Savannah Heat (5 page)

“Good Lord!” The slender young lieutenant she had seen the night before stepped into the room, tried to see her through the heavy smoke, but couldn’t. “Miss Jones, where are you?” Then he felt the cold steel muzzle of the pistol she stuck beneath his chin.

“Don’t move,” Silver warned. “Not a single, solitary muscle.”

Riley coughed several times, but the smoke had already begun to dissipate through the open doorway. “Please, Miss Jones. The major’s going to be furious if you’re not here when he gets back.”

“To hell with the major. The man’s an arrogant pain in the neck. I hope he’s so mad he chokes on his fancy gold epaulets.” Silver moved closer, careful to keep the gun steady against the young man’s neck. “Start walking, Lieutenant, and don’t do anything foolish. You may rest assured that I will not hesitate to pull this trigger.”

Hamilton Riley swallowed so hard the muzzle moved up and down against his throat. “What about the fire? Surely you don’t want the ship to go up in flames?”

“There is no fire. Now very carefully, Lieutenant, move through the doorway. If anyone tries to stop us, order them to stand aside.”

Riley nodded, and they walked into the passageway. Several crewmen who had answered her alarm backed up the ladder to the deck while she and the lieutenant moved along the hall. They’d gone through the main salon and gotten as far as the ladder
when Morgan Trask’s steel-edged voice stopped them cold.

“Going for a stroll, milady?” He stepped from behind a door that led into a storage space.

Silver tensed. “You might say that,” she answered coolly, though she was far from feeling cool.

“We thought the cabin was afire, Major,” the lieutenant tried to explain. “There was smoke everywhere and—”

“It’s all right, Lieutenant. It appears Lady Salena has a little more intelligence than we believed.”

Silver ignored the barb, though it pricked her sorely to do so. “Tell your men to get out of the way, Major, if you want this man to stay alive.”

“You’re willing to commit murder? Shoot a man down in cold blood to keep from going home?”

Silver’s hand shook. She wet her suddenly dry lips and eased the young man forward. “If I have to. But you’ll be the one pulling the trigger.” Even in the dim glow of the lamp, Silver could see the fury in Trask’s handsome face. A muscle ticked in his cheek, and his hands balled into fists at his sides.

Dear God, let him believe I’ll do it. Let him believe I’m the ruthless bitch he thinks I am
.

Morgan smiled, but the smile didn’t reach those hard green eyes. “If you want to go that badly”—he made a sweeping bow—“be my guest.”

He let her move past him. Inch by inch they climbed up the ladder, the young lieutenant in front, Silver behind, the barrel of the gun still taut beneath his chin.

She had just reached the top rung when Morgan’s booted foot shot out, knocking her legs from beneath her and slamming her hard to the floor. The pistol discharged with a deafening roar, and in an instant Morgan was sprawled on top of her. He jerked her to
her feet and dragged her back toward his cabin. Silver clenched her fist and swung at him. Morgan blocked the blow, the scar on his face tightening in surprise and rage.

No!
her mind screamed. She swung at him again, aiming for his jaw, but Morgan caught her wrist and forced her arm behind her back. “Let me go!” she shrieked, her control slipping farther away. “What does it matter to you if I get away? What does it matter?”

Morgan hauled her into his cabin, slammed the door, and hurled her toward his bed, where she landed in a sprawling heap. Across the room, now clear of smoke, his bright green eyes flashed his fury, but it couldn’t top Silver’s own.

“This is none of your business!” she raged. “Why can’t you just let me go?”

“You’re wrong, Silver. This
is
my business. You made it my business when you threatened one of my men.”

Silver grabbed a leather-bound book from the ledge above Morgan’s bed and hurled it at him. Morgan ducked, and it crashed against the wall. “I’m not your prisoner! I’m a grown woman! I just want to be left alone!”

“A grown woman?” he mocked as she tossed a second book in his direction. It landed against the mirror, which crashed to the floor and shattered into a thousand pieces. “A woman doesn’t behave like you do. A woman doesn’t rant and rave and destroy things. A woman doesn’t curse and fight and try to act like a man.” Morgan started toward her; Silver slid to the side of the bed near the bureau, picked up the empty porcelain water pitcher, and threw it at Morgan’s head. The sound of shattering glass rang with the angry din of their voices.

“You’re going home, Silver. After the trouble you’ve caused, there is no amount of money that could keep me from getting you there. I just hope to God William will listen to my advice and take you in hand, because you most sorely need it.”

At the mention of her father Silver’s last thread of control snapped. “I won’t go back there! Not you or anyone else is going to make me!” She charged into Morgan, dragging her nails down his cheek until he bled, slamming her slender fists against his chest. Morgan tried to still her flailing arms, but she jerked one free and slapped him hard across the face.

“Damn you!” He stared at her in disbelief. “What kind of woman are you?”

In answer, Silver kicked him in the shins and tried once more to jerk free. Her hair, loose from its bindings, tumbled wildly around her shoulders. Morgan laced his fingers in it and dragged her head back. While she kicked and screamed and cursed him, Morgan hauled her toward the bed.

“You little vixen,” he growled through clenched teeth, pulling her across his lap. “You’re going to learn to behave if it’s the last thing you ever do!” With that his palm came down hard across her bottom, searing her flesh through the taut canvas breeches. Silver shrieked in rage, her fury so great she could barely feel the heavy blows.

Again and again Morgan’s calloused palm descended, the noise drowned out by the sound of Silver’s violent oaths. Just about the time he was sure she’d had enough, her teeth sank into his leg. Morgan swore loudly and brought his hand down painfully again.

“I can do this longer than you can,” he warned, but in truth he was beginning to wonder. As if in answer to his thoughts, Silver renewed her struggles,
twisting and thrashing until Morgan jerked her off his lap and pinned her beneath him on the bed.

“Stop it, Silver!” he warned, his voice so hard she stilled. “I don’t regret the thrashing I gave you—no one ever deserved it more—but you seem bound and determined to make me hurt you, and that I will not do!”

Dark and defiant, Silver’s eyes glared up at him. “Why not, Major Trask? I should think you’d like nothing better!”

Morgan swore an oath beneath his breath. “Because I’m twice your size. Because I’m a man and you’re a woman. Because a man is supposed to protect a woman, not hurt her.”

Silver stopped straining against him. Her eyes, now a softer shade of brown, filled with tears, and her lush bottom lip began to tremble. “Not the men I’ve known.” Her thick dark lashes swept down, and the wetness gently slipped along her cheeks.

Morgan stared down at her, feeling a sudden stab of remorse, which he knew was a mistake, and some other emotion he couldn’t quite name. For an instant the vixen had disappeared and he’d glimpsed the woman beneath—or had it been just an illusion?

Morgan let go of her wrists. “You’re going back, Silver. Resign yourself to it. There are twenty-one men aboard this vessel. After tonight they’ll all be wary of you and your tricks.”

“You’re a hard man, Major Trask.” She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “You may be certain my father will be pleased.”

Morgan watched her a moment more. “Get some rest,” he finally said, wondering why her words made him somehow feel unclean. “We set sail in the morning.” She glanced away, and Morgan moved to
the door. Once outside the cabin, he just stood there, listening to the water that lapped against the hull.

The sound he heard next was so soft he thought for an instant he’d imagined it. Then he recognized it for what it was—the anguish of a woman’s tears.

Morgan raked a hand through his dark blond hair and headed up on deck. He needed some air, needed some time to sort things out.

You were better off before
, his mind said. Better off before this nagging suspicion had begun to eat away at him. Better off before he’d begun to wonder if, beneath her tough facade, Silver Jones was a woman after all.

How long had it been since she’d let herself cry? She had forgotten how good it felt, how much it helped ease the pain. She hadn’t meant to, especially not in front of
him
.

What kind of woman are you
? he had said. What kind indeed? Not nearly the tough, unfeeling person he believed. Not nearly so hard, not nearly so fearless.

She shouldn’t give a damn what he thought of her, but she did. If only he hadn’t interfered. If he hadn’t returned, she’d be free by now. If only she hadn’t lost her temper so completely. Damn him, it was all
his
fault. Morgan Trask had a way of driving her over the edge.

It happened that way sometimes. More often than she cared to admit. Being hot-tempered was a flaw she wasn’t much proud of. She worked constantly to overcome her unruly nature, and for the most part she could.

Quako had shown her the folly of losing control. He was a master of it. He had to be. For beneath his humble exterior, Quako was a man who bowed to no other, only to his god. He had been born a Masai
warrior, and though he’d been captured as a child, enslaved, and sold on Jamaica, no master had ever subdued his spirit. When Silver thought of Quako and his woman, Delia, it gave her courage—they had suffered far more than she at her father’s hands.

Silver washed the last of the tears from her cheeks and dried her face on a damp linen towel. A knock at the door drew her attention, and she opened it to find Jordy, the freckle-faced cabin boy, standing in the passageway.

“Cap’n’s on deck and he’s watchin’, case you try to make any trouble.” Standing tentatively just outside the door, he looked as if he might bolt at any second.

“Captain? I thought he was a major?”

“He’ll always be Cap’n to me and Cookie—that’s what you call the cook aboard a ship.”

I see.

“Me and Cookie been sailin’ with the cap’n for the past five years. He give up—gave up,” he corrected, “the sea last fall.… He’s just back for this one trip.” Closing the door behind him, Jordy edged farther into the room. “Don’t you try nothin’.”

“I’m afraid I’ve just about run out of things to try.” She flashed him a weak attempt at a smile.

Jordy looked at her strangely. Standing about her height, Jordy was small for his age, his auburn hair a little too long, but his hazel eyes looked intelligent, and there was a pleasing quality to the gentle shape of his mouth. “Ain’t never—haven’t ever seen a woman could fistfight like a man.”

The way he looked at her, as if she weren’t really human, made Silver feel like crying again. “I’m not usually that way. I just need to get off this ship.”

Skirting her carefully, Jordy placed a man’s long white cotton night rail on the end of the bunk, then turned to pick up the pieces of broken glass left from
her clash with the major. Fleetingly it occurred to her that she should have hidden one of the sharp broken edges to use as a weapon.

Tomorrow
, she thought.
Tomorrow you’ll have the strength of will to start all over again
. Kneeling down, she began to help him pick up the shards of splintered glass, but as soon as she touched the first piece, Jordy leaped away.

“You get back there,” he warned, pointing toward the opposite side of the room. It was obvious Jordy and the rest of the crew had seen and heard enough of her battle with Trask to know exactly what had occurred in the major’s quarters. “I’ll take care of it,” Jordy finished, and Silver’s temper fired again.

“How do you know I don’t already have a piece? That I’m not just waiting for a chance to cut your throat?”

Jordy swallowed hard and eyed her warily. “Cap’n says you wouldn’t really kill anybody. Says you’re probably not as bad as you put on.”

Silver wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult. “And just how, exactly, would he know?”

“Cap’n knows ever’thing about ever’thing. He kin—can—size a man up in the flick of an eye.”

What kind of woman are you
? “And you think that goes for a woman, too?”

“Cap’n’s got a real reputation with the ladies.” Jordy grinned. “Not your kind, o’ course. Cap’n likes his women to mind their manners.”

Silver bristled but didn’t speak.

“Leastwise most women like him,” Jordy continued. “Course, some is—are—afraid o’ him. With that mean-lookin’ scar and all.”

“Well, I’m not,” she said with a toss of her head.

“You should be. If he whupped you as hard as he whupped me … I sure don’t want no more o’ it.”

“He beat you?” she gasped.

Jordy grinned again, his expression jaunty and boyish. “Gimme a lickin’ for callin’ some old man names. Old man didn’t deserve what he got. I did.”