Dangerous Magic (25 page)

The three-masted lugger plowed through the waves, her sails stretched taut as the wind pushed her through the growing swells. Rafe stood upon the foredeck, frowning at the boiling skies licked with lightning, judging his distance from the cliffs ahead and the reefs marking the entrance to the harbor like teeth.

The winds twisted, and the ship wallowed, her sails luffing as the rain began, slicing the air like knives. The cliffs grew larger, their tops lost in fog. Water sliding down his face, Rafe turned to yell something to the helmsman. Gwenyth screamed out a warning just as lightning split the sky with a crack, and the mainmast exploded in a shower of sparks and splintered wood. Rafe threw a hand up to shield his face as the boat ground onto the submerged rocks…

She woke with the cry still upon her lips. The dream grew more vivid, details emerging that until now had remained shrouded in mystery. She knew she witnessed the
Cormorant
’s demise, yet Rafe had told her the ship had passed out of his hands. He’d turned his back on the sea and the life he’d found upon it. But perhaps he’d only told her the truth as he knew it. If so, she had left her escape too late. And Rafe was doomed.

She reached for Cothey’s warmth, but the big tabby was gone from his place at the foot of her bed. And the others watched her skittishly from the corners, their eyes glowing gold as carriage lamps in the moonlight.

“Cothey,” she whispered.

She heard his excited meows from the front room—and something more. Quiet footsteps sounded and a whispered voice, the scrape of boot heels and the creak of a chair back. Cothey mewed low in his throat then went silent. Rising, Gwenyth threw a shawl across her shoulders. Fear held no sway over her. In her trade, she was visited at all hours and by all sorts. But something made her pause. Perhaps the unnatural quiet that followed the earlier noises, as if someone or something waited for her in the shadows.

She held her breath and listened, but there was nothing more. Refusing to give in to the tremor of apprehension stealing up her spine, she squared her shoulders and took a steadying breath. Standing in the gloom of her chamber’s doorway, she cast her eyes around the outer front room. At first glance, nothing seemed out of place. Moonlight spilled across the floor in silvery puddles. The fire smoldered beneath the heavy curfew. The wooden cupboards and counters stood prepared for the morning’s chores. A long rounded heap of blankets lay upon the rug next to the hearth. Her eyes paused then returned to the heap that had not been there when she put out the last taper and went to bed. A heap that Cothey rubbed against with excited purrs of welcome.

She crept toward it, breathing shallow and rapid, senses searching for any hint of who or what it was. Before she’d taken two steps, the bundle moved. At that same instant, her Sight crackled through her, and she caught her breath on a gasp of amazement.

“When I saw you’d already gone to bed, I hadn’t the heart to wake you. I thought our words could wait until morning.” His voice came raspy and drowsy with exhaustion.

Gwenyth trembled, every part of her body shaking with fear and joy and a sick, nervous worry. Her first wild thought was that he knew about the child. He knew and he was here to claim it from her. She dropped her hands to her stomach even as she realized there was no way he could have found out. She’d told no one—not even Jago. “And why did you come?”

He sighed. “I couldn’t leave things as they were. I couldn’t sail without making peace between us.”

He sat up. He’d removed his shirt; it lay slung across a stool. His chest seemed carved in stone, gleaming like quicksilver in the moon’s pale light. He put an elbow out and leaned upon a nearby settle, and Gwenyth knew despite the sculpted, perfection of his body, no marble’s cold polish would meet her fingertips. He had always burned with a steady brilliance, the heat of his flesh setting fires within her when they touched. A delicious shiver of need ran through her, and her heart pounded in her chest.

Derek had promised he would send Rafe to her—and here Rafe was. She need only reach out a hand and take what he promised. If she dared.

“Gwenyth?” He cleared his throat, and she sensed his growing uncertainty. “I know I shouldn’t have come and not like this, but—”

Stepping forward around the settle, she dropped to her knees beside Rafe, and cradling his head between her palms, she kissed him with a longing that drove any remaining thoughts or doubts from her mind and put a sudden end to anything more he might have said.

Relief swept through Rafe with Gwenyth’s urgent kisses. This seductive, passionate woman locked against him had been a dream he had not dared to believe in again—not once in all the endless miles between here and London. His mind told him he should pause, recover his wits, and demand an explanation. His heart—and, he must admit, his body—required no such words. It was enough that she lay against him, that she allowed him to draw her down on top of him, and that she did not pull away, even when his hand moved under her shift to caress her. He stroked her, cupping the soft weight of her breasts, inhaling her familiar scents of lavender and mint.

“I thought I’d lost you forever,” she whispered, her roving fingers re-exploring, laying new claims.

Desire vibrated through him, coalescing in a throbbing, tight heat at his groin. But still unsure of his footing, he couldn’t completely relax. Too much remained a puzzle. “You can’t lose what you never wanted. And you made it very clear you never wanted me.” He tilted an eyebrow in question. “Have things changed?” Gwenyth’s face was unreadable, though her eyes gleamed dark and eager. “Have you changed?”

She leaned up and pressed a kiss upon his lips. Her tongue flicked out, and before he knew it, he’d opened to her, the raw hunger of her kiss exploding through him like grape shot. The wanton movements of her body, those luscious curves sliding against him, sent a wave of lust pulsing through every vein. He wanted to sheathe himself inside her. Knew he could take her right here and now, but he held back. He needed answers first. With effort, he gripped her arms and made her stop.

“Gwenyth, I came here with every intention of fulfilling our agreement and leaving. But now…now I don’t think I can go back to what you and I had.” He spoke through teeth clenched against the temptation her body offered. “If this continues, it’s because you’re ready to set aside your fear and face whatever comes, with me by your side. It’s not a bargain. It’s not a chance for you to take what you want from me. I can’t do that anymore, Gwenyth. Now, it’s all or nothing.”

Gwenyth’s expression sombered, but as he spoke the beginnings of a smile touched her lips. By the time he had finished his speech, she was laughing. “You foolish, ridiculous, impossible man.” She laughed. “Have I not given an answer and more? I won’t let you walk out of my door again without me, and I’ll fight for any scrap of a life with you, even do I have to wrestle the gods themselves.”

Rafe crushed her to him, loving the feel of her snug against him. Of her unbound hair falling wild over his chest, running over his hands. A shimmer of captured moonlight. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

They kissed, but this time demands gave way to possession, and the flare of passion between them steadied to a blaze searing him to his core. Set his hopes and senses spinning.

She shivered, gripping him tightly as if she could not bear to let him go. “I feel a happiness I’ve not known since leaving Bodliam, and yet dread freezes me to my very bones.”

Rafe’s hands moved down the soft skin of her back to cup her close against his heart. “It’s but the ragged edges of your dreams. Even now, they fight to hold you captive to them.”

Gwenyth’s gaze darkened as if she saw something beyond his sight. Her hands paused, and her body grew still. “The dream came to me this very night.” She trembled. “You stood upon the deck of your ship as a mighty storm came up. I cried out a warning, but it was too late.”

Her trancelike stare unnerved him. He shivered as if a goose walked upon his grave. Despite her fears, he had to tell her his final destination. He knew that in following her heart, she went against a lifetime of belief. He could lose her for good, but he had to warn her. Nathan Triggs and the
Cormorant
lay ready and waiting in Polperro harbor. Once MacKenna was aboard, they would sail for Ireland. If DeWinter spoke the truth and this was Rafe’s last job for the Secret Service, then this voyage would be either the end—or the beginning—of everything.

He reached up, fingering a loose strand of her flaxen hair. His voice firm, determined. “Gwenyth…There’s something I need to tell you…”

“Are you mad, woman?” Jago slammed his fist upon the table. “What can you be thinking to make such a trip with this man?”

Gwenyth remained calm in the face of her brother’s fury. This was an argument she’d won already this spring. She would do so again. She closed the flap upon her bag and hefted the satchel over her shoulder, testing its weight against her hip. “’Tis a simple run. We should be gone no more than a fortnight, sooner if the winds prove in our favor.”

Gwenyth’s brother leveled a baleful stare at Rafe, where he stood at the door, ready to leave. “Nothing that man does is simple. He’s a rogue and a criminal—a black-hearted smuggler.” All Jago Killigrew’s venom was concentrated in that last word. His gold-brown eyes burned with anger. “If he makes a run, it’s for no good purpose. I want you nowhere near such doings.”

Gwenyth dropped the satchel to the floor with a heavy thump. “And since when have you been the one who tells me when and where I may go? If you need to be pushing someone around, bother Vivyan. Let Rafe and me be!”

Rafe remained silent. He was as unhappy with Gwenyth’s decision to accompany him as Jago. He’d spent half the night arguing with her about it. And the other half making up. Both had left him achy with exhaustion, and with a temper touchy as a hair trigger. As infuriated as he was himself, if he opened his mouth, it would be to say something he would rue later.

Gwenyth’s show of force seemed to take the wind out of Jago’s sails. His shoulders slumped in defeat. Only his eyes remained hard with frustration.

Gwenyth, too, seemed disconcerted by her unnatural anger. She let out a heavy pent-up breath. Moving to her brother’s side, she rubbed a hand down his arm and offered him a shy smile. “Come. Let’s not part on a quarrel. I have to go, Jago. It’s the dream, don’t you see? I have to be there. If anything happens…if I can stop it by being there…”

Jago shook his head slowly from side to side. “Oh, Gwenyth, lass, if it’s meant to be, your being there won’t make a bit of difference. You’ll only watch it happening in front of your waking eyes instead of in your sleep. Is that what you want to carry with you for the rest of your life?”

Gwenyth hefted the bag back upon her shoulder. With a determined tilt to her chin, she met Jago’s sorrow-filled face. “I’m willing to take that chance. Now, mind the cottage for me. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

She reached up and kissed him on the cheek, her hand lingering for a moment before she released him.

Rafe bowed her out of the cottage before him. As he turned to follow, Gwenyth’s brother caught his arm in an iron grip.

Leaning in close, Jago’s eyes bored into Rafe’s. Like Gwenyth’s, her brother’s gaze could singe. His eyes burned with the heat of a furnace. “You take care of my sister, Captain Fleming. I’m not gulled by your fine looks and slick tongue. Does aught happen to her, you’ll have me to deal with. Bear that in mind.”

Rafe felt a throbbing in his temples, but he ignored it, meeting and matching Jago Killigrew’s stare. “Gwenyth will not come to harm because of me. I’ll protect her with my life.”

Jago spat into the dirt at his feet. “See that ya do, Captain. See that ya do.”

Noys Conover looked up from his compass and charts. “That’s the mouth of Tramore Bay away to starboard, Captain.”

Without taking the night-glass from his eye, Rafe flinched at the address. “Triggs is still captain here, Conover.”

“As you say, sir.” Conover bent back over his charts.

After surveying the dark outline of the coast ahead, Rafe dropped the telescope to his side.

Triggs stood beside him, fiddling with his waistcoat, obviously trying to look unconcerned at his crew’s confusion. Clearing his throat, he moved down the deck, and Rafe breathed easier. He felt guilty enough taking over the ship like this without Triggs watching his every move.

The job had gone smoothly so far. Triggs had made no complaint when Rafe had appeared in Polperro to commandeer the
Cormorant
for this final run. In fact, the man had welcomed him aboard with a hearty handshake and a boisterous hello. Being a superstitious man, he’d cast a jaundiced eye at Gwenyth’s arrival, but it was Ciarán MacKenna, the Secret Service’s paid assassin, that caused Triggs to shrink back in fear. Rafe’s second had always had a nose for the wickedness in a man, and MacKenna fairly dripped evil.

Conover glanced back up. “And the headland there is Finskillen. That puts us about ten miles southeast of Ballyroan, sir, and very near where yon man’s due to go ashore,” he said, nodding his head in Mackenna’s direction.

“Heave-to and prepare to launch the gig.” Rafe cast his gaze to the sky. A haloed moon hung low in the west, while heavier clouds already obscured the dimmer stars. “We’ll send a crew ashore once the moon sets, or when those clouds move in. Whichever comes first.”

The
Cormorant
held steady beyond the headland. The men knew their business. The ship’s lights were doused and any words were spoken in the softest whispers. Only the rigging kept up a steady hum in the warm land breeze blowing off the coast.

Despite the tension winding him tight, Rafe was filled with an exhilaration he’d not felt since the night he took the revenuer’s bullet. Restrained in the confining atmosphere of his family’s home, he’d been surprised to feel frustration and boredom building to a fever pitch. But it had taken only hours aboard to shed the edgy pressure that had dogged him for weeks.

The familiar roll of the ship beneath his feet, the excitement of what lay just over the wide silver expanse of horizon, and the surge of pride and power he felt bringing the ship beneath his command until she cut through the water like a knife. All these things made him realize he could never again turn his back upon the sea. Like a drug, it had worked its way into his system, and he wondered how he would live without it.

He cast a long look at Gwenyth standing aft before turning his attention to the boat-crew. Better to think of the job at hand than too far into the future. It may all end here, if things went awry with this landing.

Four seamen slipped over the side to take up oars. Rafe watched MacKenna check his gear, sliding an ominous dirk into a scabbard at his belt and a slim blade into his boot. A pair of pistols disappeared into his coat and he carried another pair from his waistband. The man was a walking arsenal. God help his prey.

MacKenna slung his pack across his shoulder and put a leg over when Gwenyth approached him. Though she put a gentle hand upon his arm, still he spun as if she surprised him. She spoke softly, pressing something into his palm. He glanced down at the object. Then giving Gwenyth a hard sullen stare, he pocketed whatever it was and slipped soundlessly over the side to join the oarsmen.

Gwenyth crossed to Rafe’s side.

“What did you want with MacKenna?” he asked.

Gwenyth slid her hands up to grip Rafe’s arm. Leaning against him, she put her head upon his shoulder. “A bit of cold iron to ward away the fairy-folk, and a scrap of my cloth should he need it.”

Rafe’s brows lowered into a frown. “Any fairy would have to be out of his mind to tangle with MacKenna. The man’s a ruthless killer with the soul of a devil.”

Gwenyth’s gaze turned to the darkness out beyond the ship. “It won’t always be that way. When he forgets the man he is, he’ll remember the man he was destined to be.”

The landing boat slipped soundlessly away to drop MacKenna on the loneliest stretch of coast between Dungarvan and Waterford Harbor. With oarlocks muffled in scraps of scrounged tarpaulin, it would be as silent as the death it brought with it.

Rafe wondered what the Witch of Kerrow saw in Ciarán MacKenna’s future. By the wistful expression on her face, it didn’t look like a violent, bloody death. That was good. Perhaps they’d all get through this thing with their skins intact.

As the clouds thickened and spread across the sky, the wind began to gust, tearing at the sails. The remaining crew wrestled to hold the
Cormorant
for the returning gig. Rafe sighed with relief as the gray shape of the boat’s prow reappeared, the men rowing like demons.

In moments, they had pulled in their oars and secured the boat before climbing up and over the
Cormorant
’s side.

“He’s safe ashore?” Rafe asked, anxious to put this place behind him.

The boat’s coxswain wiped a sleeve across his brow. “Far as I could tell, sir. We dropped him like you said. Coast was empty. Hills looked quiet. He disappeared soon as we beached. Not even a look back, just a nod and he was gone.”

Rafe felt a pricking between his shoulder blades, a steady growing sense of unease. Something wasn’t right, but MacKenna was away. The man was on his own now, just as he liked it.

“Captain Fleming!” Triggs shouted from the bow. “Coming round the headland. Two points off the portside bow.”

A shape heaved up out of the dark. No more than musket shot range off their port side, it seemed to come from nowhere. The lonely sea was suddenly alive with light and shouts and the ominous sound of the running out of guns.

“’Ware!” came a shout from the other ship just before its cannons opened up on the
Cormorant
.

A rolling boom like thunder echoed around Rafe until his ears rang with the sound.

A customs sloop passed across the
Cormorant
’s bow. Obviously assuming Rafe was off-loading contraband and worried he’d dump his cargo and make a run for it, the sloop’s over-eager captain had spared no time for questions. Instead, he’d opened up, raking the
Cormorant
’s deck with her cannon.

The shot smashed and splintered wood and tore through the sails as it passed the length of the deck from bow to stern. Rafe cast a panicked glance around for Gwenyth. She’d ducked beneath the railing, the white of her eyes showing her fear.

“Get below! Now!” he shouted.

He spared no time to note whether she heeded him or not. The crew scurried to rig the damaged lines and tackle and were putting on as much sail as the wind allowed. The
Cormorant
slid from beneath the sloop’s barrage.

Where the hell had that bloody, great ship come from? The only place it might have hidden was beyond the headland. No doubt the customs guard had discovered this treacherous piece of shoreline and decided to keep a closer watch. This was an overlooked drawback to being away for so long. Normally, he would have known where the revenuers were stationed. He would have kept his ears to the ground and been one jump ahead of any coastal patrols.

Tacking, he pulled the
Cormorant
ahead of the slower, less maneuverable sloop. The guns still fired, but the shot fell short and useless. The
Cormorant
’s square lugsails grabbed the wind, pulling the lugger wider of the revenuer’s fire. With luck the captain would give up the chase to search for the casks he expected to be hidden beneath the waterline.

The sloop heaved about, steering on a course that brought the two ships once again near enough to exchange fire. Tom Vingoe took up position at the swivel gun, preparing to release his own volley.

“Hold!” Rafe ordered. “I want no cause for them to chase us.”

Vingoe glowered his frustration but dropped his hand. The sloop’s cannons opened up again, and there was a flash of pistol and musket fire from the bow. Splinters of wood and metal sprayed the deck like bullets.

Behind Rafe, Triggs caught his breath upon a gasp of shock and pain. He slumped over as the lugger with every inch of available sail turned to catch the wind, pulled ahead, leaving the sloop behind. Even with the foresail’s spars and rigging half shot away, the
Cormorant
put more and more distance between them, soon losing herself in the open sea and the moonless night.

“Conover, take the helm. Set a course for Polperro.”

“Aye, sir!”

Rafe pulled Triggs to the deck. Feeling over the man’s still form, Rafe’s fingers encountered the sticky wetness of blood. He cursed as his stomach clenched with nausea. Bending over the hatchway, he called down to Gwenyth. “Triggs is hit! I need your help!”

Rafe dragged Triggs below where Gwenyth was dropping the glass over a hanging lantern. A black stain spread across Triggs’s chest. Rafe’s stomach lurched, and his skin grew clammy with sweat.

Gwenyth tore at Triggs’s waistcoat and shirt, exposing the wound. The skin of his chest on the right side had been sheared away as if someone had taken a flail to it. Red, raw, the pearly-gray muscle showing between lumps of offal that had once been a shoulder. A splintered edge of bone jutted out at an unnatural angle—Triggs’s collarbone, Rafe realized with a fresh roll of his stomach.

“Do you carry surgeon’s tools?” Gwenyth asked.

“There’s a bag in the aft cabin,” he said, forcing the vomit back down his throat. “I’ll get it.”

He stumbled away from the sour-sweet stench of blood back through the main hold. Standing for a moment beneath an open hatchway, a soothing breeze and a steady drizzle of rain cooled his flushed face.

Once in the aft cabin that served as crude captain’s quarters, he crossed to a locker, trying to breathe deeply and evenly. Within the locker, and beside the bag, sat a dusty bottle. Fumbling with the cork, he tipped the bottle up into his mouth, gulping down long swallows of the burning rum. It calmed his nerves even as it tore down his throat to eat at his belly.

Grabbing up the bag, he raced back to Gwenyth, shoving it into her hands. “I’ll leave you to it. The men will need me—”

Gwenyth grabbed his wrist before he could turn. “I’ll need your help to hold him in case he rouses.”

Rafe’s heart sank, but glancing at Triggs’s gray, pain-lined face, he knew he couldn’t leave. This was Triggs. Rafe had crewed with him since Cador’s death. He’d eaten at his table, danced at his wedding, and stood as godfather to his eldest son. He couldn’t turn his back upon him now. He bit down hard on the inside of his mouth until the pain took his mind from the trembling in his hands. “Very well. Just tell me what to do.”

Jagged, flying splinters had caught Triggs on the right side of his chest. Like bullets, they had ripped into him, breaking ribs, tearing through muscle. Gwenyth pressed on the area with a wad of rags to stanch the bleeding, but dark blood still streamed between her fingers.

“Is it bad?” he whispered.

“Have you ever heard of a good wound?” Gwenyth snapped. She shook her head, the bite gone out of her voice. “Here.” She took Rafe’s hand in one of her own and guided it to the rag. “Press hard with both hands. I need to see what tools you’ve got.”

Rafe pressed hard on the bandage, trying not to think of the maimed and bloody flesh beneath his fingers. To drown out the pounding of his own heart, he concentrated on the noises around him. Gwenyth muttered to herself as she rummaged through the bag. The crew called back and forth. The wind moaned through the sails, and the rain beat hard on the overhead of the cabin. Beneath this noise, hardly noticeable over the workings of the ship, Rafe detected a gurgly whoosh—steady, wet. It sounded each time Triggs took a breath.

“Gwenyth? I hear something. It’s quiet, but it’s there. Listen.”

Gwenyth dropped the bag, still holding a curved scalpel, the blade dull with disuse. She bent over Triggs, her ear cocked. Her face paled, and she snatched a new rag. “It’s his lung. By all that’s holy, he’s pierced it.” She dropped the scalpel and pressed down. The noise stopped. “Here, move your hand over and press here. I need to probe the wound, find out what I can before we go further.”

Rafe had never been as close to panic as he was now. Every sense screamed at him to flee. To escape the smell of blood and flesh and sweat and fear. His hands shook as they pressed upon the rag over Triggs’s lung.
I must do this. I must do this,
he thought. He recited this over and over in his head, blocking out the darker thoughts telling him he would die if he remained here one more minute. His heart raced, pounding in his ears. His tongue felt thick in his dry mouth.

Gwenyth stole a glance up at him. “Do you need to leave? To send someone else down?”

Rafe wanted to holler, Yes, for the love of God, yes! But this was Triggs and Gwenyth. He couldn’t let either one of them down. “No…just…just…do what you have to do.”

Gwenyth bent forward, fingers sure and swift as they dug down into Triggs’s chest. “He’s nicked a vein. See the blood there? It’s dark—slow-moving.” She shook her head. “In this sea and with the tools you’ve got, there’s naught much I can do beyond packing the wound and praying.”

“If I could reach a safe harbor? If Triggs could be brought ashore and—”

“Mayhap he’d have a chance…” Gwenyth dropped her gaze to the saturated rags. “But Polperro is too far—over a day’s journey.”

Rafe rose, his jaw hard with determination. “Leave that to me.”

Now that his mind was made up, the doubt and fear within him withered and burned away, leaving nothing but a crystalline sense of purpose. He felt Gwenyth’s touch upon his mind. Like a spark, it danced across his consciousness and then was gone. He knew she sought answers, worried about what he planned. Her dream had foreshadowed stormy skies, boiling seas and a race for the coast. With each decision made, the prophecy unwound before him. He tried not to dwell on it. He could see no other way.