The Pirate Lord (21 page)

“I still say you ain’t tellin’ me everythin’. I’ve scolded you and grumbled at you, and it don’t seem to bother you. Why ain’t you scared of me the way the others are?”

“Because I know you won’t hurt me!” she blurted out, then wished she hadn’t. Why must he ask all these uncomfortable questions?

“Ah. I thought that might have somethin’ to do with it.” When Louisa looked at him in surprise, he added, “Who was it who hurt you? What man hurt you so bad inside that you only feel safe with a man you think can’t bed you?”

Her face turned crimson. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He set his pipe down with a scowl. “Aye, you do. I been thinkin’ on it. The only reason a woman like you would turn away Barnaby for me is if she didn’t want a man to touch her.”

She’d never said it to herself. She’d never even thought it. But deep inside, she knew that was indeed why she’d latched onto Silas. He was good and kind…and impotent. She’d never have to fear that he’d come up behind her and force himself upon—

She bit her lip hard, trying to contain the raw feelings that always brought her close to tears.

He came toward her, his face intent. “I ain’t blind, Louisa. I’ve seen how you flinch when a man touches you. I’ve seen how terror leaps up in your eye before you fight it back and sharpen your tongue to make ’em keep their distance.” He stopped a few feet from her. “You think if you make yourself useful to me, I’ll marry you, even though supposedly I can’t bed you.”

“That’s not true,” she protested feebly before the word “supposedly” sank in. “What do you mean, ‘supposedly’?” Then, realizing how awful a question that was, she stammered, “That is…well…”

“Don’t trouble yourself over it. I know what that fool Barnaby probably told you. Said I couldn’t make love to a woman, didn’t he?”

She debated whether to admit it, but finally decided she owed him that much honesty. “Yes.”

“He told you I didn’t like women ‘cause I couldn’t bed’ em. That’s what he said, ain’t it?”

Averting her face from him, she nodded.

“Well, it ain’t true.”

Her gaze shot around to meet his. “Wh-What do you mean?”

“I mean, my parts are in as good a working order as that damned Englishman’s.”

“But why—”

“It’s a long story.” His lips thinned into a tight line beneath his mustache. When she looked at him expec
tantly, he sighed and rubbed his beard. “At the time I lost me leg, I had a common-law wife on one o’ the islands in the West Indies. A Creole, she was. Gideon brought me home to her for healin’, and she took care o’ me. But me lack of a leg bothered her. She tried not to let me see how much, but one day I found her rollin’ about in the bed with a merchant. ’Twas then I knew she’d never love me again…if she ever had.”

When he turned away and went to the table, dropping heavily into a chair and picking up his pipe again, Louisa wanted to follow after him and give him comfort. Poor Silas. It wasn’t right; he was a good man. How could any woman stop loving her husband for something so trivial, so unimportant?

“We parted ways then,” he went on. “She went to her merchant, and I went back to sea as the
Satyr
’s cook. But the men all thought the problem between us must’ve been in the bedroom. They thought I’d injured somethin’ else when I injured me leg.” He stared down at his pipe. “I…sorta led ’em to think it. It bothered me less to have ’em thinkin’ my wife left me because I couldn’t give her what any woman has a right to than to admit she just didn’t…like me. The men…they thought it was tragic and all, and I let ’em think it. Gideon knew the truth, but nobody else. And he always kept my secret.”

He drew hard on his pipe, then exhaled, the smoke swirling up about him like incense. “Truth be told, after that I weren’t interested in women anyway. She’d trampled on my heart, and I didn’t think to find nobody else to care for me again. So I…went without a woman, ’cept when I could get away in secret to find a whore in some port.”

With a sinking feeling she wiped her clammy hands on her skirt. She knew where this was leading. And she didn’t know what to do about it.

He lifted his face to hers, his eyes as clear as the sky outside. “Then you came along, a spitfire like I never
seen. You were the tonic a man takes to brace himself for livin’. And I knew I had to tell you the truth.”

“Don’t say any more. Please, Silas—”

“I got to say it, Louisa. I just got to. You cozied up to me because you thought I weren’t a real man, because some bastard made you afraid o’ real men. I’d like to flatter meself that there was more to it than that—”

“There was!” She couldn’t let him think that she just chose to be around him because she thought he was safe. When he stared at her over his pipe, disbelief in his expression, she added softly, “Truly, there was more. You’re kind and gentle and—”

“I ain’t kind and gentle, lass!” he roared as he jumped to his feet. “That’s what I been tryin’ to tell you. When I see you in the mornin’, lookin’ like the freshest rose that ever bloomed on these shores, the blood pounds in me ears. I want you so bad, I want to haul you into me arms and kiss the life out o’ you. What I feel for you…it ain’t gentle.” He tossed his pipe down, his eyes now alight. “And you want gentle. You want a man who’ll treat you like a piece of delicate glass, and—”

“No, that’s not what I want.”

“It ain’t that I don’t think you deserve it,” he went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “I
know
you deserve it. You deserve a whole man—”

“Stop it!” She flew to his side. “Don’t say such nonsense! You
are
a whole man! You happen to be missing a leg, but that doesn’t mean anything.” When he looked at her, startled by the passion in her voice, she added, “Not to me. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

His eyes narrowed as he stroked his beard. “What’re you saying, lass? You got to speak plain with me, because I ain’t good at guessin’ what a woman’s thinkin’. That’s one thing I learned from me wife.”

Louisa paused a moment. What was she saying? That it didn’t matter if he touched her and held her? That she might even like it?

Oh, she was so confused. She’d sworn after the last
time Harry had forced himself on her that she would never let a man touch her again. She’d driven that kitchen knife through his leg, hoping to hit something else, and for her pains, she’d gotten fourteen years’ transportation.

But Silas was so different from Harry. Although both men were arrogant, Harry’s arrogance had stemmed from a belief that everybody was put on this earth to serve him. He would never have said she deserved someone gentle. He’d always thought she should be proud that he saw fit to rape her once a week.

Silas’s arrogance, on the other hand, was a defense much like hers. It was a way to keep the men from laughing at him for his wife’s cuckolding him. She knew what it was like to use pride and scorn as a defense. Pride and scorn had seen her through her trial. They’d seen her through this capture. No one seemed to understand that the way Silas apparently did.

But was his understanding enough? If he did “haul her into his arms,” would she feel as if she wanted to die, the way she’d felt when Harry had jerked up her skirts and thrust himself into her?

There was only one way to find out. “I think I’m saying…” She halted, not sure how to put it. “I mean, I
know
I’m saying…that if I have to choose a husband, I would rather it be you than anyone else.”

“Even after what I told you? Because you got to understand, Louisa, I can’t live in the same house with you and not touch you.” His voice grew rumbling and deep, striking her with both fear and excitement. “I want to make love to you, lass. I don’t want none of them other women, so if it ain’t you, then I’ll just go on as before. But if I marry you, I can’t promise not to touch you—”

“Then don’t promise it,” she said, surprising even herself. Stepping up to him, she laid her hands on his arms. They were strong arms, strong enough to break her in two, to take her by force…to hurt her badly. Yet she could feel them tremble beneath her fingers, and
that eased her fears. Surely a man who could tremble at her touch wouldn’t hurt her…would he?

She lifted her face to his, her courage nearly failing her when she saw the blatant desire in his eyes. The only thing that kept her from racing out of that cottage was the fact that he hadn’t grabbed at her…not yet, anyway.

“I want to try, Silas. With you. No matter what you say, I trust you not to hurt me. You won’t, will you?”

“Never.” His hands crept up to rest lightly on her waist. “But if you stand this near me for a minute longer, I swear I’m gonna kiss you.”

Her breath quickened despite all her fears. “All right.”

He looked at her as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. “What did you say?”

“Kiss me, Silas.”

She didn’t have to ask again. He wasted no time in getting right to it. And as his mouth met hers, she forgot all about Harry, the heir to the Dorchester dukedom. She forgot about prison and her trial and the capture. All she could think was that Silas the grumbler kissed like something from the great beyond. And she’d been long overdue for a taste of such heaven.

The kiss grew long and deep and hard, yet she found herself clinging to his vest and pressing her body against his. It was only when she felt his erection that she jerked back, the old fear welling up in her again.

But he was smiling now, an unusual thing indeed for Silas. “Don’t fret it, love. I don’t expect you to throw yourself into me arms with grand abandon so soon. But now that I know you can tolerate me kissin’, I know the rest will come.”

“Are you sure?” Why was her breath suddenly stuck way down in her lungs? And why did she already want him to kiss her again? “I-I thrust a kitchen knife in the leg of the last man who…lay with me.”

Silas’s smile faded. “Did he deserve it?”

“In my opinion, he did,” she said emphatically. She couldn’t even look at him. “He…he took me against my will many times.”

His fingers tightened on her waist. “Aye, he deserved it then. He deserved that and more.” His eyes were solemn as he tipped up her chin until she was looking at him. “And if ever I deserve it, you thrust a knife in my leg, too. I’ll even let you ruin me good leg, if that’s what it takes to have you as me wife.”

His words were so sweet, so dear, that tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, Silas,” she said, throwing her arms about his neck, “I don’t deserve you.”

“Aye, you do.” He tugged her close, resting his chin on top of her head. “The man who made you think so poorly of yerself was a bastard, but one day you’ll tell me all about him so I can make you forget his treachery once and for all. Then we’ll go on. Together. We’ll make babies, and we’ll be happy, and the devil take anybody who tries to stop us.”

Yes, my love
, she thought as he raised her head for another heated kiss.
Yes, oh, yes
.

S
ara stood in the hold of the
Satyr
, taking stock of what clothing the women had managed to carry away from the
Chastity
. The other pirates were expected back tonight or tomorrow, and she wanted to be ready to portion out the clothing they were bringing. It was only when she rubbed her eyes that she realized how the light was waning in the hold. It had been early afternoon when she’d come down here, the time most of the women avoided the hold because of the heat. But now it must be almost dusk. Soon she would have to light a lamp.

Suddenly, she heard the hatch to the hold being opened and footsteps descending the stairs. She went still. It was probably one of the women, but she found herself half-hoping, half-fearing it was Gideon.

He’d avoided her ever since that night in her cabin, treating her as if she were a nasty contagion. Whenever she ventured to speak to him about some matter concerning the women, he gave her a dismissive answer and went on about his business.

Though his behavior wounded her, she told herself it was for the best. If Petey succeeded in his escape, she
would soon be leaving this place, and she ought to leave it as unencumbered as she’d come. That is, if she could find a way to stop Gideon from forcing the women to choose husbands. Tomorrow they were to choose, and she still had no clue how to prevent it, to buy enough time for Petey to return with Jordan.

Then the legs of the person descending the stairs came into view between the open steps. It wasn’t Gideon, that was for certain. Gideon didn’t wear skirts. No, it was Ann Morris, and as she rounded the staircase, Sara was alarmed to see she was crying.

As soon as Ann caught sight of her, she ran toward her, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks. “Oh, Miss Willis, what am I to do? How am I to endure it?”

Sara enveloped the small woman in her arms. “There, there, dear, what’s wrong? Are you missing Petey again?”

It took several moments to get the story out of Ann, but when she did, Sara’s alarm increased. One of the pirates was courting her, and when tomorrow came, Ann feared that she’d be forced to marry the man.

“He’s nice enough, I-I suppose,” she stammered through her crying, “but…but…” Here she burst into violent sobs.

“But he’s not Petey,” Sara whispered.

Ann nodded, wailing all the louder.

“I won’t let you marry a stranger,” Sara vowed as she held the small woman more tightly. She stared ahead unseeing. “This ridiculous plan of Gideon’s to populate his island has gone far enough. I refuse to let it continue any longer.”

Rubbing tears from her eyes with small fists, Ann asked, “What are you going to do?”

“You’ll see.” Sara hurried toward the stairs. It was time she and Gideon had another conversation about this foolishness. He must be made to understand that he couldn’t simply hand wives out to his men as if they were so much stolen goods. She wouldn’t stand for it!

When she and Ann left the ship, they didn’t have to go far to find Gideon. He was discussing something with Barnaby and Silas in front of his hut. But as soon as she strode into the middle of them, their conversation died off.

“What do you want?” Gideon ground out, impatience clear in every line of his face.

Straightening her shoulders, Sara met his forbidding scowl with a scowl of her own. “I want you to put an end to this madness of forcing the women to choose husbands. Isn’t it bad enough that you and your men carried us here against our will? Must you also insist on tormenting the women by making them marry men they scarcely know?”

“They have a choice.”

She snorted. “Oh, yes, their famous choice. They can choose a husband or have you choose one for them. But they can’t choose to remain unmarried, can they?”

“Do any of them really want that choice, Sara?”

Turning to Ann, who stood nervously behind her, Sara pulled the young woman forward. “Some of them do. Ann, for one. She…er…left behind a sweetheart in England. She isn’t ready to transfer her affections to just any man.”

“Left behind a sweetheart in England?” Gideon repeated caustically. “Truly? Or did she just lose one when he sailed away and left her three days ago?”

When Ann burst into tears and fled the scene, Sara faced Gideon with an accusing expression. “
Now
look what you’ve done!”

To her surprise, Silas cast Gideon a look of disgust, then took a deep puff on his pipe. “You shouldn’t have said that, Cap’n. That girl’s a delicate one, she is.”

Barnaby rolled his eyes. “Louisa has softened Silas so much, I scarcely recognize him.”

“Now see here, you blasted Brit—” Silas began to protest.

“That’s enough, both of you,” Gideon ordered, before
returning his attention to Sara. “I’m not changing my mind about this, Sara. I’m sorry Ann is unhappy, but don’t you think she’d be better off with a husband and children than pining for some ‘sweetheart’ who’s probably forgotten all about her by now?”

“Oh, that’s just the sort of thing a man would say!” Crossing her arms over her chest, Sara glared at him. “Besides, Ann’s not the only one, Gideon. Some of the other women are also reluctant to marry men they scarcely know. Why can’t you give them more time?”

“Time for what? For you to tell them how they’d be happier as servants in that godforsaken New South Wales?”

“To prepare themselves to be good wives. Unhappy women don’t make good wives, whether you realize it or not.” A sudden inspiration came to her. He was always talking of how they would make Atlantis into a real community, a place they could all be proud of. Well, they needed the women for that, didn’t they? “Of course, perhaps you don’t care if they’re good wives. As long as they’re good bed companions, I don’t suppose it matters if they do their share of the work on Atlantis or not.”

A thunderous scowl crossed Gideon’s face as her meaning registered. “You know quite well it matters.”

She gave a calculated shrug. “Not to them. Why should they put their backs into making a place better when they haven’t even been allowed any liberties? They’re being forced to take husbands from men who’ve spent their lives as criminals, who suddenly claim to desire an honest life. Yet those same men show no concern for what they think or feel. They care only about having their own needs met.”

Even Silas bristled at that one, and Gideon’s eyes blazed as he said in an undertone, “You go too far, Sara.”

She opened her mouth to answer him, to protest that
she hadn’t gone far enough, when a voice cut through the tension.

“Fire!” a man shouted. They turned to see one of the pirates running up the beach, kicking up sand as he went. “Fire in the kitchen!”

Sara and Gideon both swung around. Sara saw it first, a plume of smoke, thin and gray against the dusk light. “Good heavens, it
is
a fire!” She grabbed at Gideon’s arm and pointed.

“Confound it all!” Whirling toward Barnaby, Gideon ordered the first mate to gather the men. “Go aboard the
Satyr
and get as many buckets as you can find. And hurry! If the other roofs catch fire, there’ll be no stopping it!”

As Barnaby scurried to do his bidding, Gideon shouted to the other men. Several pirates and women were already coming up the beach, and Sara, Gideon, and Silas led them to the fire at a run.

Beside her, Sara heard Silas mutter, “Please, God, don’t let Louisa be in the kitchen. Anywhere else, but not in the kitchen.” He was scanning the beach as he ran, his expression lined with worry.

They reached the kitchen to find it completely ablaze.

“Louisa!” Silas shouted.

He started for the kitchen door, but Gideon held him back. “You can’t go in there, man! It’s a blasted furnace!”

Suddenly, Louisa appeared beside them and threw herself into Silas’s arms. “I’m all right, Silas, I promise,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest as he clutched her tightly, thanking God loudly for saving her. “I wasn’t in the kitchen when it started.”

“We’ve got to put it out before it catches the other huts,” Gideon said.

“Too late for that.” Silas gestured to an adjoining hut, his face grim. A spark from the flaming kitchen had already caught its roof afire. “The weather’s been so dry this week that they’ll all go up like kindlin’.”

“Where are those confounded lads with the buckets?” Gideon swore as he scanned the beach.

Sara followed his gaze, then caught sight of the linens she and the women had hung out to dry earlier that day. Many of the women were already milling around in front of the kitchen, wringing their hands. “Ladies! Go get those linens, soak them in water, and bring them here! And hurry!”

Gideon cast Sara a quick approving glance. “Good idea. We can use them to beat out the fire.” As he took off his shirt and headed for the ocean, he told the remaining men, “Help the women! We’ve got to stop this before it spreads!”

Ann came up beside Sara from out of the crowd, her face etched with concern. “What about the children, miss? What should we do with them?”

“Take them back to the ship, and keep them there till this is over.”

Ann hurried off, gathering children before her like a hen corralling her chicks. After that there was no more chance for conversation. They were all too busy filling whatever vessels they could lay their hands on with sea water and tossing it on the fire, or soaking linens and using them to beat at the flaming roofs. Unfortunately, the thatched roofs were very dry and much too high to reach easily. The women could get to the lower edges with their linens, but they couldn’t reach the higher parts. And though the men were taller, even they couldn’t throw the water as high as was necessary to soak the roofs enough to halt the fire. There weren’t nearly enough men to throw the water, either, since at least a third of the pirate company was still away at Sao Nicolau.

After hours of dragging buckets up from the ocean and soaking linens to use in beating at the flames, there were ten huts afire and the kitchen had already burned to the ground. Weary in every muscle, Sara picked up
a pile of sheets and started back toward the water’s edge.

Gideon grabbed her by the arm. “No. There’s no use.”

She stared at him. The unnatural firelight flickered over his soot-blackened face. The complete desolation in his expression made her ache. He watched the fire with a grim gaze that tugged painfully at her heart.

“Perhaps if we—” she began.

“No. It’s too late.”

“What about the rest of the island? There will be nothing left!”

Pain spasmed over his features before he masked it. “I don’t think the forest will catch fire. The huts are a good distance from the trees. Besides, the woods are green and won’t burn well. But the huts are gone. We might as well accept that. Now we’ve got to get aboard the ship and cast off before it catches fire, too.”

His bleak acquiescence tore at her. “You can’t just leave it all to burn!” Sara cried as the other women gathered around her.

“He’s right, lass,” Silas interjected. He came up beside Gideon. His brown beard was gray with streaks of ash, and sweat poured from his red forehead. “We can’t stop it. We’ll have to let it run its course and pray it doesn’t sweep the rest of the island.”

“Maybe if we wet down the other huts—” Sara began.

“As if any of you cares what happens to our houses,” Barnaby exploded beside her. He’d fought the fire valiantly, and now his fancy clothes were water-stained and streaked with soot. “One of you women left the fire going, and I think we ought to know who it is. Louisa?”

“Leave her alone,” Silas barked, tugging Louisa into the curve of his arm protectively. “The lass ain’t done nothin’.”

“Maybe it was Ann,” Barnaby spat. “I haven’t seen her. Have any of you? She was angry about having to
choose a husband. Maybe she decided to wreak a little havoc on her enemies.”

The men nearby began to grumble, their eyes hostile.

“Don’t be absurd.” Sara swept her matted hair back with a weary hand. “Ann couldn’t do such a thing.”

Undeterred, Barnaby fixed his gaze on Sara. “All the same, one of your blasted convict women did it. We’ve never had a fire on this island before. One of your women set fire to our kitchen, and you probably put them up to it.”

“Shut up, Barnaby!” Gideon growled. “It doesn’t matter who started it. We’ve got more important things to worry about—”

“Cap’n?” interrupted a small voice from among the men. The crowd parted to let a young boy pass through: Gideon’s cabin boy. His face was pale and streaked with tears. “It’s my fault, sir. Mr. Kent called me outside to help with gathering wood, and I f-forgot to put the fire in the stove out. I was cooking b-bacon in the pan, y’see, and I thought I put it aside—”

“It doesn’t matter, lad,” Gideon said gently, ruffling the boy’s hair. “But you were brave to come forward.” He looked sternly at Barnaby and the other men. “And no purpose will be served by throwing accusations about. We’ll be better off spending our time emptying the huts of anything valuable and saving the
Satyr
.”

The men went pale. Clearly none of them had thought about the ship, but now they cast it worried glances. Sara did, too. Even she knew that canvas sails burned all too easily.

“Go tell the men to clear out the rest of the huts, Silas,” Gideon ordered, “then get them aboard ship.” He turned to Sara. “Gather the women and make sure they all get aboard. And find Ann.”

“She’s already aboard. I sent her to the ship with the children when this started.”

“Thank God. I didn’t even think about the children.” He raked his fingers wearily through his hair. “It’s time
the rest of us joined them. We don’t know how long or far it will rage before it plays itself out.”

“But Gideon, we can’t just let it burn!”

“Do as I say, Sara!” he snapped. When he saw her recoil, he added more softly, “Sometimes you have to recognize when you’ve lost. It seems Mother Nature has taken the matter out of our hands. Now all that’s left is to pray she doesn’t take the entire island away from us.”