An Improper Proposal (21 page)

Ross’s reaction was not nearly so mild. He leapt down from the mizzenmast, where he’d been issuing orders with lightning speed, and hurled out a few more, along with some choice swear words.

“Light those cannons! Yes, all of them! We’ll blow those galley rats out of the water, see if we don’t!”

Toc late. Because at that moment, something flared on the deck of the
Constant
. The next thing Payton knew, her world was blackened by something thick and heavy, thrown across her eyes.

“Raleigh!” she shrieked furiously. “Let me see!”

“No.” In spite of her fingernails, clawing at him frantically, Raleigh refused to remove his hands from her eyes. “It’s too awful. It will break your heart, Pay.”

Her heart in her throat, Payton finally managed to fling his hand away—just in time to see the
Constant
‘s hull disappear in an explosion of black smoke and flame.

She wasn’t even aware that she’d begun whimpering until Raleigh’s hand settled on her shoulder.

“She was a beautiful ship,” he said mournfully. “You were right to want to command her.”

Payton’s lips were moving. Eventually, she was able to form words. “Ship?” she echoed. “Ship? Who cares about the bloody s hip? Where the hell is Drake?”

They were close enough that Payton could see, without the help of a spyglass, the smoking hulk of what had once been the
Constant
. Its deck—what was left of it—was teeming with men, darting in and out of the thick black smoke from her hull. It was impossible to tell which men belonged to the crew of the
Constant
, which men were from the pirate ship upon which they’d just fired, and which of them were from the third ship—identified by Raleigh as a Tyler ship called, ironically enough, the
Rebecca
. Completely uninjured, protected from the
Virago
‘s cannons by the hulls of both the pirate vessel and the
Constant
, the
Rebecca
was evidently standing by, prepared to take on passengers—or captives—if necessary.

“Oh!” Payton cried. “There he is! There he is!”

She could see Drake clearly now, moving about the wreck that had once been his ship, shouting orders to those of his men who’d not yet been captured or killed. The
Virago
was close enough now that if they didn’t drop anchor, they’d crash straight into the pirate vessel—close enough that all four of their cannons, when they went off, which they did just then, sent crippling volleys through the hull of the full-rigger between them and Drake’s boat.

But they were also close enough that the
Rebecca
, on the
Constant
‘s starboard side, was able to fire off a cannonball that knocked off the top quarter of the
Virago
‘s mizzenpost. The crew scattered to all sides as sails and rigging rained down upon their heads. Payton narrowly escaped a concussion as a large chunk of mast crashed down directly where she’d been standing, and only because, at the last minute, she leapt over the railing …

And onto the deck of the pirate ship.

Which was not, she quickly realized, where she really ought to have been, just then. It was, in fact, the direct opposite of where she ought to have been.

But, with a quick glance over her shoulder, she realized that this wasn’t the worst of her problems. The collapse of the
Virago
‘s mizzenpost was enough of a calamity that for a moment, no one paid attention to her direction ….

And that moment was all it took to send her prow directly into the side of the pirate ship. There was an explosion of splintering wood, and some very loud, and quite distinguishable, cursing from Ross and some of his deckhands.

Now there was a three-way tie-up of boats: the
Virago
, the pirate vessel—which, now that she was on it, Payton could see was called the
Mary B—
and what was left of the
Constant
, while nearby floated the unscathed
Rebecca
.

Thrown to her knees by the impact of the two ships ramming into one another, Payton stayed where she was for a second or two. After all, she was on a strange ship. She didn’t want to appear too conspicuous.

But the crew of the
Mary B
seemed wholly occupied with ransacking the
Constant
for anything on board they could lay their hands on—and that seemed to include Miss Whitby’s trousseau, which Payton could see them removing, lace pantaloon by lace pantaloon, from the captain’s cabin in the after house. As for Miss Whitby herself, Payton wasn’t certain what had happened to her, but could only assume she had been taken, with the other prisoners, across the plank that had been thrown across the railing round the
Constant
‘s deck to the deck of the
Rebecca
...

And yes, there she was, her hair a bright spot of red in all the smoke. She was being jounced along upon the shoulder of a tall man in a feathered hat, who had his arms wrapped around her hips and was conveying her on board the
Rebecca
—though not, apparently, against her will, since she was not struggling at all. Which hardly seemed, Payton thought, like Miss Whitby, who had always been something of a screamer …

Then Payton realized that the reason Miss Whitby wasn’t struggling was—could only be—because she was unconscious. Well, of course. Miss Whitby was, after all, a delicate flower of a woman. Wasn’t that why Payton and her brothers had felt compelled to rescue her that day outside the London inn? She was a victim. A perpetual victim, from the looks of things, because here she was, in trouble again.

Well, Payton wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. The first time she’d rescued Becky Whitby from harm, what had she gotten for her efforts? A big fat nothing. Well, actually not nothing. Becky had thanked her very nicely by stealing the love of her life. How was that for gratitude?

Besides, what did she care, whether or not Becky Whitby ended up some pirate captain’s personal prisoner, shark bait, or just plain dead? She’d been praying for something like that to happen for days—for weeks, even. And now her prayers were finally being answered. Only …

Only what if she really were carrying Drake’s baby? Payton couldn’t very well let her die, could she?

Well, could she?

Then she saw what was happening a few dozen yards away from her, and her decision was pretty much made for her. Several men—several really big men—were dragging what appeared to be an unconscious Connor Drake over the railings of the
Constant
and onto the deck of the
Rebecca
.

At least, she assumed he was unconscious. Surely he couldn’t be dead. A dead man they’d throw overboard, not drag below, which was where they took Drake.

Oh, my God, she prayed, frantically looking around to see if anyone else had noticed that Drake had been taken captive. Please don’t let him be dead. Take me instead.

Or, better yet, take Miss Whitby!

But her brothers and the rest of the crew of the
Virago
were still trying to get out from beneath the topsail that had collapsed over them. It was going to take them forever to get untangled from it. And by the time they did, the
Rebecca
and her prisoners would be long gone …

Payton didn’t actually think about what she was doing. If she’d stopped to think about it, of course, she’d never have done it.

She had just swung a leg over the splintered railing of the
Constant
when a very unfriendly voice growled, “Where in the ’ell do you fink you’re goin’, eh?”

Payton turned, and saw a boy coming out of the
Constant
‘s forward house—the forecastle of which was now in flames—holding an enormous net bag full of bread and citrus fruits. He had evidently been raiding the galley, and looked extremely annoyed at finding someone standing in his way.

“What’re you, deaf?” he wanted to know, when she didn’t answer him straightaway. “I ask you a question, boy. ’Oo are you?”

Payton looked down at herself. She had forgotten that shortly after boarding the
Virago
, she’d borrowed a shirt, vest, and trousers from the cabin boy, since it was a good deal easier to move about on a frigate’s deck in pants than in petticoats. She supposed that, with her short hair—and, it had to be admitted, not very sizable chest—it might be easy to mistake her sex. Still, it wasn’t very flattering to be taken for a boy, even by a grimy lout like the one before her.

“You want I should knock that hat off you, boy?” The young man seemed quite irritated by her silence. “I’ll do it. Don’t fink I won’t.”

Payton didn’t like being threatened—at least not by someone who wasn’t that much bigger than she was. Drawing herself up to her full height, she said, “Get out of my way.”

The boy’s upper lip curled. “Why? Where d’you think you’re goin’?”

Payton pointed to the deck of the
Rebecca
. “There,” she said.

The boy dropped the bag full of food. “No you ain’t,” he said.

“Oh?” Payton eyed him. He was as tall as she was, but looked to be about fifty pounds heavier. “You think so, do you?”

“Fink so? Matey, I know s—”

But he never got to finish that sentence, because Payton’s fist connected solidly with his nose. The nose, her boxing brother Raleigh had once informed her, was the second-best place to punch a man, after the stomach. Many boxers made the mistake of striking their opponent in the mouth, forgetting how deeply teeth can cut a knuckle. Nasal cartilage, being quite thin, had the dual advantage of crumpling easily beneath the fist, and splintering quite painfully into the face when smashed.

Payton was just stepping neatly over her opponent, intent upon rescuing Drake, when she found herself seized around the waist and hauled off her feet. Suddenly, the wooden planks of the ship deck, which had been beneath her toes, were over her head, and her toes were pointing toward the gray, overcast sky.

“Little bastard,” a vicious voice swore at her. “I’ll teach you.”

What the gentleman—and she applied that term loosely—meant to teach her, Payton never knew, since into her upside-down world stepped an extremely large black man with several gold hoops through his earlobes, and another through his right nostril. He too was carrying a heavy sackload of pillaged foods. He did not look happy.

“Put ’im down, Tito,” he said, in a voice that sounded like monsoon thunder.

“Aw, Clarence.” Her captor, of whom she’d yet to catch a glimpse—beyond the fact that he wore boots in an extremely large size—sounded unhappy. “Look what ’e did to Jonesy.”

“Never mind that, now. Remember what the cap’n said. No captives, ’cept his woman and Drake. Let ’im down.”

“Clarence—”

“Down, I said.”

Payton realized what Tito was about to do just seconds before he actually did it, but it was still jolting when her backside met with the hard planks of the
Constant
‘s deck. Wincing, she rubbed her sore behind and looked up at the two men who stood arguing over her.

“I tell you, ’e shouldn’t be able to getaway wi’ doin’ Jonesy that way!”

Tito, Payton was surprised to see, was a completely bald, middle-aged white man … bald, middle-aged, and quite fat about the middle. Which might explain why he’d been dragging the carcass of an enormous pig behind him, with a heavy hook. Since he was also very tall, Payton decided he was about the biggest man she’d ever seen—at least until she got a good look at Clarence. Then she quickly amended that opinion.

“No prisoners.” Clarence shook his enormous head, and his many chins swayed pendulously. “Just Drake and the cap’n’s woman. You know we ain’t got enough food for more. Wha’ wi’ the
Mary B
sinkin’ fast, we’re goin’ to have to feed their crew as well as own. We’ve barely got enough to last us till Nassau as it is …”

Payton, hearing for a second time that the intention of the attack on the
Constant
had been to capture Drake and Miss Whitby—whom the pirates referred to, oddly enough, as their captain’s woman, not Drake’s, which she thought odd—knew that she couldn’t possibly let them leave her behind. Who was going to look after Drake? Not a single one of her brothers had yet cleared the deck of the
Virago
. They were still trying to untangle the cannons from beneath the mainsail.

It was up to her. It was entirely up to her.

But as she was rolling over, preparing to crawl, if she had to, after Drake, her head was suddenly yanked back quite forcefully—she was wearing a knit cap in deference to the winds—and presently, she felt the tip of a knife-point at her throat.

Then she realized it wasn’t a knife at all, but the point of the hook that a few seconds ago, had been embedded in the pig Tito was stealing from the
Constant
‘s galley.

“Let me kill ’im then, Clarence.” Tito’s foul breath was warm on her cheek. “Please? The Frenchman won’t mind. I know ’e won’t mind.”

There was enough hesitation in Clarence’s voice that Payton knew if she acted fast, she had a chance. “’E’s jest a kid, Tito …”

Payton, the back of her head resting on Tito’s massive shoulder, said hoarsely, “You don’t mean … You don’t mean that your captain is the Frenchman, do you?”

“’E is,” Tito snarled in her ear. “An’ no other. Why? You ’eard of the Frenchman?”

“Oh, of course.” It was very difficult to swallow with the business end of a hook stuck at the hollow of her throat, but Payton managed just the same. “There isn’t a seaman alive who hasn’t heard of Lucien La Fond. Why, he’s the scourge of the South Seas! I’d give anything to see him, just once. Tell me, is it true he once outran His Majesty’s naval forces in the Indian Ocean, using only a single sail, when a storm took out his main mast?”

“It is.” She felt the pressure on her throat lessen just the tiniest bit. “I was on that ship, you know.”

“Were you?” Payton tried to infuse her voice with boyish enthusiasm.

“’Course I was. ’Oo d’you think ’eld the mast in place, after she broke off?”

“Was that you?” Payton shook her head, which took some doing, seeing as how he was still holding onto a handful of her hair through her cap. “You must be powerful strong. Oh, please, sir, don’t you think instead of killing me, you could take me aboard with you? I’d be right honored to sail under such an able seaman as the Frenchman.”