Ransome's Quest (13 page)

If Shaw had indeed taken Charlotte, the more than half-day lead he had on them meant he could already be docking in this protected bay doing…no, he wouldn’t allow himself to imagine what the pirate might be doing to Charlotte.

Dreadful determination descended into the pit of Ned’s gut. He had no choice. He must sail for the secret bay and engage Shaw.

Salvador glowered at Charlotte Ransome, looking for all the world like a lad in baggy breeches and a voluminous white shirt under a too-large waistcoat. His shoulder ached from landing on it when he’d tackled Charlotte only a few feet from the churchyard.

He hated to admit it, but she was more ingenious—and faster—than he’d suspected. At least his threat that he would take her back to the Crown and Sword, reveal her true identity, and leave her at the pub patrons’ mercy had gained her cooperation.

But how had she gotten out of the cabin? And who had been in her hammock when he’d returned for the letter just before leaving?

Charlotte rowed with the rest until the boat bumped up against
Vengeance
’s side.

“You, boy—Martin—you go up first.” Salvador waited until she’d gone halfway up before following her. Though she hadn’t been able to climb up the day they had gone for a nice long swim in the ocean, she had no trouble scaling the side of his ship tonight as if she’d been born to it.

Once on deck he grabbed her upper arm—his fingers and thumb meeting easily around the scrawny yet firm limb—and dragged her toward his cabin, ignoring the questioning looks from the crew still about on deck.

The half deck was lit by a lantern hanging over Declan’s shoulder where he sat outside the door to Salvador’s quarters.

“Welcome back, Cap’n. Get what you needed out of ol’ Lynch?”

“Aye.”

Declan looked up from the piece of wood he was whittling, frowning at the hard tone in Salvador’s voice. “What went wrong?”

By way of answer, Salvador reached up and swiped the hat from Charlotte’s head.

Declan dropped the figurine and the knife. “How—?” He jumped from his chair, his head crashing against the deck above with the sound of a cannon. The giant dropped to his knees, clutching the top of his head and groaning.

“Serves you right.” Salvador skirted around him and stormed into the main cabin. “Suresh. Suresh!”

“He’s not—” But Charlotte’s words died at the look of warning Salvador shot her.

He returned to the half deck and carried the still-groaning Declan’s lantern back with him. He crossed to the hammock and held the light over it before yanking the thin sheet off the writhing figure.

Lying on his side, hands and feet tied and his mouth gagged with what looked like Salvador’s silk neckcloths, Suresh’s dark eyes implored Salvador to release him.

Salvador lowered the gag and then began freeing his steward from his bindings.

“Captain, I am so sorry. It is my fault, solely mine. I do not know what happened, only that I was struck from behind. I woke up here and have been unable to escape.” Upon closer inspection, Salvador saw that Suresh’s feet were tied to the hammock’s ropes, and with his hands behind his back, it was obvious why he’d been unable to free himself.

After he was finished with the neckcloths, Salvador turned to Charlotte, who stood in the middle of the cabin toying with the bottom button of her waistcoat. “Explain.”

“You should have known I would try to escape.”

He sighed. “Yes, I did. But I obviously underestimated just how devious and hurtful to others you can be.”

Were those tears welling in her eyes? Surely over her failed escape attempt and not over his reprimand.

“I did not want to hurt Mr. Suresh,”—she stepped forward and looked around Salvador to the steward—“but I couldn’t be this close to land without trying to get away.” Her blue eyes snapped back to Salvador’s. “I waited until you left the cabin the first time, and as Mr. Suresh was leaving to follow you, I knocked him on the head with the heavy pewter candlestick from your desk. I tied him up and, though it took some doing, managed to get him into the hammock by letting one end of it down first, tying his feet to the other end, and then hoisting the head back up again.”

He had underestimated not only her cunning but her physical strength as well.

She again looked at Suresh. “I borrowed some of your clothing, Mr. Suresh, and I am sorry to report that when Captain Salvador unceremoniously threw me to the street, he tore the sleeve. I am very good with a needle. I can mend it for you.”

Suresh, as usual, said nothing.

Charlotte returned her gaze to Salvador. “After I was dressed in Mr. Suresh’s clothing, I exited from his cabin and made my way to the quarterdeck. And I did not mean to start that fight—please do not punish the other boy. He was fighting me because I took his hat.”

Salvador turned and paced the cabin—so that Charlotte would not see his expression. If she weren’t related to the officer tasked with hunting him down and putting him out of business, and if she weren’t a woman, he would offer her a place aboard
Vengeance.

However, as things now stood, he could not risk another escape attempt.

“Suresh, go tell Declan to join us.” He did not bother to turn around to make sure his steward obeyed the order.

Moments later the steward and first officer returned together, Declan bent over to save his head from another encounter with the beams above until he stood under the skylight, where he could straighten to his full height.

Salvador leaned against the edge of the table and took a long moment to study each of the three people in the room. Charlotte Ransome, looking like a bedraggled boy in Suresh’s clothes, sat in one of the chairs, chewing the inside of her cheek. Suresh, trying to hide in the shadows, shame flowing from him in tidal waves. And Declan, the man who’d spent the last few hours guarding the wrong captive.

This was all Charlotte Ransome’s fault. Before she set foot on his ship, he’d controlled everything that happened on
Vengeance.
He supposed this was his punishment for doing something he shouldn’t have done in the first place.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the next wrong thing he was about to do.

“Captain Salvador, what are we going to do about Shaw’s taking Julia? Do you think he’ll really do it, or was he merely bragging about it?” Charlotte gnawed the tip of her thumb.

Her question knocked the wind from his sails. He’d been trying to figure out how best to tell Charlotte she would spend the rest of her time here tied to a chair, and she’d been worrying about the true problem.

Declan rested his hands on the table and leaned over it—close enough to Charlotte that, should she shift to her right, her shoulder would touch his arm. “You got confirmation, then? Shaw is taking the Witherington woman?”

Salvador sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Aye. Lynch said Shaw was here not a week ago talking about a package being delivered for him in Kingston. He knows Julia—Mrs. Ransome—is back in Jamaica, and he plans to exact his revenge upon Admiral Witherington and Commodore Ransome.” He shook his head. “And I, in my idiocy, made it possible for him to get to her more easily.”

“What?” Charlotte jumped from her chair. “You helped him? What would you do that for?”

“My dear Miss Ransome, by taking you and not your sister-in-law, I drew away the best protection my…Mrs. Ransome had: your brother’s ship and the other Royal Navy ship that arrived with him. I can only pray that the commodore had the good sense to set guards about Tierra Dulce to protect Julia before he left to search for you…for me.”

“How did he know she was coming?” Declan asked.

“Obviously, he had someone inside Tierra Dulce, just as we do.” Salvador ignored the way Charlotte gaped at him at that admission. “I never thought that new steward looked at all trustworthy.”

“The new—you mean Henry Winchester?” Charlotte dropped back into her chair.

“You met him, did you?” Salvador pulled out a chair and sat, pressing his knuckles against his temple and leaning his elbow on the tabletop. “I never met the man myself, but from the reports I heard of him, and from seeing him in Kingston, I am certain he is a blackguard.”

“Met him? He’s the reason I came to Jamaica. I thought I was going to marry the man. Now you say he’s dishonest and could be working with a pirate?” Charlotte’s voice increased in volume and shrillness with each statement. “We have to do something! We must warn Julia. She needs to know her steward cannot be trusted. Can we get back to Kingston in time? Do you think Shaw has made his move yet? Are we well armed enough to take his ships?”

Salvador chuckled at Charlotte’s sudden defection to his crew—and her forgetting he was also a pirate. He was glad she no longer thought of him as cut from the same cloth as Shaw.

“I would like nothing better than to protect Mrs. Ransome, but I fear by the time we could return to Kingston, it would be too late. Shaw will take advantage of the absence of your brother and his ships and move in to put his plot into action soon, if he has not already done so. And, no—we are not well enough armed to take down even one of Shaw’s ships, much less both of them.”

“You said he wanted to exact revenge against Admiral Witherington and my brother. Why? What did they ever do to him?”

“I do not know precisely what happened, but from what I’ve learned, it all stems from something that happened twenty years ago when Admiral Witherington first brought his family over from England.”

“William was on that ship. That’s when he and Julia met for the first time. She said she went out on deck dressed in her brother’s clothes and climbed to the mast top to see a French ship.” The smile from Charlotte’s memory faded. “Are you saying Shaw was on that ship too?”

Salvador leaned forward, elbows braced against his knees, plagued by his own memories. “He isn’t on the Navy List. No one by the name of Shaw served on
Indomitable
on that voyage.”

“But if we don’t know what happened twenty years ago, we don’t know what kind of revenge he’s seeking now.” Charlotte looked from Salvador to Declan to Suresh and then back to Salvador. “Do we?”

Salvador dropped his head into his hands. “I wanted to protect her. But instead I made it possible for him to get to her.”

Declan’s fist slammed onto the table, making them all jump. “We might not be able to catch him coming out of Kingston with her, but we know where he’ll head.”

“Negril.” Suresh’s soft voice came from the shadows.

“We can make it there and find a good place to hide and wait for him to show up. Soon as he does, we’ll have the element of surprise.” Declan paused.

Salvador stared at the rope jammed into the crack between the deck boards under his feet. If anything happened to Julia because of what he’d done—

“So we go to Negril.”

Salvador looked up at Charlotte’s emphatic statement. “We?”

She crossed her arms, glaring at him. “Aye,
we.
What choice do I have? I am not foolish enough to believe I’ll be able to escape—and even if I did, it would only serve to distract from the mission to rescue Julia. In for a penny, in for a pound, I say.”

“Meaning you will help us rather than hinder us?” Salvador straightened in his chair.

“Aye—especially if you’ll let me work out on deck.”

“No.”

“But I was a senior midshipman—captain of a watch—on
Audacious.
I’ve seen the young men on this ship. They need someone to set an example for them.”

“No.”

“You need me as part of your crew.”

In two strides, Salvador reached Charlotte and grabbed her by the bony shoulders. “I said no.”

“Not even assisting the sailing master by keeping logs?”

“No.”

“Jean Baptiste has been complaining that no one has been able to do a decent job of it since his last mate died of dysentery,” Declan added. “Besides, it will keep her busy and out of trouble.”

Salvador swung his gaze to his first officer and future brother-in-law. “Et tu Brute?”

Charlotte looked up at the giant of a man and smiled at him, turning Declan a shade of red Salvador had never seen. Wonderful. Now not only did he have to worry about rescuing Julia from Shaw, he also had to worry about Declan’s infatuation with Charlotte.