The Pirate Bride (12 page)

And yet…

He realized then that something he felt for Red was what he had been missing with Cassandra. Something that wasn’t
proper.
Something that was fine and noble, but also carnal and base. Fascination, liking, admiration…passion.

He almost groaned aloud.

They were alone on an island. She had been fascinating him for days, and now…they were alone.

“There’s more. I know there is. If you just told me…” He let his voice trail off in expectation.

“You really are a strangely…noble man, in your own rather odd way,” she said softly.

“Odd?” he inquired.

“Well, you’re noble, you have a title, and yet you are friends with the likes of Sonya and Edward.”

“Blackbeard?”

“Aye.”

He shrugged, grinning. “In the right circumstances, a decent enough fellow.”

She nodded. “Quite decent.”

“He knows of your deception?”

She nodded again.

“How?”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “He’d heard about me. That I’d met Black Luke upon the seas, slain him and taken his ship. When he saw me in port, he started laughing and asked me into his cabin for rum, then demanded to know my story. I told him.”

“But you won’t tell me.”

“You already know most of it. I am going to sleep. On my new pillow. Thank you, and good night.”

“Good night,” he said, and reached for the grog.

He drank it while the dark waves washed the shore and sky stretched above him like black velvet dotted with diamonds.

The breeze whispered, and he drank more.

The very word mocked him.

Noble.

It was going to be very hard to behave so.

L
OGAN WOKE BUT
didn’t rise, letting his circumstances and surroundings sink home to him once again. There was the cool breeze of morning in the islands, the soft feel of the sun as it rose gently against the mists and mauve of the receding night. There was the hard bedding of sand and linen beneath him, and the wool around him.

Then there was…

The woman lying across the meager expanse of the shelter. So near…

So far.

She was still asleep, her hair radiant against the poor plaid of the blanket.

He wondered what played through her dreams.

He left her sleeping and wandered down the beach to the trunk with the clothing. He rummaged through it, found breeches and a shirt, and decided to opt for no more, as it was undoubtedly going to get very hot during the day. He stretched, unkinking muscles that were unused to a night on the ground. Not too bad. He’d slept in far more uncomfortable situations in his time. He had lain awake late, though. Knowing she was there. Listening to the sound of her breathing.

He should go through the rest of the refuse. He should start collecting the crates and barrels that held things they could use and then drag them up to their shelter.

But that would wait. They didn’t have a schedule to keep.

He found several linen towels, which would definitely be useful. He found perfumed soap and winced, then decided it was better than none.

Red was still asleep when he passed by the shelter again on his way to the waterfall, so he didn’t disturb her.

As he stripped and dove into the freshwater spring, he wondered that no one had yet settled this place. It was a natural haven. There were hills, but not really mountains. There were trees, and the soft white sandy beach. Someone could create a paradise here.

The water was crisp and cool. He savored the slide of it against his flesh. They had slept last night crusted in salt from the ocean, and though he loved the sea, the fresh water on his naked skin was a sweet relief.

He dove down several times, exploring the watery haven. He found strange rock formations beneath the surface and made a mental note of the geography as he tested the pool’s depth. Fifteen to thirty feet, he judged….

He was still deep beneath the surface when he literally bumped into her. Even in the water, he heard the little cry that escaped her.

And there, beneath the surface and the sun, in the cool, aqua shelter of the pool, he turned to see Red in all her glory.

Her eyes were saucer-sized, the alarm on her face evident. But despite himself, his gaze dropped. She was sleek and tightly muscled and beautiful, and very much a natural redhead. Her waist was minuscule, her breasts perfect.

He shot back from her as she shot back from him.

They surfaced a good fifteen feet apart, but the water, which had seemed to hide so much before, seemed only to magnify his view now.

“How dare you?” she accused him.

“Me! How dare
you?
” he returned.

“You sneaked up on me!” she accused him.

“My dear girl, I have been in this water for some time now,” he returned, then muttered, “Pirate, my arse.”

“What?”

“The usual pirate captain doesn’t become outraged when he comes upon his men in a pool.”

“I am not the usual captain.”

“No, that you’re not.” He grinned.

“Get out of the water,” she demanded.

“You get out,” he suggested.

“No!” she exclaimed, still facing him, but paddling desperately backward to put more distance between them. “I’m not decent.”

“Nor am I—and I was here first.”

She stared at him, chagrined, and shook her head; then her eyes narrowed. “And I called you noble! You are just like every other man, interested in a woman for nothing but…but entertainment.”

That was a blow beneath the waist. “How do I know you weren’t perfectly aware that I was already in the pool, and that you didn’t come here hoping to catch a glimpse of…of my family’s future and honor?”

“I would never,” she assured him, her face as red as her hair.

“And I would never.”

“Ah, that’s right. You have Cassandra.”

Her tone surprised him. There was that note of disdain he’d heard before, but there was something else, as well. Just a trace, perhaps, of jealousy.

“Actually, at this moment, neither of us has anything but this island,” he told her.

And then he was done. The crystalline pool seemed suddenly chilly. He turned and swam away from her. He didn’t tell her to turn away as he walked back through the shallows to the shore, his back to her, heedless of whether she did or didn’t watch. He picked up the towel he had brought, dried himself quickly, then stepped into clean breeches. Only then did he notice the soap, which he had tossed down by his clean clothing.

He turned back to her and saw that she was still floating far from shore. “Hey!”

“What?”

“Soap,” he said, and held it up to show her.

She wanted it. She definitely wanted it.

But she didn’t swim any closer.

“Hey, I can only it throw so far.”

She came closer at last.

He tossed the soap to her.

It landed closer still to the shore, where it floated on the surface.

She cast him an evil glare. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Perhaps you should go back and work on finding breakfast,” she suggested.

“Aye, Captain, I’ll do that.”

But he remained right where he was.

She stared back at him and swore beneath her breath, then apparently decided to call his bluff and swam for the soap.

Still looking at him. Still cursing him. And she could indeed curse like a pirate.

Ah, well. He took another long look and wondered how such a woman had ever managed to pass herself off to anyone as a man.

Then he turned, grinning, and headed back for the beach.

“B
RENDAN
?”

Brendan barely turned as Silent Sam walked up to him at the helm; his eyes were on the horizon.

“Aye?”

“Let me take the wheel.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. Everyone must sleep at some point.”

“They’re out there. Somewhere,” Brendan said vehemently.

Silent Sam was silent.

“They’re out there,” Brendan insisted.

“They might be. And if they are, we’ll find them. Have faith in the man in the crow’s nest. We’ll sail to every island off the coast, sail until we drop dead of old age. But you’ll be worthless if you don’t get some rest.”

It was the longest speech Brendan had ever heard Silent Sam give. He looked at the man, and saw that his devotion to the cause—to Red—was real. At last he nodded wearily and stepped away from the wheel so Silent Sam could take his place.

“Who’s in the crow’s nest?” he asked.

“Hagar.”

Brendan nodded. “I’ll be in her cabin,” he said.

Silent Sam nodded.

In the cabin, Brendan realized that he and Red weren’t just cousins, or even the brother and sister they more often felt like, after everything they’d been through together. They were survivors. Her quest was his quest. And he couldn’t believe, with all that life had already dealt them, that he could lose her, too.

He
wouldn’t
believe it.

He had to believe she was alive. Logan had gone after her, and he was a survivor, too. Logan would have kept her safe.

If
he had been able to find her in the churning dark waters.

If
they had found a way to shore.

If…

They were out there somewhere together. They had to be. And they had to be…

Alive.

And he was going to find them. Or, as Silent Sam had said, die in the trying.

Be steadfast. Hold to the wind. It was the motto she survived by.

S
HE HAD BEEN STILL
for so long that the water felt cool, even chilly. She had watched him go, but even now, long minutes later, she was still staring at the shore.

Really, what does any of it matter? she asked herself mockingly. They could rot here for years. They could die here.

Another thought trickled through her mind.

Would it matter so much?

Most of her life had offered little but misery. She had learned about swords and pistols and sailing not for the pure joy of the thing but because it had been a welcome diversion from scrubbing floors and had offered her a better life, even if not an ideal one. She had stood up to a man and killed him because life had been preferable to death.

No way out of it. All roads led back to a slaughtered family, a massacre in a village and the end of the promise of a decent life. She knew that sorrow, even terror, visited every life. Death was no stranger to the rich, but it was harder on the poor, and often came on the order of the wealthy and the royal. Because kings could send soulless men to achieve their goals, with no thought to how it was done, commanding them only to leave no survivors, so there would be none left to tell the tale.

But Blair Colm was greedy as well as cruel. A healthy child who could work in the colonies would fetch a nice price. He had made one mistake, though. Blair Colm had never realized just how long hatred could simmer in the human heart.

That day on the pirate ship…

It had been her salvation. It had given her life, where she might have had none. And knowing he was out on the seas had given her a reason to go on. She had won her own freedom, and with it a chance to fulfill her burning desire to live, to avenge all the vicious brutality he had done to others.

And then…

Like a fool, she had taken a prisoner.

A man of reason. And charm. Intelligence and courage.

And he was beautiful.

Built rock-solid, smooth and sleek. She had thought herself immune. But as he had walked away, his muscles rippling, his skin gleaming with the droplets of water touched by the sun, he’d been enticing. Captivating.
Seductive.

What she knew about sex wasn’t particularly appealing; she’d seen enough rutting right in the taverns she frequented to consider it all a rather nasty and grunting affair. What she’d seen of most men had not been attractive. Hairy, ugly…

But Logan…

She closed her eyes. The water seemed cold, but she was glad of it, because she felt flushed, burning from within.

She forced her thoughts onto a different path, remembering that awful moment when she’d seen the body and thought it was Brendan. It had been worse than death itself to think he might have died….

What of that poor fellow’s life? Had it been good? Had he been married? If his wife had been on the ship with him, had she survived the tempest? Were they good people, or had they been wealthy and titled and cruel? She found herself praying that he had lived a good life, that he had known pleasure, that he had been kind and decent.

It was no use.

No matter how hard she tried to think of something else, her thoughts kept returning to Logan. She despised herself for caring about him, for being so fascinated by him, his glorious body as well as his mind. He could tease, he could taunt, and he could challenge her, but he was never cruel. She wondered not so much about sex, to what she had seen in taverns and dark alleys, but about what it would be like to feel a gentle touch. To be held by him. To have him there to defend her, as he had done when she was set upon by the men in the alley.

She wondered what it would be like to feel the palm of his hand on her face, the soft pressure of his lips on hers, to hear his whisper, gentle and sweet…to let go of everything else, if only for a brief moment in time, even though it would not be…

Proper.

She wasn’t at all proper. She was the child of an Irishman slain at the command of William of Orange. She had grown up upon her hands and knees, scrubbing. And when she had turned out to be presentable, she had suddenly become the possession of a woman who had eventually seen fit to sell her once again. And then…she had become a pirate.

No, not a
proper
life at all.

She didn’t think she would ever be invited into any of the fashionable parlors in Charleston or Savannah.

But what did that matter, if she was seeking only a moment?

But there was more.

There was Cassandra.

Another mystery. If she was as beautiful and sweet and intelligent as he said, what was his hesitation? Why were they not affianced? He obviously knew her well and cared about her, as she did him. So why…?

She would be a frozen prune in another minute, despite the fact that the sun was rising high enough to heat the air. She scrubbed herself thoroughly with the soap she had been holding for too long, then hurried to the shore, wincing slightly as she stepped on a jagged outcrop of rock. On shore, she hurried for the towel and the clothing she had chosen, cursing the fact that she hadn’t noticed Logan had done the same before her.

She dressed quickly in a man’s breeches and shirt, then happily slipped into a pair of hose and shoes.

She paused then, her thoughts inevitably returning to Logan.

He was a decent man.

Another man in such a situation might have raped her already. After all, she had captained a pirate ship. She was one of the brethren. She would have been seen as fair game.

Not by Logan.

In his way…

In his way, he seemed to know her. To understand her. Maybe, perhaps, admire her.

She had met men—even some, such as Teach, who were reputed to be animals—who were decent. Many who were kind. Who had standards and ethics.

But she had never met anyone who made her pause, who had given her a glimmer of an idea that she might like to truly live rather than merely live for vengeance. Not until she met Logan.

And that was both ridiculous and dangerous. She did not dare care for him. She could bear no more pain in her life.

But what if Brendan and all her crew were…lost?

They couldn’t be. The
Eagle
needed cleaning, but she was a beautiful, well-built ship. She would have made it through the storm.