Fortune Trilogy 1 - Fortune's Mistress (23 page)

“I didn’t think you had it in you, Matt. Not after all we’ve been through together.”

“Ha!” the captain scoffed. “I’m doing the same as you’d do to me, boy, if you had half the chance. You should have guessed. The old days are gone. I’ll be a royal governor, and I’ll need no unrepentant corsairs beside me to remind the crown where I’ve come from.”

“If she wants you, you can have her. But I’ll not go without my share,” James warned. “You’ll have to kill me for it.”

“No!” Lacy cried. “He means it, James!”

“Listen to her,” Matthew said. “If your wise, you’ll leave now, before I have a change of heart. Because if I ever lay eyes on you again, I’ll charge you with piracy and hang you from the nearest yardarm.”

L
acy heaved the golden bowl up to slam against Matthew’s chin. There was a brief instant when the captain realized what she was doing. His eyes widened in surprise, and his mouth opened to shout for help. But the cry never passed his lips. The heavy vessel slammed into his jaw and knocked him senseless. He fell backward in a heap, still wearing the necklace and armband.

Heart pounding, Lacy scrambled up and snatched Matthew’s sea bag from its storage place under the bunk. “Don’t just stand there!” she hissed to James as she began stuffing jewelry and plate into the sack. She was so scared she could hardly get her breath, but she knew that there was no turning back now. They’d either get off the ship with part of the treasure or they’d both end up as shark bait. “James!”

The stunned expression faded from his face, and he sprang into action without a word. Quickly, he retrieved Matthew’s flintlock pistols and checked to see that both were loaded and ready to fire. He tucked the guns into his belt and strapped on the captain’s sword belt. Lastly, he reached down in Matthew’s left boot and pulled out a razor-sharp Scottish skean.

Lacy tested the weight of the bag, then added the disk necklace and a handful of rings and small statues to her cache. “We can’t take it all,” she warned. “We’ll never make more than one trip to the
Silkie.”
She stripped the armband off Matthew’s arm and hesitated for a second, deciding whether to try for the necklace.

“Leave it,” James said. “I’ll carry the bag. You wrap the bowl and those two cups in a blanket and take those yourself.” He grinned at her. “I don’t know why you changed your mind again, woman, but I’m sure as hell glad you did.”

She laughed. “I never changed my mind,” she replied saucily. “I knew what I was doing all along. I just didn’t know when to do it.” What was wrong with him? For a bright man, he sometimes acted like a complete clod. Didn’t he realize that she’d only pretended to side with Matthew?

“So you say.”

“You’ll never know for sure, will ye?” she snapped. Then her mood turned serious as she glanced at Matthew. “I’d set fire to the cabin if it wasn’t for him. That would keep the crew too busy to worry about us.” She sighed. “Nay, don’t look at me so. I’d nay leave any living thing to burn to death. There’ll be fire enough for all of us in hell.” She swallowed, trying to rid her mouth of the acrid taste of fear. “Is there any chance ye can get his crew to mutiny?”

James shook his head. “I thought of that just before you knocked Matt senseless. No. They’ve nothing to gain by joining us. He’s already promised all hands a share of the gold. If it was the old crew on the
Miranda,
I might try to persuade them, but these are his men. They don’t know me.” He compressed his lips thoughtfully. “No,” he said, “we’ll have to escape on the
Silkie.”

“So I thought. At least it’s too cloudy for them to follow us by moonlight. I—oh!” She gasped and pointed toward the cabin door.

James drew a pistol and cocked it in one smooth motion as he whirled around, expecting to see someone in the doorway.

As soon as James’s back was turned, Lacy snatched Harry off a chair, popped the surprised cat into the sea bag, and pulled the drawstring tight. “I thought I heard someone in the passage,” she lied. “Give me one of those pistols. I’d not cross the deck to the
Silkie
unarmed.”

“If there’s any fighting to be done, I’ll do it,” James said. He went to the door and pressed his ear against the wood. “I don’t hear anything.”

“With luck, they’re all drunk in the fo’c’sle.”

James shook his head. “No, not on Matt’s ship. There’ll be a watch, and he’ll be sober. We’ll have to get past him.” He went to where Matthew lay and ripped a sheet in strips to tie his friend’s hands and feet. Matthew’s chin was swelling and a trickle of blood ran down his neck.

“Did I hit him too hard?” Lacy asked.

“No, though he’ll have one hell of a throbbing head when he does wake up,” James answered as he gagged the captain with another section of sheet. “That should keep him from giving an alarm any too soon.”

Harry meowed.

James stood up and looked around. “Where’s that damned cat?”

Lacy stepped in front of the bag, hiding Harry’s struggles to get free. “I want a pistol,” she repeated. “I’ve earned it.” She eyed him stubbornly. “Like as not, you’re too drunk to shoot straight. If ye don’t hand one over, I’ll scream bloody murder, and that will bring the crew running. I’ve come this far with ye, James Black, and I’ve seen that half your cockeyed schemes don’t float. I’ll carry a weapon or we’ll not go a step from this cabin.”

He frowned. “I’m drunk, but I’m not too drunk to hinder my aim. I’d have to be dead drunk to shoot worse than you.” Reluctantly, he removed Matt’s knife from his belt and tossed it to Lacy. She caught it in mid-air. “You can have the skean. I don’t trust you with a flintlock,” he said. “You might change sides again and shoot me.”

“Son of a bitch!” she exclaimed softly. “And who saved your bollocks just now?” Resentment brought heat to her cheeks. “Swivin’ pirate,” she muttered under her breath as she donned one of the captain’s coats and jammed a cocked hat on her head.

How could Jamie still doubt her when with both hands she’d thrown away a rosy future with Matthew Kay? she fumed. She was truly hurt. She’d knocked Matthew unconscious for James and she was leaving behind most of what she’d risked her life to bring up from the wreck.

“You’re an ungrateful bastard,” she said in exasperation. “Why I bother with ye, I surely don’t know.” She bent and scooped up a handful of gems and a nose ring, and tucked them into her coat pocket. In the other pocket, she put a bottle of rum. “I hope there’s fresh water on the
Silkie,”
she said. “I doubt we’ll have time to take on supplies.”

“I think not.” He picked up the heavy sea bag and motioned her toward the door. The cat’s muffled squeak came from the folds of the canvas. “What the hell?” James asked, looking over his shoulder.

Lacy strained under the weight of the golden bowl and the other contents. “We’ll have to come back to the island for Kutii,” she said. “I won’t leave him stranded here.” She lifted the latch and peered out into the passageway. “It’s clear,” she said. Her hands and feet were tingling. She was so frightened that she didn’t know if she could cross the deck to the small boat, but she had to try. And it was far better to be shot dead than to admit her cowardice to James Black.

Matthew groaned.

“Wait. I’ll go first!” James ordered. “You close the cabin door behind us. And if trouble starts, drop what you’re carrying and make a dash for the boat.” He turned on her with an intense gaze. “If we get separated, we’ll meet six months from today in St. Mary’s on the Chesapeake,” he said. “If either of us gets there with the gold, we’ll wait for the other. Agreed? August fifteenth.”

“Where?”

“It’s north, in the Maryland Colony If we get away with Matthew’s gold, the Caribbean won’t be safe for either of us. St. Mary’s on the Chesapeake. Remember that.”

“How far is it?” she asked.

“Far enough to be out of Matthew’s reach.”

“I don’t trust ye.”

“Good,” he said. “That makes two of us.” Cautiously, he moved through the hatchway and up the narrow ladder. Lacy kept close behind him. It was so dark that she had to feel her way with one hand.

The wooden bones of the ship creaked, and Lacy could hear water lapping against the hull. From somewhere behind her came the faint rustle of rodents’ scratching feet. The stagnant air was damp and musty. She could smell tar and black powder.

“Shhh,” he warned.

She put her foot on the bottom step and curled her fingers around the handle of her knife. Her heart was fluttering like a netted pigeon.

When James pushed open the hatch, the first thing Lacy heard was the fragment of an off-key song, bellowed in a score of rum-soaked male voices.

“Keep close,” James whispered.

And where else would I be? Lacy wondered wryly.

They had gone no more than six feet when the deck watch spied them and shouted, “Who goes there?”

“It’s me, you fool!” James answered in a voice so like Matthew’s that Lacy’s mouth gaped open in surprise.

Almost at the same time, the cabin boy appeared carrying a serving bowl of steaming chowder. “Ye ain’t the cap’n!” he shouted. Scrambling back, he dropped the tureen and began crying the alarm shrilly.

“Go!” James urged Lacy.

A shot rang out. James dropped the sea bag, switched his yet unfired pistol from his right hand to his left, and drew his sword with his free hand. When the bag hit the deck, Harry squawked and shot out of the sack, running across the deck.

“Harry!” Lacy cried. “Come back here!”

James gave her a shove. “Get to the boat!”

Two sailors came running toward them armed with cutlasses. James put a musket ball in the center of the first man’s chest. The second hesitated, then charged in, swinging his weapon. James blocked the cutlass with his sword, recovered, and ran his assailant through.

Lacy reached for the sea bag, then screamed when a man lunged out of the darkness and grabbed her. She twisted and struck out with her knife. She felt the blade slice through flesh, and the sailor gasped with pain. He swung at her with a fist. His blow glanced off the side of her face. It hurt, but not enough to slow her down. She started for the stern of the ship, dragging the sea bag after her.

She heard the clash of steel on steel, and then the roar of a flintlock. She snapped her head around to see James holding a smoking pistol. Three more sailors were advancing on him. “James!” she shouted.

“Get out of here!” he yelled.

More of the crew were pouring out of the fo’c’sle. Ships’ lanterns flared in the darkness. Lacy covered the distance to the rail and looked down at the small boat bobbing below. “James!” she called again. He didn’t answer. Mustering all her strength, she wrestled the sea bag up on the gunnel and shoved it over the side. It landed on the deck of the
Silkie
with a crash, then slid sickeningly toward the rail. Lacy gasped, then sighed with relief as the bag hit the edge and held.

A girl with any sense at all would follow the bag, she thought as she turned back toward James. Her foot struck a cutlass lying on the deck and she bent to pick it up. She couldn’t see James in the confusion, but judging by the sounds coming from where she’d left him, he was still causing someone a heap of trouble.

A man’s form tumbled to the deck, and Lacy caught sight of James with his back to the ship’s wheel. She had started toward him when a sinewy hand clamped over her mouth. She struggled wildly as she was pulled backward toward the rail. She swung the cutlass blindly, trying to strike her attacker.

“It is Kutii,” the Indian said, releasing her mouth.

Lacy stiffened. “We’ve got to help James.”

Kutii glanced up at the quarterdeck where James was surrounded by angry crewmen. “We go,” he said.

“No!” she protested. “I won’t—” Then she was in the air. Seconds later, she hit the water with a splash. When she surfaced, Kutii was beside her, pushing her toward the
Silkie.

“Damn you!” she cried. With Kutii’s help, she climbed up onto the boat. He ran to slash the rope that bound them to the square-rigger. “No!” she insisted. “James!”

On the quarterdeck, James turned toward the sound of her voice. “Six months!” he shouted.

The
Silkie
began to drift away from the
Adventure.
Kutii unfurled the sails. Lacy stood motionless. “No ...” she whispered hoarsely. “Not without—”

A sailor with a musket in his hand ran to the rail and took aim at the
Silkie
. There was a flash and a loud crack.

Kutii gasped and clutched his chest.

Lacy cried out and half-turned toward him. A second shot rang out on the quarterdeck. She looked back and screamed as she saw James fall. Several sailors shouted in triumph as they swarmed over his prone body.

Kutii grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Star woman, we go,” he insisted. He turned her toward the tiller. “You take.” He pointed back to the larger ship. “We go before they stop us.”

Trembling, too numb to weep, Lacy moved to the tiller. Even the sight of Matthew’s sea bag, still lying where she’d tossed it, did nothing to ease her anguish. She’d known she couldn’t have James, but she had expected to lose him to England—not to death.

Kutii raised the second sail, and the canvas snapped in the wind. The small boat leaped forward, almost as though the
Silkie’s
spirit realized the need to put distance between her and the square-rigger.

“Goodbye, James,” Lacy whispered. The racing clouds overhead parted just as she gave a last glance back. She blinked, uncertain of what she’d seen, then muffled a cry of joy. There, bobbing up in the dark water like a seal pup, was a frantically swimming tomcat.

She could no longer hold back her tears. They streamed down her face as she brought the
Silkie
about and Kutii scooped the thrashing cat from the waves and carried him back to her.

Wet and shivering, Harry emitted a loud burst of purring, then proceeded to shower her with water as he shook himself like a dog and cat-walked along the deck to take possession of his cabin once more.

Lacy leaned into the tiller, purposefully crossing the shallowest part of the reef and heading north into the darkness. She closed her eyes and whispered a silent prayer.

“I want to see,” she murmured. “Is he really dead? I want to see.”

She waited expectantly.