“You do make things easy, love. Shall I beat you first, and make love to you—excuse me, that’s force you into my arms, I mean—second? Or the other way around? Promises, promises! I am supposed to find your father, you know, for the sweet promise of your willing—and eager—arms.”
“Someone should really skewer you through!” Skye announced.
“Should they? Tell me, then, what happened to this tempest inside of you? What of the gentle feelings you bore the Hawk for being tender in the dark? What of the truth that you whispered to Lord Cameron in the forest about your fears? What, lady, of the sweet seduction you played in that room? You told the pirate Hawk that you loved your husband. What of those words?”
She narrowed her eyes carefully, her heart hammering inside her chest with a fierce beat. “Lies, sir. Lies. And that is all!” she said flatly. “Issued about the one man to avoid the other, sir, and that is all.”
He shook his head and lowered it against hers. But he wasn’t laughing anymore. His features were tense and serious, his eyes were dark, shadowed smoke. “So you care nothing for either man, milady, is that what you’re saying?”
“Aye, I care deeply! To see them hang, as one and the same!”
His fingers tensed around hers, his mouth tightened grimly, and for a moment Skye was truly frightened. He had had his fill of her, and he was finished. Perhaps he would play the pirate in truth and slit her throat. Or perhaps his role would be that of the grievously injured husband, and he would strike her where she lay. Thunder touched his features, anger, deep and sure. She did hate him; she despised him for all that he had done.
But she had fallen in love with a man, too. With tenderness, with caring, with flashing silver eyes, and with startling courage against all odds. She had fallen in love with flesh and blood, and she had lain in paradise, be that paradise an island, or a bower within the woods, or a bed upon a soft mattress with white silky sheets. He would hang; and she never be able to bear it.
She closed her eyes, and waited for his blow.
It never came. He released her and came to his feet, and caught her hands and none too gently dragged her up before him. “I am in love with you,” he told her softly.
“Love!” she cried. “What can you know of or mean by love, after what has been done!”
“I’d have died to save you any number of times.”
“You risk your life each time you sail!” she retorted. “You chose your course in life! You risk your throat every time you step upon the shore of New Providence!”
“What of your father?” he demanded curtly.
“What do you mean?” she asked, faltering.
“You wanted me to find your father.”
“Yes, and I still expect you to do so!”
“Under the same conditions.”
“What?” Skye cried out.
He didn’t reply right away. He asked her another question instead. “What if I could prove myself to you, milady?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What if I could explain my deeds?”
“You shall never explain your deeds to me. And you will hang, eventually, I know it. Lord Cameron or no.”
His eyes flashed with renewed anger. “One day, milady, so help me, I will see that you rue those words. For now, however, we will return to the business at hand. The pirate is better suited to finding your father, so the pirate I will remain. You may have my cabin to yourself, milady. But the bargain stays the same. When your father is found and rescued, you had best come to me laughing, your hair draping your shoulders, your clothing at your feet.”
“Bastard!”
“Are we agreed?”
“I hate you!”
“Hate me, love me, have it as you will. Until I do hang, madame, you are mine!”
A sudden noise, the cocking of a pistol, sent them both flying around. Skye gasped softly, for they were no longer alone upon the sand.
Logan was there. Captain Logan.
Logan, with two of his henchmen at his side, standing before them.
“I beg to differ with you, Hawk!” Logan announced. “I intend to take her. The lady will be mine.”
Roc drew Skye around behind him in an instant, holding her there. He watched Logan very warily, for the man had two pistols aimed straight toward him.
Roc’s sword and knife lay in the sand. His pistols were lost to the sea and his powder was sodden anyway. He had nothing, nothing at all with which to fight.
“Move away from the lady, Hawk!”
Behind him, Skye shivered. There was no help; no help anywhere at all. Logan had all the power, and he knew it. He was elegantly dressed in a crimson velvet coat and high black boots, and his hat bore a dashing plume. Skye wondered from where he had pilfered his finery, then she did not care. His lip was curled in an evil grin, and he scratched his chin with the hook he wore for a hand.
He would kill the Hawk, she thought. With the greatest pleasure and relish, he would kill the Hawk, probably ripping him open from groin to gullet with the very hook he wore because of the Hawk’s prowess with the sword.
The henchmen with him were not so dandified. They were both young men, in their early twenties perhaps, one blond, one dark. They were both barefoot, in knee breeches with no hose, and in coarse cotton shirts. They were both smiling, too, glad of this confrontation.
Logan’s smiled deepened. “Dear, dear, how have we come to find you here? And engaged in this oh, so touching scene!” He laughed to his companions. “Methinks that the lady is no creature of ice! She comes in this fight to the pirate, knowing him so, so well! It seems that the Hawk did teach the lady the finer points of love, which is well enough—I shall enjoy her the more.”
“You’ll never touch her, Logan!” the Hawk snapped.
“Oh, I think I will,” Logan replied pleasantly. “Damn you, Hawk, but you have always been a cocky bastard. The lady is behind you, and you are unarmed, and I have here six pistols and three swords at my disposal. I knew that the girl would have to come if I had her father, and that you would have to come after the girl. I hadn’t expected you to fall so easily into my hands, but then the weather was helpful, was it not? And then you two were so engaged with your private affairs that you mightn’t have heard the sound of a cannon explosion. Ah, dear lady! But you have done what I never could, you stole the Hawk’s guard away. Thank you, my dear. I do appreciate that, and I will be happy to show you just how much!”
“No …!” Skye started to cry, but then she was stunned when Roc turned around and slapped her hard across the face. His strength was so great that she went crashing down to the sand, the breath knocked from her, her flesh burning.
“Shut up!” he hissed down to her. Then he turned his attention to Logan. “Take her—you want her so badly. Take her, have done with it!”
“How rude, Hawk! I shall take her. Your ruse will not work.”
“Over my dead body, only, shall you have her!”
“That will be fine,” Logan chortled.
Roc shook his head. Skye’s mind continued to swim. She wanted to kill him; she abhorred the thought of Logan.
She could not begin to understand the brutality of Roc’s attack.
“She’s just a woman, Logan!” Roc called out. “Mine, because I took her. But she’s no better or worse than any other. Having her will give you little pleasure!”
“I’ll decide on that!” Logan said. “What is this, anyway! I do intend to shoot you and have her. When I tire of her, the others may have her. You will be dead. What will it matter to a corpse?”
“If you kill me, you’ll never have the treasure that One-Eyed Jack took off of the Spaniard.”
Logan hesitated, his eyes going very narrow against his cadaverous features. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play games with me, Logan. Jack pirated the Spaniard, Doña Isabella out of Cartagena! Everyone knew about it. They talked about it on the islands for months. Why do you
think I was so determined to go after the Silver Messenger? To take a single merchant sloop? You’d be daft, man! It was Jack I wanted, Jack that I was after. Oh, Logan, you speak of death! Jack died slowly, I tell you! He had taken the Doña Isabella, and buried all that Spanish gold. Gold that you can’t even begin to imagine, Logan.”
“The Doña Isabella? With the—the Inca gold?”
Roc smiled slowly, folding his hands over his chest. “Aye, Logan, and that’s a fact. I’m the only man alive who knows where to find it.”
“How do I know that?” Logan demanded.
“I’m telling you that it is so.”
Skye stared up at him. She didn’t know if it was the truth or not. She didn’t know anything at all about him anymore. She was aware only that her choices now lay between two different hells.
Roc wanted Logan to think that she didn’t matter so much to him, that she was something to be owned and used, and abused if the mood so struck him. He wanted to save his own life. He was, beyond a doubt, a scurvy bastard.
But, so help her! She could not stand the thought of Logan. What was happening?
Logan cocked his head, staring at Roc. “What is then, a play for time? I keep you alive to take me to this treasure of Jack’s—then I slay you anyway. I take the girl, and I find my entertainment, then I ask Spotswood or Lord Cameron for the ransom on them both, the lady and Lord Kinsdale. Any way that one looks at it, Hawk. I win.”
Roc shook his head slowly. “You don’t take the girl. She’s mine.”
“What good will she do a corpse?”
“She’s mine. She stays with me. We head on to the meeting here in North Carolina across the island and we go to someone to mediate.”
“Mediate!” Logan protested.
“Aye, mediate. Blackbeard.”
Logan started to laugh. “You’d give her over to Blackbeard?”
Roc shrugged. “If rumor has it right, he’s fourteen young wives. He’s women enough.”
“They say that he’s the fiercest murderer of us all.”
“They say—but I know the man. He’d never harm her. And if he swore to me that he’d see her safe back to Virginia, then that is exactly what he would do.”
Logan hesitated. “I won’t—”
“It’s the only way, Logan. It’s absolutely the only way that you’re going to have the pleasure of killing me and acquiring the treasure, too.”
“It’s too risky, Captain,” the dark-haired man murmured to Logan.
“Risky! What, have you become a coward, Logan? We live at risk, we thrive on risk. Aye, come on, and it is a challenge! I dare you, Logan, take the chance!”
“Send her over to me!” Logan demanded.
Roc came over to Skye, reaching down for her. She lowered her eyes, not about to touch his hand. He had gone insane. She had been there when he had dueled with One-Eyed Jack. The pirate had died cleanly in the fight. There had never been any discussion about gold whatsoever.
Or was there gold? Did he know of it some other way? Had he come after One-Eyed Jack and the Silver Messenger because he had wanted a bigger prize? Because he needed Jack dead? She didn’t know. Her head was still reeling, and she didn’t trust him, not in the least.
And still, she was in love with him. Even with her face still stinging, even as she wondered about his double life, certain that he would hang. She did love him.…
She started to scramble to her feet on her own, but he wrenched her up and held her close to him. “No. I will not send the girl to you. We do it my way. She’s mine.”
Logan hesitated a long time. “I will kill you when we get that treasure. If you’re telling me the truth, Hawk, I will shoot you clean and simple. If you’ve lied to me, then I’ll have you staked out, and I’ll rip your flesh from your body inch by inch with my hook. Savor that, Hawk. And pray that you find that treasure.” He pocketed his pistols.
“I haven’t lied to you.”
Logan shrugged. “Then keep the girl. Enjoy her until your death.” He smiled suddenly, watching Roc. “You’ve lost your beard, sir. Was that to please this lady?”
“It was hot,” Roc said. “I do nothing to please anyone, Logan, and you know that.”
“ ’E looks an awful lot like the other one now,” the dark-haired pirate said, eyeing Roc up and down.
“What other one?” Logan demanded.
Roc tensed; Skye felt it as his arms tightened around her.
“ ’E looks like the high-and-mighty lord, like his kinsman, Cameron.”
“You’ve seen Cameron?” Logan said sharply.
“At a distance, aboard his ship.” The dark-haired fellow grinned. “Eh, Logan! ’E’s trying to look like her husband; he’s trying to be a gentleman.”
Logan cackled, bending over. Roc’s fingers tightened on Skye’s arm. “Not a word!” he warned her. “Not a word!”
“I should let him skewer you!” she hissed.
“Then think, milady, of what he will do to you!” Roc warned softly. Icy trails sped along her back. He was right. Whatever her anger, he was right.
“And don’t he look pretty, minus the whiskers!” Logan said at last. “Didn’t work, though, eh, Captain? Not from what I heard. The lady ain’t too pleasured to be with you!”
“She’s pleasured enough.”
“Then come on,” Logan said, his eyes riveted on the both of them suspiciously. “We go to Teach, and we sign our agreements. Don’t you go against me, not a hair, Hawk. I’ll shoot her down where she stands if you betray me, and that will be a fact.”
“I won’t betray you, not on this.”
“Then walk!” Logan commanded.
Roc turned, seeing the direction that Logan indicated. Skye pulled back.
“Where’s my father?” she demanded of Logan. “Is he alive? Have you harmed him?”
“He’s alive, and his dignity is ruffled, and perhaps he has a bruise or two. That’s it, milady. Now, if you will please? There’s a feast going on behind those dunes, and we’ll be a part of it this night. Move, Hawk.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Skye insisted.
“What?” the Hawk demanded.
“Bring me my father. I’m going to sit right here until you prove to me that he’s alive.”
Logan looked to Roc. “Get her moving, Hawk. Or we’ll end it here and now.”
“If you kill my father,” Skye cried, “then I will not care.”
“Move her!” Logan ordered.
Roc dipped low, striking her in the midriff with his shoulder and tossing her over. “Stop it!” she railed, beating against his back. “Stop it, put me down, don’t you see that he’ll kill you anyway! We have to—”
“We have to shut up!” Roc roared to her. He spun around, searching out Logan. “Lead the way, damn you, will you, please!”
Logan, cackling, stepped forward. He started out walking and Roc followed. Skye continued to protest, rising against him, until he slammed down hard on her rump portion. The action did not hurt her so much, but it reminded her that she was very poorly clad, and that her position was very precarious.
Life had become precarious.
But she didn’t trust Logan, and she was certain that Roc had gone mad. He didn’t intend to hand her over to Logan, but he did intend to hand her over to Teach, to Blackbeard, while he went off to get killed by Logan himself. It was insanity.
She fell silent as they walked along the dunes. It seemed that they walked forever and ever. The water, though, was always at their side. Pirates needed water, she thought. The land was death; the water was their salvation, their escape.
What was Roc planning …?
“Hear the music?” Logan asked suddenly. He spoke to Roc, who grunted. Skye strained to hear, and the sounds of a fiddle came surely her way. The music grew louder and louder as they walked.
Then she pushed against Roc’s shoulder and saw that they had come to a small shanty village. Sparse, crooked buildings made carelessly of thatch and logs
lay about a beach where dozens of longboats had been drawn.
Dozens of spits had been set up on the beach. Joints of beef and pork turned and roasted upon the spits, along with numerous fowl and venison. Huge kegs lay about; kegs of ale, Skye thought.
There was a platform in the center of the shantytown. Edward Teach, Blackbeard, with his chinful of illustrious whiskers, sat there as if he sat upon a throne. Before him stood the fiddlers, tapping their toes to the music.
And upon the platform, a woman danced.
She was black-haired, with a lithe slim figure, a startling grace, and a full, firm bosom that rose high against her cotton blouse. She was barefoot and laughing, and she danced like a young doe, like a healthy young animal. The men watched her and cheered.
She was not the only woman there. Others sprawled about with men, leaning against kegs, falling beneath the platform, sitting on the porches of the shanties.
Logan stood behind Roc and smiled at Skye as she lay high against her husband’s shoulders.
“The ball, milady, the pirates’ grand ball! Welcome. We do not often dare to come so brazenly together on the mainland, but then certain figures of power in North Carolina have been known to turn deaf ears to the sounds of our musicians! Isn’t it grand? Not many silks, not many satins, and the petticoats are limited, but we do enjoy ourselves! Welcome!”
There was something about his eyes so hideous that she shivered.
Roc spun around to face Logan. “Remember,” Logan warned him. “You play anything other than straight with Blackbeard, and I will shoot and kill this girl who means so little to you!”
“I’ll play it fair. Go.”
“You go. I’ll follow behind with my pistol cocked and aimed for the lady’s back. And don’t forget. A good number of the men you see about will be off of my ship.”
“I’ll remember,” Roc said. He started to walk. Skye clung to him. Drunken men pointed their way. Some laughed. Some called out. “It’s the Hawk! It’s the Hawk, and ’e’s brought a lady here, can you imagine.” Chortles rose up, ringing upon the air. “Damme, but the man would dare anything, anything at all.”
“My pistol’s aimed at her back, remember!” Logan said.
Roc kept walking. As they neared the platform, Blackbeard’s attention was drawn to them, and he leaped to his feet. “What? Ho, there, it’s the Hawk, is it not? Aye, and with the lass I was ever so charmed to meet as of late!” His big, bellowing voice rose over the music and over the sounds of the dance. Blackbeard pulled his pipe from his mouth and reached for Roc’s hand. “Welcome! We’d thought you’d avoid this place, since you don’t much care for the Carolinas, sir! Do you see my Carlotta? My latest ‘wife’—she dances for me now. Sit and watch, enjoy. Now there’s some warm blood for you, me boy!”