Bound by the Heart

Rescued from the stormy waters of the Caribbean,
Summer Cambridge, daughter of the British governor of Barbados, faced a new
threat aboard the American ship
Chimera,
Captain
Morgan Wade, the notorious buccaneer, brazenly ordered the young beauty to his
cabin to be held for his own pleasure!

Summer fought him with the ferocity of a wildcat.
but held by his insistent passion, she was swept by waves of desire she had
never known, and was powerless to resist him.

Even an she returned to Barbados and the marriage that had been arranged for her, she still trembled with
memories of those days and nights of forbidden passions, and of the man whose
love would forever hold her heart captive.

* * *

June 1811

Chapter 1

T
he utter
and absolute darkness smothered the tiny raft, totally
disorienting the two half-conscious passengers.

There was no moon and there were no stars, no visible
ceiling to the gray shifting clouds that formed their last recollection before
the fog and darkness had moved in to obliterate the world. Summer Cambridge
hugged her ten-year-old brother tightly, as much to reassure herself that they
would not momentarily drop off the edge of the ocean as to keep him from
slipping wearily off the inadequate planking. Every now and then she pinched
the numbed flesh of his arm and prayed to hear the sharp little sob—the only
sign that he was still alive. Every now and then she hugged him more tightly,
trying to forget the events of the past twelve hours.

The storm had struck their vessel, the
Sea Vixen,
quickly and furiously, lashing
her with a viciousness unnervingly common to the Caribbean. It was June. It was
the beginning of the rainy season, and they had all been warned of the
possibility of severe and sudden heavy weather on the route between New
Providence in the Bahamas and Bridgetown, Barbados.

The
Sea Vixen
had left Southampton six weeks earlier, trailing
ignobly in the wake of two British ships of the line. One had remained in New
Providence to fortify the blockade of the American coastline, and the other had
left within the week for Bridgetown. Since there was no way of knowing when
another escort might become available, the captain of the
Sea Vixen
had prudently taken his place
again in the shadow of the immense seventy-four-gun warship the
Caledonia.

When the storm struck, the
Vixen
had taken the worst of it. She
had been tossed about in the raging winds and foam-capped waves as if she were
a cork in a whirlpool. Snarls of white water and boiling spray had sucked the
battered vessel in dizzying circles, snapping her mainmast into kindling and
crushing her sides like papier mâché.

Three men had been dispatched to hold her wheel
steady, for as much good as it did them. The
Vixen
leaped out of the sea, almost
rising above the water, only to crash back into the next trough with a
sickening skidding downward slide. Wave after wave was hurled over the
floundering vessel, sweeping away the torn rigging and surging down the open
hatchways in cataracts until there was not a patch of dry wood to be found
anywhere.

Summer and Michael Cambridge had been huddled together
in their cramped cabin, cowering in a high-sided berth, clinging to each other
as the sides and floor of their quarters alternately changed places.

"Oh God, Michael, we can't stay here,"
Summer cried, flinching in horror as the water on their cabin floor sloshed
against the side of the berth.

"But S-Summer—!"

"We can't stay here!" She was shouting to be
heard over the constant roar under the bow. "Don't you see we'll be
trapped! If anything happens, we won't be able to reach the upper deck. For all
we know, the captain is already loading the lifeboats!"

"Summer—"

"Do you want to be
left behind?"

She hauled Michael out of the bunk and dragged him sobbing
and shivering to the cabin door. She was nearly knocked flat as a wave rolled
the
Vixen,
but
she held on to the brass latch of the door until the ship righted itself again.

The companionway was ankle-deep in rushing water. It
washed down the stairwell, shooting past the row of small cabins in its
eagerness to fill the decks below. Summer felt the tears streaking her cheeks
as she fought hand over hand with the hempen guide ropes to reach the grayish
light showing above the hatch.

An even greater horror greeted them at the top.

There was only one sail straining aloft for steerage.
Of the acres and acres of canvas and taut rigging the
Vixen
was capable of carrying, only
one pitifully small square remained. The rest were fouled in a tangle of
twisted rope, broken spars and wildly swinging yards. Lines snaked across the
decks and hung over the sides, trailing in the water behind the ship. The sea
cascaded over the bulwarks as it would over a dam, sheeting across the open
decks unhampered, having already cleared everything from its path.

Summer paled at the sight of the devastation. A fresh
torrent of salt water rushed past her down the stairwell, and she felt
Michael's grip around her waist falter. Her hands slid along the coarse hempen
rope for as long as it took her to regain her balance, and she screamed for
Michael to hold on; she screamed for the burning pain in the palms of her
hands; she screamed for the sudden wild lurch that brought with it a wall of
curling white water.

The rope she was holding snapped under the pressure.
She was flung like a rag doll against the carved oak bulkhead, and her arms and
legs suddenly lost the ability to respond. She tried to hold fast to the rail
leading up to the quarterdeck, but the wrenching, jarring pain was too much,
and she slid with the wave, rolling over and over as it carried her to the deck
rail.

The roaring water engulfed her, blinding her and
tearing the screams from her throat one minute, choking and gagging her with
mouthfuls of the ocean the next.

She rolled again, and the deck suddenly vanished. A
vast, gray emptiness surged up to meet her, sucking her into its depths with a
violence that burst the remaining air from her lungs. She spiraled down, down.
. . . She felt the weight of a thousand tons of water hammering her, tearing at
her clothes, ripping at her hair, deafening her finally under the liquid
silence.

Summer broke clear of the surface, her mouth and nose
streaming water. She was tossed giddily upward, and in her panic she began to
pump furiously to keep her head above the water, not wanting to believe she was
going to die then and there.

A smaller, less-determined wave swamped her, and she
swallowed a bitter mouthful of the ocean as it snatched her down again. Her
skirt tangled around her ankles, producing another flood of terror when her
feet could no longer obey her commands. Her lungs held a burning breath as she
began tugging at her clothes. When the weight of her overdress was gone, she
tore at the muslin shift, then the single layer of petticoat and the long satin
shimmy until her legs were bared and free.

Her head bobbed above the surface again, and she
forced herself to concentrate, to
remember.

Once, when she had been very young, she had fallen
into a reflecting pool. It had not been deep, but to a shy and terrified
four-year-old, it had represented a bottomless void. Her father had insisted
afterward that each member of the family have lessons in swimming and
self-preservation in the water—especially since he was due to be posted on an
island in the Caribbean.

Swimming lessons in a private pond guarded by servants
and watched over by instructors had in no way prepared Summer Cambridge for a
maelstrom hundreds of miles from any known land. The ocean floor could be a
dozen feet below her or a dozen miles, with countless lurking terrors between.
There were sharks in these waters, and barracuda, and . . .

"Michael!”

Summer blinked repeatedly to clear the water out of
her eyes. Her hair had lost its combs and fillets and spread around her
shoulders like a golden fan.

"Michael!”

What chance was there that he had tumbled after her
out the open hatchway? The last she remembered he had been reaching valiantly
across the deck in an attempt to pull her back to safety. If he had leaned too
far, if he had been swept from the deck after her, what hope was there he could
have survived the terrible pounding?

"Summer?"

It was only a weak cry: a gasp, nothing more.

"Michael!
Michael!”

Summer could not see over the crests of the waves. She
had no idea from which direction the sound had come or even if it were a sound
at all. It could have been the wind or the pelting of rain on the water.

"Michael?"

Had she imagined it? As far as she could see, there
was only green haze and lashing gray foam. The
Sea Vixen
had long since disappeared
into the mist to die, leaving a trail of broken timber and trappings in her
wake.

"Summer?"

There! A bobbing black shadow on the crest of the
heaving water.

"Michael!"

He turned at the sound of her scream. A glimpse of the
pale white face and the huge, terrified eyes was all she needed to spur her
into kicking toward the small black dot. She clawed into the waves, fighting
each handful of water as she pushed it behind her. Time and again she was
swamped and sent thrashing in the opposite direction, but she refused to allow
the panic to overtake her. It seemed to take a lifetime just to conquer one
wave, but she did it, and each one she overcame brought her closer and closer
to her goal.

Michael was clinging desperately to a broken beam from
the
Sea
Vixen.
His
hazel eyes were as round as saucers; his normally tanned complexion was as gray
as the threatening seas. He did not look at all like the composed, mature young
man who had met her on the docks at New Providence. He had been very formal,
very proper in his tailored frock coat. He had bowed politely and kissed her
hand, reciting the greeting from Father that he had traveled hundreds of miles
to deliver as if it were an everyday occurrence. The week was spent convincing
her he was no longer the gangling, pesky six-year-old she had left behind.

The facade had shattered over the past few hours, and he
was now a very frightened, very discomposed boy. He was sobbing as he flung an
arm around her neck, causing them both to flounder momentarily beneath a wave.
Summer grasped the beam he was riding, testing its stability. How long could
they hang together from a two-foot length of timber? She did not know, but it
felt sturdy, and she wept with relief as she rested her cheek on the rough
surface.

"Summer, what are we going to do? What is going
to h-happen to us? Where is the ship? Why h-haven't they turned back to f-find
us?"

Turned back, she thought? Oh, Michael . . .

She should never have left England. She should never
have bowed to her father's blackmail. She should have remained with her friends
and continued to enjoy the social whirlwind of her life in London. His threat
of cutting off her allowance and stranding her penniless had been a trifling
one at best. She would not have remained penniless for long. Or unattached. The
fact that Sir Lionel Cambridge had also arranged her marriage to a naval officer
posted in Bridgetown before she'd had a chance to either approve or disapprove
should have added to her stubbornness. She should have followed her first
instinct and eloped with the first eligible male she met after receiving her
father's final ultimatum.

A mouthful of bitter seawater snapped her to full
awareness. The effort it took to lift her head was tremendous. Her arms felt
leaden; her legs could not muster a single halfhearted kick. Her eyes had
trouble focusing on anything beyond the morass of moving water.

"S-Summer? Are you all right?"

"What?" The croak that came from her lips
startled her.

"You f-fainted or something," Michael said
tremulously. "I didn't know what to do or how to w-wake you."

"Wake me? How long—?" Summer looked around
and gasped. The rain had stopped, and the fury of the storm had abated. The
waves continued to churn and toss them about, but they were only petulant now;
most of the anger of the storm had been played out.

"Several hours, I th-think," Michael was
saying. "I shouted and poked at you, but y-you didn't move. I h-hope I
didn't hurt you."

"I cannot feel a thing anywhere on my body
anyway," she said, smiling weakly. She recalled Michael's tendency to
stutter when he was frightened or upset—something that had supposedly passed
with age. She raised a hand from the beam to touch him and reassure him and
frowned when she saw the ugly raw redness of her palm. She frowned because she
could not recall how the injury had occurred or why it was not hurting. When
she replaced her hand on the beam, she noticed that the wood was lower in the
water than it had been.

"Several hours," she repeated in a daze.

"D-do you suppose anyone on board the
V-Vixen
has missed us?"

Summer stared at her brother. Fear was bruising the
softness of his eyes.

"Of course they have," she said soothingly.
"And they're probably searching for us right now. I'm sure if we just hold
on long enough
..."

Her voice faltered. Michael's lower lip was clenched
between his teeth, and he was obviously making a supreme effort not to cry. His
dark brown hair stuck in sodden clumps to his brow and cheeks; his hands were
shriveled and white from the length of time they had been in the water.

"I h-haven't seen anyone else," he cried.
"I've f-felt things, though. Th-things that slide past my legs."

Summer glanced involuntarily down at the water,
stirred to opaqueness by the storm. "Oh, I don't think . . . it's probably
just your imagination."

"I tell you, I f-felt things! Huge sl-slippery
things, and I have to k-keep kicking my feet to keep them away!"

Summer could feel herself tensing. Of course there was
nothing beneath them. He was just frightened and hysterical. It was only the
shock playing tricks with his imagination . . . wasn't it?

Visibility was nonexistent. The clouds hung so low in
the sky they appeared to brush the peaks of the waves. They must have drifted
quite a distance, for there was no sign of any other wreckage, no sound other
than the slap of water and the hollow moan of the wind. Summer had to blink
several times to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her.

"Look, Michael," she whispered, "a
raft. At least it looks like a raft from here. See? Over there—those planks
floating on the water."

Michael sniffed and craned his neck to follow the
direction indicated by her trembling finger.