Desire in the Sun (33 page)

What would happen when Nell realized that she was really, truly rejected was anybody’s guess. All Lilah
knew was what would happen if Joss surrendered to temptation!

Remembering how, back at Boxwood, she had wished to fall in love, Lilah marveled at just how naive she had been. Being in love was not wonderful at all. Being in love was frustrating, maddening, painful.

“Sail ho!” The cry came from the lookout in the crow’s nest high above.

The warning shattered the heat-induced lethargy of the afternoon. Every soul on the
Magdalene
dropped what he or she was doing to stare out over the vast blue expanse of ocean. A sense of excitement as tangible as a flame licked across the deck.

“Where away?” Logan called back.

“Astern to starboard!”

Footsteps echoed across the deck with a noise like a well-pounded kettledrum as the crew raced aft to see for themselves. Joss shielded his eyes with his hand as he strained to make out the sail against the glare of the afternoon sun. Logan lifted a spyglass. Lilah, keenly interested, had to content herself with staring through the rails of the quarterdeck while maintaining her mindless squat.

Excited babbling broke out along the astern rail as the men, with Nell and her sister in their midst, craned to see.

“What is she?” Lowering the spyglass, Logan cupped his hands around his mouth to bellow up to the lookout.

“A galleon, sir! Heavy laden, by the looks of her!”

Logan clapped the spyglass to his eye again. “Aye, she’s riding low in the water.” Then he lowered the spyglass, collapsed it, turned. He moved to the rail of the quarterdeck to stand looking down at his crew, his hands clenched so tightly around the smooth-polished mahogany that his knuckles were white.

“Have you stomach for a fight, lads? From the looks of her, she’s holding wealth for all of us!”

“Aye!” shouted several voices at once.

“Good lads!” Logan took a deep breath. Then, “Stand by to come about!”

As that order was obeyed and the rudder went hard over, he shouted, “All hands take battle stations!”

The crew scrambled for their positions. Lilah watched with fascination as the grumbling, bumbling but—she’d thought—essentially harmless seamen changed before her eyes into an efficient, streamlined crew of cutthroats. For the first time since she had clapped eyes on them, they looked like her notion of bloodthirsty pirates. The implications made her go suddenly cold with fear.

Foxy, the apelike quartermaster, called off the names of the men, giving each a turn to go below and pick out small arms and other weapons. Speare, the helmsman, held the rudder steady, keeping the
Magdalene
headed straight for her prey. The lookout shinned down from the crow’s nest, and joined the others in the push to go below for weapons. Chanting arose from many lips at once, low at first and then increasing in sureness and volume as the
Magdalene
plowed through the waves.

Yo, ho! Heave ho! ‘tis a pirate’s life for me!

A hold filled with gold and dead men gone cold, Doubloons glittering bright beneath skulls black with mold!

Yo, ho! Heave ho! ‘tis a pirate’s life for me!

It took Lilah a while to get the sense of the words, and when she did she felt cold sweat break out along her spine. The pirates would kill for treasure, or be killed. Logan, his hazel eyes shining, paced the quarterdeck, muttering the pirate ditty under his breath. Watching him, Lilah no longer had any trouble seeing him as a merciless killer. The man was transformed by the chase, excited to the brink of insanity by the prospect of a battle. Beside him, packing away the sextant and the papers
he used for calculations, Joss looked composed, but Lilah knew he must be as unsettled as she. In the heat of the battle, anything could happen. What was the likelihood that they would come through this unscathed and unexposed? Even if Captain Logan’s crew won, many would die on both ships, possibly herself or Joss. And if they lost. … That possibility was nearly as bad. Pirates taken were customarily hanged by the neck.

As hard as she had ever prayed for anything, Lilah prayed the other ship would be fast enough to escape.

“We’re short a gunner. Can you lay a cannon, San Pietro?”

“I have, in my time.”

“Sugar-lips was a gunner. You can take his place by the aft cannon.” Logan’s eyes swept down to rest for a moment on Lilah. “You’d best stow your nephew below with the women. He’ll be distracting you and getting in the way. And ‘twill be safer for him.”

Joss nodded once, curtly. Then, catching Lilah by the arm and indicating with a rough gesture that she was to follow him, he descended the ladder to the main deck.

The pirates swarmed all around them, turned younger, hardier, fiercer in the course of only minutes. Their eyes shone at the prospect of claiming a rich prize. An eager smile that looked more like a grimace parted more than one pair of lips. The chanting was quieter now, more a background hum as the men got ready to do battle. Lilah and Joss, pushing their way against the stream, were ignored.

“Will you really fight with them?” Lilah whispered, mindful of possible listening ears but unable to hold back the question as Joss flattened them both against the side of the forecastle to make way for a large cannon being rolled along the deck.

“I don’t appear to have much choice. If they think we’re against them, this lot will cut us down without a
second thought. With pirates, it’s either fight or die, and I don’t intend to die if I can help it. Or let you die.”

The cannon was trundled into position, lashed into place at the bow. Joss resumed pulling Lilah toward the hatchway, “Whatever happens, stay below. I’ll come for you when it’s over.”

“No!”

“What?”

“You heard me. I said no!”

That this conversation was conducted in hissed whispers in no way detracted from its heat. Lilah’s defiance stopped Joss in his tracks. Anger glittered in his eyes, darkening them to the deep green of a pine.

“I’m staying with you whether you like it or not. And if you argue with me, somebody’s going to figure out that I’m not your addled nephew!”

“Maybe not my nephew, but definitely addled,” Joss snapped, casting a wary glance around. “All right, have it your own way then. At least I’ll be able to keep an eye on you. Alone, God knows what stupid stunt you’d pull.”

This last was muttered under his breath as he dragged her along the deck after him. Lilah, having won the victory she sought, was back in her role of Remy again, limping and looking vacant as she was hauled in Joss’s wake.

“Handsome, wait!”

Nell hailed Joss as they passed the hatchway. Joss turned in response, and Nell threw herself against him. Joss automatically let go of Lilah’s arm to catch the hussy, and before Lilah’s widening eyes, Joss’s head was pulled down and he was being thoroughly kissed,

“Take care, love,” Nell said urgently, releasing him at last, Lilah, eyes forcibly lowered as she fought to hold to the persona of Remy, glared at the deck until Nell went back into the hatchway. Joss resumed his march toward the stern, and Lilah limped along behind, heart
pounding with anger. When they reached the stem cannon, Silas was there, having just finished loading the big gun.

“She’s all yours, mate,” he said with a wink, and crawled away along the deck to check the next cannon. Lilah saw that the others on deck were crouching now, sheltering behind the raised bulwarks. She remembered what Joss had told her when they’d first come aboard: The bulwarks were designed to keep the enemy from seeing any activity on deck until the
Magdalene
was upon them. For all those aboard the other ship knew, the
Magdalene
was as innocent as they were themselves. The pirates meant to make their task easier by taking their prey by surprise.

For the moment, though, fury had driven fear from Lilah’s mind. The only thing that interested her was Joss’s reaction to Nell’s kiss. As he hunkered down on one side of the cannon and she squatted on the other, she fixed him with a hot stare. He met her eyes, and scowled.

“What would you have had me do, push her away?” he demanded in a testy undertone, correctly interpreting that accusing look. Stevens and Burl came crawling along the deck just then to take their places an of the stern cannon, so Lilah had to bite back her reply.

Silas brought cutlasses for Lilah and Joss from the ship’s store. Joss had the pistol that had once belonged to McAfee, and he checked the powder to make sure it was dry. Lilah was apparently deemed too dim-witted to be trusted with a pistol, and she was given only a cutlass. Its cold handle seemed to burn her palm. The coming fight suddenly seemed all too horribly real.

The galleon, all things being equal, was faster than the brigantine, but on this day all things were not equal. The galleon was heavily loaded, while the brigantine, having been barren of prizes since the careen, was nearly empty. The wind blew dead astern for the brigantine,
while the galleon, holding to a northeasterly course, was quartering. The galleon, having no reason to suspect anything amiss, was making no attempt to outrun her pursuer. Lilah, peeking occasionally over the bulwark like the others, felt her nerves tighten to a screaming pitch as she realized that it was just a matter of time until the
Magdalene
overtook her quarry.

“They think we’re just coming up to exchange news,” Joss said. “From their quarterdeck, they should only be able to see Logan on the quarterdeck, Speare at the helm, and Manuel over there by the forecastle. They’ve obviously no notion yet that we’re a threat.”

“This’ll be first blood for yer nephew, eh, San Pietro?” Silas asked. Without waiting for an answer, he lifted his head to peer cautiously over the bulwark. What he saw made him duck.

“Holy William, we’re almost upon her,” he cackled, and stroked the sharp end of his cutlass almost greedily. “Not more’n a quarter-hour, I’d wager.”

Lilah’s heart hammered as she exchanged glances with Joss, but surrounded as they were, there could be no further conversation between them.

“The
Beautiful Bettina
out of Kingston, Jamaica. What ship?” The hail came from the galleon, carrying faint but clear across the water.

Tune seemed suspended as the galleon waited for her answer. On the quarterdeck Logan dropped his hand in a slicing motion.

“Drop canvas or be blown out of the water!” came his roar, and in punctuation one of the
Magdalene’s
cannons boomed, sending up a white plume of water as the ball exploded off the
Beautiful Bettina’s
bow.

XXXIX

W
ith all need for concealment past, the crew jumped to their feet, cheering and brandishing their weapons. Someone sent the
Magdalene’s
crudely drawn black flag skittering up the pole. As it unfurled, flapping wildly in the breeze, the crew cheered again, blood-lust in the cry.

There was another boom, and a white spume hurtled skyward just beyond the
Bettina’s
bowsprit as a second shot was fired across her prow.

Standing now with the rest, Lilah could see the tiny figures on the galleon’s deck scramble for weapons. The
Magdalene’s
strategy had been masterly, her surprise complete.

“Poor souls,” she whispered, the horror of what was happening making her forget that she wasn’t supposed to speak. Behind her, Silas cocked an ear and gave her a sharp look, but Lilah was too preoccupied to notice.

“Stem cannon!”

At the command, Joss motioned to Lilah to raise the wood panel that hid the mouth of the gun until needed. Lilah did so, fingers stiff with fright, then stood by the sand bucket as Joss lit a match. Cupping his hand around it, he applied it to the wick. Powder sputtered as the wick caught, burned. Lilah winced, clapped hands to her ears.

The cannon exploded with a roar and an enormous backkick that would have sent it skittering across the deck if it had not been lashed into place. Smoke spewed, and through it the ball arched up. Lilah watched, fascinated, horrified as it spun on its arcing trajectory. She breathed a sigh of relief as it fell just short of its goal, kicking up another harmless geyser of water scant feet from the
Bettina
‘s side.

“Come about!” Logan ordered.

The helmsman did as directed, and the
Magdalene
turned sideways in the water, slid right alongside her prey. The galleon was taller, but not more than six feet or so. Wood screamed as the ships scraped. Logan’s crew cheered as they rushed the side. Fired from close range, another cannonball hit, bringing down the
Bettina’s
mizzen to a chorus of hoarse screams. Grapnel hooks, gleaming silver in the bright sunlight, were hurled upwards, hooked over the galleon’s rail. From the deck of the
Magdalene
rose another earsplitting cry as the pirates prepared to swarm their prey en masse.

“Boarders away!”

Logan led the charge, and was eagerly followed. With the prospect of blood and loot to draw them, the pirates leaped up the nets that had been connected to the grapnel, easily scaling the distance to the galleon’s rail. Half the crew seemed to go over at once; they were met with little resistance.