The Rebel Pirate (4 page)

“And does your father take his business affairs so lightly that he does not know the character of his investors?”

“My father had no choice. We owed the man money.”

“He has embroiled you in treason. Tell me his name, and I will do my best to bring him to justice.”

“British justice,” she said, “extends no farther than Boston these days. The Rebel mob rules in Salem. If I cross this man without the Crown’s protection, my family and I will lose what little we have left.”

“I am sorry,” he said. “I cannot give you the assurance you want.”

“Then I cannot give you this.” She slid the log into her skirt pocket. Sparhawk’s eyes followed her hand, then lingered.

He took a step closer.

She took one back. “Don’t even consider it,” she said.

“I only want the
Sally
’s log.”

“Liar.”

“Fine,” he said, and closed the distance she had put between them. “You’re a saucy piece, and I’d like to have you too.” His hand skimmed the silk of her skirt; his fingers slipped inside the opening at the seam, found the bare skin of her thigh, and stroked.

It had been so very long since a man had touched her, but her body remembered and ached with longing. She was no longer chilled. She was warm all the way through, heat radiating from the tips of his fingers dancing closer to the apex of her thighs.

And then he stopped.

His hand shot to the pocket tied around her waist and dove inside. “But I believe Mr. Cheap would have something to say about that, and what I
require
,” he said, grasping the book in her pocket, “is the log.”

She’d been a damned fool again.

The door crashed open. Ned stood panting and dripping on the threshold, and thankfully, he did not appear to notice that Sparhawk had his hand in her skirts.

Her brother gulped in air and words tumbled out. “You must come. Mr. Cheap would not furl the sail and the wind has fouled the spar, and the carpenter says that if he tries to run before the gale in this blow, her seams will open.”

The skin of her thigh had been warm and silken. The responsive tilt of her hips had invited further exploration. He could not recall ever being so powerfully attracted to a woman. Closing his fingers around the slender book in her pocket had taken an act of will.

The child’s interruption—the emergency—had been timely indeed.

With regret, Sparhawk pocketed the log and followed the girl up the ladder. His eyes were once more drawn irresistibly to her swaying hips. Until they emerged on deck and into a fierce maelstrom. It was a vicious little New England squall. Rain pelted his face and soaked through his coat almost instantly, replacing desire with sodden discomfort. His shoes filled with water. The wind whistled so loud he could no longer hear the boy shouting beside him, but he looked up to where the child was pointing.

The foremast was bristling with sail. Too much for the
Sally
’s slight build and far too much for this heavy weather. Cheap had left it too late. He couldn’t blame the man. In the same position, he might have cut it too close as well. The
Sally
needed to put distance between herself and the
Wasp
, or risk recapture by another naval vessel.

Now she risked loosing her foremast and opening her seams. The topsail was the problem. It had to be reefed. Easier said than done. The mainmast had tangled the standing rigging when she fell. It would be tricky work and dangerous in such weather.

There was nothing else for it. He shouted as much to Mr. Cheap, who shouted back that he could not send a man up in such a blow, that it would be the death of anyone who tried. Cheap was, as Sparhawk had suspected, no captain. He would not order a shipmate to his likely death.

The alternative, Sparhawk knew, was that they would all die. The
Sally
was heeling and taking on water, and now was not the time for democratic decision making. Now was the time for blind obedience to orders.

“I’ll go.” A small piping voice.

Ned. Sparhawk had forgotten him.

“No!” The girl shook her head.

Sparhawk ignored her. “We’ll both of us go.”

The boy reached the top before him, proving himself, as Sparhawk had suspected earlier, a seasoned hand. It was the work of a few minutes to cut the sail free. Reefing her was harder. The boy did not have the strength of a grown man, and they did not make pretty work of it, but between them they got it done.

The descent was still more difficult. The schooner was settling, but there was still a wild motion in her. Hands that had been warm and nimble going up were cold, bruised, and numb coming down, and it was easy, so easy, to lose one’s grip.

Then the
Sally
rolled and the boy fell. Not from a great height. Twelve feet perhaps, and if the weather had been still and the boy had been lucky, he might have hit the deck and broken a few bones.

The weather was not still and the boy was not lucky.

•   •   •

Sarah watched her brother plunge into the dark roiling sea.

Not this. Not this.
She had already lost so much.
Not
Ned.

She ran for the side. There was shouting, but the words were lost in the wind and all she knew was that she had to reach the pale form that had fallen from the gray sky into the grayer water.

There was movement on the deck, someone dropping from the rigging and streaking toward the side, and then rough hands were grasping her from behind and dragging her back from the rail.

•   •   •

Sparhawk watched the boy fall. He was only a few feet from the deck. He slid down the rest of the way in time to see the girl running toward the rail. “Stop her,” he barked over the howling wind. The crew was frozen, but Lucas Cheap acted. He grasped the girl and dragged her, kicking and screaming like a banshee, away from the pitching sea.

“Give me a line,” he demanded. And now the crew was answering to him because Lucas Cheap had done so and they
wanted
orders. He took the line, kicked off his shoes, and dove over the side.

The water was bitingly cold. It sent a shock through his whole body, wet though he already was. It had been only moments since the boy had gone in, but every second counted. The cold would soon start to drag at him, make him clumsy and slow. Sparhawk saw a golden head break the water. Swam. Reached it. The boy was conscious and swimming. That was good.

He shouted, hoping his voice would carry above the wind, and felt the line begin to draw them in. They were only a few yards from the
Sally
when a wave picked them up and tossed them toward the hull. Sparhawk pulled the boy close and tried to take the brunt of the impact. His right hand connected with the hull, and pain lanced up his arm.

The boy, thankfully, had the good sense to grasp the line and begin hauling himself up. Another wave slammed into Sparhawk. He held his breath under water. His lungs ached. The churning sea receded, and he saw the boy scramble over the rail to safety.

His right hand was still numb from the impact. He could not make it answer. He wrapped his good hand around the rope and used his legs to lever himself up. An inch or two of progress, no more, and then another wave swamped him.

This time he didn’t catch his breath. His lungs burned, his grip slackened, and he knew that he was going to drown.

The line jerked. His head broke through the water. The rope started to move, hauling him up in fits and starts until finally strong hands were reaching for him and lifting him over the side. They deposited him on the deck, where he stood swaying, the churn and tumble of the waves still echoing through his body and scrambling his senses. Even so, he could tell that the
Sally
was riding easier.

Sarah was hugging the bedraggled boy and yelling at him at the same time. Sparhawk could not hear what she was saying; the ocean still roared in his ears, but he imagined it was a litany of thanks to whatever iteration of the Divine they favored in Naumkeag and admonitions never to be nearly drowned again.

He envied the boy the harangue and the embrace. He could not recall a time when anyone had ever been that happy to see him alive.

The boy finally freed himself from her arms and began speaking urgently.

Sarah looked up and smiled at Sparhawk. The gratitude on her face warmed him. For a moment he forgot that he was bone tired and dizzy and soaking wet and that his arm hurt like hell. He forgot that she was a Rebel and a smuggler and that he was a naval officer and her captive. He tried to raise his battered hand to acknowledge her, but the cold made him clumsy and his aching fingers would not uncurl.

The girl’s smile vanished. She pushed the boy toward the hatch and came striding across the deck to Sparhawk. “Let me see your hand.”

“It’s nothing.”

She cradled his forearm in her own and touched his wrist gingerly. It didn’t hurt exactly, but it felt strange. Something looked wrong about it beneath his sleeve, but he couldn’t quite tell what.

“Let’s get you below,” she said.

That sounded like an excellent idea to him.

He took a step, swayed, felt his knees buckle. The girl slipped under his shoulders to accept his weight, but she could not support him on her own. “Mr. Cheap!” she called out.

The sailing master came running and lifted Sparhawk’s good arm over his shoulder. Together, Cheap and the girl got him down the hatch, across the deck, and into the captain’s cabin.

His body felt not his own, and freed from it, he noticed things he had not earlier. The bed had been built for a bigger man than the dead captain. The chair as well. The bed curtains were a nice—if impractical—touch, with their fine blue needlework on a cream wool background. It spoke of a sort of permanence you could not expect in the navy. You commanded at the Admiralty’s pleasure. You took what ships they gave you. You did not, as a rule, mistake them for a home.

They lowered him to sit on the edge of the bed. The sensation of waves tumbling his body slowed. Cheap took a good long look at Sparhawk’s hand, grunted, and walked out, leaving the door pointedly ajar.

“Let’s get you out of these wet clothes,” she said. Her fingers were already lifting the hem of his shirt.

“Alas,” he said, trying for a playful tone even as his head spun and a dull ache took up residence in his arm. “I suspect I am not fit for action.”

She snorted. “Your vanity, at least, is unflagging. Lean forward.”

He did so. She was deft and efficient pulling up his shirt, careful not to touch his injured arm any more than was necessary. It occurred to him that she had done this before.

“You’re very calm in a crisis,” he observed.

“I’ve had a fair bit of practice.”

She peeled his sleeve off to reveal his injured arm. Broken, for certain. Crooked near the wrist, like a dinner fork. It was not the worst he had been hurt. He had seen enough broken limbs in the service to know that it was the good kind—nothing was poking through the skin.

“It will need to be straightened,” she said.

“Is that one of your many skills?” he asked, hopefully.

“No, unfortunately not. I can make you comfortable for now,” she said, feeling along his arm, “but I’m no bonesetter. You must see a doctor. Sooner, rather than later, or it will not set properly.”

She bent to examine his hand, and he noted how long and slender her neck was, how dainty and pink the lobe of her ear. She pressed tentatively on his wrist. Pain shot up his arm.

“I think there is only one break,” she said, “very near the wrist, and perhaps some smaller bones in the hand.”

He was not squeamish about blood—or at least he had ceased to be after his first battle at sea—but the bent angle of his normally straight limb disturbed him in a way that blood did not, and to a degree that would not have been possible in the heat of a fight. When the guns were speaking and splinters flying, you lost all awareness of your own body except as it carried you back and forth across the deck or onto the enemy’s vessel. He’d once been stabbed through the shoulder during a boarding action and not noticed until an hour later.

This
, though, made him feel light-headed, and he did not want to faint in front of this brave girl. His attraction to her was maddening. Even cold, injured, and exhausted, his body stirred to her touch. “The bed curtains,” he said, fixing his eyes on them, “are very nice.”

“They’re very old-fashioned. I made them when I was fourteen,” she said. “And you’re whiter than they are.” So she was brave
and
perceptive. And she smelled like rain and soap and appealed to him like a hot bath on a stormy day. “Lie back and let me prop up your arm.”

“I dismasted your ship and killed your captain—you needn’t be so gallant,” he said, echoing her earlier words, and hoping she did not notice his increasingly obvious condition.

“I’m not being gallant,” she said, plumping a cushion. “Returning you to the admiral half drowned and crippled would hardly improve our situation.”

She positioned a pillow for his head. He leaned back into the welcome warmth of the feather mattress, felt the cool linen sheet at his back, unexpectedly crisp and smooth. It steadied him, reminded him of the bedding his mother had painstakingly ironed for the trundle in their rude little cottage. It had been a luxury she had brought to the island from home. He had not thought of it in years.

Another cushion found its way under his elbow. That was nice.

There were captains in the navy with a reputation for high living, of course. He had never desired to be one of them. There had been a post commander in the Med who liked to entertain in his cabin, which was lined with Turkey carpets and crammed with exotic objets d’art.

This was something different. Not luxury. Comfort. Perhaps someday Sparhawk might have a trim little schooner like this, with a paneled captain’s cabin, and bed curtains embroidered by a pretty girl. One who would not be harmed by his attentions, as this one would.

Ned entered the room, clothes dry but golden hair dripping, with a bundle under each arm—muslin and kindling, it appeared. He had a tankard in his hand, and Sparhawk’s bedraggled blue coat thrown over his shoulder. He passed the bundles and the coat to his sister. “Mr. Cheap sent these,” he said. Then he turned to Sparhawk. “Thank you for going in after me, sir. I brought you my ration of grog, if you’d like it.” He held out the tin cup.

“I suspect Captain Sparhawk would prefer some of our late skipper’s brandy, Ned,” his sister said.

The boy looked crestfallen.

“By no means. Grog is just the thing. Thank you very much, Ned.” He took the tankard in his good hand. “But from now on, when you’re in the rigging, remember: one hand for the ship, one hand for yourself.”

The boy nodded and beamed. “I shall, sir. I promise.”

Sparhawk detected a whiff of hero worship. He supposed he had looked at old Captain McKenzie that way from time to time. Sarah only eyed him with suspicion.

As well she should. Despite his best intentions, he was trying to charm her.

Oblivious to his sister’s disapproval, the boy went on. “Mr. Cheap says to convey his thanks as well, and tell you that he probably won’t have you killed.”

“Very kind of him, I’m sure,” Sparhawk replied.

“That’s practically a billet-doux where Mr. Cheap is concerned,” the girl said.

“He’s been threatening to kill Benji for years,” Ned added.

“Who is Benji?” Sparhawk asked, sipping his rum. It was dark, rich, and indeed quite warming. Better stuff than the navy bought and less liberally watered. Smuggled, no doubt.

“He’s our older brother.”

“And where is this older brother?” And why isn’t he here looking after you?

“Away,” said Sarah curtly. It was clear that she did
not
want to talk about this Benji. Interesting.

“He’s in London,” supplied the boy. “But he is coming back.”

“And what was he doing in London?” Sparhawk asked.

The boy opened his mouth to speak, but his sister forestalled him. “That’s enough, Ned. You mustn’t tell the captain your name or anything that might help him identify us.”