Heather Graham - [Camerons Saga - North American Woman 02] (43 page)

“Damn it!” he swore. “Damn it! Aye, come along, then! But you heed my words and warnings at all times, and so help me, if you prove to be trouble, I will lash you to a tree! Robert! Get the lady’s cloak.”

“Robert! And my sword, please!” Skye added.

The Hawk stared at her. He did not refuse her request. “Come, lady,” he said at last, as Robert brought her things. “We’ll take the first boat.”

His touch was far from gentle as he handed her down the ladder to the longboat from the deck. He was not leaving the ship as unguarded as he had in New Providence, but at least twenty-five of his men were accompanying them.

He did not row, but balanced forward, looking ahead. Jacko and Robert and two others were in their boat, rowing steadily. Skye sat tense and silent, watching as they came to land.

When they did, the Hawk asked no by-your-leave, but plucked her up in his arms and thrashed through the water with her in his arms. She smiled suddenly as he carried her, taut and distant, over the sand to the secrecy and shadows of the brush. He glanced down, startled by her gaze.

“Once,” she whispered, “you said that I wasn’t even worth
a fair price in gold. But you are risking your life for one night in my arms. Should I be flattered, Captain Hawk?”

“Perhaps I value my life less than gold. Perhaps that is a pirate’s way.”

“I, sir, do not value your life as less!”

She thought that he would be pleased. He stiffened like cold steel and fell to his knees to dump her angrily upon the sand. His men milled behind them but he spoke in a heated whisper anyway.

“What of your life, lady—and all that is of value to your husband?”

She straightened herself, longing to slap him. He knew her intent, for he quickly caught her wrist, and together they rolled across the sand. Breathlessly she shoved against him.

He paused at last. They had come beneath the shadow of spidery trees, on a bed of pines. He rose over her. He cupped her chin in his hands and bent down to kiss her. She tried to twist away. Her resistance was to no avail. His lips found hers. His tongue ravaged them, demanding that they part to him. He was merciless, savage, demanding. She could scarce breathe. She twisted and kicked.

But she could not move, nor could she deny the wild abandon that snaked traitorously into her veins. He brought her alive with fire, with liquid heat. She could fight no more. She tasted his lips and tongue and the deep recesses of his mouth, tears coming to her eyes. She felt his hands upon her, sweeping along her thigh, cupping her breast.

Then at last he broke away. He started to swear at her furiously, incoherently, but then his words broke away. He gently smoothed the tear from her cheek with his forefinger, then he drew her to her feet.

“You will wait here with Robert, do you understand me? I am looking today, nothing more. I may, perhaps, leave you ashore tonight, and enter into the festivities with you safely out of sight and far, far from harm’s way. Stay with Robert and my men, and take care. Do you understand me?”

She nodded. He turned and, shouting orders, left her. She waited until he was long gone, then she came over and joined Robert, who sat idly by the shore. Others of the men had
stayed behind, too. Five of them. To protect her, Skye thought.

By Robert’s side, she suddenly burst into tears. He set his arm around her like a brother, drawing her close. Miserably, awkwardly, he tried to comfort her. “I’ve tried to tell him. Ah, Skye, I’ve tried, I’m so sorry.…”

“What?” she managed to gasp out. “Tell him what?”

“To leave you be,” he whispered. “You don’t understand. You can’t possibly understand. He … never mind. It will be all right. Trust me, milady, trust me, please.”

She fell silent and stayed by his side.

Later he rose, looking upward with agitation. “What is it?” Skye demanded.

“Clouds. Storm clouds. I don’t like them.”

Skye looked up herself. Even as she did so, it seemed that the day darkened. The breeze picked up.

“We should get back,” Robert said.

“We can’t leave him! We can’t leave the Hawk!” Skye protested.

“We won’t be leaving him. I’ll take you back, and he can come with the others in one of the longboats.”

A sudden, brilliant flash of lightning rent the sky. Thunder followed it like a clash of heavenly swords. “Come on!”

Robert dragged her to her feet. Skye whirled around as the other men rose, hurrying toward them.

The rain began to fall.

“We head to the ship in one boat!” Robert cried. He reached for Skye’s hand. A second bolt of lightning came, and thunder followed, and the very heavens seemed to open up upon them. “Come, Skye!” Robert grabbed her hand, and they started racing down the beach. Then suddenly she stopped, and she slammed hard against him. “Hawk!”

Skye pushed sodden tendrils of hair from her face to stare ahead of herself. He was indeed coming back. Running along before the main group of his men, he reached them. He spoke quickly to Robert. “They’re here all right, a full party of them. Logan, Teach, a fine baker’s dozen of others. We’ll move in tomorrow. For now, let’s hie from here. This storm promises to be fierce!”

He reached behind Robert, finding Skye’s hand and pulling her along. He lifted her and shoved her into one of the longboats. Robert and two men crawled in behind them and shoved them away from the shore.

The Hawk ignored Skye, rowing hard with the others. Lightning flashed, thunder cracked, and she flinched. At the shoreline she could see the waves swelling and the trees and bracken bending low to the strength of the wind. She shivered. In a matter of moments, it seemed, a true tempest had swirled upon them.

“Damn!” Robert swore. “I cannot hold her steady!”

“Pull together!” ordered the Hawk.

Skye turned around. She could see the ship, and it still seemed far ahead of them. The ferocity of the waves seemed to push them ever closer toward the shore.

“Take care of the rocks!” the Hawk cried, but he had barely voiced the words when a terrible rending sound was heard. Skye didn’t know what had happened at first. The sound seemed part of the horror of the storm, like the crack of thunder, like the high scream of the wind. “Signal the others!” the Hawk cried. Skye stared at him and saw the power he set to the oars, trying to hold the small boat steady. She looked to her feet. Water rushed in upon them. They had struck a rock. They were sinking, she realized.

“Fulton has seen us!” Robert cried. “He’s circling back.”

“Dive in, we’ll take less water, and I’ll stay with Skye to the last!” the Hawk shouted. “She cannot make it far in these skirts!”

“I can’t leave you—”

“You’ll drown us if you stay! It will come right, Robert, if we don’t take any more water! Tyler, Havensworth, dive now, and reach Fulton, and bring him around for us!”

Seeing the wisdom of his words, his men quickly obeyed his orders. Skye gasped, her hand coming quickly to her mouth, for it instantly seemed that the wild sea swallowed them over. Grayness prevailed.

Then she saw Robert’s head as he broke out of the waves. Then she saw the two other men, and that they could survive; they were swimming hard toward another boat.

She glanced down to her feet again. The water was rising high. She looked to the Hawk. He was staring at her.

“Ready?” he asked.

She lifted her chin with a smile of bravado. “I am afraid of the dark, not the water!” she told him. A slow smile curved into his features. He reached out to her.

“Come then, my love!”

She took his hand. The rescue boat was almost next to them, but Skye realized that they had to jump and swim—else risk the damaged boat crashing with the one that would save them. With her fingers entwined with the Hawk’s, she dove over the side.

She was instantly dragged down. The water was cold, heavy, and dark. Her lungs hurt and she tried to kick her way back to the surface. She was so very heavy.

There was a jerk upon her hand. The Hawk was dragging her up. Her face broke the surface. Still, she could scarce breathe. The rain beat against her savagely, the wind screamed and tore at her, stealing away what breath she could gasp in.

“Swim!” the Hawk commanded.

A giant wave crashed down upon her. Their hands were torn apart. Skye felt as if she were lifted by a giant icy hand and tossed about. She was heavy, so heavy! Wildly, desperately, she broke the pull of the sea.

Salt water stung her eyes and filled her mouth as she gasped for air. She strained to see, and horror engulfed her. The longboat seemed to be miles away. Miles and miles away.

And the Hawk was next to it, clinging to it. He could crawl right over to safety, while she …

Water rose and crashed over her head again. She started going down. Her lungs were going to burst. Searing pain swept through them. She realized that she was about to die, to drown, to sink down to the sea bed in a swirl of bone and petticoats and skirts, and lie there to be food for sharks and other fishes. Life, sweet tempest that it was, would be over. Death could not be so hard. Not so painful as the agony that came to her lungs. Not so terrifying as the sea green darkness and the cold that was enveloping her. They said that a drowning
man saw his life flash before his eyes. What of a drowning woman?

A drowning woman saw her lover’s face, she thought, but her air was all but gone, and she did not know if she saw her husband or the Hawk before her.…

Pain awoke her just before she opened her mouth to breathe in gallons of the water. Fingers entwined in her hair, dragging her up and up. She broke the surface and through the darkness and gray and pelting of the rain, she saw the Hawk.

“Swim!” he commanded her furiously.

“I cannot! My petticoats—”

“Shut up!”

He was holding her against him, treading the water with a fury and coming at her with a knife. If she had had breath, she would have screamed. He meant to slay her so that she would not drown, she thought incredulously.

But he did not slay her. His knife did not cut into her flesh, but severed away her clothing. Her skirts and petticoats fell, and her legs were free, and she could tread water herself. “Get rid of your shoes!” he shouted.

She reached down and gulped in some water. He spun her around, digging into her hair again, but holding her face above water. She managed to shed her shoes. She realized that he was already swimming, his fingers dragging her along by the hair.

“I can manage!” she cried. Twisting, she began to go with the water. He wasn’t fighting the current or the waves. He was allowing the rush of the storm to cast them toward the shore.

Hope surged within her, but then it died. She was tiring so quickly! And it took them so long. The shoreline seemed so close, and then a gray wave would crash over her, and it would seem miles away again. She started to flag. He caught her by the hair again.

“Stop!” she cried. The cold was numbing. It made her want to die. “Stop, you’re hurting me. I can’t make it. Go on!”

“I’ll hurt you like you can’t imagine if you don’t stop fighting me!” he swore. His fingers were grasping her, biting cruelly into her. They laced through her hair, and he was swimming
hard again. She ceased trying to fight him. The rain was all around her, as gray as the sky, as dark as the sea. There was no difference between them. Sky and rain and sea were one, and they were imprisoned by them all.

“There. Hold on!” the Hawk demanded.

She didn’t know if she held on or not. The darkness encompassed her. She went limp. She sank beneath the waves. The shore was just ahead of them. She saw that. Then the world was dark.

She came to moments later because she was flat in the sand, and he was straddled over her, his mouth on hers, forcing air into her lungs. She gasped, and breathed on her own. Her eyes flew open.

“We’re alive!” she cried.

“We’re alive,” he said simply. He crashed down beside her. She realized that she could no longer feel the rain. He had brought them into the shelter of a small cove with overhanging rock and ledge.

She could think no more that night. She closed her eyes, and slept.

The sun, hot and beautiful upon her damp body, awoke her. Skye rolled, dazed, to her side. She looked about, and she saw the Hawk. He was still out, sprawled not ten feet away from her. Desperately pleased to see him with her and alive, she crawled the distance to him. If he slept, she could dare to wake him with a tender kiss. This morning, she could not feel guilt or shame.

Yet before she could touch him, she paused. A frown furrowed her brow as she stared down at his face.

Half of his beard had been sheared away. His mustache, too. Bits and pieces of hair clung to his flesh in a very odd manner.

She reached out and touched the hair. It came away in her grasp. It was fake. His beard was fake. He was really clean shaven. And with the beard gone to display the contours and angles of his face, he looked even more like Petroc Cameron. In fact, he looked exactly like Petroc Cameron.

She stared at him, and the truth slowly, slowly dawned upon her. She stood, forgetting their wild fight for life and death,
forgetting everything as rage seared into her heart, blinding her to the entire world.

“Bastard!” she shrieked, and she awoke him not with a kiss, but with a wild and savage kick to the midsection.

XVI