The Pirate Bride (7 page)

“What’s your name?”

“O’Hara. Jimmy O’Hara. Once an Irishman, never an Orangeman. No country of my own.”

She lowered her eyes for a moment. Time had passed, years, and this was a different world….

“Take him on,” she said.

When she started walking quickly toward the wharf, unwilling to stay ashore and determined to take the tender back to the ship, she found Brendan by her side.

And Logan Haggerty on the other.

Hagar and Peg-leg brought up the rear, Jimmy O’Hara between them.

And now, even as the rain fell harder, the alley came alive. All those who had cowered in their rooms above were down in the street.

The bodies of the fallen would be picked clean of whatever coins and trinkets, pipes and tobacco, they might have been carrying in their pockets. Boots and clothes, if in any kind of repair, would be stripped. She could only hope the bodies would be buried, as well.

Most probably they would be, she told herself. The residents wouldn’t want to live with the smell once the sun rose in the morning and the stench of decay set in.

“Where are you going?” Brendan asked softly. “I thought you had taken rooms.”

“The men may enjoy their shore leave, as promised. I’m returning to the ship. Tomorrow we’ll take on supplies. Then we’ll head north.”

“And what about O’Hara?” Brendan asked.

She shrugged. “We’ll see if he can cook.”

“But he tried to kill you,” Brendan reminded her.

“No. He came along because he needed money.”

“What if he plans on poisoning us all?” Brendan asked quietly.

She smiled. “Well, we have Lord Haggerty, don’t we?”

“Ship’s taster,” Logan said, not glancing her way.

“Red…” Brendan began.

“Don’t worry. I don’t believe he’s a poisoner. Neither does our good captain,” Logan said, then looked at Red at last. “I strive to please.”

She stared back at him for a long while. She liked the man, and she hated that she did. Pirates’ honor, indeed. Logan had his own code. He could have escaped tonight. Instead, he had fought for her, and fought well and hard.

“Ransom or no, we will set
Laird
Haggerty free in the Carolinas,” she said.

He was still staring at her.

“You have earned your freedom,” she said simply.

He smiled slowly. “Have I?” he asked softly. “Perhaps I played this game tonight because I knew the other side would lose.”

“We’d not have found you without Laird Haggerty,” Brendan said. “He threatened Sonya, and then a drunk, to find out where you’d gone. And he was the marksman who killed their leader.”

“You might have missed—and gotten me,” Red said.

“I don’t miss,” he assured her.

“Too bad he isn’t a pirate, eh?” Brendan said, and stepped between them, slipping an arm around both their shoulders.

“Too bad,” she mused dryly.

And too bad that she was.

Better than her other options, she thought, then wished she had never set eyes on Laird Logan Haggerty and his ship.

L
OGAN SAT ON DECK
, idly tossing bits of dried fish to one of the ship’s cats, a tabby he’d grown quite fond of. The animal was called Rat because he was so efficient at ridding the hold of the creatures who would otherwise ravage their food stores. Rat had a harem of females who did his work with him. He was a huge beast, never afraid, and most of the crew steered clear of him. Rat had an affinity for the captain, though, and Red could pick up the cat and he would purr. The animal was as loyal to their captain as the best hound could ever be.

As were her men.

Those who appeared to have come from some kind of finer life, and those who seemed to have been born swabbies.

Peg-leg was in the captain’s cabin. Logan had just finished repairing a tear in the mainsail and was about to tar a gap in the hold, but even prisoners were given a luncheon break.

Especially prisoners who had been offered further shore leave but had chosen to return. In fact, being quite fond of his health, he had resisted the entertainments offered by Sonya and her fellows, and had been pleased to return to the ship. Their supplies were being loaded even now, and he had to admit that their new cook, Jimmy O’Hara, seemed to have a good idea of how to buy salt and store meat and the rest of their provisions. He’d tasted the fellow’s grog, and it was damned good and even left a fellow with a stable mind. Such a man could be a valuable asset, for he’d heard of far more pirate attacks for simple necessities than he had for gold. Pirates could not put into any port. Meat went bad easily. Weevils tore apart wheat, bread and rice.

A cook—one who could keep food from spoiling aboard ship—was as valuable as a carpenter.

Jimmy had set up a grill on the deck, where he had prepared filets of local fresh fish for the crew. He hadn’t lied when he said he had a way with seasonings. Old rice and fresh fish had been turned into a meal fit for a king. If a few weevils had made their way into the rice, they’d been masked by the parsley and saffron the cook had acquired.

Logan been feeling ridiculously content and sated when he had first sat down to play with the cat and rest a spell. But now the lethargy was gone. He was alert, his senses heightened, as he listened to Red discussing her plans with Peg-leg.

“We’ll lose the lead we have,” Red said.

“Captain, I told you before, we’ll be sinking to Davy Jones’s locker if we don’t take the time to keep our ship afloat,” Peg-leg said.

There was silence.

“You should have taken Laird Haggerty’s ship,” Peg-leg said with a sigh.

“No. This is a finer ship, and better equipped with guns. She was already a pirate vessel.”

“Black Luke’s vessel,” Peg-leg muttered.

“Black Luke’s vessel,” the captain agreed. “She has speed and guns. She can hide, she can outrun almost anything out there, and she can dare the shallows where most others wouldn’t have a prayer. No, she’s our ship.”

“Then we need to keep her in shape,” Peg-leg insisted.

Again there was silence.

Red’s regret was almost palpable when she said, “As you wish. But now we’re freshly loaded—”

“And I can brace the cargo when we haul her ashore,” Peg-leg assured her. “You’re not forgetting what you saved me from, Red, and not forgetting that I’d lie down and die—give up me good leg, if need be—for you.”

“I know, my friend, I know,” Red said softly.

“’Cause you’re far from a fool, lass,” Peg-leg said.

Lass?

Did the entire crew know that they were sailing beneath a woman? Curious. Most pirates thought it was bad luck to keep a woman aboard. Oh, they had slipped through here and there, those females seeking something they could not find in the regimented life their sex was condemned to on land, but most of the time, if discovered, women were not welcome.

But this was unlike anything he had heard of before.

This was…

Red Robert.

He winced. He had thought that, even if he wasn’t blindly, insanely in love with her, he loved Cassandra. He
did
love her. Of course, he loved her. There was everything to love about her. She was beautiful, kind, patient, and she had a gentle personality that was still lively and fun. He enjoyed her company. She was so right for the life he had envisioned for himself….

And at this moment, he couldn’t recall her features.

It was insane. He certainly wasn’t seduced by any other woman, definitely not a hardened soul masquerading as a pirate. No, it was no masquerade. Red
was
a pirate. He had seen her command her crew. He’d fought her. He knew she could be tough, even ruthless.

But he’d seen her eyes, as well.

He’d seen the pain that slipped past the armor. What caused it?

And why in hell did he care?

He had kept his honor, as she had kept hers. He would be released. She would play out her charade until the day came when she was killed. And by then he would be a free man. With luck, perhaps even a rich one. Ready to marry. To return to Scotland and claim his ancestral home….

Did he really still want that life?

Yes. He owed it to those whose blood had been shed for it. Even if now the possibility of reclaiming his birthright would not come with arms, war and trumpets, but with a simple act of unity, forged because the rightful Scottish queen was the rightful English queen, and parliaments agreed.

His muscles tensed, as they so often did when he let himself think of the past. He understood the hatred. Oddly enough, the man both he and Captain Red so despised would
not
understand.

Blair Colm had no soul. He lived for his own selfish pleasures, for money, power and his creature comforts. His heart was ice, and he had no qualms about killing children, women, the sick, the weak or the elderly.

He enjoyed the pain of others. And despite that, it was true that he could walk about the colonies a free man. If someone were to take a knife to his throat on the streets of Richmond or Charleston, that someone would hang for murder. He’d often thought about that himself, afraid that he would not be able to help himself. That he would attack the man and kill him with his bare hands.

And then hang for it.

Then again, perhaps it was not so hard to believe after all. In his own homeland, women still went to the stake to be burned as witches, and men could still be hanged for stealing a mere loaf of bread or a few coins. As recently as the “Glorious Revolution” that had raised William of Orange to the throne of England, they were hanging witches in the northern American colonies. It was a harsh world. Perhaps it was no surprise that a monster like Blair Colm could so freely roam the streets.

Or that pirates could actually have a stronger sense of honor than so-called honest men.

He wondered why that all seemed so clear to him now.

They were still anchored outside New Providence. The storm that had broken last night was gone. The misting rain had become a deluge during the late hours of the night, but now the sky was crystal blue and beautiful, and the sea was sweetly calm.

The breeze was gentle, like a soft kiss against his cheeks.

And all he had thought he knew about the world had changed.

He wasn’t seduced, but he
was
intrigued. Or perhaps obsessed.

No, he told himself. It was no such thing. It was just curiosity to know what had driven the woman to such extremes.

“Curiosity killed the cat, so they say,” he whispered softly to Rat. The cat had been extremely cautious of him at first. Hostile, actually. But Logan had gone out of his way to befriend the beast.

Why?

Because the cat and the captain were close?

The door to the captain’s cabin was opening. Peg-leg came out, and saw him there. The man’s eyes bulged, and Logan knew Peg-leg was afraid his conversation with Red had been overheard.

Logan laid a finger across his lips.

Peg-leg frowned and quickly closed the door behind him.

“What are you doing here, man?” Peg-leg demanded, but since he was whispering, afraid of being overheard by the captain, his bluster didn’t carry much force.

“Resting,” Logan said, and smiled.

Peg-leg wagged a finger at him. “You…you didn’t hear…” He paused and let out a gruff sigh. “What did you hear?”

“Nothing I didn’t already know,” Logan said softly.

Peg-leg swore.

“There’s no problem,” Logan assured him.

“But there is!”

“Oh?”

“Now we have to kill you, and we all like you, Laird Haggerty.”

Logan couldn’t help but laugh. They weren’t going to kill him.

She
would never allow it. She hadn’t even been able to condemn a man who had been hired to kill her.

“Stop that,” Peg-leg implored, still whispering.

Logan sobered; the man was genuinely upset.

“I will never tell. On my soul, on my honor, before God,” he swore.

Peg-leg eased back, his balled fists relaxing.

“Do all men aboard know the truth?” Logan asked.

Peg-leg hesitated, then nodded.

“You cannot understand….”

“But I would like to.”

Peg-leg looked around. The men in view were busy at simple tasks. Silent Sam was adding a layer of varnish to the mainmast, while two others were busy repairing the portside rail. A man was up in the crow’s nest, sanding the wood in preparation for a new coat of paint.

“Come,” Peg-leg said.

Logan arched a brow.

“I’ll tell you the story of Red Robert.”

P
EG-LEG HAD BEEN
gone for several minutes, and still Red continued to stare at the door, frustrated.

She was certain that if they just sailed at full speed…

But she knew she had put off the necessary job of careening the ship because she had been too determined for too long that her quarry was just over the next horizon. It was almost as if he knew where she was and was careful to stay a step ahead.

She frowned, tapping her quill idly upon the desk. It was too bad that Blackbeard would not join her, but she understood that he was a man with his own plan, and that plan was to enrich Edward Teach. She needed to be glad he was her friend.

There was a tap on the door. She instinctively checked her hat, which kept the dark wig she wore fixed securely upon her head. But when she bade the visitor to enter, it was only Brendan.

“Small boats are arriving with supplies,” he told her.

“Good. Do you have the manifest?”

“I do.”

He handed her the sheet. She smiled again, thinking about Teach. He had given her a hefty quantity of gold. She had duly purchased a hefty quantity of supplies. Glancing over the sheet, she saw that all she had asked for had been acquired, down to the scented soap. A luxury she could not afford with a prisoner on board, but…

She had sworn she would release him. And she would do so.

The sooner the better, she thought. She felt him watching her far too often. And she was afraid he saw far too clearly. She was also irritated that he continued to prove himself an admirable man.

Brendan cleared his throat.

“What?”

“A letter for you made its way to the tavern.”

“Oh?” she said, looking at her cousin, who’d apparently read it already.

“It’s an offer of ransom.”

Her heart skipped a beat. She was a pirate captain. She had demanded a ransom for Laird Haggerty, and his men had seen to it that a letter had made its way to New Providence. Like letters had probably been sent to Jamaica and every other likely port.

She read the letter quickly.

She hadn’t realized her fingers had tightened on the page until Brendan warned lightly, “You’ll rip it.”

“I’ll write a reply directly, assuring them that there need be no further correspondence, and that the good captain will be released at our earliest convenience.”

“What about the ransom?”

She tried to shrug nonchalantly. “We are owed nothing. He proved his valor.”

“But they are
offering
a ransom.”

“Brendan—”

“The men will think you have grown soft.”

“The men will remember how often I save their lives.”

“Red, let’s face it. We’re really not in the business of taking ships and treasure, but even so, you have a reputation to uphold.”

“And let my reputation be that I honor a man of honor. Pirate or no.”

Brendan rolled his eyes. “I knew
I
should have been captain.” She looked at him, arching a brow. “All right, cousin, I admit you saved my life. But you must admit that I was doing well, thanks to Lygia.”

He shrugged. “Write your letter, then, so it can be left.”

Brendan closed the door as he left the master’s cabin. Black Luke’s cabin, once upon a time.

But, when he was gone, she didn’t dwell on Black Luke. She looked at the letter, and her fingers trembled. The letter had been written with love. Logan Haggerty had a home, a safe port, a place where he was esteemed and admired. He was not a man who would ever hang.

He had…

Cassandra.

Of course he did. No man who looked as he did could be without a sweetheart.

Impatiently, she dipped her plume into the ink and began to write. She would do as she had promised, as she should.

But it hurt. And she was angry with herself for that, because she was a realist, and she knew all about the harsh truths of life.

Still, she couldn’t help wondering. Did he love his no-doubt adoring Cassandra in return? Did he dream of her by night, and in those dreams, did he touch her and hold her tenderly in his arms?

What would life be like if she knew such tenderness? With even just a sweet whispered hint of passion…of love?

His was a world she could never know. She must write the letter. Get the man off her ship. Remember her quest…

“T
HE SEA IS A HARSH
and cruel mistress, we all know that, lad,” Peg-leg said, looking out over the bow.

It was true, Logan thought. He knew the sea, knew it could be hard, cold and treacherous. But at the moment, it couldn’t have been more beautiful. At a distance, Nassau, New Providence, even looked enchanting, the colorful shanties near the shore, the rise and fall of the landscape beyond.

“And not just the sea, but the men who sail her, as well,” Peg-leg said.

Logan turned, crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back against the rail and stared at Peg-leg. “The
men?
” he asked politely. They were, after all, discussing, Captain Red Robert.

Peg-leg appeared distressed.

“Your tale?” Logan prompted. “What made Red a pirate?”

Peg-leg sighed deeply. He looked toward the captain’s cabin, clearly afraid he had given her away. His look was protective and sad; he deeply admired his captain.

“I told you, I already knew Red was a woman. I will be far more likely to remember at all times to keep the secret if I can truly understand it,” Logan told him.

Another sigh followed.

“Peg-leg?”

Peg-leg looked off into the distance, as if he were seeing a different time and a different place.

“I was working a merchantman at the time. The ship was under hire by a certain Lady Ellen Fotherington. Do you know the name?” Peg-leg asked him.

Surprised, Logan hesitated.

“Yes, mean old broomstick of a woman,” he admitted at last. “Her husband was a fine enough man. I met him upon many an occasion in a tavern by the water in Charleston. But he died when I was young, and I met her but once or twice. She passed away in the last year, so I heard.”

Peg-leg wagged a finger at him. “Goes to show, perhaps, ’tis true that only the good die young, because she was not a good woman and, sadly, she did not die young.”

“She is dead now,” Logan said pragmatically.

“Well, ’tis a long story, but the short of it is that she had rights over the future of a certain young woman. Our Red. Well, no matter how rich and high that wretched Lady Fotherington might have been, she always wanted to be richer. Oh, she was a harridan, and I’m glad you met her, because elsewise, I might not have the power to explain properly.”

Logan knew that Lady Fotherington had been fond of taking on indentured servants, although she owned slaves, too. But she knew how to turn her indentured servants into slaves, as well, creating debts they must also pay, accusing them of some crime. Logan had seen it done all too often. Indeed, had he not found himself, by chance and good fortune, in the home of such a man as Master George Delaney, he himself might have suffered a similar fate before reaching his majority. He’d been bitter and resentful, fighting like a wild cat, when he’d first arrived in the colonies; only Delaney’s kindness had changed his course in life.

“Red was a prisoner on this particular merchantman, which was captained by a fellow named Nimsby. Nimsby was an evil man, and he was cheap,” Peg-leg continued. “He was hard on his crew, though, quick to take the cat-o’-nine-tails to the back of any man who committed any infraction. He never traveled with enough men—and he never traveled with enough guns. He’d been known to carry human cargo from Africa, and he allowed little room for anything that could not make him money. I was in his employ because I’d been taken off another ship and it was sign on with Captain Nimsby or…well, take my chance with a trial and the hangman. I’ve not often seen trials go well in the colonies. On this particular trip, Nimsby was carrying molasses and a few other staples home to mother England before going south to Africa, then east to the Caribbean and back to Charleston again, his customary route. He’d been given quite a fair sum by Lady Fotherington to deliver one particular piece of cargo to France—that being the woman you now know as Red Robert. It was on leaving Charleston, just out of the shipping lanes, that we were beset.”

“By pirates?” Logan queried.

“By pirates led by a beast,” Peg-leg assured him.

“A crew captained by Black Luke?”

Peg-leg nodded gravely. “The very same. I had seen Red, of course, but barely. She’d been brought aboard by two burly fellows who saw her into the captain’s cabin, and she was kept there under lock and key.”

“Did this Nimsby…assault her in any way?” Logan asked, furious at the thought.

“Oh, no. Nimsby was far too fond of gold to go against the Lady Fotherington’s wishes. Red was destined for an aging French count.”

“Who?” Logan inquired curiously.

“Le Comte de Veille.”

Logan grimaced. The fellow had just perished at eighty-plus. He had gone through several wives, dozens of mistresses and, by reputation at least, hundreds of whores. He was said to have been pock-marked so deeply that he was barely recognizable as human, unable to walk and suffering the insanity of late-stage syphilis.

“Was she a relative? Perhaps a niece?”

“No. She was
bought.
She was meant for the bed of the Comte de Veille,” Peg-leg said, horrified.

Logan shuddered, thanking God that Red had escaped such a fate. “Go on. How did a Frenchman’s…mistress, locked in a cabin, become the pirate Red Robert?”

“Desperation,” Peg-leg said. “And love,” he added sadly.

“She was in love?” Logan asked with a frown.

“Young master Brendan is her cousin. Surely you have discerned that they are related,” Peg-leg said.

Logan nodded. “She…wasn’t in love with her cousin, was she?”

Peg-leg’s look of absolute indignation was humbling.

“They’d been together as children, working in the household of Lady Fotherington. He’d been sent to fetch and carry and work on the merchantman, but he was an able and quick lad, and some of the crew grew quickly fond of him. He had a knack with a sword. He said there had been a groom back in the colonies who had enjoyed teaching the children the art of fencing when the old harridan was about on other business. There was a daughter, you see, Lygia. And she was the very soul of kindness. When her mother wasn’t at home, she saw to it that all the children received some special treat, the slaves and the indentured servants both. She loved fencing and reading and the like, so…young Brendan knew how to handle a sword.”

“And then…?”

“Then bad went to worse,” Peg-leg assured him.

“Pray, go on.”

Peg-leg sighed. “Black Luke bore down upon us. Nimsby felt he had nothing to fear, as he was good friends with a man named Blair Colm. He—”

“I know the name,” Logan interrupted curtly. “And not only because he sent those men after Red.”

“Well, then, you know he is known to travel with plenty of guns, and any pirate who has ventured to attack him has gone to the depths of the sea or had his head parted from his shoulders. His friendship with Nimsby had saved the man before, but this time Nimsby had placed himself in the path of Black Luke. Black Luke was a pirate’s pirate. He didn’t care who Nimsby knew, nor did he intend to sink the merchantman. He wanted to seize her, and all who were aboard.” Peg-leg took a deep breath, then went on. “When the firing started, Nimsby was preoccupied. I took it upon myself to unlock the master’s cabin, and I warned the girl within that we were under attack by a pirate, and that she must look to herself. Nimsby was killed almost immediately, when cannon fire brought down the mizzenmast. Then Black Luke boarded, and we were all a-fightin’ for our lives. Young Brendan was proving himself such an able combatant that he was cornered by several of the vermin from the pirate ship, and then Black Luke himself. All looked bleak indeed, I can tell you. Then, suddenly, this force of fury comes streaking out of the captain’s cabin, cutlass waving madly. It all happened so fast…. There was a whir of motion, and then suddenly Black Luke was dead. He’d turned and roared he was about to cut down a little louse, thinking that Red was the man she’d dressed up to be. But he underestimated her. She’d taken her swing before he could finish his words.

“That’s what I meant by love. The brigand had been about to kill her cousin, and that had given her the strength she needed. I think she was as stunned as anyone. Everyone just went still. When we looked around…there were mostly dead folks, and the ship was sinking. Without Black Luke, the pirates were suddenly trying to make it back to their own ship, but there weren’t enough of them left to man her. Suddenly the girl who had been locked in the captain’s cabin and come out like the wrath of God was shouting orders. The pirates who weren’t dead believed that Black Luke had been slain by another pirate held captive in the captain’s cabin, and they were set into the merchantman’s longboats to make it to shore if they could. And Red took over this ship, just as we have her now. Those of us on the crew who survived…Silent Sam, myself…and a few others, well, we swore to honor her, and so did Hagar, who’d been sent to tend to her and Brendan by Lady Fotherington. We’d been serving the likes of the wretched Nimsby and nearly died because he’d not had enough guns. It…was easy to serve her. And to keep her secret.”

“So…none of you were pirates before?”