The Wicked Ways of Alexander Kidd (The MacGregors: Highland Heirs) (11 page)

Suddenly, France didn’t seem so bad.

F
or Alex, France couldn’t come into view quick enough. He had to get Caitrina off his ship. He’d told her that it would take longer than a night to seduce him. He was lying. If taking in different nuances of her face and reveling in them every time he looked at her meant anything at all, then he was already becoming a little seduced—befuddled by her as she claimed. A part of him wanted to hide everything he valued from her. The other part wanted to dangle his treasures before her eyes and fight her for them. Befuddled? Aye, he was. She rattled him.

He didn’t like being rattled.

He tried to blame it on the gunpowder rum and the pain of two hammers striking his brains. But, in truth, he would have found her as curious, beguiling, and challenging whether his head pained him or not.

He stayed away from her while they crossed the Celtic Sea. When she approached him, once on deck, and once in the galley, he skirted her path, avoiding any contact between them.

He enjoyed rum and women of ill repute. He didn’t
want anything more than that. He’d loved a woman once and she cost him everything, his treasure, his heart, and ultimately his father. If he ever decided to settle on one woman, she wouldn’t be someone he didn’t trust one hundred percent.

He didn’t trust Caitrina. What did she want? Adventure, as she claimed… or was she like Madalena and she wanted his treasure?

When nightfall approached, he didn’t go with her to his cabin, but watched her cousin escort her. He waited almost ’til dawn broke over the horizon, when cups were empty and much of his crew was hunched over the tables. He walked to his quarters pleased with himself for avoiding her. The more time he spent with her, the more she tempted him to let her stay, at least until their next port of anchor in Lisbon. Nay. She had to go.

He entered his cabin planning on doing as little talking as possible until they reached France.

He looked at his bed. She slept.

He resisted the urge to stand over her and simply look at her. He didn’t like to admit, even if only to himself, that Miss Grant could possibly tempt him to offer what he hadn’t offered to a woman in eight years. What he swore he’d never give again. He was an adventurer. He wanted no woman at his heels.

But Caitrina didn’t stay behind him. She faced him head-on with enough confidence to make lesser men rethink their position.

He would have laughed at himself if the thought of losing his heart didn’t scare the hell out of him.

“Is it morning already?”

Hell, even her voice, dulcet and low, seduced him enough to make him look at her.

“Almost. Go back to sleep.”

She sat up in his furs, her thick glossy locks draping her sleepy face. Temptation incarnate. “I would speak to ye, Captain.”

He would do more than that. “I would not have ya speak at all, lady.”

He watched her full lips pinch with indignation, but she said nothing. What would have been her retort, he wondered? Once he left her in France, he might miss her banter, but that was nothing good rum couldn’t remedy. He suspected he might dream once or twice about the allure of her dimpled smile. It was possible that he might recall the fire in her eyes the next time he saw lightning flash across the sky.

“Do ya have someplace in France I can bring ya?”

“Aye, my—”

A knock sounded at the door before Sam plunged into the cabin. “Alex, we’ve spotted something on the horizon.”

“A ship?”

“Perhaps.”

“How close?”

“Close enough to take by mid afternoon if we begin the chase now. We could use their supplies but we’re not in dire need yet.”

Aye, Alex knew the condition of his ship well enough. Plundering was sometimes not a question of need but of pleasure. But taking a ship so close to France’s coastline would keep his guest here longer. A lot longer, as his trusted quartermaster was about to point out.

“If we plunder it,” Sam noted, “’twould be wise not to dock again until we reach Portugal.”

Alex agreed. The best way to stay alive was to plunder and get the hell as far away as you could without being
captured. He wanted to do it. His blood pulsed for the thrill of the hunt, the glory of the victory, the joy in the bounty. There was one problem. He looked at Trina. Portugal. Two actually. “We don’t have enough supplies to make it to Lisbon. We needed to fill up in France.”

“We’ll have our loot,” Sam said, as eager for the chase to begin as any good pirate would be. “We will drop anchor in Lisbon as planned and gather enough supplies from there.”

Alex nodded, and with his eyes still on the woman who would likely become a living hell for him, he cast her a shadowy smile. “It looks as if ya’ll be stayin’ aboard
Poseidon’s Adventure
until we reach Portugal.”

He wasn’t giving her a choice.

“Inspect and load cannons!” he shouted over Sam’s shoulder to whoever was on deck. Ah, this was what he lived for. What they all lived for. He pulled back and turned to Caitrina. “Things are going to get messy. Stay here. I’ll send yar cousin to ya.”

Without waiting for her compliance, he left the cabin with Sam and began shouting orders to his men to rise out of their drunken stupors and get the hell to work.

“Captain at the wheel!”

“Cap’n at the wheel!” Two more announcements went out, one after the other. The hunt was his. It was his duty as captain to shadow the prey and determine whether or not victory was in their favor. Once victory has been established, they would raise the black flag and fire a warning shot of lead from their cannons. After that, it was up to the other ship to surrender. If they didn’t… Alex smiled. If they didn’t, then combat would ensue.

He accepted the spyglass from Sam and adjusted his bandanna to hold against the wind. Ah, it was a good day to fight.

Trina watched the door close behind him and stood frozen in her spot. She and Kyle were staying. They would have to pen another letter to Skye. For now she thought, the captain was about to take a merchant ship… and he expected her to stay put? She tried. She truly did. She was going to be traveling with him for a while. Och, Lord, they’d have to find different sleeping arrangements if she was staying. She didn’t think she could resist him much longer. Waking up to his beautiful face was just as bad as going to sleep staring at it. Alex Kidd and a bed in the same space wasn’t working out well for her.

She paced before the door again, trying so hard to stay put. She didn’t want to irritate him by disobeying his orders yet again but she was aboard a pirate ship and the pirates were about to do what they did best. She wanted to be part of the action, not hidden from it. She paced, then sat down in a chair then paced some more. In the end, she asked herself what good was staying if she missed the adventure?

She stepped outside and the wind caught her hair and whipped it across her face. She cleared her strands and looked up at the thick, ominous clouds rolling across the vast sky and blocking out the morning sun. It made her dizzy and she looked away, toward the thunderous sea instead. Waves crashed against the hull, rocking the ship and her belly. How could anyone fight in these conditions? Without balance and the solid earth beneath their feet?

She heard shouting and watched the barefoot, drenched crewmen climbing the ratlines up the masts and maneuvering the running rigging to the sails.

Where was Kyle? What if he fought? Visibility was poor, balance was worse. How would he get onto the other
ship if the pirates took it? Her cousin wouldn’t stand idly by if there was a fight. No MacGregor would. Now that they were staying with the pirates, Kyle would lend his skills to any service required.

Heaven help her, she still couldn’t believe it. Just like that they were staying. Her heart raced, recalling her threats to seduce their host. She would have laughed at the notion of her seducing anyone if she didn’t fear her words would come back to haunt her. She had no idea how long the trip would be, but she certainly couldn’t remain in the captain’s cabin the entire time.

The sound of men’s voices spun her around. She looked at the small group staring back at her. She wished she hadn’t given the captain back his pistol.

“She sure is fair,” one of them sneered. “Worth hangin’ by yar ankles if ya ask me.”

Another one elbowed him in the ribs. Trina remembered him from earlier, Mr. Pierce had called him Robbie. “Leave her alone. She’d cut out yar heart with yar own cutlass.” He pushed the others on their way and paused before he passed her. “Thank ya fer not tellin’ the cap’n about what Nicky said.”

She nodded and smiled, then asked him if he’d seen Kyle.

“Check the helm. I saw him talkin’ to Mr. Pierce a little while ago.”

Trina thanked him and looked toward the stern. If these pirates were truly taking another ship, the helm was the place to be. Kyle knew that and was likely up there. With her hair snapping against her face from the wind, she made her way to the highest point of the wondrous brig, to the helm.

She didn’t find her cousin, but the captain was there,
looking like some fabled myth come to life, the wheel in his left hand, his chest to the storm. He looked through a spyglass and shouted into the wind, “Bearing port two meters!”

The shout rang out from stern to stem, one voice after the other until everyone heard.

The captain steered steadily while waves rose up over the ship like phantom dragons come to swallow them whole. Mr. Pierce appeared as if out of the wind and sea spray. He took her arm and set her close to the captain’s side, then closed her fingers around a rope he pulled from somewhere behind her.

“Hold on,” he warned her before stepping away as the waves crashed over the bow, splashing them in the rear.

With nowhere else to look after Pierce left, she set her eyes on the captain once again. “Are ye mad to do this in a storm?”

He grinned at her and winked. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” she told him, expecting his laughter.

“Good.” He didn’t laugh, but his smile softened just enough to be indulgent. “It pleases me that ya trust me.”

He
was
mad. She might have told him so if he didn’t begin shouting orders. “Raise the black flag!”

They were going to plunder the merchant ship, which, Trina was stunned to discover, was much closer to them than she thought. The captain had chased it, and now he was about to catch it.

Was she dreaming? Was this truly about to happen with her in the midst of it all? Her blood scored her veins and blasted through her heart like thunderbolts. Bracing her legs, she watched the merchant ship grow closer.

“Fire cannon!” the captain’s order echoed forth.

“Cover yar ears, beauty,” he said more quietly to her.

She did as he gently commanded and let go of the rope just as the bow lifted on a massive swell. Cannon fire roared across the heavens, and Trina’s descent overboard was halted by an arm as hard as steel around her.

Alex pulled her in close, as he had the last time they stood at the helm. His chest pressed to her back, his arms covering her down to their hands clutching the wheel. All at once, Trina felt like she’d arrived at the place she’d been longing for her whole life. At the helm of a ship being tossed about in a raging ocean, yet held steady by a silken steel embrace.

“I almost lost ya there, lass.”

There was something about the way he spoke against her ear. His tone was flippant save for the deep fissure of something more meaningful. She had to keep herself from shaking in his arms, even though it would have been understandable after almost going overboard.

“Yer cannons missed,” she said, keeping her mind off him and what almost just happened.

He smiled against her temple. “Nay, ’twas only a warnin’. We aren’t all the blood-thirsty savages the noble folks would have ya believe. We give them a choice to raise their white flag.”

She smiled at his logic. She wasn’t here to judge him. She was here to live. And now, with the wind snapping at her hair and a warrior breathing down her neck and heating her in places where she never knew its power until now, she felt more alive than ever before.

He let go of her and stepped back, leaving her to steer on her own. She almost let go, but his voice soothed her.

“Feel the force of it in yar hands, Caitrina.” He took hold of her hair and cleared it away from her face. “Like a bow,” he whispered against her ear while he wrapped
one of his sashes around her forehead and tied its ends into a knot on the side of her face, “as ya pull back on its line.”

With her hair free from blocking her vision, she felt a bit more confident. They were gaining speed. They were almost upon the merchant ship.

“Fire muskets!”

Shots rang out and continued even as the captain ordered more cannon fire. Trina’s hands shook as they gripped the wheel. This was real. The ship vibrated from the power of the deafening cannons. The power of the beast beneath her was too much.

Sensing her trepidation, the captain took the helm back and maneuvered his ship between the wind and his prey. “Fun’s over, beauty.” His voice covered her like a warm summer mist. “Go belowdecks. I would have ya safe.”