Romancing the Pirate 01 - Blood and Treasure (15 page)

CHAPTER 8

In his cabin, Zane leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed. Barely noon and already it had been a very long day. He ordered Sadie down into the ship’s galley to scrub pots for Henri, while Jason helped Lianna pluck the cabin clean of goose feathers. And Blade, well, his best mate had been merciless.

This conquest he had agreed to undertake turned out to be more than he bargained for. He should have been able to retrieve The Serpent with little impediment and slip away into his beloved sea with nary a shot fired. But with Bennington’s future at stake, Zane knew full well he had a battle on his hands. He hated that he would be the reason for the Commodore’s ultimate downfall. But such was the life of what many may consider a pirate.

Zane hadn’t counted on Lianna Whitney, however. He was unaccustomed to such a woman with the breath of fire. Small and fragile she seemed, yet wholly brazen and strong. No doubt the considerable ease she bestowed upon the eyes, too.

Sure, he’d been familiar with strong beautiful women. Many adorned his arm all over the Caribbean. His Sadie fronted center stage on that platform. But she was poison. In fact, given any amount of free will and all women were capable of being virulent. Possessive, helpless, maniacal, devious, selfish, any one of those words could describe a woman. They could be tender in your embrace or calculating in your bed. And never to be trusted. Indubitably, he had his pleasure. Fancied his ladies, fulfilled his needs, but he kept his doxies at arm’s length.

And yet, Lianna was different. Her strength drew from hardened experiences. She wasn’t soured and self pitying but genuine and hopeful. A dreamer and deserving as such. He regarded her as a survivor. He had admiration for her fortitude and he couldn’t help but wonder if she had that kind of pugnacity in between the sheets.

“Excuse me for interrupting. I know how much I hate it when someone disturbs me in the middle of a woolgathering tryst.”

Zane pretended to be unaware of Blade’s meaning as his friend pulled up a chair across from him.

“Come now, I know you’re preoccupied with thoughts of claiming Lianna. I’ve harbored my own sweet dalliance with her.”

Zane raised an eyebrow.

“Ahem.” Blade’s lame attempt to clear his throat drew attention that he revealed too much of his own pocketed desires.

Blade wisely changed the subject. “Most of the repairs we can manage will be done by nightfall. But we will be overwrought and harried to make it to Garra Island by then. We are still taking on water.”

“The
Rissa
will make it. Just tell the men to keep her as dry as they can. We’ll be able to careen her easily once we get to the island. The shoal there is soft enough, you remember. We can fix her quickly at low tide.” But by Zane’s calculations, they’d have to wait for the high tide to shove off, stranding them a little longer than he felt comfortable.

“Any sign of Bennington?”

“Not yet.”

“Good. If he isn’t following our course, he shouldn’t happen upon us at Garra. We’ll be able to finish what we started.”

Blade gave a knowing nod. Zane spoke about more than just his damaged ship.

*****

Disappointment tunneled within Lianna when Captain Fox had not summoned her to eat alongside him in his cabin.

“Is he eating alone?” She had asked Jason as he set her tray of food on the chest of drawers.

But the young lad knew nothing of what the captain was doing or whom he was entertaining.

She retired sullenly and awoke still dismayed that she may have displeased Zane. But then why should she care? Her dealings with the rogue were done.
Let that crafty hellcat have him.
Yet, the very thought of Sadie’s scheme inflamed her.
Ooh.
She shook her clenched fists.

Exhausted, she waited for word of their next port of call and how she would go home. Inwardly, she groaned. What was there to go home to? With the tavern burnt to a cinder, her uncle would surely turn her out. She’d have no place to go. Everything she had she wore on her back. The rest of her meager belongings went up in smoke in her tiny room above the Black Dog.

What of starting a new life for herself, maybe in Jamaica? Being penniless, she would have to rely on the kindness of others, a notion that made her ill. How could she be cheerful of again enslaving herself to another, of feeling guiltily indebted? Her other alternative would be a convent. A far worse sentence in her mind, for then she would be bound to a pious nothingness. Her dreams would never come true behind the heavy doors of a Christian institute. She preferred her faith to be fastened by the destiny she made for herself.

With a new day ahead, Lianna decided she would seek room and board in exchange for hard work. Certainly she would rise above the shambles of this latest disaster and reach for the sky again.

The midday meal of hard tack had come and gone. The lack of fresh food on her plate proved Captain Fox moved past parceling out preferential treatment, reinforcing her assumption of displeasing him. He must find her annoying and troublesome.

Lianna brushed her hair until it slipped through the bristles like liquid silk, this time without any remorse as to the owner of the silver brush, then plaited it into one long strand. She counted pegs in the ceiling boards and recited some of her favorite poems. She grew tired of playing card games with herself and decided to build a house of cards.

She became vaguely aware that the ship had run aground, namely because her architectural masterpiece had fallen into a heap. ’Twas a smooth stop with a slight lurch.

She hoped the captain would have mercy on her, unlocking her from her cell. Fresh air would be nice.

*****

“Set up camp here.” Zane instructed a group of men to begin digging holes in the soft white sand that would provide the campfires.

He knew this island well. A hideout for buccaneers. And little known even among them. Most on his crew were familiar with this swath of land. The
Rissa
had been occasioned to disappear at times and what better place than an uncharted isle surrounded by dangerous reefs. To sail into the cay, only one safe way existed. An underwater trough cut across the reefs at an odd angle. ’Twould be impossible to cross the cay’s mouth without using the deep water of the channel. A helmsman unfamiliar with the waters would not be able to steer his vessel in without becoming a sea bottom tomb.

Zane had come to this island by way of a fortunate accident. He was among two dozen or so seamen, including Blade and Henri, which briefly overtook a British navy frigate, escaping on a merchant boat which the warship had intercepted. Some might have called the uprising mutiny. Zane called it justice.

Even as they stumbled upon the island for refuge, many of the wounded died. Those men didn’t die in vain, however. They died with their freedom. The survivors were stranded a fortnight, repairing the hull damaged by the reef and contemplating their future. Of the thirteen that pulled through, he was certain that nine still sailed the seas.

He stood at the edge of the thicket of jungle foliage and surveyed their situation. Zane sent some men into the interior to fill buckets with the clean crystalline water of the nearby stream. Others were delegated to hunt for food. Tonight his crew would feast on roasted rabbit, maybe even venison, and drink their fill.

If the proverbial Fates allowed, they should be on their way to Port Royal in two days. Then he could rid himself of his burden. No…
burdens
.

“Reporting for duty, sir.” Sadie snapped to salute him after she dropped an armload of dry kindling at his feet.

“Catch your wind, Sadie,” he said. “I’m in no mood for you.”

“But, Captain, I am but a lowly handmaid awaiting your orders. What will it be? Make you a pallet? Retrieve your favorite grog cup? Pour you a bit of rum? Oh, I know. How about I swab your deck?”

The heat from her seductive smile crept across his skin. He couldn’t remember a time when he felt such a strange combination of concupiscence and indigestion. The beast in him thrashed to be released.

“You really don’t expect to seduce me, do you Sadie? Not after all we’ve been through.”

“No, I suppose not. But I’ve changed, Zane. Really I have. I’ve been living with the guilt of what I did to you, to the men who died, for a long time. I yearn for your forgiveness. It gnaws at my very soul. Please, you must understand that there is no peace for me. Not until you bring me back into your protective arms. Save me, Zane. Please. Make me your Little Wren again.”

Her voice resonated sincere. At that moment, she seemed so vulnerable. He wanted so much to hold her. He looked away before he made another mistake. “Just go gather more firewood.”

Sadie put her hand to his chest, the pressure, the warmth evaporated. “I’ll prove to you my worth.”

Aware that she tried to search his countenance, tried to pin his eyes, he remained fixed on something else entirely. Sadie glanced behind her to see what grabbed his interest—Lianna, coming ashore. She huffed. “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.” She trailed her hand down to his trousers, regaining his attention, and gave him a firm squeeze. “The offer still stands, Zane.”

“Firewood. Now.”

“Very well.” Sadie lingered a moment too long before drawing out a lengthy huff and walking past him. He didn’t need to glance back; the leaves of the forest curtain rustled with her departure. But he did anyway.

Zane shifted his weight from one leg to the other as he waited for Lianna to shuffle her way through the loose sand toward him. The act was more out of relieving the pressure in his breeches than out of impatience for the lady. Rounded, delectable pomes of her chest bunched and wiggled with her considerable effort to trundle through the soft white sand of the beach. She made for a nice show.

Damned women.

Lianna stopped before him, put her hand on a tree for support, and slipped off her shoe. She tipped it upside down, a stream of sand pouring out.

“Miss Whitney, do accept my apologies for not letting you come ashore sooner. There was much to be done and I thought it best you stay out of the way.”

“I realize that I am—what was the term you used? Oh yes—dead weight to you, Captain Fox.” Lianna shoved her shoe back on her bare foot. “But did it occur to you that I might be of some help?”

Sadie’s proposition reared in his lewd mind, but with a more pleasing view. “I imagine that I could come up with something.” He shifted his weight again.

“Did I miss something?” She looked at him with suspicion when he offered her only a smile. “Well? What would you have me to do?”

Let it be, he told himself.

He had many men repairing the damages to the bulwark. Several more were building lean-tos for tonight’s sleep. He even had a sentry staked out at the uppermost hillside watching for unwanted visitors. There wasn’t much the lass could do for him that didn’t require a certain amount of privacy. But then maybe she wouldn’t object. He directed his stare and wagged his eyebrows.

“You’re absurd.” Lianna snorted. “You need someone to plumb, I’m sure Sadie will gladly take on the position.”

Zane chortled. What a saucy slip of a tart.

“Laundry, then. Everyone’s.”

*****

Lianna melted over the pot of boiling water, stirring a batch of filthy worn clothes. She’d been scrubbing away the grime from shirts, jackets, trousers and woolens for the last several hours. There was enough dirt in the water to create another island. She’d call it Squalid Isle, Land of the Bilge Rat. She didn’t mind the work. Not really. This was earning her way to Port Royal. She would owe nothing to Captain Fox or the
Rissa
. And as an added reward, she wasn’t twiddling her thumbs back in her cabin. Any more time with herself and she was sure to use one of Sadie’s precious blue Egyptian silk scarves as a noose.

She swiped at the stinging sweat dripping from her hair into her eyes. Perspiration soaked through her clothes, leaving her drenched and smothered. Gusts of sea breeze cooled her, offering cursory reprieves to the heat.