The Diamond King (8 page)

The passengers were back on deck. Fear was still written on their faces, all but on that of Lady Jeanette. She was all outraged dignity. She now wore a bonnet that did nothing at all for her. She still wore the gloves that were oddly out of place. Her eyes sought to impale him.

A moment of admiration ran through him.
She’s a Campbell with all the Campbell arrogance
. And she was looking at him as if he were the devil himself.

Well maybe he was.

And maybe that impression was the best possible thing that could happen.

When the longboat returned, the male passengers hung back. “Lady Jeanette,” he said, wondering whether she would be as brave climbing over the rail and scrambling down a ladder in her skirts.

“Oh no, my lady,” her maid said. “I canna do that. I will fall to my death, I will.”

“I will go first,” she said. “You will see how easy it is.”

To Alex’s surprise, Claude appeared out of nowhere and offered his hand.

She ignored it and climbed over the barrier, then very carefully took one step after another. She almost slipped at one point, and he found himself holding his breath. She might be a Campbell, but he’d always liked spirit in a woman. His sister... well, his sister had had more than he’d ever expected.

Two sailors reached for her as she took a final step to the bobbing boat. Alex caught a glimpse of petticoats and even a leg. Her face turned rosy as she looked up and her gaze found his as she regained her balance on the rocking boat.

She quickly looked away, her eyes obviously searching for her companion. “You see, Celia, no one is going to let you fall.”

The woman named Celia gave a little cry.

“I’ll take her, Captain.” Alex glanced up at hearing Burke’s voice.

So apparently did Celia.

She quickly moved over the railing to avoid him and started climbing down, terror in her face. She stilled, her hands seemingly frozen to the rope ladder.

A wave broke over the bow of the quarter boat, and the maid to the Campbell wench screamed. The boat bobbed and Alex knew that if she fell, she might land between the ship and the quarter boat and be crushed.

He didn’t wait. Ignoring the pain and awkwardness of his leg, he climbed down the net to where she clung. “It’s all right,” he said in a voice he barely remembered. Soothing. Reassuring. “You’ve done very well. I’ll be in back of you. You cannot fall.”

She hung there for another moment, sighed as if she’d been holding all her breath inside. Then she let one hand go and grabbed another piece of rope. Alex moved behind her, ready to catch her if she fell. Then they waited until the longboat moved back into position.

“Let go,” he said, moving to the side. “The seamen will catch you.”

She turned, frightened cornflower blue eyes staring at him, stared at him for a moment, then she did as she was told and toppled backward into the hands of two sailors.

He climbed back up without looking behind him.

“Mrs. Carrefour,” he said.

She too looked frightened. But she looked even more offended. “My husband can go down first. He can help me onto the ... the boat.”

“As you wish. You have two minutes to get in, or all your belongings will be heaved into the ocean.”

Geoffrey Carrefour moved faster than Alex thought possible. He climbed down the ladder as well as any monkey. Alex decided to check the couple’s belongings. He would not, as he promised, allow harm to come to them, but he was bloody hell ready to relieve a slave-owning plantation owner of some of his ill-gotten gains. In his eagerness, Correfour almost missed the boat as it bobbed and weaved again. One leg went into the ocean, the other into the boat, and the seamen clasped his waistcoat, hauling him inside.

He muttered audibly about Scottish bastards, then found a more secure perch in which he awaited his wife’s descent.

After that, the other passengers descended one by one without comment. Their belongings were thrown into the boat. Finally there were only Captain Talbot, Claude, and the second mate, who would sail the
Charlotte
to Martinique.

“I leave it with you, Marcel,” Alex said. “You have enough sail to make it to Martinique. You’d better keep flying the British flag. We will catch up to you.”

“Aye, sir.” The second mate’s eyes glowed at the chance.

Alex turned to Talbot. “Your turn, Captain.”

Talbot didn’t say anything but climbed down. Alex and Claude followed him.

As the oarsmen rowed away, Alex sat in the back of the boat and examined his passengers. The Carrefours had their hands on a valise. The two government servants looked as if they were going to their deaths. Captain Talbot stared at his ship.

Alex’s gaze lingered on Miss Campbell, who sat next to her companion, eyes fixed on the ship they were leaving. For the first time, he saw uncertainty in her face, even as she sat primly, her hands clasped in front of her.

Still, she reached over and patted her companion and whispered something to her. Something, he was sure, reassuring.

Bloody hell, he didn’t want to admire her, but he did. Not a word of complaint, not like the others.

Just outrage.

She wasn’t afraid of him. Nor had she looked away from his face.

Those two facts intrigued him. Far more than they should.

Her skirts soaked and leaden and her hair coming loose from the knot she’d forced it into before donning a bonnet, Jenna climbed up onto the
Ami
without help.

The
Ami
. What a deceptive name for a ship with so many guns and fierce-looking seamen. One offered her a hand, but she refused it.

She’d tried to hide her fear in anger. She was certainly not going to let the pirate captain think she feared him, even when she did. She did take satisfaction in the fact she’d sewn her finest jewels in the hem of her dress just before the ship was boarded.

He looked like the devil with the scar across his face, and the smile that was no smile at all but a permanent twist of his lips, and dark blue eyes that seemed to burn all the way through a person. She struggled to hide the chill that danced down her spine despite the late afternoon sun.

Her captor’s speech was that of a gentleman even as his actions were that of a bully and brigand and thief and only God knew what else.

His scar itself did not repel her. Surface appearances had nothing to do with character. But his ruthless and contemptuous manner along with his actions definitely marked him as a very dangerous man.

A dangerous man was often an unpredictable man.

She waited until poor Celia climbed the rope and held her hand out to her. Her maid’s face was even paler than it had been this morning. The faces of the other passengers ascending were the same. Despite the pirate’s words, none of them really believed he meant them no harm. He had fired on a peaceful merchant ship. They had been fortunate that no one had been wounded.

She watched as the others clambored aboard, the pirate captain being among the last of them.

She didn’t see any of the seamen from the
Charlotte
. They must have all been taken below. Captain Talbot stood near her, as if offering what protection he could.

As the privateer captain gained the deck, his gaze bored into hers as if he were looking into her soul and finding every piece of it. She shivered in the warmth of the day, aware of how she must look with her wet clothes and flying hair and probably a hat as crooked as Mr. Turvey’s wig.

It wasn’t that she cared about impressing the villain, but neither did she want to be at a disadvantage. It was more than a little difficult to maintain dignity when one looked like a half-drowned chicken.

But she tried. She drew herself up to her full height, the top of her head barely coming to his chin. She held on to Celia’s hand, ready to do battle for her if needed.

She glanced around the deck. It was badly splintered near the hatchway. Splotches of blood darkened the wood. Someone on the ship had been hurt in the exchange of fire. What would that mean for Captain Talbot?

The pirate captain was talking to a member of his crew. Suddenly, he turned back to the small huddle of passengers, his gaze colliding with hers as if her thoughts had summoned his attention. Just as abruptly, he turned away, seeming to dismiss her as unimportant.

“We do not have space for females,” he said. “The three ladies will share my mate’s room. The other passengers can sleep in the same quarters as the crew. The
Charlotte’s
crewmen will be quartered in the brig.”

“I object to those arrangements. I want my wife with me,” the plantation owner complained.

“You object?” the captain said softly, even gently.

Despite the tone of his voice, Jenna wished the man had not challenged their captor. Even she knew it wasn’t wise.

“Yes,” said Geoffrey Carrefour, obviously emboldened by living through the first encounter and oblivious to a sudden tension among the nearby crew members.

The captain turned to a sailor beside him, a man that looked as much the brigand as his captain. “Burke, you can show Mr. Carrefour to the brig with the crewmen.”

The planter’s face paled. “Surely you would not—”

“Surely I would,” the captain said. “Anyone else wish to complain about their accommodations?”

Any objections—or requests—Jenna might have had died at that moment. She certainly didn’t look forward to sharing a cabin with Blanche Carrefour, who had avoided her since the beginning of the voyage, making it clear that she thought Scots, even Scots loyal to the English king, were beneath her. Now her life depended on the whims of a Scottish renegade.

“Our possessions?” the plantation owner continued, plowing, it seemed to Jenna, a path to his own destruction.

The pirate looked at him curiously, as if he were a particularly obnoxious insect. Jenna expected an outburst. Instead, he spoke rather mildly. “They will be delivered to you in due course.”

“But—”

The rough-looking sailor named Burke put his hand on the planter. “Come with me.”

The planter resisted until the seaman fingered his knife. Then his face fell and he nodded, casting a forlorn look at his wife.

Their belongings had piled up on the deck. Jenna looked longingly at hers, but she was not going to challenge the captain now, not after what had happened to Mr. Carrefour.

No one said anything. Not even Captain Talbot, who looked as if he had lost a beloved friend as his gaze continually went back to his ship. The torn sails were being taken down and other sails hoisted on the existing masts.

Unfortunately, the pirate turned his attention back to her. His gaze pinned her like an insect to a board. “And you, Lady Jeanette, do you have a complaint?”

“I have many of them,” she said, “but not about the accommodations. More about piracy.”

A strange glint came into his eyes. But the perpetual smile caused by the scar made her unable to read his expression. That made him truly frightening.

Yet when he turned the scarred cheek away, he was uncommonly handsome. He also walked with a limp. She wondered whether it was a recent wound. But any sympathy she might have had had long seeped from her. He had probably been trying to kill whoever had injured him.

Instead, she tried to look directly into his eyes without flinching. They were dark blue, as cold and enigmatic as the North Atlantic they had left behind.

He turned to one of his men, an officer. “Take them to their quarters. Search the men for weapons. Check through their belongings to see whether there’s anything valuable. I’m going to check on Meg.”

“
Oui
,” the officer said. Unlike the man called Burke, he looked every inch a disciplined seaman. He was a large man, neatly dressed, despite his hefty build.

Still, she noted a silent exchange between the two, just as there had been between the captain and the sailors left on the
Ami
. It contrasted with the disciplined crew on the
Charlotte
. Although Captain Talbot was not a martinet, he had expected formality from his crew. Perhaps there was a different kind of bond between pirates.

She absorbed everything. She wanted to remember everything. There would be a trial someday. In the meantime, she intended to keep herself and Celia alive—and untouched.

There had been no physical threat yet, but that didn’t mean there would continue to be none. The fact that the women were being put together could bode well or ill. They would be alone without male protection.

At the last minute before they were captured, she had taken a knife from a plate of cheese in her cabin on the
Charlotte
. She’d managed to wrap it in a scarf and tuck it into her corset. She was eager now to get it out, before it worked its way out of the cloth.

So she allowed herself to be led along with the other two women. And she watched every turn as they traveled down the next deck and passed several doors. Memorizing the ship probably would not help, but then again it might.

She wondered who Meg was. It must be a woman and, if so, that fact was encouraging. Surely one woman would not look away if...

She decided not to think about the “ifs.”

Their escort stopped at a door and opened it, indicating that they should enter. It was far smaller than the cabin she and Celia had had on the
Charlotte
. There was only one small bed. They would have to take turns sleeping or else sleep on the floor.

She turned to the officer who had brought them here. He looked straight back at her without apology. She wondered if he disliked the English as much as his captain did. “Who is Meg?” she asked, the name lingering in her mind.

“
La jeune fille
,” their escort said in French. “Hurt by a splinter caused by the shell your captain fired.”

He looked around the room, at the neat chest and clothes hung on pegs on the door. “This is my cabin.” Obviously disgruntled at being dispossessed, he went through it, taking a pistol from a drawer, a knife from another, and then his clothes. He turned at the door. “You will stay here unless told otherwise. I’ll send more blankets.” Then he left, closing the door loudly behind him.