The smartest thing Nate could do was alter his direction. Hell, James expected him to, that wasn't the problem. It was the direction he'd choose that James had no reckoning of. Any way James picked could be the wrong one. And the wrong one would put him behind. Too far behind.

Damn his men for failing.

Sid, who'd followed James onto the deck and had been a shadow ever since, stood next to him at the bow.

“Did you know that Nate fella was workin' with that kid?”

James turned from the horizon. “What kid? What the blazes are you jabbering about?”

Sid smiled, rubbed his right hand. “The kid from the game. The one that looked about ready to cry when he lost.”

Knowing who Sid meant, James shook his head. “The kid ran out of the tavern long before Nate, and I don't see how he'd be any help to a man Nate's size.” James fingered the throbbing cut at this temple. “Besides, I hardly think the man needs any help.”

“Well, he's with him sure enough. Maybe you couldn't see because you was seeing poorly, but there was three of them climbed into that longboat, Nate, a dwarf, and the kid from the game.”

James looked from Sid's self-satisfied smile and once again focused on the darkness beyond his ship. He remembered seeing three people in the longboat, but he also knew he'd only chased two, and the dwarf wasn't one of them. He supposed it could have been the kid, since he really hadn't been paying close attention. He'd followed, sure enough, but he'd been in the back and his vision, as Sid pointed out, hadn't been very good at the time.

But why would the kid be with Nate? To what bloody purpose? James shook his head. A kid and a dwarf. What the hell kind of disparate crew was Nate sailing with?

“Whooee, this is some pickle,” Sid laughed. “They got the map, and you don't know which way they's going, not with those lights out.”

James looked at Sid, knew right then what he had to do.

“You're right,” he acknowledged. “I am in a predicament. And before I get in a worse one ...”

James pulled his pistol, smiled at the terror that claimed Sid's face, and fired.

“Take care of that, will you?” he asked a passing crewman. James tucked his pistol back into his trousers and made his way to the helm.

Four

The cool moist air did nothing to douse her temper. The gall of that man, she fumed as she marched to the bow. With the lights out and the moon mostly hidden behind the clouds, she had to pick her way carefully. A small sloop such as this one didn't have a great deal of open deck space with the men about, tying lines and adjusting sails. Claire maneuvered around them. Because of her clothes and hat, not to mention the darkness, they didn't give her more than a fleeting glance.

Claire braced her forearms on the gunwale and hung her head between them. Nate. How the devil could fate be so cruel as to send Nate back into her life? And to make it worse, he not only had her map but she was confined to his ship. Her head snapped up. When in blazes had he acquired a ship? She'd spent enough time on ships to know by the condition of the deck and the gunwale, not to mention the hull as she'd climbed it, that it wasn't an old ship.

If he could own such a ship, and pay a crew as well—was he a merchant sailor, she wondered?—why did he need her bloody map? The injustice of it raged within Claire until she wanted to hit something. Or rather, someone. Someone very tall.

“I thought you could use this,” came a voice from her side.

Claire turned, saw the dwarf and the cup he extended to her in his little hand.

“It's coffee, but I added a healthy dollop of rum.” He shrugged. “Thought after dealing with Nate, you might need something stronger.”

The dwarf smiled. A shadow of beard darkened his cheeks. His voice was deep as any man's should be, yet with his round cheeks and short stature—his chin was level with her elbow—he looked as adorable as a child. It wasn't something she planned on telling him.

“Thank you. The man's insufferable.”

He laughed. “That's the best you can do? I'd have gone with stubborn, frustrating as hell, or at the very least a pain in the arse.”

Claire couldn't help it, she smiled. “You do know him, don't you?”

He nodded. “I've sailed with him for six years, three spent on this ship and three on our best friend Blake's vessel. I'm Vincent, by the way.”

“Claire,” she said. There was no point hiding her gender to him since she'd made no secret of it back on the street.

“How is it you know Nate?”

She took a tentative sip of her coffee. It was hot but not enough to scald her mouth and it was indeed heavily doused with rum. She took a bigger sip, looked out to sea. There wasn't much to watch. Nevis was behind them and everything else was just a large blanket of onyx. Water lapped the hull and the smell of seawater rode the waves.

She contemplated Vincent's question. She'd never made a habit of discussing her past because, in order to keep to her ruse, she needed to keep to herself. However, he already knew she was a woman and that she shared a past with Nate.

“We were in the same orphanage.”

Vincent's head jerked back. “He was where?”

“You didn't know? I thought you were friends.”

“We are.”

Claire arched a brow. “Yet you didn't know about the orphanage?”

“Nate doesn't talk about himself, and believe me, it's not because I haven't tried to get him to.”

Apparently some things hadn't changed, because she'd tried as well. As they'd become friends, she'd often asked him about his past, where his parents were, did he have any brothers or sisters. He'd always evaded her questions by talking of something else. When their friendship had turned to love, or what she'd believed was love at the time, she'd asked again.

He'd become very serious, told her it was a past he was ashamed of and was trying to forget. She'd loved him enough not to press, but she'd often reflected on the sorrow that had come to his eyes when he'd said that.

“Some things don't change,” she murmured.

“Why, did you try to shoot him when you were younger as well?”

Claire scoffed. “No. But looking back on it, perhaps I should have.”

She lifted her cup, the heat from the liquid warming her chin. The potent smell of rum mixed with that of the coffee beans.

“How long were you at the orphanage together?”

“Three years.”

“And how long has it been since then?”

She looked at Vincent's eager expression. “Do you always ask this many questions?”

He shrugged. “I'm curious. As you've said, Nate doesn't talk much.”

“I don't even know you. What makes you think you'll fare better with me?”

His grin was innocent and very endearing. “Because I'm likable?”

She smiled, and passed him her empty cup. “Good night.” Turning, she almost bumped into Nate.