Heather Graham - [Camerons Saga - North American Woman 02] (42 page)

He was quickly topside with her, then Robert, then Jacko.

“Take Lady Cameron to quarters,” the Hawk said.

“Wait!” Skye cried. Did he think to take her into his cabin again? She had to make him understand that he could not.

“I cannot wait!” he cried impatiently. “I’m captain here, madame, and I sail at your request, hounded my the militia on your behalf. Robert, take her!”

He turned away, heading toward the helm. Robert seized hold of her arm, and she knew that no matter how the man cared for her, he would obey the Hawk.

“Milady, come, please.”

He tugged upon her arm, gently, then more insistently. “Now, milady.”

“Damn. Damn him!” she cried out, hoping that her fury would reach the Hawk. But he had already dismissed her. He stood atop the platform and shouted out his orders. The anchor was drawn; men were rushing to the rigging to hoist sails.

Robert led her along to the Hawk’s own cabin. She bit her lip. He opened the door and thrust her inside.

The fire burned in the stove. Lamps were lit. Warmth and light surrounded her.

The cabin had not changed. Not a bit, since she had been within it last.

“I cannot stay here!” she cried to Robert.

But he ignored her and pulled the door closed behind her. She heard him slide the bolt outside, and she knew that there was no fighting the circumstances.

She fell down upon the bunk, exhausted. It had to be nearly dawn, and there wasn’t a thing in the world that she could do at the moment.

She dropped her sword, doffed her cloak, and stretched out upon the bed. Her mind raced and her heart ached and fits of trembling seized her again and again.

At last she stood up and went straight to the Hawk’s liquor supply. She downed a good portion of rum, recorked the bottle,
and staggered back to the bunk. She fell down upon it again.

And that time, she slept.

In the morning she awoke alone.

She had feared the Hawk throughout the night, but he had not come near her. As she rose, she realized miserably that she did not fear his force, but her own response.

Robert came, quiet and subdued, bringing her breakfast and water with which to wash. He watched her intently. “It was not your fault,” he told her. “The Hawk’s not pleased at all that you’re with us, but don’t be alarmed by him, it was not your fault.”

“Thank you, Robert.”

He smiled to her encouragingly. “Robert, if a pardon comes through, is there any possibility that you will forswear your ways and sign loyalty to the king?”

She thought that his smile deepened, but he quickly lowered his lashes and she could not see his eyes any longer. “I will do whatever the captain does, madame.”

“Is your loyalty so fierce, then?”

“It is.” He hesitated. “He nevers betrays a trust, milady. He has said that he will lay down his life for you—he will do so then. I will lay down my life for him. That is how we all feel, all of us sailing with him. And that is why he is feared and respected.” He paused, as if he longed to go on. Then he shrugged. “The door is open, milady, you are welcome topside.”

“Wait, Robert!” she pleaded. He stopped, and it was her turn to pause as a crimson flush climbed over her face. “Robert, where did he sleep last night?”

Robert’s gaze swept over her, and he smiled secretively. “In the officers’ quarters, milady. Is there any other way in which I may serve you now?”

In the officers’ quarters …

He had given her his cabin in privacy. Was he waiting to collect his payment, the honorable rogue to the very end? The thought made her shiver, and then she remembered her husband left lying upon the floor, and she wondered where Lord
Cameron had spent the night. A fierce surge of trembling rose within her and she had to sit down upon the bunk. Roc … could he forgive all of this? Would he disown her, or beat her? Or both. Such behavior would lie well within his rights for all that she had done.

And gave promise to do in the future.

She didn’t know who she hated the most then, Lord Cameron or the Hawk. She didn’t know who she feared more.

And she still didn’t know who she loved more.

“All you all right, milady?” Robert asked anxiously.

“I’m—I’m fine, Robert. Thank you.”

“There’s nothing I can do?”

She shook her head slowly. When he was gone, she picked at the food that he had brought her, then she quickly washed, brushed her hair, and came topside.

The sails were mostly drawn in, and they traveled slowly and very close to shore. Dangerously close, Skye thought. She could see land to the starboard side. She looked to the carved platform and to the helm and saw that the Hawk was there, navigating his own ship that day.

Skye smiled to the men she passed upon the deck, and they smiled in turn or tipped their hats. Once, she had been in terror of these men, she thought. Now they were her allies.

Her friends.

She couldn’t dwell upon such curious twists of fate. She hurried by them and up the platform.

The Hawk was in a black open-necked shirt and black breeches and his dark head was bared to the day. He nodded to her gravely when she came his way.

“Did you sleep well, milady?”

She nodded. “Did you?”

“Alas, I whiled away the night in dreams.”

“I thank you for that, Captain Hawk,” she said softly. He glanced to her, then looked up toward the crow’s nest.

“Jacko!”

“Aye, Captain?”

“Is she clear?”

“As clear as fine crystal, Captain!”

“Robert! Mr. Arrowsmith!”

“Aye, Captain!” Robert was quickly with him, bounding up the steps of the platform from the far deck.

“Take the wheel, sir, if you please.”

“As you please, Captain!” Robert agreed.

The Hawk stepped away, offering Skye his arm. She hesitated, then took it, glancing wryly toward Robert. “I wonder if His Majesty’s ships of the Royal Navy work so smoothly,” she murmured.

“I wonder,” the Hawk agreed pleasantly. He led her starboard side, where the sea breeze touched her face and lifted her hair. “I’ve a few lady’s things aboard,” he told her. “We had not anticipated your arrival, and so little was prepared. What I have will be sent to you by afternoon.” He leaned against the rail, watching her intently. “I know your penchant for bathing, milady, and would not deny you the pleasure.”

She flushed slightly and turned to stare out at the coastline. “I want nothing of your ill-gotten gain, Captain,” she told him.

“Who says that what I offer is ill-gotten gain?”

She glanced at him sharply, and then her color deepened. “I want nothing belonging to your whores, either, Captain, thank you.”

He smiled, staring out on the water silently, not touching her. “Milady, I promise you, what I send belongs to no whore.”

“Then—”

“Certain of my men are married, milady. Though their wives’ finery might not be to your standards, still, certain …” He paused, his eyes meeting hers with a devilish light. “Certain intimate apparel will be clean and neat and surely acceptable.”

Even his silver eyes seemed to touch and stroke her, she thought. She should be far away from him. Far, far away.

She stared across to the shore. “Tell me, Captain, do you intend to let me wear this clean and neat clothing on my own?”

“Milady?”

“Are you—” Her lips were dry, and she was breathless, and they merely stood together and spoke. If only she could forget
the past. If only the slightest brush of his arm against hers did not evoke memories of tempest.

“Are you going to leave me in peace, Captain? Your cabin, sir, have you given me that as my own?”

He took a long time answering. When she looked to him at last, he was studying her very seriously. “Until it is time to do otherwise.”

“What do you mean?”

“When we’ve found and taken your father, milady. Then I will return. It will be most difficult for you to keep your promise to me if I am bedded elsewhere.”

She did not reply but tore her eyes from his to survey the shore. “With my father on board?” she queried softly.

“You’re worried about your father—and not your husband?”

“My husband is not aboard,” she murmured miserably.

“Ah … so that makes it all right to be an adulteress?”

“Stop it!” she hissed desperately. “Nothing makes it all right!”

“No, it doesn’t, does it?” he murmured. He turned her around by the shoulders. She tried to jerk free from his touch, but he would not allow her to go. She stared up at him, her eyes glazing with tears.

“I need your help!” she insisted bitterly. “I had no choice. My father—”

“Aye, your father,” he muttered darkly. “And still I tell you, milady, that your husband would have gladly fought and died rather than let you pay this price.”

“His blood cannot be payment for my request.”

“Aye, milady, for his blood has become your blood, as surely as yours is his. God alone knows how he will feel this time!”

“What do you mean?” she cried, wrenching away from him at last.

“Well, milady, I assume you must have admitted something.” The sweep of his eyes told her clearly and boldly that he spoke of her lack of innocence when she entered into her marital bed. “What did you say? That it was fear? Loneliness? Desperation, a bid to save your very life! This time … perhaps
you need not tell him that you bartered with what was his, that you offered yourself in payment. You can tell him that I am a pirate, a cutthroat, a ravaging rapist, and that I dragged you down before you had a chance to think.” He reached out for her again so suddenly that she nearly screamed. His fingers threaded cruelly into the hair at her nape, and he dragged her close. “Maybe he’ll be so enraged he’ll beat you to within an inch of your life. I wonder what I would do, milady, if you were my wife, under such circumstances. I’d kill the man, that is for certain.”

She kicked him savagely, taking him by surprise. He howled with outrage as her foot came in wild contact with his shin, then he jerked harder upon her hair, pulling her flush against him. He gritted his teeth. “Pirates, milady. We are allowed to be savages, remember? But I do wonder just how savage your fine aristocrat of a husband might turn out to be when he hears of this latest maneuver on your part! But then, you told me that you loved him, didn’t you?”

“Let me go!” she cried frantically. “He is my concern.” Aye, Roc was her concern, just as the Hawk was her concern. And at the moment, he was the man to fill her heart and her thoughts, for she was so completely his prisoner. From head to toe she was flush with the man, achingly aware of the heat of his muscles, the strength of his hands and arms, the fire in his groin. It occurred to her fleetingly then that she knew him more thoroughly still than she did Petroc Cameron, for this one she had seen boldly in the nude, while her husband had seduced her and been seduced in return while never quite shedding his clothing.

Warmth blazed through her as she struggled to be free.

“Captain!”

“Aye!” He released her instantly, striding the deck to come back upon the platform by the helm. It was Jacko calling to him from atop the crow’s nest.

“I see ships ahead, far right into the inlet.”

“Pirates?”

“Aye, sir! I see Teach’s flag atop the one. They’re drawing it in, I believe.”

“Safe harbor on the islands!” Robert Arrowsmith seemed to growl.

Skye hurried after the Hawk to the platform. “Where are we?” she demanded.

“My glass!” the Hawk demanded. He leaped for the mast and began to shimmy up the length of it. Skye watched his dexterity with perplexity and annoyance, then turned to Robert. “Robert! Where are we? What is going on, here?”

“A party, milady.”

“A party!”

“A pirate fete upon a North Carolina island. A number of men have gathered here. Teach just took some incredible prize and enhanced his reputation a thousand times over. We believe he has a certain immunity here, in this area of North Carolina. So do some of the others.”

Skye gasped. “So Eden of Carolina has been bribed by the pirates!”

“So goes the rumor.”

“But why have we come …?” she began, but even at the last, her voice trailed away. “Logan! The Hawk thinks that Logan has come here with my father!”

“Precisely, Lady Cameron.”

Skye fell silent and hurried back to the railing, looking starboard side. She realized that the Hawk was calling down orders to Robert Arrowsmith, and that Robert was then calling out commands to the crew. The sails were drawn in tighter and the ship began to shift. Skye thought that the Hawk meant to sail straight into the land, and she nearly turned to scream that they were insane. But just when she would have done so, she saw the narrow channel leading inland. It was a fair space ahead of the other pirate ships.

They were going to hide, she thought. Hide, until the Hawk could get a fair layout on the land—and its inhabitants.

She was right in her assumptions.

Turning about again, she saw that the order had been given to bring down the longboats.

Then a moment later, in the midst of all the activity, the Hawk was striding back toward her. He was fully armed now,
she saw, with his cutlass in his scabbard, a knife in a sheath at his boot, and a brace of pistols shoved into his waistband.

“Go back to the cabin,” he told her curtly. “Stay out of sight.”

He started to turn away. “Wait!” she cried to him, catching hold of his arm. “Please, don’t leave me here—”

“Damn you, stay out of sight!” he told her, his eyes narrowing. “You little witch! Don’t you remember the last time, girl? If you hadn’t been so determined to escape, Logan might well never have known that you existed!”

And he might not have kidnapped her father. The words went unsaid. Skye stepped back as if she had been stung, but she did not cease her argument, for it was the same as his.

“Please, don’t leave me here! It is because—” she hesitated, then continued, “it is because of my very foolish determination at that time that I beg you to bring me along.”

He hesitated, and she knew that he recalled how Logan had come to the ship when it had been weak and unguarded.