Heart's Ransom

  * * *

  Kitty dreamed of Rafe, and the afternoon in which he had taught her to dance. She imagined standing atop his feet, feeling awkward and self-conscious in both the position and proximity to him. She had felt the most unnerved by the fact that she had liked being so near to him, and had liked the gentle press of his hand against the small of her back, keeping her against him, and the drape of his opposite hand against her own.

  He murmured to her in instruction while behind them, the young crewman, Eduardo, strummed the guitar. Rafe would sometimes tap his hand lightly against her back, as if unconsciously marking time, his feet guiding her in rhythmic step. “And forward…” he said softly, tilting his head down slightly to speak near her ear. “And left once…”

  She stumbled, missing the cue and stepping off his foot as she moved to the side. Rafe laughed, but she grew flustered, aggravated that she kept misstepping in such fashion. “I meant my left,” Rafe said.

  “Well, you should have said ‘my left,’ then,” Kitty said with a frown. “Or rather, ‘your left.’ Or…” She uttered an exasperated little exclamation. “Just bloody well forget it! I will never take to this anyway.”

  He stepped against her again, slipping his hand about her waist and easing her hips against his. It was an innocent enough gesture, meant simply to draw her back into the dance, but it had warmed something immediately within Kitty, drawing her to breathless silence.

  Rafe took her cuffed hand against his own. “Try once more,” he said quietly, the tone of his voice lending itself to a smile. He shook his arm slightly, making the chains binding them rattle. “Have you someplace else to be today?”

  She had laughed at this, helpless but to be charmed by him. She stepped against his feet again, acutely aware of every measure of her body that suddenly pressed once more against his, from her thighs to her hips, to the swells of her breasts against his chest.

  “And one…two…three…” Rafe murmured, and he began to step again, sweeping her in tow. “Forward once…and now my left.”

  Kitty laughed again. That had become their little jest of the day, a joke shared between them.

  I love you, Rafe, she thought in her dream, as she felt him against her, his fingers laced through her own. But even in sleep, she knew the dream was impossible, that it could never be again; that Rafe was gone forever. Even in sleep, her throat choked with tears and her eyes burned insistently, and in her dream, she clutched his hand fiercely, relishing in his warmth, his strength, his presence, unwilling to face the brutal truth; refusing to let him go.

  She jerked awake, her eyes flown wide, her breath tangled, at the slamming report of a door flying wide somewhere. She heard the thunder of heavy footfalls―several men in a hurry, from the sounds―rushing down the companionway toward the hold. She heard the overlapping, fervent chatter of voices in Spanish, loudest and foremost among them being Cristobal’s. He sounded sharp and angry, and more than slightly rattled, as if he teetered on the brink of outright panic.

  “What is it?” Kitty asked, sitting up. She was disoriented and confused, a part of her mind still pleasantly distracted by the dream of lying next to Rafe. “What has happened?”

  She heard the rattle of the cell gate unlocking, the whine of its hinges at it opened. “Get up,” Cristobal said, shuffling quickly toward her and grabbing her roughly by the elbow. He jerked at her, forcing her to her feet, and she stumbled as he hauled her toward the gate.

  “What is it?” she asked, frightened.

  He paused, drawing her to a halt, then shoved her back against the wall. He pressed himself so near, she could smell brandy lightly on his breath, and feel the warm moisture of his harried exhalation against her mouth. “Someone is coming,” he hissed, the fear, so readily apparent in his voice, making the downy hairs along the nape of her neck stir uneasily. “My watch caught sight of a ship against the horizon at dusk last evening. We ran the night through with all sails. We should have outpaced them―no man would have done the same overnight unless he meant to keep with us. But this morning they remain―closer still.”

  His hand crushed against her arm, even as her heart trilled with sudden, desperate hope. “I think it is your father’s ship,” Cristobal said, uttering aloud the words that Kitty had not yet dared to think. “I think the Hawk of the High Seas has found us at last.”