Kitabı oku: «Captain Rose’s Redemption»

Chapter One

Off the coast of Virginia—1721

‘Open the door or we’ll break it down.’

Lady Cassandra Shepherd flexed her fingers over the butts of her father’s matched duelling pistols and remained silent. Dread and the humid air of the mid-Atlantic nearly smothered her and made the mother-of-pearl handles stick to her skin.

‘What’ll we do, my lady? What’ll they do to us if they get in here?’ asked Jane, the young nurse, her weak whisper nearly lost beneath the pounding boots, screaming and gunfire overwhelming the small cabin from the pirates pouring on to the Winter Gale.

Cassandra could answer the question, but didn’t. ‘Don’t worry, Jane, all will be well. I promise.’

Cassandra smiled at Dinah, her two-year-old daughter, who clung to the nurse’s skirts, her eyes wide with concern. Innocence made her braver than Jane, but not immune to the panic of the adults. Dr Abney stood beside Cassandra, clutching his old sea service pistol. All four of them watched the door from behind the trunks where they’d barricaded themselves inside the Captain’s cabin at the outset of the attack.

No further demands were made. Beyond the door, the air cracked with blunderbuss fire and the continued commands and hollering of the pirates on deck, their voices much closer and more commanding of the crew than before. The pirates on the other side of the door didn’t repeat their demand.

‘Perhaps they’ve gone away,’ Jane choked out.

‘They won’t be put off so easily.’ Dr Abney exchanged an uneasy look with Cassandra and cocked his pistol. His ball wasn’t for the pirates, but for her. Hers were for Jane and Dinah, to spare them from slavery or a worse fate at the hands of these brigands if Cassandra couldn’t think of a way to save them all. The reality of it almost shattered her nerves and she prayed, if the time came, she’d have the courage to do the unthinkable.

No, it won’t come to that. She gripped the weapons tight and focused on the door. There was still a chance they might survive, no matter how slim, and she would seize it. She must.

Everyone jumped when a blow rattled the flimsy door along with the narrow and spindly desk and the low trunk they’d shoved against it. The hit shook the iron hinges loose in the jamb and the wood bowed under the pressure. It was clear the rusted hinges wouldn’t hold against another assault and the desk and trunk would only delay and not stop the intruders.

A final strike wrenched the hinges free and sent the door crashing down to crush the desk and seesaw across the top of the trunk. Filthy men squinting to see in the dim light stumbled into the cabin, tripping over the broken wood.

Cassandra raised the pistols, demanding her hands remain steady. She didn’t have enough lead shot to send these dogs to hell, but she wouldn’t give up, not before she tried to save herself and her daughter.

‘How dare you enter here,’ she scolded loudly.

The pirates jerked to a halt and their grimy jaws fell open at the sight of her.

‘Pardon us, lady, we weren’t meaning to intrude,’ a slim man with weasel-like eyes over a pointed nose replied, his hands slipping one over the other in their eagerness to be on her. ‘If you’ll be puttin’ down the pistols, we’ll be gettin’ to business.’

‘Mr Barlow, ’tis Captain’s orders no woman is to be forced and no passengers molested,’ a man in a red Monmouth cap, his grey hair sticking out from beneath it, warned, more interested in the contents of the damaged desk than Cassandra. He searched through the papers that had been scattered about when the door had broken it, probably searching for any gold or jewellery the Captain kept there.

‘I don’t give a fig for Captain’s orders,’ the weasel spat. He turned back to Cassandra and licked his lips. ‘I’ll be tastin’ a little of the finery he keeps for himself.’

Mr Barlow took a menacing step forward, and Cassandra cocked the pistols. ‘Come closer and you’ll regret it.’

‘Don’t go givin’ orders, missy. There are twelve of us and only two shot.’ His lascivious smile revealed a mouth of yellow and missing teeth.

A shudder slid down Cassandra’s spine, but she kept her stance strong. ‘Then you’ll be the first to die.’

The weasel exchanged an uneasy glance with the other men who took a step back, willing to let the weasel take the first ball before they attacked.

‘Thar be no need for anyone to die.’ Mr Barlow held out his hands in a forced friendly way, but Cassandra didn’t relax.

‘Then fetch your Captain. I’ll discuss the terms of my surrender with him.’

‘No need to fetch him. He’s here.’ The deep voice rolled through the room from the doorway, the Virginia accent drawing out the vowels sounding familiar, like a hummed song she couldn’t remember the words to.

Mr Rush jerked to his feet, still clutching a handful of papers, while the other pirates hustled to shove aside the broken desk and door and make way for their Captain.

The sheer mass of the man blocked the light from outside when he crossed the threshold, his presence shrinking the already tight quarters. He stood above six feet tall with shoulders like a thick yoke draped in a white shirt open at the neck. Perspiration soaked the linen, making it cling to the dark tan of his chest and each ripple of his taut stomach. Dark breeches tucked into high boots covered the solid muscles of his legs. A Spanish sword swung from a belt at his hip and a leather sash slung across his torso held two pistols fine enough to make Lord Chatham, her great-uncle, jealous. The butts of the pistols clanked together when he jerked to a halt at the sight of her. From behind the thin black half-mask that swept the bridge of his nose, leaving his cheeks and mouth free, his rich blue eyes with a hint of yellow near the irises widened, his shock striking Cassandra harder than the cannonball that had shattered the Winter Gale’s mainmast.

He didn’t expect to find a lady on board, she thought. And yet there was more to his shock than her sex, station or even her weapons, especially when he glanced to the side, avoiding her eyes the way Giles, her late husband, used to do whenever Cassandra had confronted him about his mistress.

Something in the slight tilt of the pirate Captain’s head while he studied the rough floorboards shifted an old memory deep inside Cassandra, of Virginia pine trees and warm fields, and sitting on the porch at Belle View reading Greek myths aloud with her former fiancé in the days before he’d gone to sea and then died. Anger rushed in with the memory and, when the Captain met her gaze again, she stepped back, stunned to find the same indignation blazing in his deep blue eyes.

He’s angry at me for resisting. She ran one finger down the curve of the trigger, afraid her act of defiance might have placed her, Dinah and the others in more peril. She tensed, waiting for him to yell or lunge at her the way Giles had whenever she’d defied him. Instead, the Captain swept into a deep bow, his posture concealing the confusion in his eyes. ‘Captain Rose, at your service, Miss—?’

Captain Rose straightened, his brow above the mask rising a touch while he waited for her answer. However, his lips moved slightly as if he already knew it and was about to say her name.

Impossible. He didn’t know who she was and she shouldn’t enlighten him. It risked him taking her hostage, though he’d get nothing for her. Lord and Lady Chatham would probably answer a ransom letter with a request for the rogue to dispatch her. It would spare them and London society further embarrassment. Her solid aim slackened at the memory of their betrayal, but she made her arms rigid again, keeping the pistol fixed on the pirate Captain. She still had the shots and command over however many minutes remained of her life. ‘Lady Cassandra Shepherd.’

He ground his jaw, and she wondered if it was a pirate’s grudge against the King and nobility that made him tense at the mention of her name instead of smiling with delight at the grand ransom a prisoner of her station might bring. He rested one hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘Cassandra, the mythic Greek woman doomed to be ignored by men?’

‘Most of whom perished for not heeding her warnings.’

‘Are you a goddess, sweet lady?’

She cocked one pistol hammer. ‘I’m as mortal as you are.’

‘And tempted like me by the weaknesses of the flesh.’ He rubbed his square chin with his thumb and forefinger and watched her with an admiration she’d not seen in a man’s gaze for far too long. ‘You wish to discuss surrender?’

‘I do.’

Captain Rose approached her with long strides, and Cassandra shifted back until she hit the side of one trunk and could go no further. She braced herself, waiting for him to knock the pistols aside and press his wide body against hers. He didn’t, but clasped his hands behind his back, the stance stretching his shirt tight across his massive chest. If she pulled the trigger, she couldn’t miss him. If she killed him, his crew would set on her and the others like rabid dogs.

He swept the length of her with an appreciative look, lingering on the round mounds of her breasts as they rose and fell with each of her anxious breaths. She rolled her shoulders in a feeble attempt to raise the neckline of her floral-print cotton dress.

‘Imagine what a surrender it could be.’ His low voice reverberated through her, cutting through the heat of the cabin and adding to it. If he weren’t a rogue and she a lady in danger of losing more than her valuables, she could well imagine it. To hear such tones in her ear in the dark of night, with jasmine scenting the air, his warm hands on her moist skin. A temptation even the devil could not create stood before her. ‘I see you agree.’

‘No, not at all.’ Cassandra gripped the pistols tighter, horrified not only by her scandalous thoughts but that he’d seen them in her eyes. Now was no time to lose her head like some ridiculous servant girl wooed by her manor lord. She needed her wits. Whether he was strangely charming or not she had no desire to be ravished by this man. ‘I will kill you first.’

He tilted closer to her, so she could see the shadow of his beard and the small drop of sweat sliding down his chest in the V of his shirt. ‘And deny yourself the pleasure of my company?’

Cassandra swallowed hard, horrified and intrigued all at once by this man. ‘It would be no pleasure.’

‘It could be.’ Something familiar lingered in the curve of his full lips as they drew to one side in a wry smile, as though she’d seen the expression before in a painting viewed in low light, although she couldn’t recall when or where. It couldn’t have been in London. None of the fops there possessed the sheer presence of this man, nor the grace laced with a lethal edge. ‘Tell me, what brings such a classical lady to these waters?’

‘I’m on my way to Virginia and I should very much like to reach it.’

‘I’m not a man to stand between a lady and her desires.’ He drew out the word like an invitation, making it sound as wicked as a curse and as tempting as an inheritance.

‘You’re a wicked man,’ she spat out, as irritated with herself as she was angry and wary of him.

‘Yes, I am.’ His eyes turned from languid to hard and he flexed his fingers over the silver hilt of his sword. Judging by the reverence his crew had paid him at his entrance, Captain Rose wasn’t used to being spoken to like a common seaman and didn’t take lightly to being upbraided in front of his men by a woman.

The slosh of waves against the hull of the ship and the rough voices of pirates shouting orders on the main deck filled the drawn-out quiet in the cabin while everyone waited for Captain Rose’s response.

‘Name your terms and we’ll see if they’re agreeable to us both,’ he said at last.

The man in the Monmouth cap let out a relieved sigh, but Cassandra, too aware of the danger, could barely exhale. ‘No harm is to come to me, my child or her nurse.’

Cassandra nodded for Jane to come out from behind her and she did, hugging Dinah close. Dinah watched with wide eyes while Jane trembled so violently she could hardly stand.

Captain Rose ignored the young and comely nursemaid and focused on Dinah. ‘I hope we haven’t frightened you too much.’

Dinah, more curious than afraid, clutched her doll to her chest and shook her head, making the light curls near her cheeks bounce.

‘Good. It was never my intention to scare a child.’ The unexpected remorse in his voice echoed inside Cassandra. It was the same one that coloured her words whenever she spoke of her troubles in England, the ones driving her back to Virginia.

‘Dr Abney must be under your protection, too,’ Cassandra added, recapturing the Captain’s attention. The rogue didn’t deserve her sympathy and he should be ashamed of his conduct.

‘Granted.’ Captain Rose turned to address his men. ‘No man is to touch the women, the child or the good doctor. Anyone who does will sing falsetto.’

‘It ain’t right, you saying what men can and can’t have for a prize when it should be laid out in articles signed by us all.’ Mr Barlow sneered at the Captain. ‘On any other pirate ship, the crew would overthrow you for acting so mighty and thinkin’ yourself above them.’

‘You’re not on any other ship but mine.’ Captain Rose brought the back of his hand down hard across Mr Barlow’s cheek, knocking him to the ground and making Cassandra gasp in horror. Captain Rose towered over the weasel who clasped his face and shrank back against the hull, a line of blood dripping from his cracked lip. ‘I’ll brook no mutinous talk from any of my crew. If you don’t like how I run my ship, then you’re free to leave it at the next port, or sooner if I deem it necessary. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Mr Barlow whimpered.

‘Good. Then find some work on deck and get out of my sight.’

Mr Barlow stumbled to his feet and pushed through the men still clogging the cabin door to watch the drama between their Captain and Cassandra, no doubt wondering when she would receive the same treatment for her defiance. Cassandra feared it, too, thinking this man’s patience already at an end, but when he turned back to her he laid one wide hand over his heart, as sincere as a magistrate.

‘I’m sorry you had to see such a thing, Lady Shepherd. My apologies.’ Before she could tell him what she thought of his despicable behaviour, he fixed on Dr Abney. ‘Sir, are you a man of the cloth or one of those useless physicians who know nothing more than to bleed and purge a man?’

‘I’m a physician and a surgeon.’ Dr Abney’s voice carried a slight warble of fear.

‘Then would you be so kind as to assist our surgeon in treating the wounded?’ It was an order dressed up in a request.

Dr Abney exchanged a hesitant glance with Cassandra. After what they’d witnessed, it was clear they were in no position to refuse. Even if he did, and despite being a spry man of fifty with a thick chest leading down to solid arms, Dr Abney couldn’t protect her against this mob and they both knew it. It was better for him to co-operate and hope for the best than to fight. He placed his pistol on the top of the chest he stood behind. ‘If it means the continued safety of the ladies, I will.’

Captain Rose turned to the slender man standing next to the one in the Monmouth cap. ‘Mr O’Malley, take Dr Abney to Mr Perry.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Mr O’Malley motioned for Dr Abney to follow him and, with hesitant steps, Dr Abney complied, as reluctant to leave as Cassandra was to see him go.

‘Everyone else, back to your stations.’ Captain Rose’s thundering command strained Cassandra’s already tense nerves. Despite his manners, he was mercurial and she wondered when he’d finally turn his temper on her. ‘The lady and I have a great deal to discuss.’

The pirates scrambled to obey, exiting the cabin as quickly as they’d entered it, except for Mr Rush and one other man who picked up the legless desk and the scattered papers and carried them out.

When they were gone, a quiet louder than the battle settled over the cabin, broken by the creak of the rigging and the snapping of sails. Cassandra nudged Jane and Dinah back behind the trunks, then stepped forward to face Captain Rose, unwilling to relinquish her weapons. ‘When you’re done plundering the ship, will you let us go, unharmed?’

He strode in a semicircle around her, once again eyeing her like the hungry tiger did its prey. ‘What are you willing to offer me in return for your safe passage?’

She swallowed hard against the thick heat in the cabin and his expression, taking small comfort in the door lying on the floor instead of on its hinges. Though she doubted anyone would rush to her aid should she cry out. ‘Anything not on or of our persons.’

He stopped in front of her and raked his hand through the thick tangle of his ebony hair hanging loose about his shoulders. ‘A tall order for one with so little to bargain with.’

‘I have two guns pointed at you.’

‘Do you intend to aim at me all the way to Virginia?’

‘If I must.’

‘Then let me propose another solution, one more pleasurable for us both.’ He straightened and fixed her with a smile charming enough to make him the toast of every bawd in the Bahamas. ‘I will allow you, the Captain and the crew to continue on your journey in exchange for two favours. First, you will honour me with your presence at dinner in my cabin aboard the Devil’s Rose. Cultured dinner partners are difficult to find among seafaring men. I miss the pleasures of a well-set table, of hearing London gossip and the delight of dining with a charming and beautiful woman.’

Cassandra’s arms ached from holding the guns, but she didn’t lower them, their slight protection offering her some comfort. If she dined with him, alone, aboard his ship, she’d be entirely at his mercy and the restraint he’d shown with her might finally vanish. ‘Drawing-room prattle won’t interest you.’

‘Perhaps, but I can’t help but be captivated by anything spoken in your melodious voice.’

‘It isn’t conversation I’m concerned about.’ She cursed the slight tremble in her words and her hands.

He shifted closer until the barrel of the pistols touched the white of his shirt. The smell of man, leather and sea cut through her like lightning until she couldn’t tell if it was the ship or her that rocked.

‘You have nothing to fear, Lady Shepherd. I assure you, you will be safe with me.’ A change came over him, so subtle it was like a shadow seen along the periphery of her vision. The planes of his face softened and he reached up behind his head to where the strings of his mask were tied, as if his true identity would vouch for his trustworthiness. She held her breath, waiting for him to undo them and reveal what it was about him he believed would comfort her. She couldn’t imagine what it might be but she waited, curious to see the man behind the mask. A breeze drifted in through the narrow pane of open glass in the window, heavy with the tang of salt air and fading gunpowder. Then he dropped his hands. ‘Do you agree to my terms?’

She shouldn’t trust her life or her sanctity to this rogue, but the depths of his blue irises and the softness of the lines at the corners told her he would honour his word. She slid her fingers off the warm metal triggers and rested them on the cool mother-of-pearl handles. If agreeing to his terms meant the freedom and safety of those aboard the Winter Gale, then she must do it. ‘I will dine with you, as long as Dr Abney is allowed to remain with my child and her nurse while I’m gone.’

‘Granted.’

‘And the second favour?’

‘I’ll explain that when we dine.’ He laid his hands on the barrels of the pistols and, with a subtle pressure, lowered them, leaving nothing between them to protect her. He slid his hands off the silver, his fingers never touching hers although she was keenly aware of how close his skin was to hers. ‘I’ll send Mr Rush for you in an hour. Bring both pistols when you come. Unloaded.’

‘Why?’

‘You’ll understand in an hour.’ He shifted back into a bow worthy of a courtier, then turned and strode out of the cabin.

Cassandra sagged against the crate beside her in brief relief before the next wave of tension gripped her. She laid the pistols on top of the trunk, dropped to her knees in front of Dinah and clasped her close. Dinah and the others were safe, for the moment, but she didn’t know how long it would last. She might trust the Captain, but it was clear the rest of his crew weren’t as honourable as him. If one of them decided to sneak in here while she was gone... No, she couldn’t think about it. Dr Abney would be here to watch over them.

‘Everything all right now, Mama?’ Dinah asked in her little voice and wrapped her arms around Cassandra’s neck.

‘Yes, honey. It is.’ Cassandra inhaled her daughter’s clean scent tinged with the salty damp and almost wept. They were so close to Virginia and the safety of Belle View. As in London, before her husband’s death, the peace of their lives was dangerously close to being stolen from them. It all rested in the hands of yet another disreputable rake.

* * *

Richard stepped out of the Captain’s cabin into the sunlight and took a bracing breath of sea air, but it failed to ease the tightness in his chest. He’d seen numerous female passengers quake with fear while he’d assured them no harm would come to them and been proud afterwards to have kept his word. He’d patted their crying children on the heads and offered them treats, confident their ordeal would end the moment his men finished loading the stolen cargo. Not once in all that time had he been forced to face the ugly, twisted thing he’d become as he had through Cas’s wide, terrified eyes today.

He rubbed the back of his hand where it’d cracked against Mr Barlow’s cheekbone, a bruise forming there beneath an old scar. Richard’s presence had made her winsome voice tremble with fear and the sound of it had cut him deeper than the edge of a cutlass. In it had been the echo of everything Vincent Fitzwilliam had stolen from him five years ago, including the man he’d abandoned to become Captain Rose and the woman he’d loved.

Richard stormed across the deck, adjusting the sash across his chest. It was yet another reason why he must destroy the man.

‘Your report, Mr Rush,’ Richard demanded of his old friend and first mate when he approached the shattered mainmast. The deck surrounding it was a tangled mass of rigging and sails. Beside the mess, a few of his men guarded the Winter Gale’s crew, knives and blunderbusses at the ready. The seamen were the usual riff-raff the Virginia Trading Company hired, the toughness of their lives etched on their scarred and gnarled hands. Their dubious pasts and need for regular pay made them indifferent to the numerous maritime crimes their employer committed but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t strike at or kill Richard and his men if given the chance.

‘The Winter Gale’s cooper says there’s rumours some Virginia Trading Company ships are trading with pirates.’

‘We’ll have to find out if they’re true and, if so, put a stop to it. Vincent can’t be allowed to recover from our strikes.’ The owner of the Virginia Trading Company had stolen everything from Richard and his crew. Richard would make sure he took everything from Vincent, including his company, his standing in Williamsburg and some day, his life.

‘Perhaps we should press the cooper into service in exchange for Mr Barlow. He’d certainly be more use to us than that bilge rat,’ Mr Rush suggested.

‘As tempting as it is to get rid of Mr Barlow, I won’t force any man into this life or invite more trouble than we already have.’ After their cooper had died of a fever, they’d needed a new one to build and repair the fresh-water casks. Mr Barlow had been the best they could find and his presence made their complicated lives even more difficult. The men didn’t trust him enough to tell him their real names, or the reason behind their piracy, and Richard made sure he never saw him without his mask. He felt certain the rat, when faced with the lure of coin or the threat of the gallows, would betray them all. They didn’t need to add another questionable man to their ranks and risk more danger. ‘Have you found anything?’

‘I searched the papers I pulled from the Captain’s desk. Nothin’ official there where they should be. Captain probably hid them before we boarded, like the last one did on your Mr Fitzwilliam’s orders.’

‘Then let’s ask the Captain.’ Richard marched up to where two of his men held the Captain and his first mate a short distance from his crew. The wiry first mate stepped back, but the Captain, a round man with a leathery face full of deep lines, stood firm against Richard’s approach.

‘Where are the ship’s papers?’ Richard demanded.

‘The papers?’ the thick man snorted. ‘You’re taking our cargo, what need can you have for our papers?’

‘I don’t have to explain my reasons. Tell me where you’re hiding the shipping passes and whatever else the Virginia Trading Company gave you before you set sail.’

‘There aren’t any papers.’ The Captain threw out his wide hands in feigned innocence and glanced at his first mate to reinforce his claim, but the first mate, silenced by his cowardice, stared at the deck.

‘Bollocks there aren’t.’ Richard snatched a pistol from his sash, then grabbed the Captain by the back of his thick neck and jerked him close. The stench of rum and dirty clothes engulfing the man was more pungent than rotting fish and so different from the faint scent of roses that had surrounded Cassandra. ‘Where are they?’