“Not with me!” Blackbeard called.
“He’d best be. It’s the Hawk I want. If I don’t get him, I kill the girl, and that’s that. Stay out of it, Blackbeard. This is no business of yours.”
“Now Logan—”
“Shut up!”
In a fury, Logan turned around, thrusting Skye toward one of his burliest men. The man caught her hard, sweeping his arm around her and dragging her across the deck again. He held her against the railing while Logan looked down to Blackbeard. “I want the Hawk. I don’t know what he’s playing but I want him now. Don’t think to storm the ship. Hans has Lady Cameron, and he has a blade at her heart now, and he’ll kill her quicker than you can blink. Get the Hawk before me, and get him now.”
“Now, Logan!”
“I’m done!” Logan thundered. “Man, I am done, and she is nearly dead!”
Nearly dead …
And that she was, Skye thought, for the man with his arms about her was huge, well over six feet, and each of his arms was greater in circumference than her own waist. His arm was clamped around her, holding her tight against him. And as Logan spoke, he drew out his dagger and smiled as he moved the cold steel between the valley of her breasts. His hold was so tight she could scarcely breathe. He would smother her before he could stab her, she thought. And yet she was afraid. Deathly afraid.
“He’ll come!” someone called out. “Don’t fear, lady, the Hawk will come!”
And then silence reigned. There was nothing, nothing but the night, nothing but the darkness and the eerie glow of the lanterns, and the sound of the water lapping against the ship at night.
“He’ll come!” Logan laughed, casting back his head. “She’ll die!”
His laughter faded, and the silence continued. Logan strode over to her furiously. He plucked up a piece of her golden-russet hair and fingered it slowly. “Pray, lady! Pray now, pray deep, for if I do not soon see his face before me, you will swiftly die!”
He dropped the lock of her hair. He stroked the length of her cheek and he jerked open her cloak, drawing the palm of his hand slowly down to cup her breast. Skye moved to fight him but Hans jerked her back, his hold as secure as rock.
“Blackbeard!” Logan called. “Can you hear me?”
“Aye, Logan!”
“Tell him—tell the Hawk that her hair is satin and her flesh is velvet. Tell him that her breasts are lush and firm and ripe. Tell him that I’m touching her.”
Skye spat at him. He started, and wiped his cheek. He stared at her and smiled and she cried out, for he viciously caught and twisted her breast. “Next time, milady, it will be the hook!” he warned her.
He smiled, and his touch lingered, and she barely dared breathe, nor could she move. Logan tired of staring at her. He strode back across the deck. Silence held the night once more. Silence …
She heard something. It was nothing, she told herself. It was just water lapping against the hull of Logan’s ship. It was nothing, nothing at all.
But then she managed to cast her gaze behind Hans, and she was glad then that she was so nearly smothered, for she could not gasp out in startled surprise.
He was coming … he had come. To save her. The Hawk.
He had crawled up along the hull of the ship, barefoot and bare-chested, his knife between his teeth. He silently leaped over the edge of the starboard hull, landing with the softest thud upon the wooden deck. Hans started to turn, his knife still taut against her breast.
But Hans turned too late. He dropped his hold on Skye to defend himself against the Hawk. Roc attacked quickly, catching the bulky Hans right in the rib cage. Hans didn’t get to say a word. The breath left him with a soft whooshing sound, and he crumpled to the deck.
That was when Logan turned.
“Hawk!”
“Aye, ’tis me, Logan! Here, where you have her!” Roc cried. He grabbed Skye, throwing her behind him to the rigging. “Climb!” he ordered her. “Climb high!”
She obeyed him, clinging to the rigging for dear life. She paused, and looked back.
Roc had found the sword Logan had forced her to discard. He held to the rigging, balancing as he fought with speed and fury, knees bent, the whole of him as agile as a dancer. “Come, fellows! You’d fight a mere girl and threaten her life as one, come, take me on, too.”
Steel clashed. He parried forward, he allowed himself to be thrust back, only to surge forward with a whole new force again. Men fell before him. One sailor leaped over the side; Roc caught his midriff with the sword and the fellow screamed as he crashed into the water.
“Come, Logan!” Roc cried out. “It’s you and me, isn’t it? Isn’t that what this melee is about? Come, sir, let us have at it again.”
“Sir!” Logan stormed. “As you wish it! And understand that there will be no mercy for you!”
The sounds of a score of cries, battle cries, suddenly burst through the night as Blackbeard and his men and the Hawk’s crew climbed aboard Logan’s ship, all of them entering into the fray. Skye, climbing high atop the rigging, looked down and saw the fight. She saw Robert Arrowsmith and Fulton, fighting finely, their swords flashing, bringing about victory. Then she gasped softly, for she saw young Davie, too, and she was stunned.
Roc had taken the innocent lad aboard a pirate ship! she thought, but then her thoughts gave way, and her attention was riveted back to the pirates fighting below her.
Logan and the Hawk.
This was, she knew, a duel, and a duel to the death. Neither man would leave this fray until one of them lay bleeding life away upon the decks.
Pray God that it would be Logan dead, Skye thought!
“You bastard, hold still!” Logan shouted. “Then I may skewer you through!”
“Skewer me? Why, sir, it seems that you cannot touch me!”
Logan bellowed at Roc’s words, leaping forward. Roc caught hold of the rigging and swung clear of the man’s lunge, turning swiftly to renew his own attack.
“She was sweet and wonderful!” Logan taunted, backing away.
“What?” Roc demanded quickly.
“I touched her, I had her, all of her. I held her taut and I let her scream, but I had her, deep and sweet and sure—”
“Lying bastard!” Roc roared, surging forward. It was the advantage Logan wanted. He lifted his sword to crack it down upon Roc’s shoulder with all of his might. Just at the last second, Roc dropped down and back, spinning about, reappearing on the other side of the mainmast.
“I’ll have your ears!” Logan called. “I’ll slice your ears and your toes and your privates, and I’ll stuff them down your own throat, and you’ll choke to death on your own flesh, knave!”
“You’ll have to best me to do it, rogue!” Roc retorted.
Logan looked up suddenly. He smiled, seeing Skye perched high upon the rigging. He suddenly lifted his sword and brought it hacking down hard upon the ropes.
“No!” Roc bellowed.
Skye screamed as the rope sagged and the wood beams could be heard to crack and shiver. She held tight, afraid to climb upward, afraid to climb down.
Someone knocked over a lamp. A fire caught in the forward section.
“So help me, by God, by the very devil! This night will be the end of you, Hawk!” Logan screamed.
“Abandon the bloody ship!” a voice raged out.
Skye’s heart sank. Her father!
“Roc!” she screamed. He paused, his gaze still warily upon Logan as he listened to her. “My father, Roc! He’s aboard! He’ll burn to death aboard this bloody death trap.”
He looked up at her, and smiled slowly. He looked out to the sea, then over to Logan. Logan started to laugh. “Ah, the Hawk is in trouble at last, is he? Save the girl, save the man—or slay me, and save his own hide!”
“Do you mind a bit of a swim, love?” Roc murmured.
She shook her head, frowning, having no idea of what he meant to do. Suddenly he lifted his own sword and hacked with a swift clean blow agai
nst the rigging. She couldn’t help but scream and hold tight as the mast seemed to sway and tottered with her and the rigging, then started plunging toward the sea.
She fell … fell and fell and fell, and felt the cold embrace of the water. She plunged downward, downward into darkness at first. There was nothing, nothing but the cold, nothing but the darkness. Her lungs were near bursting. She closed her eyes against the darkness, kicked with all her strength, and went shooting back up to the surface of the water again.
It seemed that all of the ship was ablaze. Men were screaming; men were leaping into the water. The night was alive with light, with activity, with shouts, and still, with the clang of steel.
Skye grabbed on to a floating log. The cloak had been dragging her down but she clung to it once she had the log; it seemed to offer her a certain warmth, sodden as it was. Or maybe the fire was warming up the water, she didn’t know.
Perhaps her heart and soul had gone so cold that she could not feel any ice external to herself. Her father and her husband remained aboard the ship, and it burned with an ever-wilder frenzy.
“Scurry, men! If you would. By God, see! There’s enemy sails afloat!” someone called out.
More cries broke out in the night. Longboats broke away in the night, but Skye didn’t try to reach any of the pirates. She would wait. She would hold tight to her log and … pray.
“Lady Cameron! Lady Cameron!” someone shouted to her.
She turned about, and a gasp formed and froze upon her lips.
Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood was sitting forward in a longboat, reaching out a hand to her.
“I—I can’t—” she began.
“Child, look who I have with me!” Spotswood demanded.
She looked past him. Lord Theodore Kinsdale peeked around the lieutenant governor’s shoulder, his eyes rheumy with tears, his mouth breaking into a hearty smile.
“Father!” she cried.
“Help the lass, help her!” Spotswood demanded.
Spotswood’s sailors reached into the sea for her. Skye flushed, and the men politely turned aside as she tried to adjust the sodden cloak and find a seat within the longboat. Theo’s ferocious hug nearly upset all of the boat, and she found herself held warmly in her father’s arms. She shivered and chattered insanely. Someone pressed a bottle to her lips. The brew threatened to burn her mouth.
“Drink it!” she was ordered.
She swallowed. Then she swallowed more deeply. The shivering at long last seemed to subside. “More!”
She swallowed more. The world was hazy around her. Maybe some of the rough edges of pain were eased.
“Bless God and the saints above us!” Theo muttered.
Skye pulled back. Her father—her dear, fastidious father—was torn and disheveled, from his unpowdered hair to his filthy mustard breeches and snagged stockings. He smelled like an animal hold and he was every bit as sodden as she, but she cried out and hugged him again, because he was alive and well. “Father! Oh, Father! Why did you come for me! I was safe; you could have been safe! And now …” Her voice trailed away. In her relief to see her father, she had momentarily forgotten the Hawk.
“I had to come, you’re my life, my only child. You are everything to me!” Theo reminded her.
“Oh, Father! I do love you. But now—”
“The Hawk!” Theo said.
“My God!” she breathed.
“My God, indeed!” Spotswood murmured, and he turned to her. “There, milady. I see him there, still aboard the ship!”
She strained to see past the fire and the smoke and she saw that the lieutenant governor spoke the truth. The figures of two dueling men could be seen, outlined clearly like black silhouettes against the fiery furnace of the blaze. They feinted forward, and they feinted back.
Theo placed his hand upon her shoulder. “ ’Tis the Hawk,” he murmured. “He tossed me overboard to the boats below with that vile Logan a-breathing right down his shoulder.”
“He’ll best Logan. He has to win, Skye. You understand that?”
She didn’t understand anything. She screamed suddenly, leaping up, for the pirate ship exploded, bursting in the night. But just as it happened, the silhouettes were still stark and visible. And one of them drew back his sword with a fierce and mighty swing, and sent it flying like a headsman across the other’s throat. And even as the explosion rent the air, sending both silhouettes flying into the dark and waiting water of the night, she could see a severed head go flying from a torso.
She screamed and screamed, clutching her throat. The explosion had killed the other man, surely! It was an inferno, and they were scarcely far enough away themselves not to feel the horrid heat of the blaze.
“Skye!” Spotswood called to her. “Dammit, child, sit, will you? Skye!”
Their boat tipped, and capsized.
And for the life of her, she could not care. She wanted to sink at that moment into the darkness. Life, she thought, had been darkness until he had lifted her from it. She wanted no part of the light, if she could not share it with him.
“Daughter!”
“Skye Cameron, come over here!”
Whether she wanted life or no, she was going to be forced to live. The sailors righted the boat; her father grabbed her. When the boat was righted, they dragged her up. They all sat shivering.
Another explosion rent the pirate ship. The fire crackled high in the night, and then it began to fade. It would burn for hours, Skye thought, but never so brightly as now. By morning, the fire would be gone.
Spotswood inhaled and exhaled. “All right, men. I see no other of ours in the waves. Head toward the Bonne Belle.”
“No! We can’t leave!” Skye protested.
“My dear, there are other boats about.”
“No man could have survived that explosion!” one of the sailors said. He whispered, but Skye heard him.
“Now, now. The Hawk is known to be a survivor. Perhaps he has gone on with his pirate friends, and maybe that is best,” Spotswood said.
No, Skye thought. The sailor had been right. No man could have survived the explosion. Not unless he had leaped clear when the ship went to splinters.
Oars lapped the water. Theo pulled her close to him again and Skye rested her head on her father’s shoulders.
“Damn child, if I’m not quite a mess!” Spotswood murmured, very unhappily wringing out his wig. “I’m not even supposed to be here—this is North Carolina territory, you know. Not supposed to be here—I’m not here! If any man ever says it, I will deny it! Blimey, but you have given us a good soaking girl.”
She couldn’t respond. Theo took her face tenderly between his hands. “Did he hurt you, Skye? Are you well, are you fine? I was so terrified for you; all I could think of all the time was how very afraid you must be of the darkness.”
“I’m not afraid of the dark, Father,” she whispered, and she squeezed his hand. He loved her, and that was why he had come for her. She had to understand that. She had been willing to sell her own soul for Theo’s sake, and she was grateful beyond measure that he was alive. “I’m not afraid of the dark, not anymore.”
“There she is, right ahead, the Bonne Belle. And not too far from our own waters at that!”
The longboat came alongside the ship the Bonne Belle. “Captain, lower the ladder if you will!” Spotswood called out. “I’ve Lady Cameron and Lord Kinsdale safe and sound and with me!”
A cheer went up. Skye was helped up the ladder and over the edge, and she tried to smile to the young man who helped her so intently. She fell against the railing, though, and as her father and Spotswood crawled up behind her, she turned about to stare out to the sea, out to the night.
“Peter! Bring your mistress a dry blanket, and quickly!” Spotswood called out.
Peter! Skye whirled around and, indeed, Peter was there, rushing to her with a dry, warm blanket. He set it about her shoulders. “My lady, are we grateful to see you!”
“Peter!??
? She forgot protocol and hugged him fiercely, then looked to Spotswood. Spotswood shrugged.
“I already told you, dear—I am not here this evening. The Bonne Belle is another of your husband’s ships.”
“Oh!” she cried, then she turned back to the water again, and she started to shake and cry in earnest, tears cascading down her cheeks. She couldn’t bear it. She just couldn’t. She loved him too deeply, for all his sins, because of all his sins. He had always been there for her. He had risked his life time and again to save hers. He had come to her in darkness, and in light, and all that mattered now was that he was gone, and that life held no meaning.
“Skye!”
She heard her name as a rasping whisper, calling out to her from the fog of anguish that covered her heart. It was not real, she thought, but she turned slowly, and then her heart started to leap. He was there. Standing before her, drenched and dripping over the deck, barefoot and bare-chested still. He held no weapons, but faced her with his palms out, his heart within his silver eyes. He was alive.
“Roc!” she screamed his name in gladness, hurtling toward him, throwing herself against him. She cried his name again and again, holding close to him. She clutched his face between her hands and she showered him with kisses, his forehead, his lips, his cheeks, his sea-wet bare chest and shoulders. His arms folded around her. He pulled her close, holding her wet and sleek to his heart. His fingers combed through her sodden hair.
“Skye … beloved …”
His mouth covered hers, and the warmth of a summer day exploded within her. He was alive! He was warm, he was real, he was with her, beside her upon the deck of the Bonne Belle.
“Really!” Theo Kinsdale groaned. “They’re barely clad, between the two of them.”
“Theo!” Spotswood reprimanded him. “Have a heart, sir! They are duly wed, and I might remind you, it was all your doing. Give them a moment’s peace, then I shall part them myself.”
A moment’s peace …
Skye didn’t hear the words. She was in her own world.
In paradise …
Touching him, feeling him, convincing herself with all of her senses that he was truly alive. Then he broke away from her, and she saw his face, stripped of his beard. His hair unpowdered, wet and trailing down his back. His shoulders sleek and bronze and rippling with muscle.