The Devil's Fire (28 page)

He clenched his jaw, fighting through the sting of the insult. This was just a passing phase, he told himself. Women were notorious for this sort of absurdity, at least once a month.

She seemed to sense his restraint, and eagerly to put it to test. "You're a child, and that's well and good, because I shall never give you one. You need only look in a mirror."

He lashed out, seizing her hand and twisting her wrist sharply. She whimpered pitifully, her face flushing with color. "Watch your words, woman! It's a small miracle if a child does not already grow in your belly."

Her lips curled into a wicked smile, distorted by the flicker of candlelight. For a chilling moment he was reminded of the fiery demon of his nightmares. "There are no miracles," she said. "I cannot produce children."

He released her hand and stood. He turned his back on her, hiding the grief that contorted his face. He heard the rustling of sheets and the creak of the mattress, and then he felt her hot breath on the back of his neck. Her tone was overly cheerful, trickling like water over a brook. "Why is it you never asked if I had a child?"

"I did not care," he replied. In truth, he had not wanted to know. He had felt vindicated in parting a wife from so foolish a husband, but he had no desire to part a mother from her child. He had banished the possibility from his thoughts.

"I have no children," she said. "And I will never give you any."

"You lie," he sneered.

She snatched his hand and pressed it to her belly. "Nothing! How is that possible after all this time? I’ve had you inside me more times than I care to count. It is no lie. And I don't need to look into your eyes to see that it devastates you."

Heat coursed in his veins. He spun on her, grasped her by the arms and shoved her onto the bed. Instantly her bravado withered, and she let her head fall to one side. A tear spilled from one eye and dotted the quilt.

"I hate seeing you like this," Griffith said, meaning it. Since her capture she had blossomed into a strong, formidable woman. Looking on her now, he recalled the skinny ruin he had dragged from
Lady Katherine
.

"Your desires are at odds with one another," she said, her voice as distant as her gaze.

"What on earth has put such a fire in you?"

She glared fiercely at him. "‘She says nothing of him with my cock inside her.’"

Griffith frowned, not following. It was bizarre to hear that word come out of her pretty mouth.

"That’s what you told your friend, Jack Cunningham."

And then it came to him; an image of him and Cunningham, just outside the cabin door. He had been trying to keep Cunningham quiet while the fool drunkenly revealed his discovery.
She heard us.

"Yes," Katherine said, nodding with a scathing smile. "I heard you."

Griffith’s mouth was suddenly very dry. "Men speak coarsely when absent women. But they were little more than boorish words spoken in jest to an old friend."

"You murdered your old friend to keep me a secret."

Griffith swallowed, and the sound was embarrassingly loud in his throat. He found it difficult to look her in the eye, but he managed, even as he said, "I would murder half the Caribbean to keep you secret."

She nodded. "For once, I believe you."

He expected her to turn away, but she remained right where she was, studying him apathetically, as though he were an oversized weed that needed plucking. When he could stand her gaze no longer, he hastily took his leave.

The light humidity of night air tasted of the recently departed storm. The glow of the waxing moon cast a shimmering stripe across the calm waters, and it illuminated the decay of
Harbinger
. Her decks were ravaged, her sails tattered, and her lower decks diluted. The battle with the galleon and the assault on
Abettor
had reduced her crew by half. The surgeon was dead, the first mate was maimed, and the quartermaster was quickly losing himself to madness.

However, those were distant cares in Griffith's mind. Nassau was drawing near on the horizon, and he would sail
Harbinger
's rotting bulk into the harbor under British colors. He would greet Governor Woodes Rogers with a smile and a handshake, and he would claim his pardon. In the jungle paradise of New Providence he might loiter for a month or two, keeping Katherine close by his side at all times, until
Harbinger
was fully repaired. And then he and the surviving members of his company would set sail for the unnamed island where their treasure was buried. He would retrieve his share and part ways with
Harbinger
and her crew, leaving the madness of Livingston and the imprudence of pirates behind him. He would settle on a plantation with Katherine, living out the rest of his days in serenity. The future was near enough to taste, a fine vintage that teased the tip of his tongue.

However, his vision had been irrevocably altered. He no longer saw children laughing and running about the green hills of his plantation. He wanted to believe that it was a lie, but he had seen truth in Katherine's eyes. She would never bear him children. As terrible as that was, he felt worse for his mistreatment of her. It was not her fault, merely an unfortunate stroke of fate. How dreadful of him to blame her for something she had no control of.

I must tell her I’m sorry. Beg her forgiveness. She is everything.

And with a surge of confidence he affirmed that he would march back into the cabin and offer his sincerest apology. If necessary, he would prostrate himself before her.

He straightened his shirt and raked his fingers through his raven hair. As he started on his way, a chill born of enlightenment ran through him. Captain Jonathon Griffith, bane of the North Atlantic and Caribbean combined, had fallen madly in love.

Livingston intersected his path, face darkened by twilight. "It’s the woman, isn’t it?" he said, voice flat and lacking the usual respect afforded a captain. "Who else could paint such a foolish grin on your face?"

"Watch your tone, Edward."

"We’re pirates," Livingston replied with a shrug, "and our captain makes an ass of hisself, prancing about the deck with a queer grin."

Griffith felt his teeth grinding.

"Am I wrong?" Livingston persisted, glancing around. He snatched a passing pirate by his arm and drew him near and asked, "Am I wrong?"

"No sir," the pirate replied instantly, not having the slightest clue what the quartermaster was going on about. Livingston released the man and watched him scurry off.

"You see?" Livingston said. "They all know. Women belong on land, not on a bloody ship, and certainly not in a captain’s bed."

"You want one of your own?" Griffith said, hoping to calm Livingston’s nerves with humor.

"No! I was always smarter in that regard. Never let a whore cloud me judgment."

"Is my judgment truly clouded?" Griffith demanded. "Have I led us astray? Have we not plucked our fortune from the sea, as I always said we would?"

"A boy lost his arm."

"And you murdered a doctor."

"Thatcher!" Griffith spat, tossing a dismissive hand at the sky. "He weren’t no proper doctor!"

"And Henry is?"

"Thatch would’ve taken his arm just as quick. Would’ve smiled as he did it, that fat bastard."

"Perhaps. We’ll never know."

"Thatch would be alive if he hadn’t murdered one of our crew in the first place!"

"True," Griffith conceded with a heavy sigh. "Everything we do comes at a price. Was that never clear to you? Did you think there would be no casualties? At least the boy is alive and will see his arm compensated for. Thatcher, he’s just dead."

"Excuse me while I weep," Livingston snickered. He turned away, setting his palms on the bulwark and chewing his lip.

Griffith moved beside him. "What do you care about some boy, anyway? Compassion does not suit you, Edward."

"No more than marriage suits you," Livingston shot back. He paused to skim Griffith with his eyes. He came forward suddenly, feeling about the captain’s waist. "Where is it!?"

"What in the world are you doing?" Griffith said, slapping Livingston’s hands away.

"Where’s your bloody pistol?"

"Dunno. Suppose it’s in my cabin."

"With her!? You bloody idiot!"

Griffith’s hand balled into a fist involuntarily. He smashed Livingston in the nose, feeling a satisfying crack of cartilage behind the blow. Blood spurted from both nostrils, dribbling down Livingston’s mouth and chin. He clasped a hand over his face, eyes wide in disbelief. Griffith looked down at his fist, which had seemed to move of its own accord. His blood-soaked knuckles had already started to throb.

"You broke me nose," Livingston declared stupidly, black droplets of blood collecting on the deck.

Griffith resisted a second blow while the man was stunned. "Consider yourself fortunate I’m absent my pistol."

Her hands trembled as she pressed the cold ring of the barrel to the underside of her chin.
It would be so easy.

Griffith had forgotten the pistol on his desk, and it was loaded. It was the first time she had known him to do something so careless. She had waited for this moment for so long, and had nearly given up hope that it would ever come. He had been so careful until now.

Her finger hugged the trigger, but she did not squeeze it just yet. It seemed the easy and sensible choice. She would never be free of Griffith. There was no love in her heart for him. Whatever physical attraction she held for him had dissolved, and now she saw nothing more than a wraith of a man, desperately clinging to a future that had long since eluded him.

She was bound to a man she abhorred, and only death would release her. Tiny beads of sweat collected at the edge of her jaw and dripped onto the barrel of the pistol. Her chin quivered and her teeth clacked. She licked her lips and swallowed. Her finger was moist on the trigger.

She caught a glimpse of her reflection in one of the aft windows. She looked positively idiotic aiming a gun at herself. Morbidly, she wondered what her head would look like after the deed was done. Would the gawking gentlemen in London find her so attractive then? She pictured Griffith stumbling in on her corpse, with her skull yawning and her brains splattered across the bed.

She saw a smile spread across the pretty face of the woman reflected in the window; the first genuine smile in what seemed an age. She was pretty, she realized suddenly. She was beautiful, in fact.

She tapped the trigger repeatedly, her finger refusing further commitment.
This is stupid,
she realized.
Only a man could concoct so silly a notion as suicide. Better I should use the gun on Griffith.
The image was so vivid in her mind that she could see the blood running down his nose from a neat, smoking hole between his eyes.

Of course, killing Griffith would only be another form of suicide, and she would endure prolonged torture before being allowed to meet her maker.

Before she could govern these clashing thoughts, the door opened and Griffith stepped in. His eyes went wide in horror at the sight of the gun in her hands. "Katherine? What are you doing?"

She looked down and realized she was still pointing the gun at herself. She resisted chuckling. "What does it look like?" she replied as casually as possible. Pulling the trigger had proved more difficult that she imagined, but she wasn’t about to let Griffith know that.

"It looks like you’re about to do something stupid."

"If only an intelligent option would present itself," she sighed, "I would seize it as eagerly as I seized this gun, which you so graciously left behind."

Griffith paused for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth, searching frantically for the correct approach. He raised his hands slightly, letting her know he intended no sudden intervention. "Let’s talk about this," he said calmly.

"We are talking," she said.

"Why don’t you point the gun at the floor?"

"So you can leap at me and wrestle it from my grasp? I think not, Captain."

He winced at the formality.

"I either point this at myself," she continued, "or you. Which do you prefer?"

He was clearly at a loss for words. She liked him this way. Unfortunately, he always found something to say eventually. "I prefer neither."

"You must have one or the other."

"Is your life so terrible here?"

"Not always," she admitted. "But I despise myself for thinking it anything but."

"You think too much," he said, rubbing his temples and closing his eyes in exasperation.

She kept the gun level, for she knew he might spring to life at any moment. His lazy gestures could easily be part of a ruse. "If only I could turn off my brain as easily as you and your crew." She was enjoying this banter, despite knowing it was the last they would ever have. That notion did not sadden her; it empowered her.

"You think you don’t deserve happiness, but you do!" Griffith droned on.

"I deserve every happiness except this one," she said, jerking the gun accusingly.

He raised his hands defensively, and she wondered briefly if the bullet would pass right through his palm. "Be careful with that," he begged. "You would kill us both with a single shot."

She snickered bitterly. The implication was clear: shoot me and you’ll seal your own fate. "What does it matter? If I can’t live with myself, why shouldn’t I take you with me?"

"Because the men outside will kill you slowly."

"Point taken," she said, returning the nozzle to the underside of her chin.

"I can’t lose you now," Griffith pleaded. "You’ve given my life purpose."

"So predictable," she said with an extravagant roll of her eyes. "I’ve given you nothing. You’ve taken everything I have. You care nothing for me. You care only for the way I make you feel. You expect me to continue living like this? This isn’t living. It’s a long and slow death."

"Life is never what we expect it to be," he said, spreading his arms wide in an encompassing gesture. She thought he looked rather silly. "It is never the ideal we pictured as children."