Wanton Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (19 page)

      
Several balls whizzed around her, missing all but her flying hair. She fought like a cornered wildcat, slashing and thrusting high and low against enemies who suddenly had far greater respect for a mere female as an opponent. Three men were down and two others sufficiently bloodied to withdraw from the fray when a voice boomed out a command in Arabic, then laughed heartily as the corsairs sullenly withdrew, leaving her alone at the bow. She was bleeding from several superficial cuts and her skirt and blouse were rent severely, revealing tempting expanses of pale skin untouched by the sun.

      
“By Allah's one true Prophet, you are a magnificent wench!” The big redheaded
rais
strode around the wine casks and approached her, then paused just out of range of the scimitar. He stood with his fists on his hips, arrogantly grinning down at her.

      
At least his teeth are not rotted,
she thought in relief. He wore a white linen shirt unlaced, revealing a muscular chest covered with more red hair.His clothing was clean and expensively made. Heavy gold chains hung from his sunburned neck, big gold loops pierced his ears and all manner of gems winked from every finger on his hands as he raised them, palms out, in a placating gesture.

      
“Be a good cat and sheathe your claws. I'll not harm you, nor let my men have you,” he crooned, speaking English with a distinctive Irish lilt.

      
“Are you in charge of these animals?” She did not yet lower her weapons.

      
“Aye, that I am. Captain Liam Quinn, at your service, my sweet vixen.” He made a courtly bow, sweeping the broad-brimmed, plumed cavalier’s hat from his head.

      
“I am not your vixen, and most certainly not sweet, as you can clearly see,” she replied evenly, nudging a dead corsair with the toe of her slipper.

      
This elicited another burst of hearty laughter. “By Allah, so you are not. But I can also clearly see that you are a rare beauty. It would be a great waste to feed the fishes with such splendid pulchritude, eh?”

      
“Better fishes than corsairs,” she replied. “But I can be ransomed. The Contessa di Remaldi will pay any price you set.” At his dubious look, she continued, “My family is wealthy—my father is a United States senator. He will reimburse her the redemptionist fee.”

      
“Ah, so that is the accent. I did not place it at first. I took you for English. So much the better that you're not a member of that bloody race.”

      
“You, a renegade pirate who enslaves Christians, dare to call the English bloody?”

      
He shrugged in supreme indifference. “My family fell on evil days courtesy of the British army when I was but a stripling. My father was murdered in his bed, my mother died of a broken heart and my elder brother Conal fled, a hunted outlaw forced to hire out his sword to the Spanish king.”

      
His eyes, a green even more vivid than those of Drum, narrowed on her for a moment. She tried to read his enigmatic expression. He might yet turn her over to his crew...after he took his fill of her. Beth waited, turning over her options—sure death versus the chance to survive Liam Quinn. “Then you will ransom me?”

      
“For the right price, yes, I would.” He looked her squarely in the eye as he said it, one big hand slowly reaching for the scimitar.

      
At least she would not be torn apart by a crazed mob. She gambled on Liam Quinn, perhaps a foolhardy thing to do. Had Beth been English, she would never have considered it, but perhaps because she was not one of his hated enemy, he might only use her, then turn her over to the redemptionists for repatriation.

      
He is clean, if not civilized, she thought, forcing back a shudder as she handed him the scimitar and stiletto. She still had a second, smaller dagger hidden inside her soft kid boot, but if she was treated like most captives, it would avail her nothing. In route to Naples, Beth had learned from the American sailors that all prisoners were stripped naked by the corsairs in order to steal their clothing and to prevent them from concealing any weapons.

      
If he lays one hand on me to take my clothing in front of his men, I'll gut him,
she vowed.

      
But he did nothing of the kind. Extending his hand with a gracious smile, he took hers and escorted her over the gangplank and aboard his vessel. At Quinn's command, the sweaty, fearsome crew with their motley assortment of weapons, peg legs, eye patches and hooks in place of hands returned to plundering the
Sea Sprite
and securing the hapless prisoners.

      
“Will any other of the captives be ransomed? I'll vouch that most of them can well afford the price of their freedom. They're wealthy merchants,” Beth said with a tinge of guilt as the fat old Genoese spice trader's haughty wife knelt, attempting to cover her naked body with naught but her hands, too frightened and humiliated to cast hateful glances at “that shameless Americana” as she had before.

      
The
rais
grinned. ”I do appreciate your information, but after all these years, I can tell when a pigeon's ripe for plucking with one look at its plumage. The lot of them should make me a tidy sum, even after the dey takes his share.”

      
“You are utterly without conscience,” she said, realizing that beneath his charming exterior lay a ruthless will that would be most deadly to cross. The thought of giving her body to him made her ill...but the thought of refusing him was even worse.

      
“And you are utterly foolhardy,” he replied. His seeming unconcern with her insult was belied by the slightly increased pressure on her hand as he held it in his grasp.

      
Beth stared straight ahead as they passed by his crew, ignoring their leering expressions. They were somewhat cleaner and more orderly than the corsairs from the schooners who had first boarded the
Sea Sprite
but still a very rough-looking lot.

      
Dear God above, what is going to happen to me?

      
“Are you virgin?”

      
Quinns question startled Beth. They were dining in his cabin, a small but luxurious room appointed with the booty from his piracy—golden wall sconces, Venetian glass, silk cushions. As she picked at a hunk of mutton with her fingers—the
rais
dined without utensils, as was the Arab custom—she debated lying, but his next words startled and puzzled her even more.

      
“Twill do no good to lie—the palace midwife is most skilled at making such determinations.”

      
The palace? “No. I had a lover in Naples.” She felt it prudent not to share with Quinn that he was English.

      
“Had?” He cocked his head, waiting as he toyed with the heavy silver wine goblet. “Do I detect a note of sad parting in those words?” He took a sip of the sweet port, studying her over the rim. “What was his name, this Neapolitan lover?”

      
Beth felt it safer to volunteer as little as possible. Just thinking of Derrick made her ache with sadness. She searched frantically to come up with an Italian name. “Piero,” she replied, as the name of Vittoria's long-lost love flashed into her mind.

      
“ A pity. The dey's son is particularly fond of deflowering virgins.” He shrugged negligently, then grinned. “But perhaps there will be some...other compensation for me...not of a monetary nature.”

      
The sinister comment hung on the air while the spicy mutton pitched nastily in her stomach. “What has the dey's son to do with me—you said I was to be ransomed.” She dreaded the answer.

      
“I lied.” He grinned rakishly and shoved another chunk of mutton in his mouth. “Little matter what your family so far away in America could pay. 'Twould take too long, even if the dey had not declared war against your prickly young republic for being rather...contentious on the subject of tribute.”

      
“Something for your dey to think long and hard on,” she replied with building anger—and horror. “My father is a man of great power in President Madison's administration.”

      
“Ah, but if he does not know where you are...there is nothing he can do. No, a rare beauty such as you will command a lavish reward from my sovereign. The old dey is too long of tooth to use a woman, but his favorite son and heir, Kasseim, will be delighted to add you to his harem. Since you are already damaged goods, he will not care if I partake of the sweetness first.”

      
The dagger was still in her boot and she ached to plunge it directly into his black Irish heart, but she considered what would happen if she succeeded in killing the
rais
. His men would tear her apart.
Think, think
! she admonished herself, forcing down the red rage blurring her vision.

      
He studied her with his unnerving eyes of brightest green, leaning back against the deep pile of silken cushions, rubbing his hand over his chest absently, disturbing the patterns of thick red hair. Save for their difference in coloring, he was built much like Derrick, only on a larger scale. That this renegade Musselman was the fair one and her love the dark one was an irony that did not escape her. How could the one man so utterly entrance her, the other so thoroughly repulse her?

      
“I've always fancied dark women, never been interested in the pale, puling Northerners we've captured...until now.” He rolled up in one lithe motion and reached across the foot-high lacquered table upon which they had dined.

      
His big hand curved around her forearm, enveloping it, but before he could pull her up, she slipped from his grasp and scooted back against the wall. “You would enjoy it far more if I were willing...” she said in a low, husky voice.

      
“Ah, colleen, that might be, but I'll not bargain your freedom for your body when I can possess it without.” He sounded almost regretful.

      
“No, that is not what I meant.” She knew that ploy would be hopeless. “I do not wish to conceive...or to be given the sailor's disease.” Rather than risk slow death by the pox, she would kill him or herself. She slipped one hand inside her boot, hidden beneath her skirt, and felt the tiny dagger.

      
Beth never knew whether or not Quinn would have agreed to her terms, for at that very moment a loud cry sounded above deck, followed by the boom of cannon fire. The
rais
jumped to his feet with a snarled oath and ran from the room, not even taking time to lock the door to his cabin. She heard the babble of voices speaking excitedly in Arabic mixed with the rumble of artillery and the splintering sounds of cannonballs smashing wood. Hope seared her like a flame. If those attacking were European, she and all the other captives might be rescued! Beth climbed the small narrow stairs leading abovedeck.

      
The scene that greeted her was like a painting of hell by Bosch or Brueghel. Quinn's ships were engaged in a battle to the death. The main mast of his brig had been shattered halfway and broken off, groaning in the wind as it hung by its lines,the sails shredded and blackened by gunpowder. Men lay sprawled grotesquely, some dead, others dying. Blood ran red on the planks. Beth peered through the smoke-blackened air to see the attacker's flag. Her heart sank when she recognized it as Maltese. The corsairs of Malta were bitter rivals of Algiers, but every bit as infamous for being cutthroat slavers.

      
There would be no salvation if Quinn lost. Just then the Irishman ordered his port battery to fire on one of the brigs that was attempting to flank them. She watched, fascinated in spite of herself as his seamanship and daring began to turn the tide. His shots struck the flanking brig at the waterline, nearly cutting it in two. As it began to sink, he signaled his sloops to reopen fire on the remaining Maltese brig now that he had directed them into position.

      
Before the crew of the sloops swarmed aboard, the Maltese ship managed to fire off one final salvo, which was enough to wreak even more havoc aboard Quinn's brig, smashing into the quarterdeck and sending men flying like bits of kindling. A jagged piece of railing struck the
rais
knocking him to his knees as blood began to spread across his bare chest. He continued to bark orders, then slowly crumpled to the deck. “Better the enemy I know than one I do not,” Beth muttered to herself as she raced toward the stricken
rais
.

      
“Tell them to fetch my trunks. I need the medicines in one of them,” she said to Quinn as she began slicing off a big piece of her skirt with the dagger from her boot, then applying it as a compress to his side. Eyeing the small blade, he grinned crookedly in spite of the pain. “Would you have used it on me, colleen?”

      
“We can discuss that later—if you don't bleed to death dallying.”

      
He gave several commands in Arabic, and two of his men scurried to retrieve her belongings while three others carried their fallen leader below. Within a few moments he was lying in his cabin while Beth dug through her trunk for the medical supplies she always carried. “I'll need yarrow...the needle and suture...” she murmured more to herself than him as he watched from the large pallet in the center of the room.

      
“I take it you've done this before,” he remarked.

      
She looked up, then snapped tersely, “Altogether more often than I care to discuss.”

      
He was a more obliging patient than Derrick had been, passing out halfway through the suturing. The corsair's injury was far deeper and required that she dig ugly shards of wood from his flesh before she could cleanse the area and stitch it. She hoped he would not die of blood loss or fever...at least not until she could get free of his ship.