Savannah Heat (34 page)

“They ain’t gonna help you. Never seen a more cowardly lot of curs.” He sat on his knees astraddle her, his big hand skimming over the curve of her hips. With a grunt of satisfaction, he pinched her bottom through the soft white fabric of. her lacy cotton drawers. Silver squirmed and cursed him again.

“I say, Stormy, couldn’t you hurry a mite? I’m itchin’ to see that fine-lookin’ bum o’ hers.” Green laughed again, the sound a little tighter.

Stormy ignored him, enjoying her discomfort as he stroked each rounded globe. “You learn your place,” he told her, “I’ll pleasure ya proper. Not this time—I mean to see to that real good. Next time you’ll do as you’re told.”

With that he worked the buttons at the front of his breeches. Even with her face pressed into the dirt, Silver could see the bulge that strained against the front of them, and the thought of it inside her made her sick.

“God in heaven,” she whispered aloud, but Stormy only grunted. One hand reached beneath her stomach to loosen the cord of her pantalets; then he started tugging them down.

“You will let the lady go.” Jacques’s deep voice cut through the air like a knife. Never had his soft French accent been so welcome.

“This here’s no lady, mate.” Green stepped closer to Stormy. “This un’s a real she-bitch, she is. Ye got here just in time for a piece o’ her.”

“Release ’er.” Jacques’s blade appeared in his hand almost from nowhere. “Do it now, and back away.”

Weathers let go of her arm and adjusted his breeches, buttoning himself back up. When he came to his feet, Silver sat up and discreetly rearranged her clothing. Her face flamed scarlet at what had almost happened, but her worry was for Jacques and Jordy.

“You are all right,
chérie
?” Jacques asked, still holding the blade in front of him. It was ten inches long and wickedly curved.

“We’ve got to free Jordy.”

Jacques glanced to the corner, where Jordy thrashed against his tightly bound arms and legs.

“You ain’t takin’ her,” Weathers warned. “There’s two of us against you.” Weathers pulled his own knife, which was even bigger than Jacques’s, and Green pulled a long, thin dagger with a stag horn handle.

“Oh, God,” Silver moaned.

Both Green and Weathers lunged for Jacques at nearly the same moment, their blades slicing the air just inches from Jacques’s wide chest. Jacques darted away, slashing with his own blade. It landed with the clank of steel on steel. Weathers spun away; Green danced closer. Jacques stepped away, whirled and lashed out, slicing into flesh, and Dickey Green yelped in pain. A streak of crimson trailed down his arm, but he looked no less determined.

“Ye shouldn’a done that, mate.”

Silver glanced from Jacques to Weathers, who smiled grimly, awaiting his chance to administer
death. Determined to help, she frantically surveyed the near-empty room, searching for some kind of weapon. Beside the curtained doorway, a broken pottery ale mug rested. Silver crouched down and picked it up, the jagged edges surrounding the handle making it easy to grip. Jacques caught her movement from the corner of his deep blue eyes.

“Stay out of this,
chérie
. You will only make things ’arder.”

Maybe she would, and maybe she wouldn’t. She’d do her best to let him handle the situation, but she wasn’t about to stand by and watch him get killed.

Dickey Green feinted right and lunged left, bringing his knife in low and slashing Jacques’s right thigh. Silver stifled the scream in her throat. Jacques ignored the pain and the red stain spreading down his leg. Spinning away from Weather’s blade, he brought his own knife down in a sweeping arc that laid open Green’s shoulder. The smaller man’s shirt turned red in an instant, and his face contorted in pain.

“I’m gonna kill ye, Frenchy,” Green vowed.

Again the three men dodged the gleaming death each held in front of him, steel ringing against steel, the task more difficult in the confines of the narrow room. Then Green did the unexpected. He dodged Jacques’s blade and lunged for Silver instead. In the instant it took for the threat to register and Jacques to parry the move, Jacques stood open to Weathers’s attack.

“No!” Silver screamed, barely dodging the knife Green thrust toward her breast. With a twisting motion, she stepped in to protect Jacques’s defenseless side and shoved the jagged edge of the mug into Weathers’s broad, thick-lipped face.

His agonized shriek of pain echoed against the
walls of the room, and his hands shot up to the bleeding gouges. It was the moment Jacques needed. His blade surged home, slicing between Stormy’s ribs, then thrusting upward. As quickly as it went in, he pulled it out, whirled, and slid it against the Englishman’s throat, one muscular arm going around the man’s skinny neck in the same quick motion.

“Drop your blade or die,
anglais.
”

Green held his knife for an instant; then it clattered to the floor. “ ’Twas Stormy’s idea.” Green pleaded, “Stormy what wanted to take her—he never were too bright.”

“I should kill you for the dog you are.”

“No, Jacques.” Silver’s trembling fingers touched his arm. “Please don’t kill him.”

Jacques’s blue eyes ran over her. “The decision is yours,
chérie
. But know that the Mexicans ’ave even less use for a man who defiles their women. ’Is treatment will be ’arsh indeed.”

“That is for them to decide.”

“
What
is for them to decide?” Morgan stood in the doorway, his bright green eyes fixed on the blade Jacques held beneath Green’s chin. He glanced from Jacques to Weathers, dead and bleeding on the floor, then to where Jordy lay bound and gagged. When at last he turned to Silver, he saw that her dress was torn and wrinkled and covered with dirt and twigs. The pins had come loose from her hair, spilling it around her shoulders.

Ignoring him, the embarrassing explanation sure to come, and the heat that burned her cheeks, Silver moved toward Jordy. She picked up the knife Green had dropped and began to cut his bindings.

“Would one of you care to explain what’s going on?”

Silver just kept working.

It was Jacques who finally answered. “These two pigs kidnapped Jordy and ’eld him captive. Silver came to ’is rescue—and to mine.”

“She doesn’t look like she fared too well herself.”

“She will be all right,” Jacques assured him, noting the tight lines of Morgan’s face, the emotions he fought to control. “I am just grateful for the man on the quay who saw Jordy being taken. I see ’e carried ’is message to you, as I instructed.”

“Yes.”

Steeling herself to the harshness in Morgan’s tone, Silver sliced through the last of Jordy’s bonds, reached down, and hugged him.

“I’m sorry, Silver. They made me write the note.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” She gave him another brief hug.

“But what they tried to do to you.…”

Silver glanced from Jordy to Morgan, found his hard look fixed on her, and flushed all over again.

“You all right, son?” Morgan asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ll talk about this when we get back to the ship. Right now you go with Jacques. See that this scum is taken care of, will you?”

“Aye, sir, you kin—can—count on that.”

“Get Cookie to see to that leg,” he said to Jacques.

The brawny Frenchman wrestled Dickey Green out the door, and Jordy followed him out. Silver glanced down at her feet, at the rough adobe wall above Morgan’s shoulder, everywhere but at his face.

Reaching out, he captured her chin with his hand, his grip unrelenting. “I told you to stay on the ship.”

Silver tried to turn away, but he wouldn’t let go. “Jordy was in trouble. I had no choice.”

Morgan turned her cheek to assess the purple
bruise beside her eye, the cut at the corner of her mouth. “I want to know what happened to you. I want to know what those men did.”

Silver watched him a moment, reading the anger mixed with concern. She thought of the rough way Stormy had intended to use her, and embarrassment rose in her cheeks.

Morgan released his hold, and his voice turned gentle. “There is nothing you can’t tell me, Silver. You don’t have to be ashamed.”

She wet her lips, which suddenly felt dry. She didn’t want him to know, but there were enough secrets between them. “I fought with Stormy. He knocked me down and … he would have forced himself on me if Jacques hadn’t arrived when he did.”

Morgan pulled her into his arms and cradled her head against his chest with the palm of his hand. “You’ve got to start listening to me, Silver. You’re going to get hurt. I can’t promise you someone will always be there to save you.”

“I wish I could say I was sorry, but I’m not. I was able to help, so the danger was worth it.”

Morgan’s hand skimmed over her hair. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

She nodded against his chest.

“Green’s just lucky I wasn’t holding the knife,” he muttered, and Silver softly smiled.

It was well past noon when they returned to the ship. Jacques met them at the top of the gangway.

“You ’ave a visitor,” he said to Morgan, “She waits for you in the salon.”

Silver eyed Morgan warily, wondering which of his women this one was, but he only urged her toward the ladder with a firm hand at her waist.

Belowdecks a woman leaned against the smooth oak paneling, facing away from them. She turned at their approach. Standing no taller than Silver, she had glistening black hair pulled into a tight knot at the nape of her neck. Around her shoulders she clutched her worn fringed shawl. She had luminous black eyes and smooth dark skin. A white cotton peasant blouse and orange skirt brightly embroidered near the hem showed a full-busted figure with well-rounded hips.

“You must be Senor Trask,” she said in passable English.

“I’m Trask.”

She smiled at Silver. “And you are Dama de Luz. There is much talk of your beauty.”

“My friends call me Silver.” Silver smiled, too, responding to the woman’s warmth.

“I am Teresa Méndez. I have come to seek your aid.”

Morgan moved farther into the room and pulled out one of the carved oak chairs around the table. “Why don’t we sit down?” Teresa took a seat. Morgan seated Silver, then pulled out a chair for himself. “How may we be of service, Senorita Méndez?”

“I have spoken to your friend Senor Hypolyte Bouillard. He was very understanding.” She smiled softly, and something flickered in the darkness of her eyes. “He has agreed to speak to you on my behalf should you refuse my request.”

Morgan’s posture stiffened. She was working the two men against each other, trying to sway one by showing the other’s support. It wouldn’t work on Morgan. Still, Silver admired the woman’s ploy.

“And just what exactly is it you wish me to do?” Morgan asked, his tone a little less friendly.

“Many know of your journey to Rancho de los Cocodrilos—the land of the crocodiles. It is a French henequen plantation, or was before the Centralists turned it into a fortress.”

“Go on,” Morgan urged.

“You seek the Texas soldiers there, held in the ruins that lie to the east of the great hacienda. But there are other men there of no less importance. Political prisoners captured in the fighting for Campeche. My father, Alejandro Méndez, is among them.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“You must free him, Senor Trask, along with the others. He is a poor man, but a man of great learning. Alejandro Méndez is revered among his people. He has helped them often in these troubled times.”

“We will free all we can, whoever they may be.”

“That is not enough. You must take me with you. Word has come back from the prison that he has been taken ill. My father is old and frail. Even if you help him escape, he cannot survive the journey back to Campeche without me.”

“That’s impossible, senorita. There will be dozens of soldiers on this mission. There’ll be fighting. It’s not the place for a woman.”

“Our army is not like yours, senor. The
soldados
often take their women when they leave for battle. The women care for them, cook and mend their clothing, warm their beds.”

“I’m sorry, but it just isn’t possible.”

“I will take ’er.” Jacques’s heavily accented French rang from the open hatch as he descended the ladder. “If you will but say the word, I will see to ’er safety.”

Morgan looked hard at his friend. It wasn’t like the big Frenchman to go against his wishes, yet the woman had convinced him, had somehow won his support. Jacques was no fool, not even when it came to a pretty face. Morgan surveyed Teresa Méndez, saw the hope—and the desperation.

“You believe your father’s life depends on you?”

“Si, senor. I alone know how to care for him.”

“I don’t mean to be cruel, senorita, but you realize he may already be dead.”

“
Sí
, senor, but if there is any chance at all, I must take it.”

“We’ll be leaving within the hour. Can you be ready?”

“I am ready now, senor.”

Morgan released a weary breath. The last thing he needed was a woman tagging along, but he wouldn’t
be responsible for a good man’s death if he could help it.