The Pirate Takes A Bride (16 page)

He rarely thought of that awful day in the rookery of Whitechapel. Later he’d come to learn his mother was a great benefactress of the poor. She’d brought her sons with her that day, and while she visited with a widow, he had run outside to play. Jack had found him playing dice with some other boys and dragged him back to the widow’s hovel. But their mother had also gone to look for him, and they hadn’t been able to find her. Nick could remember the sheer terror of thinking she’d left them. He’d held tight to Jack who pulled him along until they came across their mother.

It might have been better if they hadn’t. Jack shoved him behind a pile of refuse, where the two hid while their mother was attacked by three men. Jack had covered Nick’s eyes, but he’d never forget the sound of his mother’s screams or the smell of her blood. And he’d never forget the feeling of helplessness, wanting to do something and being powerless to stop the attack or save his mother.

That was the feeling he’d had now, that same dizzy, paralyzing helplessness.

“Captain?” Red was speaking to him, and Nick turned abruptly, realizing his bos’n must have been trying to rouse him from his trance for several minutes.

Nick clenched his fists and kept his voice level. “What is it?”

“Should we keep on going, Captain?” He gestured to the village. Nick wanted to shake his head and order them all back to the ship, but that was the coward’s way.

“Order one of the men to stay with Mr. Silva. The rest with me.” He waited for Red to relay his orders and then, with his men at his back, he started down the hill. It was only sheer force of will that propelled him forward. His traitorous legs wanted to turn and run, but he moved forward. His men deserved to know what had happened to their families. Silently, reverently, they entered the skeleton of what had once been their home on the island.

The fires had cooled and the corpses no longer smoked, but he recognized the bones amidst the blackness of the frames that had once comprised simple dwellings. Nothing moved in the village. Not even ghosts. Were there any survivors? If so, they must have been taken as slaves because they had not come back to bury their dead.

Rage and anguish burned through him in equal measure. He wanted to weep and at the same time he wanted to destroy something—anything—with his fists. He wanted to return to the ship and sail as fast as the wind would take him to Yussef. He would kill that bastard. Watching him and his vessel sink was too good. He’d gut the man slowly, listen to him scream and plead for mercy.

But Nick had not survived by being a man of impulse and recklessness. Even in the midst of his grief, he knew his limitations. His ship needed repairs. It would have to be careened and the hole in the waterline addressed. That would take days, perhaps even a week. His rage would have to wait.

The men behind him had not uttered a word. Their silence was testament to their shock and anger. This village was a grave, and all seemed to understand the respect it deserved. Nick did not relish the next few days when they would dig graves and bury their loved ones. Would he find Rissa’s body amidst the debris? As much as he wanted her to have survived, he could not wish a life of slavery on her. He almost prayed to find her remains.

“Captain!” one of his men called, disturbing the heavy silence. Nick swung around and followed where the mate pointed. The village had been built in a valley, hiding it from view on all sides. Now he watched as a man made slow progress down a hill on the far side.

“It’s Locke!” Red called.

More ice slid through Nick. Locke had been a friend, one of the men he trusted with his life—with the life of Rissa. Locke shouldn’t be alive if the village was in ruins. Some of the men rushed to help the older man, and as he neared, Nick noted his beard was caked with mud and his clothing stained with what appeared to be old blood and gunpowder. He was thin, almost gaunt, and he favored his right leg. Nick’s gaze dropped to the man’s ankle, where a crude bandage had been tied.

“Captain.” Locke saluted when he finally stood before Nick. Nick stood immobile, seemingly heedless of the extra yards the man had to cross to reach him. Nick’s gaze swept over the burnt village, and Locke looked at the ground. “I’m sorry, Captain.”

Nick clenched his fists, barely resisting the impulse to strike the already wounded man. “I should kill you.”

“After what I seen, I welcome death, Captain. You want to hit me?” He glanced at Nick’s curled fists. “Go ahead. I deserve it and more. It won’t change it, though.”

“Give me a full and detailed report, and then, only then, I’ll—
we’ll
—decide”—he gestured to the men—”whether you live or die.”

Locke nodded. “Fair enough, but first I’ll take you to the others.”

“Others?” Red said behind Nick. His voice was hoarse with the same emotion coursing through Nick. Hope flared, and Nick stubbornly pushed it down. He could not afford to hope. He could not afford the plunge into despair when his hope proved false. He was already teetering on the edge of that dark, icy precipice. One false step and he would plunge down and down and down, never to emerge again. He had his ship, his men, his revenge. He could not afford hope or despair.

“Lead the way,” Nick said, his voice even. He saw nothing, felt nothing as they marched through the blackened village. Images of the dead during their last struggles hovered on the periphery of his vision. He glimpsed a twisted form and imagined her last moments as her fists pounding on a door barricaded from the outside while fire swept through the hut. Her screams in his mind all but deafened him as the fire reached her and claimed her.

At the edge of the village the remains of a man with a burnt rifle lay in the path. Nick moved around him, tamping down the visions of the man shooting and recoiling from the force of a pistol ball as Yussef’s men swarmed, thick and bloodthirsty as fleas.

“Costa,” Locke said, indicating the man. Nick and each of the crew gave the fallen man a nod as they walked by, paying homage to their comrade. The Italian had sailed for all of his fifty or so years. He’d served Nick well and Nick was surprised when he’d asked to guard the island. Mr. Costa had a wife, and he’d brought the lovely woman to the island to live. It had taught Nick that even the most hardened sailors could give up the sea for love.

“Why haven’t you buried the bodies?” Red asked, anger in his voice. Nick had the same questions, the same anger.

“You’ll see,” Locke answered. At the edge of the village, Nick turned and signaled to the men to stay. Red ordered them to circle the perimeter and keep watch, and then he and Nick followed Locke back up the rise and into the trees. The trek was not an easy one for Locke with his injured ankle, but neither Nick nor Red assisted him. They moved deeper into the woods and higher. The underbrush grew thick and the air moistened and seemed to close in around them. The world came alive with buzzes and the calls of birds and insects. In the trees, macaques monkeys hooted and thrashed branches, trying to scare the intruders away. Suddenly, Nick knew where they were going. “The cave?” he asked.

Locke was too winded to speak and merely nodded. Nick could not extinguish the flare of hope now. “You mentioned others? Survivors?”

Again, Locke nodded. Nick did not wait. With Red right behind him, the two men crashed through the thick jungle, heedless of the branches that scraped their cheeks and caught on their clothing. There was a path, but Nick did not pause to find it. He barreled through until he reached the small plateau that led to the entrance to the cave. It was well hidden with vines and bushes. Of course the villagers would have run here to hide at the first sign of trouble. Was it possible?
Please.

The sound of a cocked pistol brought him up short. Red plowed into him, and Nick held up a hand to silence the man. “It’s Captain Martingale. Don’t shoot.”

“The captain?” a female voice asked, her accent slightly French.

“We found Locke. We’ve come back for you.”

A woman stepped out of the shadows concealing her. She was the wife—or its equivalent—of one of his men. She’d been beautiful once, but now she looked thin and haggard. She all but fell into his arms, and Nick caught and steadied her. She looked up at him, her eyes full of tears, as though her long nightmare had finally ended. “
Mon Dieu
,” she whispered. Then she took his hand and led him into the cave.

Nick willed his gaze not to look for her, but he could not stop it. And there, so beautiful he was almost afraid he had conjured her, was Nerissa. His little Rissa.

She saw him and seemed to hesitate as well, not certain he was real. And then she ran toward him, throwing her arms about his neck and bursting into tears. “Papa!”

Nick sank to his knees cradling her. Her little body was so thin, but her hold on him was strong. Her long dark hair smelled clean against his face, and when he set her back so he could look at her, he saw no injuries. He took her in his arms again and surveyed the rest of the dark cave. A lantern was the only source of light, and in its glow Nick counted a dozen or so women and children. Locke was the only man to have survived. Less than twenty alive from a village that had numbered three times that.

He would hear the story later. He would know the horrors these women had seen, had survived. He would take them in and make them his own, allow them to feed his hatred and his desire for revenge. But for the moment he held Rissa and thanked God and the heavens and every angel whose name he could remember.

“Papa,” he heard Rissa murmur quietly. Her body seemed to shake with sobs. “Papa.”

Nick caught the eye of one of the older women, a friend of Rissa’s mother. Both women had been rescued from the markets of some godforsaken country. The woman shook her head, and there was so much pain in that simple movement. Nick sighed, his anguish all for Rissa who had seen God knew what. After Zorah had died from sickness when Rissa was barely two, the other women of the island had adopted the little girl. But she needed her father now. She’d needed him, and he hadn’t been there.

Locke rejoined the group and the women gathered the few belongings they’d salvaged. It was a somber march from the safety of the cave, through the woods, and down past the charred village. They skirted its ruins and the fallen, and there they caught up to the men who had come to shore with him. More reunions occurred. Too few, though. Nick wanted to yell to heaven that it was too few.

He carried Rissa as he had when she’d been an infant, never once loosening his grip on her. She buried her head against his chest and for a time he thought she slept. But perhaps she did not want to see the destruction of the village. He did not want her to see it.

Nick understood now why Locke had not tended to the dead or the lost village. He had done his duty, protecting the surviving women and children and providing food and water for them. The small group had thought of surviving, not of the dead. That was as it should be. But now that he was here, Nick would see the dead buried properly.

When he emerged on the beach, he gave orders for the men to set up a makeshift camp. Red stepped in and gave orders as to the best place to pitch tents and cook food. Nick had not seen the man’s wife among the survivors. He allowed his bos’n to take over, knowing that keeping busy would also keep the man’s grief at bay for a time. Later he would take the man aside and offer his condolences.

Nick supervised the making of the camp, still holding Rissa. He murmured reassurances to her continually. “I’ve brought food and water, new clothes for you. You’re safe now, and I’ll have you looking as plump as ever.” By the time she seemed to recover enough to begin wiggling and pushing for him to set her down, Nick glanced out at the sea. The second rowboat was being lowered, and his gaze went to the bow and the blond beauty standing there. Even if she had not been the only woman amidst the group of men, a dazzling fair-haired creature, he would have found her. His gaze was always drawn to her.

Her eyes rested on him and then dipped to Rissa. It was then Nick realized he had made another grievous error.

“H
is what?” Ashley heard the wind rushing in her ears and wondered from whence the gale had come. It seemed Chante was still speaking, but Ashley could hear nothing over the storm in her mind.

A daughter? Nick had a child? Her husband had a child!

Was he even her husband? Perhaps he was already married, and their marriage was not even valid. She should rejoice, but she felt strangely ill. She was going to lose him—not that he had ever been hers. He hadn’t even thought enough about her to tell her what everyone else seemed to know. Nick had a child.

Ashley stared at Nick’s figure on shore. He was hard to miss with his confident walk and his dark hair. He carried a small child with dark skin and dark hair. The girl’s head was buried in his chest, and he held her as though she were a precious jewel. As Ashley watched, the little girl moved, and she heard Mr. Chante remark that the child was alive. The men gave murmurs of approval, but Ashley could not feel any such relief. What would she say when she met the girl? She had no experience with children.