Christine Dorsey - [Sea 01] (2 page)

Jack acknowledged his head gunner, King Tabrue, with a nod. King, his sweat-slicked muscles bunched beneath ebony-black skin, turned back to tightening the cannon tackle.

Jack raised his arm, then hesitated. He could feel Phin beside him, watching him, his body tense. A coil of doubt in his own gut tightened Jack’s jaw. What was he, a pirate with a conscience? Jack almost laughed at the irony.

The ship might be British, but if there was a chance that she carried Don Diego de Segovia, a chance Jack might find him at last...

Unbidden came the echo of screams. His mother’s... his father’s... Elspeth’s... his own. Jack swallowed and shut his eyes, trying to force away the time-faded images. When he opened them again his green stare was piercing.

The decision to attack was simple—as simple as it had been when he was a lad of fourteen years.

Jack’s arm sliced down through the tension-filled air as his order thundered across the sand-strewn deck.

“Fire!”

“So Newton is saying the centrifugal effect causes an equatorial bulge on all heavenly bodies.” Miranda Chadwick chewed on the end of her quill a moment, then glanced up from the
Volume of Principia
spread before her on the rough-hewn table. Don Luis de Mancera sat perched on the edge of a sea chest in the cramped cabin. The expression on his deeply lined face made her smile. It was so similar to Grandfather’s.

Not that the Spaniard looked anything like the man who had reared Miranda. Grandfather had been tall and spare, with thin gray hair that stuck out at odd angles and clothes that neither fit well nor fluttered with bows and lace.

Don Luis stood under five feet and seemed nearly as wide. His long curled wig framed a face folded with flesh, and he dressed more like a court dandy than the earnest scientist he was. When seen together they had made an odd-looking pair, Don Luis and her grandfather. But despite outward appearances and different nationalities, they’d been the best of friends—colleagues of the mind.

“Excellent, Miranda!” Don Luis clapped sausage-like fingers together, sending the rows of ruffles that hid most of his hands flapping. “Your understanding of Newton’s theory is superb. Your grandfather would be very proud.”

Tears sprang to Miranda’s eyes, and she quickly bent back over the book, skimming her finger down the heavy parchment to find her place. Her grandfather had been dead six months now, and reason dictated she should stop mourning. After all, he’d explained everything to her in the most modern of terms.

She understood that the body was simply made up of muscles and bones and blood that changed color as it picked up air from the lungs. She knew from reading Halley’s “Mortality Tables” that the death rate was related to age. And Grandfather had been in his eighty-third year when he succumbed to a disease of the lungs.

“Everything can be explained scientifically.” Grandfather had repeated that line often. And over the years, as Miranda first tagged along with him to his laboratory near London, and later helped him with his experiments, she came to accept it as the underlying truth of the world.

But it didn’t seem to help her grief.

Miranda sighed and, trying to ignore the smells of bilge water and tar that permeated the below decks, squinted at the page. By the oscillating light of the swaying lantern overhead, she translated the next line of Newton’s book from Latin to Spanish. For all his mathematical genius, Don Luis’s knowledge of languages was limited to his own.

“Do you suppose Newton thought of —”

A thunderous explosion widened Miranda’s dark eyes and stifled her question. The cabin and everything in it tilted precariously, and she grabbed for the book before it slid to the deck. “What was that?”

Don Luis lumbered to the door, yanking it open. The passageway was full of noise and confusion as crew members rushed toward the hatch. Slamming shut the door, he leaned heavily against it. His breath came in deep gulps.

“What is it, Don Luis? Are you all right?” Miranda, still clutching Newton’s
Principia
to her breast, fell against the bunk as another blast rocked the ship.

“We’re under attack.” The Spaniard dragged his perfumed handkerchief down his sweaty face.

“Attack! But who would —”

“Pirates!” Don Luis pushed himself away from the door. “I may understand very little English, but that word I do know.”

“Pirates.” Miranda’s voice was little more than a whisper. She knew there were such things, of course. But they seemed so foreign to her orderly life that the possibility of tangling with any had never occurred to her. What did one do with pirates?

“I should never have brought you on this voyage.” Don Luis had regained some of his composure, though his breathing still wheezed from his grim-set mouth.

“It was my decision to come,” Miranda reminded him. She tensed for another deafening roar of cannon, but none came. “Perhaps they’ve gone away.”

Another sudden lurching of the ship made her realize how naive her words were.

“I think they must be boarding us.” Don Luis’s eyes shot to Miranda. “Quickly, you must hide.”

Hide. Of course, that would be a solution. Miranda turned full circle, her heavy skirts whipping around her ankles. “Where?” Don Luis’s cabin was small and filled with crates of equipment and books, but there was no way she could squeeze between them and the bulkhead.

Loud footfalls in the passageway drew their attention. With a flourish Don Luis swished his sword from the scabbard hanging from his ponderous waist. “I swore to your grandfather to defend you to the death,” he announced as the cabin door banged open.

Miranda’s mouth opened, but the scream died on her lips. Shock momentarily overcame her fear. The blood drained from her face, and her nails dug into the
Principia’s
leather cover.

The pirate was huge. He dwarfed the doorway—the whole cabin—as he stood, booted legs braced apart. His breeches were sin black and skin tight. Above them he wore nothing but a leather doublet that revealed a broad expanse of sweat-slick chest and equally bare, muscled arms. His hair was light and wind-tossed and his face hard and fearsome. Miranda had never seen anyone so large and threatening. She didn’t even know people like this existed. The pirate didn’t seem to notice her as his dark scowl focused on Don Luis.

Miranda could tell his size intimidated the Spaniard, too, for Don Luis swallowed compulsively, his jowls quivering before he lifted his sword.

The movement jolted Miranda, and the scream she suppressed before came out as a blood-curdling screech. The sound caught the pirate off guard. He swung his head, seeing Miranda for the first time, and riveted her with such a hard stare her mouth clamped shut.

The pirate glared at Miranda, and she could do naught but glare back for what seemed long minutes. Then movement beside her made Miranda turn. At first she couldn’t believe what was happening. No one in their right mind would start a fight with this pirate—No one except a man who’d vowed to protect her to the death.

Don Luis lunged forward, trying to simulate the lethal movements of his youth. But age and pastries had taken their toll, and his attack was awkward. Though he aimed for the heart, the tip of his sword did no more than graze the pirate’s arm. A slender line of crimson welled on the sun-bronzed skin.

“Ouch! Damnit!” Jack feinted to the side, knocking into the woman. He’d barely gotten over his disappointment that this runt of a Spaniard wasn’t de Segovia when the damn fool decided to split him open. Now all he wanted to do was get out of here. But the little Spaniard was yelling at him, and though he’d tried to forget the Spanish he’d learned while a captive, he recognized a few words like “kill” and “bastard.”

Jack tried to lift his hands but his arm ached like hell, and when he glanced down he saw blood streaming into the blond hairs on his forearm. Jack swore again and jumped back as the old man tried to make good on his threats. This time he eluded the cool bite of steel but struck his head on the bulwark in the process.

God, he detested the Spanish.

Jack resisted the urge to yank the pistol from his belt. Instead he sidestepped the next thrust and, catching the little man overextended, delivered a fight-ending right to the older man’s jaw. The sword clattered to the wooden deck, followed by the mound of ruffle-covered flesh.

With the tip of his boot Jack rattled the old-fashioned basket-hilted sword across the floor. He was reaching down to help the old man to his feet when he heard a barrage of Spanish behind him, and then a sliver of pain shot through his other arm.

“God’s blood!” Jack whirled around on the woman so fast she jerked back. But she still held the sword she’d scooped from the floor. He could tell she was frightened. Her eyes were wide and dark, but she kept the blade pointed at his chest. Unlike her father, or whoever the old man was, she didn’t seem inclined to attack him.

Jack stepped forward.

Miranda inched back. Her muscles were unsteady from holding the heavy sword. She longed to just drop it and run. But the pirate would catch her. And even if he didn’t, she couldn’t leave Don Luis alone with this monster.

The pirate glared down at her, powerful arms folded across his broad chest. Blood seeped from the wounds she and Don Luis had inflicted, but the pirate didn’t seem to notice as he watched her from eyes the color of deepest sea.

Then suddenly he lunged to his right. With a small squeal Miranda tried to follow the movement with the weapon. But before she realized her mistake, he lurched back and dove at her.

The sword sailed.

Miranda screamed.

The pirate grabbed.

Trying to evade his hands, Miranda jerked to the side. But her feet tangled in her skirts, and she tumbled to the deck. Caught off balance, the pirate followed.

Air gushed from Miranda’s lungs as his massive weight crashed onto her. She tried to breathe and couldn’t. Tried to move and couldn’t. She was smashed between the unyielding wood at her back and the equally hard weight above her. And that’s how she would surely die.

Miranda strove to remember that the body was only bones and muscle... that dying could be explained scientifically and thus was nothing to fear. But it didn’t help. She was going to die—die lying pinned beneath a pirate—and she didn’t want to.

Then suddenly the weight above her shifted. Miranda gulped air into her lungs and blinked back tears of relief. She wasn’t going to be crushed to death after all.

But there was still the pirate.

Blowing hanks of ebony hair from her face, Miranda focused on him. He stared down at her. Light twinkled from the gold loop dangling from his left ear. The expression on his face changed from annoyance to amusement while she watched. She liked the annoyance better. How dare he make light of her predicament. If he planned to kill her, then obviously there was nothing she could do. But she wouldn’t tolerate being laughed at.

Anger flashed through her. Normally she had an even temperament—her grandfather always said it was because she noticed very little of what happened around her. But he also said when temper finally came, it exploded with a vengeance.

It came now.

“Get off of me, you monster.”

“I never could understand Spanish,” Jack responded. Actually, he thought he caught the word monster.

The woman confirmed it by repeating herself in a language he had no trouble comprehending.

“Well, well, the little Spanish princess speaks the King’s good English.” Jack couldn’t help grinning.

“Of course I do. Now get up.” Miranda scrunched up her face and summoning all her strength shoved at his chest with the heels of her hands. His skin was warm and smooth.

He didn’t budge.

If anything he settled his body more firmly against hers. Miranda tried to wriggle free, but stopped when she heard his deep chuckle.

“As much as I’d like you to keep that up,” he said in a voice that vibrated through the hands still plastered against his chest, “I don’t think moving like that is any way to be rid of me.”

“Oh.” Miranda breathed the word in frustration. She couldn’t remember ever being so angry and so totally out of control. This pirate couldn’t be explained logically or scientifically, or any other way she knew. And she didn’t like it one bit.

Her eyes were dark blue, not brown.

Jack didn’t know why he even noticed except that when he’d first caught sight of her, he’d thought they were brown. They were so large and dark, and they were staring at him now with such frustrated anger that he couldn’t help being amused. She should be scared. Not that he planned to hurt her, any more than their unceremonious tumble already had. But she didn’t know that.

Jack had a reputation to uphold. Fear made most of his prey surrender without a struggle, and Jack liked it that way. Less bloody. But if ships’ captains had half the spark of this woman, he’d have nothing but fights to the last man. And there’d be a lot more blood. He glanced down at his wounded arms. Like there was now.

“Do you know who I am, my little Spanish princess?” A healthy dose of fear would do the wench good.

“I am... not... a... Spanish... princess.” Miranda tried again to dislodge him, then flopped back to the floor with a grunt. She sucked in her breath. “And I don’t care a farthing who you are.”