Harlequin Historical September 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: Lord Havelock's List\Saved by the Viking Warrior\The Pirate Hunter (61 page)

Chapter Nineteen

W
ill hadn't slept a wink. Mia's last words to him before falling asleep had rattled around in his brain for hours.

‘Tomorrow might be our last day together.'

The very thought was making him feel sick. He didn't want to give her up. He felt like he'd only just found her. Surely they deserved a little more time together. He even thought about going to Captain Little and asking him to sail around in circles for a few days. Then he thought of his brother and a horrible wave of guilt washed over him. He was meant to be focused on bringing his brother's killers to justice, not indulging his passions in bed with a beautiful woman.

Still, he didn't think he would be able to say goodbye to Mia. She had come to mean so much to him.

Restless, Will resisted the urge to roll over in bed. Mia was sleeping soundly beside him and it wouldn't be fair to disturb her just because he was fretting about the future. After a few more uncomfortable minutes he decided to get up. There were still a couple of hours until dawn, and he wanted Mia to be rested for the day ahead as it was likely to be mentally and emotionally draining for her.

He slipped away, pausing to lean over Mia's sleeping form and plant a kiss gently on her forehead. She looked so peaceful and he marvelled at how well she had coped with being attacked earlier that evening. It was true she still couldn't remember the events, but finding her body bruised and beaten must have been a huge shock.

Silently Will left the cabin and padded down the corridor. The ship was quiet. A few men would be up and about, wordlessly going about their duties, but the rest of the crew were resting, in anticipation of the day to come.

Will emerged into the balmy night air and felt his eyes adjusting. It was quite a clear night, with the stars twinkling brightly in the sky, and after a few moments he could see the men dotted around the deck.

‘Mr Greenacre,' Ed Redding said, quietly coming up beside Will, ‘how is Miss Del Torres?'

‘Awake,' he said, ‘or at least she did wake up. She's sleeping now.'

‘She must be very distressed.'

He remembered holding her shaking body against his.

‘She can't remember anything,' he said. ‘I think she's concussed, but she was still in shock.'

‘I would never have imagined the Lieutenant would do such a thing,' Redding said. ‘He's an arrogant, dislikable man, but I didn't peg him as being capable of such a foul act.'

Will felt the same. He'd disliked Glass, but he hadn't thought of him as dangerous. A pang of guilt ripped through him; maybe he should have realised the sort of man he was. Then he might have been able to protect Mia better.

‘I'm going to speak to him,' Will said decisively. ‘Now he's sobered up I want to see what he has to say for himself.'

Redding looked dubious.

‘I won't kill him,' Will promised, knowing he might not be able to stick to it.

‘He's not worth a one-way trip to the gallows.'

Will knew Redding was right, he wasn't worth a death sentence, but somehow he wanted the man to pay for what he'd done to Mia.

‘I'll come with you,' the First Mate said. ‘Just until I'm sure you're not going to kill him.'

It was as good as he was going to get.

Redding led the way back below decks and through the maze of corridors. They went into the very bowels of the boat to reach the brig. The First Mate selected a key from the ring he was carrying and opened the door leading to the cells.

It was gloomy inside, with no natural light entering the confined space to illuminate it. Will stood in the doorway for a few seconds, allowing his eyes to adjust. Eventually he could see a small cell, lined on three sides by thick iron bars and a huddled shape in the corner. Apart from the cell there was little else in the room, just a solid wooden bench and an empty jug on the floor just outside the bars.

‘Come to gloat, Greenacre?' Glass said.

Will strained his eyes and saw the huddled shape move slightly.

‘I'm not here to gloat,' he told the Lieutenant.

‘So you're here to dish out your own personal form of justice,' Glass moved from his position in the corner and pressed his face up against the bars so Will could see him properly. ‘It will be a comfort in my last moment to know you are on your way to the scaffold, too.'

‘He's not going to kill you,' Redding said, darting a nervous glance at Will.

‘I'm not going to kill you,' Will confirmed and was surprised to find he spoke the truth. ‘You're not worth ruining my life over.'

He was thinking of Mia lying peacefully asleep in his bed and he realised he couldn't do something that would take him away from her. He imagined the anguish on her face as she watched him take his last walk, that short distance from the cart to the gallows, and realised he never wanted to do anything to hurt her.

‘If you're not going to kill me, why are you here?' Glass asked.

Will stepped further into the small room and sat down on the wooden bench.

‘I want to know why.'

The Lieutenant let out a short snort of laughter.

‘Why did you attack Miss Del Torres?'

For a second Will thought Glass wasn't going to reply.

‘You've ruined your life,' he prompted. ‘The Navy will throw you out. Your connections may save you from any harsher consequences, but your life as you know it is still over.'

‘I wouldn't be so sure about that,' Glass said cockily. ‘Not everyone puts such high value on a pirate whore as you do.'

‘Miss Del Torres is neither a pirate nor a whore,' Will said, trying to keep his anger from bubbling over. ‘She has been indispensable with helping us track down her brother and his crew.'

‘You speak as though you have already captured them.'

Will ignored this comment. He was pretty confident he would have Del Torres in a couple of hours so it wasn't worth arguing about.

Redding shifted on his feet and Will glanced at him, ‘I'd better go,' the First Mate said. ‘Don't kill him.'

He handed Will the key to lock the door to the brig behind him when he left, but took the key to Glass's cell with him.

‘Tell me,' Will said again, ‘why you attacked Miss Del Torres.'

Glass hesitated for just a second, then started speaking. ‘She's worthless,' he said. ‘She's the illegitimate child of a runaway slave and the sister of a pirate.'

Will shook his head in disbelief. ‘That's not who she is. She's a woman in her own right, a woman who jumped into the sea and saved a stranger from drowning. A woman who is helping us track down her own brother because she knows it's the right thing to do.'

‘Lovesick fool....' the Lieutenant spat. ‘She's got you wrapped around her little finger.'

Will took a deep breath and calmed himself. ‘So you think she's worthless, but that still doesn't explain why you attacked her.'

‘I saw the way you look at her, like a man bewitched. It was obvious to everyone on this ship what you'd been doing on your little trip to the other side of Tortola.'

Will had hoped no one had noticed their slightly dishevelled appearance, but it seemed he had been a little naive.

‘Every time you even glanced at her you smiled. It was sickening.'

An awful realisation began to dawn on Will and he stood suddenly. He leaned forward, hands grabbing the bars of the cell.

‘You did it to hurt me?' he asked.

Lieutenant Glass laughed, lounging back out of Will's reach against the far side of the cell.

‘You attacked Mia to hurt me?'

‘Not just to hurt you,' Glass said, ‘but that certainly was a big incentive.'

Will thought about every comment he'd made to the Lieutenant, every time he'd excluded him from their plans. He felt sick at the idea Glass had picked Mia as his weakness. He had wanted to get his revenge for being sidelined on this mission and had struck out at Mia.

Will realised it had worked. Nothing Glass could have done to him would have been worse than attacking Mia. At least he could have defended himself against a physical attack.

‘You said not just to hurt me,' Will repeated. ‘Why else?'

Glass shrugged, ‘She might be a pirate whore, but she's an attractive pirate whore.'

Will pictured Glass' hands roaming over Mia's body as she struggled beneath him. All night he had been trying to contain his imagination—he didn't want to even contemplate what would have happened if Mia hadn't screamed. The idea of Glass raping her was Will's worst nightmare.

‘You're a sick man,' he said, taking a step away from the cell.

‘She'd given herself up to you. I'm sure she would have enjoyed it once I'd got started.'

Will saw red. Anger and hatred surged through him and he smashed a fist against the bar of the cell. Glass just laughed. He knew in his current position and without the key to the actual cell there wasn't much Will could do.

‘Laugh now,' Will said, calming slightly. ‘When we get back to Barbados I will make sure your life as you know it is over.'

Glass shrugged. ‘You're welcome to try.'

He seemed all too confident and untroubled for a man who would at the very least lose his career and could lose his liberty or his life.

‘The reality is I'm well connected, with an exemplary military record. The Navy will most likely sweep this under the carpet. I'll get a rap on the knuckles, a few months' posting to an undesirable part of the world, then all will be forgotten. It's not as if she's anyone of consequence.'

She was of consequence to Will.

‘You're not the only one with contacts, Glass,' he warned him. ‘I may not be able to touch you whilst you're in the Navy, but one day you'll want to retire and I expect you'll want to return to your family in England. I can make it so all of society knows what kind of man you are.'

Some of the colour drained from the Lieutenant's face. He shook his head in disbelief and tried to put on a good front.

‘There are other places to live,' he said. ‘And after a few years no one is going to be bothered I groped a foreign whore anyway.'

Will agreed there were other places to live, but the second half of his statement wasn't quite true. After his career in the Navy he had no doubt Glass planned to return to England a hero and try to bag himself a nice heiress. No society mama worth her salt would allow their precious daughter anywhere near a man with even a whiff of this kind of scandal.

‘I would worry about sorting your own sorry mess of a life out rather than ruining mine,' Glass said.

‘My life is fine.'

‘Really? What's the plan, then? You catch Del Torres and return to run your estate with a pirate whore as your mistress? Or you leave her behind, never knowing if you have an illegitimate child on the other side of the world?'

Will's eyes glazed over. Glass was right, he did have a decision to make. A decision he hadn't even known was there. He could take Mia back with him to England. She wouldn't be society's idea of an acceptable wife, but what would that matter? They could retire to his estate, hidden from the rest of the world's cruel jibes, and have a family together.

The thought of children with Mia made his heart swell. He wanted to populate a nursery with her, have hoards of giggling children with honey-coloured skin and dark, bottomless eyes.

He didn't care if he could never show his face in his London club or attend another society ball again. It wouldn't matter; he would have Mia.

Suddenly everything became clear. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He loved Mia. Of course he did. He couldn't delude himself any longer that the happiness that diffused through his body every time he laid eyes on her was anything other than love. He loved Mia Del Torres and he was going to marry her.

If she would have him. A momentary stab of panic lanced through his heart. What if she didn't want him? Then he remembered her declaration of love, undemanding of a vow in return, and knew she wanted him. And if she protested that a marriage between two such different people couldn't work he was sure he could persuade her. In fact, he thought persuading her might be rather fun. Even if she didn't want to go and live in England he wouldn't care. He would hire a man to run the estate and they could spend their days on Caribbean beaches, walking barefoot in the sand and making love on the shoreline.

He grinned, looking at Glass. ‘Mia won't be my mistress,' he said, ‘she'll be my wife.'

Will pushed himself away from the bars of the cell and spun on his heel. He heard Glass shouting something after him as he closed the door to the brig, but didn't bother to pay attention. He was too happy to be brought down by the petty, cruel Lieutenant. He was in love.

He strode along the corridor and took the wooden steps two at a time, rising out of the darkness of the bowels of the ship to the open air of the deck. With a spring in his step he hurried towards his destination. He needed to see Mia, he couldn't wait to tell her he loved her. Will could picture the moment; he would sweep her into his arms and declare his love before smothering her with kisses. He would ask her to become his wife, to spend the rest of her life with him and to become the mother of his children.

‘Mr Greenacre,' Captain Little called quietly, stepping into his path.

Will almost didn't stop, he was so eager to get to Mia.

‘We've sighted a ship.'

He halted suddenly.

‘In the exact location you gave us.'

He knew it was
The Flaming Dragon
. It had to be.

‘How long have we got until dawn?' Will asked.

‘Ninety minutes.'

He knew their best chance was to sneak up on the pirate ship in the darkness. It would be at its most vulnerable in the hours before dawn. The men assigned night watch would be weary and, if they were lucky, maybe even sleeping. They would probably be able to get pretty close before the alarm was sounded.