The Pirate Hunter''s Lady

  Carter gave him a wintry smile. “You try to provoke me, sir. I will not be provoked.”

  Diana tried again. “Captain, you knew my husband. He spoke highly of you, in fact, he always tried to emulate you. I know you had a hand in his career. Could you not, for his sake, at least return us to Haven?”

  Carter swung around, and Diana took one uncertain step back. “I knew your husband well, Lady Worthing,” the captain purred. “Very, very well. We were the closest of friends. That means he told me all about you. Captain Worthing thought he’d married a hero’s daughter, and what he got was a wife with a devilish temper who was little better than a whore.”

  Diana stared at him in shock, and incandescent rage flashed through James. If his irons could heat as hot as his anger, they’d melt away. That was a mistake, Carter. A bad mistake.

  “Begging your pardon, Captain.”

  A young man stood at Diana’s elbow. He wore a first lieutenant’s insignia and uniform but was not much more than twenty-two or so, his brownish hair thin, his face pale and slight. The captain turned to him with poorly concealed annoyance.

  Diana, on the other hand, widened her eyes in surprised recognition. “Mr. Pembroke!”

  The lieutenant gave her a polite nod, but there was nothing shy about him. “My lady. Captain, my father is well acquainted with Admiral Lockwood. Indeed, our families were ever close.”

  “Fine news, lieutenant,” Carter said sarcastically. “What of it?”

  “I believe the admiral would be displeased if we held his daughter. And most grateful if we returned her home safely.”

  Carter eyed him in dislike. “Admiral Lockwood is retired.”

  “That may be, sir, but he is still highly thought of among other admirals, including my own father, who would be distressed at a slight on the admiral’s daughter. Also, of the lieutenants listed on the Constantine, one was Richard Delacroix, brother to the Duke of Carlisle. If this ill lieutenant is he, you could garner much by saving his life.”

  Carter’s expression turned thoughtful, and James watched the young man with interest. A lieutenant with intelligence, connections, and arrogance. He’d either be thrown overboard or made an admiral within a five-year.

  Carter flushed, but his icy calm won. “I believe a short excursion to Haven will do no harm. After I am finished with Ardmore.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “And Lieutenant,” Carter went on, “since you are so solicitous of Lady Worthing, you will have care of her during the voyage. She will take your cabin, and you will busy yourself bringing her tea and hot water and whatever she requires. Understood?”

  Pembroke’s eyes glinted with humor. If Carter expected to cow his young first lieutenant with the assignment of playing lady’s maid, he’d miscalculated. “Understood, Captain.” The young man saluted. “If you will come this way, my lady.”

  Diana looked back at James, lips parting to speak.

  Close your mouth, Diana, James thought silently. Spend the voyage in the lieutenant’s comfortable cabin, not locked in the brig.

  As though she heard him, Diana snapped her mouth shut, turned abruptly away, and followed Lieutenant Pembroke across the deck. Her hips moved under the thin skirt, the wind molding it to her. She had the finest backside on the seven seas.

  James’s throat ached. He knew what he had to do, knew that from this moment forward, his path would again have to diverge from Diana’s.

  For now. Diana was far too precious to let go forever. James would find her again, if only to finish that argument about her marrying him. There wasn’t a place in the world she could hide from him. James had found her twice. He’d find her again.

  “Diana,” he called.

  She turned. The wind caught her hair, burnished with sunshine.

  James crossed his manacled fists, raised them to his chest the best he could, then opened them. Isabeau’s sign. I love you.

  Diana stared at him for one long moment, while his heart thumped. He saw understanding and fierce joy flash through Diana’s eyes before she gave him an almost imperceptible nod, lowered her gaze, and followed the lieutenant below.

  *** *** ***

  “What will he do with Captain Ardmore?”

  Diana paced Lieutenant Pembroke’s tiny cabin. The fact that the young man had a cabin to himself spoke of his status. Either he was moving swiftly up the ladder, or Carter was wary of offending Pembroke’s father, who was high in the Admiralty. If Carter were anything like Diana’s husband, then the latter was true.

  Lieutenant Pembroke brought her tea in a cracked mug and a soft loaf of bread. Diana drank thirstily but could not make herself eat.

  The young man, whom she’d last seen as a gangly sixteen-year-old just before he’d gone off to be a midshipman, leaned easily on the doorframe. “Captain Ardmore will be taken to London to be arrested and tried.”

  Diana’s panic had hardly lessened. She’d been pleased to find an ally in Julian Pembroke, but though he’d intervened for her, he’d so far done nothing for James. James was still chained to the deck above, half-stripped, a prisoner.

  “Can you not persuade Captain Carter to let him go?” Diana asked. “Or at least deliver him to my father at Haven?”

  Pembroke spread his hands. “Captain Ardmore is an outlaw, Lady Worthing. He has committed many crimes against the English navy. My father is not adverse to the hanging of criminals.”

  “But James is a good man. He hunts pirates who destroy ships and murder crews. He’s saved the lives of many people. He’s not a legend because he is a criminal.”

  Pembroke gave her a patient look. “Captain Ardmore has sunk seven English frigates and captured several East Indiamen. A few years ago, Ardmore had a hand in kidnapping the French king, and then he shot the French spy who’d taken the king before the Admiralty could question her. Ardmore once boarded a slaver and released all the slaves, who then took over the ship and turned pirate. I know all the legends, Lady Worthing.”

  “My father believes in him,” Diana said.

  “Then perhaps your father can help, if he acts quickly.” Pembroke sighed. “Unfortunately, Captain Ardmore once captured the ship of one Captain Langford and had the captain flogged. Captain Langford was disgraced and his career finished. Captain Carter is Langford’s cousin and close friend.”

  Diana had heard what had happened to Langford, who’d been found lashed to his own mast, bleeding and spent, his ship crippled, a placard hanging from his neck proclaiming that the Americans he’d press-ganged had all been returned home. Langford had not only been court-martialed and disgraced, but he’d been ridiculed, made a laughingstock among other captains.

  “Oh no,” Diana breathed.

  “So I am afraid,” Pembroke finished, “that Captain Carter has no sympathy for Captain Ardmore. No sympathy whatsoever.”

  *** *** ***

  “Mr. Ardmore,” Carter said pleasantly. “What do you know of revenge?”

  James’s cheek scraped the rough wood of the mast to which two sailors busily bound him, while he gave Carter a cool stare. “Quite a lot, actually,” he said, playing out his accent to its fullest drawl.

  Carter did not appear to hear him. “I beg your pardon, I cannot bring myself to address you as Captain. I, for one, know a bit about revenge. For instance, my cousin, a promising captain, was disgraced and stripped of command. Your doing, I believe. He would love to be here today to see this, but alas, I will only have the joy of telling him about it.”

  They bound James’s feet as well, tying his ankles fast. The boatswain’s mate, in a striped shirt and broad-brimmed hat with a ribbon around it, held the “cat,” a long-handled whip with several barbed lashes.

  “Twenty lashes you gave him,” Carter went on, his eyes deadly cold. “Twenty lashes to a sea captain of long experience, in front of his men. He was court-martialed. Let me see, he was thrice disgraced — once before his men, once before the Admiralty, once before his family. So I believe thrice twenty sho
uld be adequate. Shall we throw in ten more just to soothe my temper? Very well. Osgood, Seventy lashes.”

  The boatswain’s mate blinked. “Seventy, sir?”

  “Have you grown hard of hearing, Osgood? Seventy. Do your duty, or take his place.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  James turned his face to the mast. He was no stranger to pain — a man did not fight pirates all his life without doing damage to himself. James was no stranger to the lash, either. The pirate captain who’d captured him twenty years ago had enjoyed wielding a whip. That captain had enjoyed other, more disgusting, pastimes too. James had gained his first taste of vengeance with that pirate captain.

  Lieutenant Pembroke materialized near the mast as the first stroke fell. James’s skin was toughened by scouring sea winds, rendering the first stroke nearly painless.

  But he knew what would come. Stroke after stroke would lay open James’s back and the final ones would pile pain on top of pain. Seventy lashes could kill a man.

  James looked into young Pembroke’s eyes. “You’re supposed to be looking after Lady Worthing.”

  Two. Three.

  “I will look after her, sir,” Pembroke said.

  “See that you do.”

  Six. Seven.

  James couldn’t stop his flinch at lash number eight. He felt the sting now, each stroke a little hotter than the last.

  At fifteen lashes, Pembroke requested a halt. Osgood immediately stopped, but the captain exploded in fury. “What are you doing, Lieutenant?”

  James was sweating, droplets trickling into the slices on his back, which smarted and stung. Pembroke stepped forward and thrust a linen pad between James’s teeth, then he moved back, out of the way of the lash.

  The boatswain’s mate hesitated. Carter snarled at him, “Keep going, Osgood, damn you.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen.

  The last hit James’s skin where welts had already risen, and opened them. Fiery pain slithered over his back.

  Pembroke had been kind to give James the wad of linen. It would prevent James from screaming himself hoarse or biting through his own tongue when things got bad.

  James wondered how the hell Pembroke had kept Diana inside his cabin. Locked the door? Chained her to the bed? Why couldn’t they hear her shouting and railing?

  Wind stung the opening welts on James’s back and blood dripped onto his skin.

  Nineteen. Twenty.

  James had ordered twenty lashes for that damn fool Captain Langford. The man had begun screaming at ten, even though only two stripes had gashed his skin. The beating had been meant to humiliate, not cripple. From the stripes on the backs of Langford’s sailors, especially the press-ganged ones, Langford had not been soft on his own men.

  Twenty-four. Twenty-five.

  Osgood was skilled. The whip whistled, landing squarely on James’s back, never missing. The sun was out today, the weather fine. The heat was nothing to what James had grown up with in Charleston, but the sun found his bleeding back and added to the fire.

  James closed his eyes. Slap, sting. Slap, sting. His back was raw. Maybe, he thought, when I reach seventy lashes, I won’t even feel it. I’ll be in so much pain I won’t notice anymore.

  Thirty-one. Thirty-two.

  James’s mind drifted, and he seemed to hear Diana’s voice. “I am so angry with you, James.”

  “When haven’t you been, darlin’?”

  He opened his eyes. Sweat blurred his vision — mast, ship, sea, and Pembroke’s face running together. He thought he saw Diana across the deck from him, her fire-red hair stirring in the breeze, her arms crossed over her lovely bosom. “You are wasting time.”

  James’s eyes drifted closed again. He found himself standing in the dark cave with Black Jack Mallory, found at last. Mallory begged for his life, in genuine remorse for what he’d done. James refused to listen. He shoved the pistol into Mallory’s mouth, shooting him right through the head. Lieutenant Jack stared in horror as Mallory’s blood spattered the lieutenant’s pristine shirt.

  And then back two years, to a little boat bobbing where the Thames met the sea, an icy wind scrubbing James’s bare back. Another pirate sat before him, smiling and boasting of having caused the death of James’s brother.

  James again felt the pirate’s slim neck between his hands, the ugly crunch of bones under his fingers. He remembered with exactness lifting the lifeless body and flinging it into the waiting sea. His lifelong enemy, Grayson Finley, had looked on, silently condoning what James had done.

  Oh, yes, Captain, I know all about revenge.

  Forty-seven. Forty-eight.

  Pain seared James’s spine from his neck to his buttocks. His knees weakened, but he’d be damned if he’d fall in front of the captain.

  “Had enough, boy?”

  In James’s swimming memory, he watched, not through his own eyes but as though he looked on from above. He saw the youth, James Ardmore, green eyes wet with rage and fear, clad only in a pair of dirty breeches, cowering in a corner of a pirate captain’s cabin. The pirate’s ropy muscles stood out all over his naked body as he advanced on James, clutching the cat o’ nine tails in his white-knuckled fist.

  “You have to earn your stripes, boy. I want stripes all over that pearly white skin of yours.”

  The young James flung up his arms to deflect the blows, but they rained down on him, lash after lash after stinging lash. His back was cut, washed with pain. He screamed, and found his mouth full of linen.

  The pirate captain’s eyes burned. “Pain will make you a man, lad. You’ll like it.” He reached for the waistband of James’s breeches.

  James jerked away, hating him and scared out of his wits at the same time. Until the pirate had taken him captive, James had known nothing but his polite upbringing. He’d learned to box and fight duels like a gentleman, but he’d never faced anything like this disgusting, perverted man determined to make James his slave in all ways.

  The pirate captain’s mouth split in a leer. “Come ’ere, Yankee boy.”

  Rage flared through the youth, unfolding him, raising him to his full height. The whip cut and hurt, but the ignorant insult gave James strength. “I am not a damned Yankee!” The Southern words rang in the small cabin. James struck out, and the captain fell.

  Many hands and many punches had subdued him, and they threw the proud boy into a cage originally meant for exotic animals. James bled from his mouth, his eye, and the cuts on his body. The captain snarled that James would be starved until he learned obedience.

  Darkness fell, and James could see no more. And then he heard an unmistakably English voice filled with mocking humor. “What the devil are you doing in there?”

  A blond young man with deep blue eyes held the bars of the cage, peered inside, and grinned at James. Later, when the ship had quieted for the night, the same blond lad smuggled James some food. Later still, Grayson Finley released James from the cage, and they took over the ship and sent the boy-lusting pirate to his doom.

  Anger and hatred. Such things had carried James through the hardship of his life. It had carried James through when he’d watched Grayson Finley put a sun-browned arm around the waist of the Polynesian woman he’d loved and kiss her.

  “I’ll kill you for this, Finley,” James said.

  James saw Sara’s startled face, her almond shaped eyes, her shining black hair. She’d looked surprised that James had caught her with Grayson, but not ashamed. She’d told James that she’d married Finley, then she’d turned her back and walked away. Finley had stolen the woman James loved.

  “It wasn’t love,” Diana’s voice told him. “Infatuation.”

  She gave him a cool look with her gray-blue eyes, and suddenly, nothing else mattered. Nothing in James’s life mattered but the woman who shouted at him and threw bread at him and cursed herself for loving him.

  Sixty. Sixty-one.

  The pain would not let James breathe. He gasped, but the
linen in his mouth choked him. James sagged without knowing it, the ropes around his wrists taking his weight. He heard muffled, hoarse screams and realized they were his own.

  He pried open his eyes. Pembroke still stood next to the mast, his outline blurred by tears and blood. Pembroke’s form wavered again, and when it solidified, a tall young man with dark hair and green eyes stood in Pembroke’s place.

  “James, old man. What are you doing here?”

  Paul and Honoria had always called James “old man” after James had become head of the household. They’d played pranks on him and laughed at his rages. And he’d loved them with all his might.

  “I failed, Paul,” James said, his voice raw. “I broke my promise to you.” He tried to find air. “I’m sorry.”

  Paul smiled. “It doesn’t matter, James. I’m with her now. That’s better isn’t it?” He winked. “You’ll understand some day.”

  “Paul . . .”

  Paul Ardmore faded, and was gone.

  Sixty-nine. Seventy.

  The whistle and crack of the whip ceased, and the sudden absence of the noise burned James’s ears. His legs were limp, and his bare toes dragged on the boards. The slaps had stopped, but the pain went on as though Osgood still whipped him.

  Pembroke touched the ropes around James’s hands. If the lad cut them, James would fall. He tried to turn his head, but every movement was agony.

  “No!” Captain Carter’s shout sounded in James’s ear. “Leave him.”

  Pembroke looked at his superior officer, contempt plain in his eyes. “Should we not take him to the surgeon, sir?”

  “No, Lieutenant. Let him think on his crimes, and pray that his hanging comes soon.”

  Pembroke’s mouth tightened. Too arrogant, James thought. Even with the might of his admiral father behind him, Pembroke might anger the wrong person someday, and that person would take his revenge. Revenge was such an easy disease to catch.

  “Yes, sir,” Pembroke said, disrespect in every word.

  The boatswain’s mate and the other sailors faded discreetly away. Captain Carter remained, staring for a long time at James. Enjoying a good gloat, James thought dimly.