The Pirate Takes A Bride (26 page)

Nick had held his friend as he’d died, and no one could tell him that avenging Ralph’s life was not worthwhile, was not warranted. For so long Nick had thought only of revenge and retribution. He’d played the prodigal son at home—the marquess’s second son—the one of whom nothing was expected. But behind his charming smile, behind his jovial words and studied nonchalance, was a man who knew exactly what he wanted and would allow nothing to stand in his way.

Not Rissa. Not Ashley. Nothing.

He stared at the gray horizon, admiring the way the rising sun turned the water from black to indigo to the brightest blue. The sun flashed on the water, and the call from the foremast came even as Nick set Rissa down.

“Sail, ho!”

“I see it,” Nick said as he rushed to the bow and snatched the spyglass from Chante. “Two points of larboard bow.” He put the glass to his eye and swung it over the empty sea. It was there…the ship was there…

The telltale shape rose up from the water, and Nick muttered, “There’s the bastard.”

“Is it Yussef?” Chante asked.

“Too far to judge,” Nick answered, but his heart had already answered. His blood pumped furiously in his veins as he stared at the unidentified vessel. “Tell Mr. Daniels to stay on him. I want topmastmen to watch that ship like the eagle watches the field mouse. If that’s him, we will have him by day’s end.”

“You want me to issue the command to beat to quarters?”

“Not yet,” Nick answered, finally lowering the spyglass and pressing it into Chante’s hand. “But I want you, Red, Mr. Carey, and Shanks in my wardroom immediately. We have strategy to discuss.”

His long legs ate the distance from the bow to his cabin. When he entered, Ashley was still asleep in his bed. He had a moment’s regret that he would wake her when she looked so beautiful with her blond hair spilling over the side of the berth, her pale shoulder visible above the sheet. But there was nothing for it.

“Get up and dress,” he commanded, closing the door behind him. “You have three minutes before this room is invaded with my officers.”

“Go away,” she moaned and pulled the blanket over her head.

“Two minutes until I open this wall, and your bedroom becomes my wardroom.”

She sat, the blanket falling to her waist. Nick clenched a hand on the chair beside which he stood to stop himself from crossing to her. This was no time for lust, but the sight of those creamy, round breasts and the pink nipples made his mouth go dry. He could feel her soft, velvet skin in his hands. “What’s happened?” she asked. She pushed the hair out of her eyes, and Nick could not help admire the perfect curve of her breast as it tilted upward.

“We spotted a ship.”

“Yussef?”

“The identity isn’t confirmed.”

She studied his face, her sea green eyes, so like the color of the ocean when the sun first hit it, intent upon him. “But you know, don’t you? You know it’s him.”

A knock on the door made her jump. Nick turned. “Hold.” He looked back at her, but she was already out of bed and dressing. A pity, that. He prayed this was not the last time he would see her naked, her heart-shaped arse in the air as she bent to retrieve her skirt. She dressed quickly, and in another moment he had the door open. He and Chante opened the panels comprising one wall of the great cabin, transforming it into a wardroom. Nick yanked a large table into the center of the expanded room and slapped maps, charts, a sexton, and a bottle of rum in the center of the table.

“Isn’t it a little early for spirits?” Ashley asked drily.

Chante laughed. “It never be too early.” It was the last time they laughed for the next hour. Nick led the discussion of strategies and tactics, listening to each of his most trusted men, in turn. Ashley had stayed in the cabin, not interrupting, a silent but palpable presence in the room.

Finally, Nick could take no more. He slapped a hand down on the table. “The facts are if the ship is
The Snake
he’ll be faster than we are. The ship Mr. Chante and I spotted was a sloop.” He looked to Chante, who nodded. “He’s light and fast. He’s not as well-armed as we are. Probably twelve guns. We have him there.”

“Our cannons won’t do us any good if we can’t catch him,” Shanks said, swallowing a measure of rum.

“You leave that to me,” Nick said. “We have the wind gage. I can catch him. And when I do, I want you to hold your fire until we’re broadside. Then open up with everything you have. I want to pepper him with more holes than a convict’s alibi and turn his hull into toothpicks.”

“Aye, Captain!” Shanks said with a salute. “We’ll send him to the bottom.”

“No,” Chante said with a shake of his head. His earrings jingled from the quick movement. “We take his ship as a prize.” He turned to Nick. “Yussef is yours, but you made me a promise.”

“So I did,” Nick said, putting his hand on Chante’s broad shoulder. “A ship of your own or the means to buy one.
The Snake
is yours.”

“Before you count all of your chickens,” Ashley said from her perch near the windows, “has anyone considered what damage we might suffer? He will fire back, after all. Twelve cannons is nothing to laugh at.”

“We pray for luck,” Shanks told her.

“Oh, good. I shall sit in the cabin and pray then. I certainly hope God isn’t on Yussef’s side.”

Nick opened his mouth to reply with a scathing retort, but a quick knock drew his attention. It was Mr. Fellowes. “We have him, Captain. Johnson says it’s
The Snake.
”

Nick felt his face crack into a smile. “Tell Mr. Daniels to set a course to intercept. Mr. Chante, give the order to beat to quarters. We catch him.” He turned to Chante. “And then we make him pay.”

A
shley did not understand all of the discussion concerning the battle, but she understood enough. She understood Nick was racing into a battle and she and Rissa were going to be in the middle of it. She watched as the men overturned chairs in their haste to reach the deck and prepare for the battle, and she stood and tried to speak, but no words would come.

She felt helpless, and she loathed that feeling. There was nothing she could do to prevent the coming skirmish, and she hated it. She’d never been helpless before she’d become involved with Nick. The more she was with him, the more she realized she had to trust him, rely on him. She wanted to give him her trust, all of his trust. She’d already given her love, but she was not certain he was willing to give her anything in return.

He hadn’t said he loved her. And he wasn’t going to forgo his battle to protect her or his daughter. He’d risk everything. Once she’d admired those traits in people she knew. Once she’d strived for them. Now she wanted something else. She wanted home—not her mother and father’s home. Her own. A place where she could be free, could do as she liked, could live as she liked.

A place she could be safe.

She looked up and was startled to note Mr. Chante was still in the wardroom. “Mr. Chante,” she said, clearing her throat.

“Lady Nicholas.” It was the first time he’d called her by her new title. Of course she knew as the wife of the younger son of a marquess, she would take
lady
and his name as her title. She had just not thought he knew of such rules. And the fact that even someone like Chante knew her new title served to reinforce that, whether she wanted him or not, she was part of Nick. Even his name was hers now.

“I was wondering,” she said, “where the safest place for Rissa and I might be. I imagine you want us out of the way.”

He nodded. “When I go on deck, you come and take the child down below. The captain’s cabin is as safe as anywhere else. I’ll wait until you out of the way to sound the call for battle stations.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

He indicated the door to the companionway, and she preceded him out of the room. “I suppose you think this is fitting.”

“I doan know what you mean.”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “I think you do. I sneaked on board, and now we’re about to go to battle. We could all die. I would have been safer on the island.”

“I doan think you care about being safe. You like the lion. Nothing scares you.”

“I’m scared of sinking to the bottom of the ocean.”

“Cap’n won’t let that happen. He won’t let you die.” They’d reached the ladder to the upper deck, and she paused and faced Chante.

“I don’t see how he has much say in the matter.”

“You ask if I think it’s fitting, you being here in the middle of a battle. I think it’s fate.”

“Fate? I’ve always believed you make your own destiny.”

“Me too. With you here, the cap’n will fight harder, fight smarter. We can’t lose.”

She studied him, staring at his dark features for longer than was comfortable to wither of him. “Do you know what I think, Mr. Chante?”

He shrugged as if to say he did not care.

“I think you knew exactly what was in the chest I brought aboard. And I think you knew once I came aboard, I never left. I think you know everything that happens on this ship.”

“That’s my job.”

“Then why did you let me stowaway? Why didn’t you report me or make me leave?”

He smiled. “Because I want to win.”

“Can I ask you something else, Mr. Chante?”

He gave her an impatient look. “Be quick about it, then.”

“One of the men told me the captain gives all of his share from your plundering away. Is that true?”

“Why you care, Lady? You worried he won’t be able to buy you all dem fancy dresses?”

Ashley looked down at her stained peasant’s skirt and blouse. “At home, I have more dresses than I could ever wear.”

Chante threw back his head and laughed. “I know you do.”

Ashley refrained from rolling her eyes, just barely. She was starting to like Chante, and the feeling was uncomfortable. “My question,” she said, with a haughty tilt of her chin. She could still play the princess, even if she didn’t look like one.

Chante shrugged. “The ship is called
Robin Hood
.” He gestured to the ladder, and Ashley realized she had her answer. So it really was all about revenge for Nick.

Ashley climbed the ladder, shaking her head. Did Chante really think they couldn’t lose with her on board? Nick would have fought hard either way. In her—admittedly very limited experience—battles were largely matters of chance. If land battles often came down to weather or landscape or whose army had fed better, then she imagined sea battles even more risky. The wind might change, a storm might suddenly appear, a wave might mean the guns fired higher or lower than the gunners had aimed. Nick might want to keep her alive, but in the end, they were all at the mercy of chance.

With a look at Chante, who’d climbed up behind her, she made her way to the deck rail where Rissa stood. Nick and his advisors were situated on the bow, a spyglass passing between them. She glanced that way and saw for herself the tiny spec that must have been Yussef’s ship. The
Robin Hood
was definitely gaining on it. They were chasing it, chasing death.

“Is that him?” Rissa asked. Her voice was so quiet, and the wind so string, Ashley had to bend to hear the little girl’s voice.

“Who?”

“The man who attacked the island?”

Ashley wished she could wrap the little girl in a hug. Instead, she put her hand on the child’s shoulder. “That’s him.”

“Papa will kill him now.”

“We can only hope,” she said, steering the little girl toward the ladder leading below. And hope as well that he didn’t get them all killed in the process.

Several hours later, Rissa slept, but Ashley could not seem to relax. She could hear the men calling orders and then the thump of feet and the scrape of cannons as the men prepared for the battle. She would tense and hunch over, waiting and waiting for the boom of the cannons. But nothing happened.

When would the battle begin? When would it be over?

Finally, she could take it no more. She left the cabin and entered the deserted companionway. If anyone saw her, they’d send her back, so she moved quickly to the ladder. She couldn’t see anything in the stern of the ship, and she had to know what was happening. She emerged onto the deck, the shouts of men’s voices assaulting her ears. Orders of “Fall off two points to starboard” and “Fire on my command” sounded loud and clear. She stumbled forward, ignoring the noise and moving toward the bow. Finally, she found a spot between gun ports and wedged herself in. Shanks pointed at her. “Out of the way!” She ignored him and peered out and over the deck rail.

She covered her gasp with her hand. Terror pierced her as she stared across the water at the looming shape of the other ship. The
Robin Hood
was closing in. They were so close now she could see the faces of the men on the stern of
The Snake
. She could hear their jeers, could see they too were preparing to fight. And their cannons looked huge. One hit from those, and the
Robin Hood
would surely sink. In the past, she’d always been afraid of fire, but now she looked down at the black water and she was terrified.

A hand grabbed her shoulder roughly and pulled her back from the rail. “What the hell are you doing up here?” Nick asked, moving her away from the cannons. “Do you want Yussef to see you? If he boards, he’ll come for you first.”