Tangled Hearts (31 page)

Dory raised her hands to the heavens and lightning cracked right over the
Raven
.

Wellington jumped and O’Neil cackled. “She can’t hit us without killing all on board! Ha! We’re safe, Wellington!” he yelled in glee and swiveled about to survey his scurrying crew following his quartermaster’s orders.

Was she thinking to send a lightning bolt down? She said she wasn’t that accurate, or rather, the power in the lightning would roast anything nearby where it hit. Damn! She couldn’t strike while children were near O’Neil.

“Look!” O’Neil laughed into the wind as Dory threw her hands back down to her sides and nearly stomped with frustration. They were close enough now that Ewan could almost see the strain in her face, the indecision.

Ewan glanced around Wellington to where Stephen stood. They made eye contact and Ewan moved his gaze back and forth to the rail. The boy looked confused but then his eyes grew round. He shook his head and glared at Ewan.

Bloody hell! The boy was going to be difficult. He must feel like O’Neil’s floating prison was his only choice in life. If he could just get Stephen away from this, he could show him life could be so much better.

Ewan balanced the girl in his arm. For a moment, Dory disappeared as she ran down onto the lower deck. She seemed to be arguing with Will, and Captain Bart came up behind her.

“Well, well,” O’Neil said. “This could be interesting.”

Ewan’s stomach gripped tight when Will lowered a boat down the side of the ship, Dory in it.

O’Neil laughed. “Perfect! We’ll wait until she’s aboard and fire upon the ship.”

“I need that box!” Wellington called.

“Send the children back with Dory,” Ewan threw out. “To get the box. She’ll return for me.”

These bloody devils didn’t know Dory hated him. If Dory could get the children to safety, he’d either find a way to swim or he’d go down with the
Raven
.

“I really don’t care about the box,” O’Neil said casually.

“We have a deal!” Wellington seethed.

O’Neil flipped his beringed hand in the air. “After I get the girl to fix me arm. Then we’ll send my little angel over in exchange for the bloody box, though she is worth a handsome price on the market.”

“I’ll pay your damn price,” James Wellington swore.

While the two of them negotiated, Dory and Will paddled closer. The seas calmed so the work was easier. She stared up at them. Damn, he couldn’t let her come aboard. O’Neil would never let her go back to the
Queen Siren
.

As Will rowed them into the shadow of the
Raven
, O’Neil and Wellington moved to the rail to see them.

“Kill the man with her if he comes up,” Wellington said.

Will grabbed the rope ladder the men had lowered. Bloody fool! What could he do against twenty ready-for-blood pirates?

Ewan’s muscles tightened and he brushed the girl’s ear with a kiss. “I won’t let go of ye.” She clutched tighter to him. Did she know? He looked hard at Stephen. The boy stared, his face paling.
Jump
! Ewan mouthed.

With a lurch, Ewan leapt up on the rail, the girl tucked against him, and dove.

Chapter Seventeen

18 October 1518

My dear Rebecca,

I wish I could know you, my tiny, perfect child. I have made such mistakes in my short life and we are exiled. The ring is all I have to offer for your protection. The ring and this good captain that God has sent. Captain Wyatt has a kind heart, kinder than that captain James sent me to for passage.

I am so very sorry that I am not strong enough to live for you. But I grow weaker each day while you grow stronger. Though my body may die, Rebecca, my love for you will always endure.

Your mother,

Katharine Wellington

“Will!” Dory screamed to call him back as she stood in the dinghy. Will turned at the sound of the splash while holding onto the ladder. Ewan’s head surfaced in the building waves and Dory fought with her magic to calm the sea. “Ewan!” she yelled as he began to swim.

Overhead, the ear-splitting boom of a cannon went off, ruining Dory’s concentration. The
Raven
had fired on the
Queen Siren
, but she wasn’t firing back because she and Will could be hurt.

Ewan’s fingers grabbed the edge of the dinghy, and he heaved the dripping child up to her. Dory pulled the cold girl in, feeling her heartbeat instantly.

“I’ve got you,” she crooned against her ear and sent a flash of healing magic through her shocked system, warming her. The nightmare that had been tormenting her, the thought of this child abandoned, knowing she’d not saved her, melted away with the child’s powerful grasp.

“Will,” Dory cried, “pull him in.” But Ewan had already kicked away from the dinghy.

“Ewan!” she screamed as he swam back to the rope ladder.

Ewan grabbed the rung and hoisted himself up. He looked over his shoulder at her, his gorgeous face solid with determination. “There’s a boy up top. The only other child.”

“They’ll kill you!” she shouted.

Ewan met her gaze with a resolute stare. “His name is Stephen.”

Hell! “I know you lied,” she yelled as he turned around. “At the Tower!”

Dory held her breath. Ewan glanced back, his harsh features transformed, full of something bright. Hope. “In that case, a little diversion might help me return.” He climbed as more cannon fire boomed overhead.

Diversion? Bloody hell, she needed to make a diversion, one that wouldn’t kill Ewan in the process. She tried to hand the girl over to Will but she clung to her.

“He’s a good pirate,” she assured her but the girl held onto her legs in the bottom of the boat. Will began to row them away from the
Raven
.

“Not too far!”

“You need to be able to see what you’re firing at,” he countered.

She looked at Will. “I can’t control—”

“Aye, you can. Focus, Dory!” Will ordered.

Men waited at the top of the ladder for Ewan. At the bow, issuing orders, stood Julian O’Neil with James Wellington. A boy stood near them, his eyes wide, though he wore a sneer to match O’Neil’s. Ewan was four rungs from the top and wasn’t slowing. He trusted her.

Dory inhaled, packing her lungs with sea air. With a whoosh, she exhaled, spitting out the wind, its force shattering through the men waiting with cutlasses at the top. They flew backward like thistle seeds off a ripe flower, several ripping over the gunwale to fall overboard on the other side. Ewan lifted himself up and over.

“He has no sword,” Will called.

“But he has me,” she gritted out, raising her hands to the heavens where bits of lightning hummed, waiting.

Ewan ran full force toward the three at the bow. He bent low and scooped up a cutlass from the deck. Dory readied her magic, playing with the fast moving bits of water and air above her. The lightning exploded through the clouds like the skeleton inside a billowing beast.

Ewan met James Wellington’s attack, blocking the blow and letting its momentum slide past him to make the man stumble forward. With two more slices, Wellington flopped down on the deck and she couldn’t see him anymore.

O’Neil pulled his cutlass and a chill ran through Dory. Fear flooded her as the two met upon the deck. Lightning shot from the sky, snapping down on the water at points all around.

“God’s balls, Dory!” Will bellowed. The white bolts sizzled through the water, snapping and spraying as it hit, lighting up the growing night so that it looked bright as day. The snapping thunder made hearing anything else impossible. Will’s mouth opened, but all she heard was cracking and ringing.

Dory breathed deeply, reining in her fear, her control. She spotted a pirate at the top, poised by the wheel. O’Neil’s quartermaster, a black-hearted partner to the captain. With focus she reached up to the clouds with her mind and shot at him.

Lightning sliced down at the man, exploding the entire top of the
Raven
into a million splinters, the quartermaster with it. Will cheered, but Dory’s stomach clenched. Was there any way to control God’s lightning?

The boy on the deck picked up a cutlass and came up behind Ewan. Bloody hell! He was going to attack Ewan.

Dory inhaled quickly and shot out a puff of air, knocking the boy back. He jumped up and caught Dory’s sharp gaze. She pointed directly at him and flashed some lightning over his head in the clouds. The boy ducked. As if aware of the boy’s befuddlement, Ewan scooped him up with one arm around the middle and threw him over the side of the ship. Flailing, he fell down into the sea.

“Will!” Dory yelled and her brother dove over the side of the rowboat, and in four swift strokes caught the stunned boy as he spluttered on the surface. There wasn’t much fight left in him. Dory crouched low and countered Will’s weight as he hefted first the boy and then himself into the small row boat. The little girl released Dory’s legs and crawled over to grab the boy in a fierce hold.

“Go!” Ewan commanded from on top as he leapt forward and back against two of O’Neil’s men with the force of someone used to swinging a sword. “Not without you!” she screamed. O’Neil yelled for more of his men to attack Ewan, his own sword ready in his uninjured arm. The bastard knew he couldn’t defeat Ewan on his own, but he had a bloodthirsty crew ready to execute his every wish.

The
Raven
fired a volley against the silent
Queen Siren
. With their dinghy still close to the
Raven
, Captain Bart wouldn’t fire back. Will began to row.

“We aren’t leaving him!”

“The
Queen Siren’s
already been hit,” he yelled and put his shoulders into the oars. “They need a clear shot.”

Bloody hell! That’s what she needed, too, a clear shot at O’Neil and his crew. Clear, focused, definite shots.

“Stop rowing. I need a steady stance,” she called behind her and stood tall, her arms out for balance. She needed to give Ewan an opening to dive overboard. Wind wouldn’t work. For it to have the force to do more than startle a lad, it would cover a large area. Ewan would be hit, maybe thrown off balance enough for those bastards to strike. No, it had to be lightning and it had to be placed just so.

Dory searched the clouds overhead with her magic, feeling the strings of energy, hot and volatile, barely controlled until she found a line of energy sizzling in a cloud. Dory imagined it as a thread, a single sliver of silver. She held her thumb and finger together as if threading a needle.

Her Scotsman’s strength was obvious even after life in the Tower and onboard ship. The rain had slicked his linen shirt to his body, his arms bulging with sinewy strength as he fought two pirates before their shouting pirate captain, falling back only to move closer to the rail. If she could just get a clear shot at O’Neil, the others would be so stunned that they’d pause enough to give Ewan a chance! But they were all so close.

Dory blurred her eyes, imagining O’Neil as a needle, his head the eye, the thread in her grasp. “Jump,” she whispered, afraid to strike with Ewan so close. “Jump, damn it.”

She breathed in through her nose, careful not to unleash the lightning without absolute control. Even her breath came out thin. “Now,” she whispered and felt rather than saw a line of energy between the cloud and the eye of the dancing needle. “Now!”

She released an instant of energy to follow the line from the cloud to the needle eye. Lightning, so thin it couldn’t be seen, popped in the night air. A slight flash lost among the darkness. With one guttural cry, O’Neil crumpled to the deck and his two crewmen turned to him. Another cannon boom echoed as its shot cut to the waiting
Queen Siren
.

Splash
!

“Ewan!” Dory crouched to the side of the boat. He surfaced, shaking his head and cut through the dark water toward them, pulling himself to the edge.

“Nice shot,” he said. Will leaned over to give him a hand up while Dory balanced the boat.

One side of his mouth quirked up in a grin. “Feel free to stop those cannons now,” he said as he wiped a hand down his dripping face.

Dory breathed fully and looked to the devil’s ship. “By all means,” she said quietly and unleashed her power.

…

Ewan stared down at the main deck of the
Queen Siren
. All was quiet, the night calm and inky dark. Stars by the millions sat like sparks in the heavens. But the sight that kept Ewan riveted below was the lovely, exceedingly complicated lass lying flat on her back on the deck, staring up into the dazzling void. After only an initial touch, she’d been whisked off to heal and deal with the little girl and the belligerent boy.

Captain Bart came to stand by him. He held a small wooden box. “Did she tell you?”

“We haven’t talked.”

“’Tis hers now. What she does with it…” He shrugged and set the box in Ewan’s hand, walking away. Pandora’s box begged to be opened. Instead he pocketed it and climbed the ladder down.

His boots clipped on the polished wood planks. She didn’t stir, her chest rising on a deep breath. He sat and then lowered to lie flat next to her.

“There are billions of them,” she whispered.

“Aye, reminds me of the skies back home.” He frowned, his voice sounding too rough for the soft night.

Water lapped at the ship sides. Laughter from below occasionally rose up into the stillness. The crew celebrated the end of Julian O’Neil and the
Raven
with grand gusto. The constant sea breeze slid over them. Despite the smoothness of the night, there was tension. He wasn’t sure where to start.

“Ye know I lied in the Tower,” he said. “To make ye leave. The guards were coming. Ye’d have been burned.” Damn, just the words of her torture made it difficult to swallow. “I…” He breathed deeply. “I couldn’t allow that.”

“We both said bloody horrible things,” she whispered and turned her head to look at him.

“Could I have said anything else to make ye leave, to save yer own life?”

Ewan waited, his heart thumping hard in his chest and he inhaled slowly, silently, waiting. She didn’t say anything.

“For twelve days of darkness,” he began again, “I sat in that dank hell going over every word I said, hating each lie, but… I still don’t know what else I could have done to make ye leave.”

She cleared her throat as if her words were stuck there. “You could have had Will knock me out and carry me away,” she said without looking at him. “The pain would have been less.”

Ewan’s eyes squeezed shut, as if he could shut out the pain he’d caused. But he couldn’t.

“Will’s too scared of ye to try and knock ye out,” he said.

She twitched and he propped his head up on one hand. Could that have been a chuckle? Her hair lay out from her head like golden rays from a sun, surrounding lovely features reflected like porcelain caught in the sporadic moon’s glow.

“Ye are still mine, Dory,” he said low.

She turned her head so that she could look at him, her words tight. “Perhaps I’m not the woman you want. Not everything you said in the Tower was a lie.”

“Every word that said ye weren’t for me, every unfounded criticism, every foul phrase that said ye were unworthy was a complete lie.” His voice dropped. “I am the unworthy one, lass.”

She slid her head against the boards in a shake. “There’s absolutely nothing in my mother’s letter that shows her innocence. I’m the bastard of two traitors. I’m a witch. I’m a penniless heiress with traitorous ties to a country ye despise. I’m a pirate—”

“A good pirate,” he interjected, using her own words. “One who has helped save many children like that red-haired girl.”

“Charissa,” Dory whispered.

“The wee one, too.”

“Margery gave her the made-up name she used before. Charissa likes it.” He’d only ever had one name. Perhaps that’s why these changes baffled him, but he nodded.

He listened to her shallow breath. It sounded pained. He hated that sound. It reminded him too much of that day in the Tower. “I don’t care about England,” he said. “And my very best friend is married to a woman with magic like ye.”

Dory looked at him. “Caden?”

Ewan nodded. “I thought Meg to be the most complicated woman I’d ever meet, but ye, Pandora Wyatt Brody, make Meg look like a simple lamb.”

She seemed to ignore his use of her married name. “You said it yourself, I’m no lady.”