Bound by the Heart (45 page)

"You left the ship without telling me?"

"The plain truth of the matter is," he
paused, and his hand dropped from her chin, "I came down twice to see you
before I went, and both times you were busy with the men."

She lifted her head. "You came to see me
twice?"

"Aye." He added quietly, "You don't
think I believe everything I'm told, do you?"

Summer did not know whether to laugh or cry. She
straightened away from him and changed the subject before she did either.

"Mr. Phillips said you had Farley Glasse
flogged."

"Mr. Phillips talks too much. But. yes, I had him
flogged. A punishment far too light for his crimes by my way of thinking. At
any rate, as soon as Thorny seals off the cuts, Glasse will be on a quarterboat
and bound for perdition. I haven't a care for what becomes of him after
that."

"And the
Northgate?
Are you really going to sink her?"

"I believe I have already. At the speed she's
taking on water, she won't ride out midnight. By then, hopefully, we'll be long
gone. This blasted calm is the only thing keeping us here now, but we'll try
towing her out past the windbreak. The
Gyrfalcon
has signaled a breeze out where she's sitting,
so—"

"The
Gyrfalcon?
She's here?"

"Aye. Straight out"—Morgan pointed into the
blackness and gave a deprecatory laugh when there was nothing to see—
"past the fog, that is. She's sending in two of her longboats to help with
the tow."

Summer was not looking out at the fog. She was trying
to account for the sudden concern she saw in his eyes.

"It's the
Caledonia,
isn't it?" she asked. "Is that what really
worries you?"

Morgan frowned. "This is war, my lovely. What
worries me is that it will get a good deal worse before it gets any better. Had
I known—" He hesitated, and the gray eyes widened.

"Had you known . . .
what?"

"Had I known I was bringing
you to this—" Still he could not finish the sentence.

"I am not afraid,
Morgan," she whispered. "How can I be when I am with you? Please,
don't ever regret taking me away from Bridgetown. You have given me more in the
time we have been together than I would have had in a thousand years if we were
apart. And please don't take all of the blame on yourself for my being here.
Had I truly wanted to leave your ship in Speightstown, nothing on this earth
could have stopped me."

He smiled, and the warmth of his
arms wrapped around her. "And had I truly wanted you off my ship earlier
today, none of your temper tantrums would have saved you. Selfish of me, wasn't
it?" His lips brushed her forehead. "You could have been
killed."

"It only makes me believe that
you meant what you said."

"On which occasion,
madam," he murmured dryly. "You seem to recall an uncanny number of
things I have said."

"On the occasion when you
promised me we would never be apart again."

"I said that?"

"You did."

He was debating an appropriate
response when a shout from the topmast erased the smile from his face.

"That will be Treloggan,"
he said and turned abruptly away from Summer.

She followed him at a slower pace,
keeping her distance, hoping not to be noticed too soon and ordered back down
below.

John Bull Treloggan could have
earned his name on appearances alone. He stood a full head taller than Morgan,
easily commanded a hundredweight more on the scales and was the proud owner of
such a fearsome countenance Summer almost turned and ran below voluntarily. The
lower half of his face was bearded. Black and wiry, it hung to midchest,
plaited in a score of braids and crusted with gold and silver beading. His eyes
were coal black and sunk into dark hollows. The skin that showed between the
beard and the red bandanna he wore was so badly scarred and pockmarked it could
have been chiseled from lava rock.

Stuart Roarke, already settled firmly
in Summer's mind as being a brave but cautious man, lost considerable ground in
her estimation as she wondered at the sheer lunacy of anyone who would steal
away
in
the middle of the night with this man's only daughter. Even harder to imagine
was the possibility of Bull Treloggan siring anything that could have begun
life as soft and pink as Sarah.

Boll was not the only cause of Summer's frozen stance
in the shadows. Climbing through the gangway right behind Captain Treloggan,
dwarfed to comic proportions and trying valiantly not to cry, was a scruffed
and grimy figure who heard Summer's gasp and answered with a shriek of his own.

"Summer!"

"Michael! Michael, what on earth—!"

He flew across the deck and hurled himself into
Summer's arms. She looked over the top of his head, shaking hers in
bewilderment in answer to the scowl on Morgan's face.

"Stowed away, he did," Bull Treloggan
grunted in a voice that sounded like slabs of marble grinding together.
"Would've thrown him right off again when he poked his head up for air,
but he sniveled and caterwauled and claimed to be kin to you, Wade. Thought I
better bring him along in case you wanted the pleasure of seeing him dance from
a yardarm yourself."

Morgan's smile was not entirely one of amusement.
"I'll give it serious thought, by God. What the hell are you up to, lad?
Why did you stow away aboard the
Gyrfalcon?"

"I thought she was the
Chimera,
sir," Michael said,
swallowing hard. "I
...
I wanted
to be with S-Summer. I wanted to w-warn her."

"Warn her? About what?"

"About Commodore Winfield, sir." Michael's
face was pale as he turned it up to his sister. "He was dreadfully angry
when he found you gone. I
...
he
thought you took Sarah and ran away. I tried to tell him what h-happened, but
he wouldn't listen. He . . . he said I helped you."

"Take a look at his backside," Bull
muttered.

Michael's arms tightened around Summer's waist and his
whole body flinched as he buried his face against her.

"Michael?" she whispered. "What is it?
What did he do to you?"

Morgan did not wait for explanations. He lifted the
boy's shirt and angled the trousers down. Welts the width of a finger rose in
crisscross patterns across his buttocks. Michael pressed his face closer to
Summer, and her eyes swam as she raised them to Morgan's.

"I never thought he'd hurt Michael. . . ."

"That were the other reason I fetched him
along," Bull muttered.

"Can I stay with you?" Michael sobbed.
"Oh p-please, Summer, I won't get in anyone's way. I'll work hard, and I
w-won't eat much and . . . and I'll stay out of everyone's w-way, you'll
see."

"Of course you can stay," Summer cried.
"Hush now, of course you can stay. But where was Father throughout all of
this? Why didn't he stop Bennett? How could he just stand there and let Bennett
hurt you?"

"Oh, Summer—" his narrow shoulders quaked,
his eyes and nose streamed wetly—"he didn't even try to stop him. Bennett
said it was all Father's fault. He said it all happened because Father had let
you do as you pleased for so long. He
...
he told Father that Sarah was a . . . that she was Captain Wade's baby and that
if what you were doing was found out, it would ruin them all. Father got all
red and started shouting back, and then—" Michael's mouth worked, but the
words failed to come out.

"And then what, Michael?" she asked.

He glanced owl-eyed around the deck of the
Chimera.
"And then Admiral Reg
burst into the study and told everyone that we were at war with America. He was
laughing, and Father laughed, too, and Bennett. . . and then everyone went
rushing out into the streets. Everyone except Bennett. He pushed me up against
a wall and said that both you and I were traitors now and that if I thought to
do anything more to warn you, he would be justified in having me shot. He still
thought the
Chimera
was in the harbor, you see." Michael's eyes
sought out Bull Treloggan and his voice faltered. "Only it wasn't the
Chimera."

Bull took up the story from there. "Seems the lad
bribed a boatman to bring him out. After we found out who the hell he was and
why the hell he was on my ship, we listened to his story and figured it would
be smart to put on sail and leave. We were kind of held up some, though, when
an armed boarding party came out of nowhere and ordered us to strike the
colors. Some fancy-dressed popinjay stood on my deck under a white flag and
said he was claiming my ship in the king's ruddy name."

"What happened?" Morgan said, his brows
knitting together.

"C-Captain Treloggan broke the lieutenant's
musket in his bare hands," Michael whispered in awe. "He just took it
and jolly well bent it in half."

"Bull—" Morgan had a feeling he knew what
was coming.

"Eh? Oh, we scuffled about and ended up putting
the lot of them in the drink to swim ashore. We ran up sail faster than a
peppered dog and would've given 'em a warm round to remember us by, but the
harbour was full of boats—celebrating the war, you know?—and the way to the
Caledonia
was fair blocked. It didn't
stop Winfield though. He sounded his bells and had his guns run out before we
were half-past."

The crew of the
Chimera
who had gathered around fell silent. They knew the
Caledonia
carried better than eighty
guns, and being caught in such tight quarters as Bridgetown's harbor, without
steerage or room to maneuver, the
Gyrfalcon
would have been as vulnerable as the
Northgate
had been.

Bull grinned suddenly. "And we would have been in
a hell of a fix if someone hadn't snuck on board the night before and poured
wax into the Brit's touchholes. Most of his guns were jammed tighter than a
whore's—" He saw Morgan glance sharply in Summer's direction, and the word
was chewed into a mumble. "Bah! Where is that bastard despoiler of a
son-in-law of mine anyway? It isn't often Bull Treloggan has the mind or the
reason to thank any man
. . . Roarke!"

"Stuart's been injured," Morgan said
quietly.

"Eh? Injured, you say? How badly?"

"Badly enough. And you haven't mentioned anything
about your own damages."

The gnarled black brows crushed together. "We
heard your thunder, Wade. My lads were itching to come in and lend a hand—would've
come in the dog boats if I'd let them, but I thought we'd best stay put and
keep a sharp eye on the horizon. Hell, I knew you wouldn't need us
anyway."

"It wasn't a question of needing you or not. I
didn't want to take the chance on both ships being damaged at once. A wasted
precaution, I gather. Do I get an answer on the
Gyrfalcon?"

Bull's black eyes glinted at him from their hollows.
"You know I've never run from a fight in my life. The minute Winfield ran
his guns out, my lads were there with an answer. On the whole we put on a damn
fine showing against a ship of the line. A couple of my boys went down,
including my chief gunner, Fortby, but they all gave three hearty cheers and
near mutinied when I wouldn't bring them up alongside the
Caledonia."
The burly shoulders shrugged.
 
"But I couldn't see the sense
of taking on a Goliath alone. We took our tails and got out of there while we
still had the windage to."

"You did the right
thing," Morgan insisted. "And the only thing, under the circumstances.
You're damned lucky you weren't pounded to splinters. Did Winfield give
chase?"

Bull's scowl cleared, and he
surprised the complement of crewmen by winking broadly at Michael. "Aye,
Old Winifred tried. He called for sail as soon as he saw that most of his guns
were frozen. Sheets were falling like clouds, they were. I reckon it took six,
maybe eight hours just to replace the rigging Roarke's men sliced through and
another twelve on top of that when he tried to steer the great bloody sow out
of port and found out the cables were cut to his rudder."