Once a Pirate (21 page)

Carly fought the evil urge to shake herself like a wet puppy. “How did you ever find me?” As long as Richard was convinced that she was his betrothed, she had a chance at saving Andrew’s life.

“I found you after receiving some unexpected help,” Richard said. “A rather disheveled fellow, looking to trade information for gold. I believe his name was Barts . . . or Bellows.”

“Booth,” Ensign Bern supplied.

Dread clogged Carly’s throat. If Booth was onboard—

“Of course, gold is not what we gave the man.” Richard exchanged amused glances with the two goons who had seized Andrew. “I do not tolerate beggars onboard this ship. No, indeed.”

Bern, the doctor, winced and averted his eyes.

Richard folded his handkerchief. “Secure the prisoner.”

Carly braced herself as a sailor hoisted a heavy, rusted set of shackles. A flurry of emotions flickered over Andrew’s face with the cold metallic click of the handcuffs locking into place.

“Display him on the quarterdeck, for now,” The duke said out the corner of his mouth. “Perhaps this miserable tropical sun or the lack of water will do him in. Barring that, what say you we stow him in the hold?”

Shaken by a mental image of Andrew in a dank cell, alone, chained, lying in his own filth, she gulped several deep breaths.

“If that doesn’t do it,” he droned on, seemingly enamored with the sound of his own voice, “perhaps a flogging will. Shall I allow you the pleasure of the first stroke, dear Amanda, or would you prefer the last?”

Appalled, she dropped her gaze. The monster expected her to be impressed by his overt cruelty.

Richard summoned Bern. “It’s time. Escort the lady to her quarters.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the doctor said briskly.

Carly followed the ensign belowdecks into a narrow, darkened passageway. Bern led her into a tiny but luxuriously appointed cabin, locking the door behind him.

He leaned against it, facing her. “I’ve been sent to determine whether you are a virgin.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. Then a heated blush surged back with equal force. “You insult my betrothed with your doubts.”

“It is His Grace who is concerned that his bride has been soiled.”

Mortified, Carly gaped at him.

Bern removed his glasses and regarded her with intelligent, dark brown eyes. “We will not do the examination,” he said wearily. “Are you or are you not a virgin? Tell me the answer to give the duke. I’ve patients to attend to.”

For once in her life she was speechless.

“So be it, milady. You are a virgin.” He returned to the door and added quietly, “There are ways to pretend.”

Stunned by his unexpected kindness, she held his searching gaze. She couldn’t read enough in his dark eyes to tell if he was willing to risk helping her free Andrew, but he had saved her with the virginity business, so there was a chance she could persuade him to cooperate.

He grasped the doorknob, twisted it. Her heart raced.
Think fast.
What would Lady Amanda do? “Wait, ensign!”

He released the knob.

“Do you know who my father is?”

“Of course.”

“You know, then, that he is a very wealthy man, do you not?”

The doctor appeared bewildered. “I do.”

“On the other hand, the duke has property, but
hardly a penny, er, a shilling to his name, which is why, I suppose, he wanted to marry me so badly,” she said, fabricating the story as she went, trying her damnedest to recall what Andrew had told her, while praying her ruse would work. She cupped her hand around her mouth as though revealing the utmost of confidences.” ‘Tell Richard yes,’ I told my father. I rather liked the idea of being a duchess. Which brings me to my point. If I’m happy, Papa’s happy. And he is most generous with his appreciation, for whomever might . . . help me,” she concluded pointedly.

His dark brows lifted. “You’re offering me money.”

Her apprehension skyrocketed. She was bartering for Andrew’s life with funds she didn’t have. “That depends on your cooperation.”

“I see.” He replaced his glasses. Studied her. Then he shook his head and stepped into the corridor, easing the door closed behind him.

Hell. If this were a dogfight, she’d be dead. She’d miscalculated. The doctor was loyal to his master.

But instead of conceding defeat, she hardened with resolve. She’d figure out something, find someone else to help her and Andrew. Meanwhile, she’d play the duke’s game.

She cleaned her face, her scratched and filthy hands and feet, using the washbasin in the cabin, then turned her attention to an enormous, dusty trunk. Beneath its heavy lid were gowns and undergarments and shoes. She sorted through the beautiful hand-sewn, beaded, and embroidered garments, searching for a gown she could don without help. With an ease that startled her, she layered her body with vintage underwear—chemise, corset, petticoats, and stockings. As though she’d dressed this way all her life, she buttoned a pale
blue gown decorated with too many frivolous white bows, then wedged her feet into slipperlike pumps.

Exhausted, she fell to her knees in front of the open trunk. The glint of something gold caught her eye, a hand-sized oval frame tied with red ribbon to an envelope.

Decorated with a wax seal. The Paxton crest.

She tore it open and read the enclosed note.

Something to ease your homesickness, sugarplum. Hurry home. All my love, Papa.

Barely breathing now, she lifted the gilt-edged frame and brought it closer. It was a tiny, old-fashioned painting of a man and two young women. A family, maybe. The white-haired gentleman was robust, red-cheeked, and she felt herself inexplicably drawn to his friendly face. He stood behind a pretty girl with curly black hair. She reminded Carly of someone, but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember whom.

Carly followed the man’s hand to where it rested on the other woman’s shoulder. She had a pale heart-shaped face and wide eyes. Brown eyes. Her blond hair was swept up in an old-fashioned style, framing her face with silvery tendrils. Although she wore an expression of impish innocence, she appeared somewhat sad.

Carly’s chest squeezed tight. Hands shaking, she lifted the portrait to her eyes. Good Lord,
this
woman was more than familiar. This woman was
her.

Clutching the framed miniature in her hand, Carly lifted the heavy skirts of her old-fashioned dress higher and hurried toward the quarterdeck. Upon seeing her husband, she felt a rush of emotion so profound that she could hardly breathe. Her chest tightened, and black spots danced before her eyes, eyes that threatened to flood with tears if she didn’t get hold of herself quickly.

Slowing, she approached Andrew. He was shackled, displayed like a trophy aft of the main mast. Perspiring in the ferocious sun, he lifted the ends of his mouth in the barest hint of a smile when he spied her. But the officer with the scarred face sat nearby, in the shade of a tarp, eyeing her with suspicion as she approached, so she immediately launched into her best imitation of Lady Amanda, spoiled heiress.

“You horrid pirate!” she shrieked at Andrew. “How could you steal me the way you did? I was so frightened. I’ll never be able to forgive you.”

Dozens of sailors watched her performance but averted their eyes submissively when she looked their way. An undercurrent of fear permeated the crew; a former officer herself, she could sense it. She’d bet her bottom dollar that they’d suffered at the hands of the duke, and unless she figured out something soon, her husband would, too.

Shakily, she raised her voice and thrust the frame at Andrew. “These are the people you took me from! My family, look! Lord Paxton, my sister, and—and—” She grappled with the words. “And me . . .”

He watched her intently for several heartbeats. Then his gaze lowered to the little portrait and he grew pale.

“You see, don’t you!” She edged closer, knowing it was a risk but not caring. It was critical that Andrew understand what she’d discovered. Body heat and desperate yearning thrummed between them. He smelled like sweat and damp wool, but she’d sell her soul to hold him close, to feel his strength. “I look so much like her that,” her voice dropped lower, “I think I
am
her.”

Andrew choked. “How, Carly?” he asked in a raw whisper.

“I’m not sure. The instant the shock wore off, I tried to piece together the puzzle. That meant exploring every possibility, no matter how bizarre. I never gave much thought to the plausibility of reincarnation, but look at the coincidences here. They’re too strong to ignore. What if I
am
Amanda? Say, one or two lives farther along? There was a cosmic mix-up when I was
hurt in the crash. I ended up back here, instead of where I’m supposed to be.”

Andrew groaned. “I’m still sorting out your journey through time. Now this.”

“Amanda!” Richard bellowed from some distance.

She swallowed, glancing wildly around the deck. “Paxton loves her very much. He said so, in a letter. He wouldn’t want to cause her pain. And putting you to death would. That’s the key, Andrew, the key to keeping you out of Newgate.”

Andrew’s breath rushed out, and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, they were moist.” ’Tis a blessing. God must have his reasons.”

“I think so, too.”

“What in the blazes are you doing, woman?” Richard demanded almost possessively as he sauntered up to them.

His presence meant her precious visit with Andrew was over. Infuriated, she snapped, “Taunting him, I suppose. Showing him my family who misses me, hoping I’d spur something resembling an apology. But no-oo.” She gathered her skirts. “You’re despicable,” she hissed, aiming words meant for the duke at Andrew. “You make me sick. And you haven’t an ounce of shame in your beastly body.” Unwanted tears welling, she marched off.

The duke caught up to her. “I miss my family,” she told him, sniffling, unable to come up with anything better to explain her tears.

“I see.” His face was impassive, and his cold gray eyes lacked anything resembling human emotion. So much for conjuring sympathy, she thought bleakly.

Silent, he escorted her belowdecks.

“I’ll lock you inside,” he informed her once inside
the cabin. Before she could protest, he held up one hand. “It’s for your own good. The men have been without female companionship for months. Wouldn’t do for you to be harmed before we reach England.” His gaze settled on her breasts, snugly outlined by her bodice, but he perused her in a detached way, as one might examine a possession.

“I wanted your sister, you know,” he said quietly. “Sweet, virginal Augusta.” His mouth dipped in a sneer. “The audacity of Paxton to have misled me into thinking I was to marry his youngest daughter. How dare he change his bloody mind, deciding instead to saddle me with a rumored-to-be-lunatic, seven-and-twenty-year-old woman? Though you appear far younger with your slight build, wide brown eyes, and pale hair”—he brushed her cheek in a fleeting caress—“you are a hideous departure from what I prefer.”

The flickering lamplight played over his patrician features as he looked skyward. “The humiliation you have caused this family goes on, Uncle,” he said, apparently blaming Andrew’s dead father. “You left the duchess childless because you squandered your seed on a whore who sullied the Spencer name by producing one nuisance bastard after another. It’s taken me years to get rid of them all. But now I have. Yet, it appears I have no choice but to take Paxton’s presumably mad and positively past-her-prime daughter as a wife.” He seemed perplexed for a moment, almost childlike, like a lost little boy. “It’s not fair.”

Carly whistled softly when the door slammed.

The man was deranged.

Unstable and unpredictable.

Combined with his malice and obvious intelligence, it chilled her to the core.

That evening someone rapped on the door. “Come in.”

She heard the tinkle of keys, and then Ensign Bern stepped inside with a tray of steaming, fatty boiled meat, pudding, and potatoes.

She thanked him, and put the tray aside.

“Lieutenant Spencer is in the hold for the night. I gave him water and treated his sunburn.”

Did you feed him?
she yearned to ask.
Did you remove his shackles?

But she remained silent. She’d revealed too much to the doctor already. She could only assume that Andrew was doing his part, gaining the doctor’s trust and sympathy, or maybe working on other sailors, whose loyalty to the duke was weaker.

“I’ve been with my patients in sick bay,” Bern explained, “or I’d have come sooner.”

Her heart skipped a beat. She had been vaccinated, but Andrew could catch something, particularly if he was in a weakened condition. “Disease?” she asked uneasily.

Anger shadowed his drawn face. “Not what is typically found in men’s bodies, nay. What I treat is the animalistic result of one man’s diseased mind.”

Carly’s breath caught in her throat.

He hated Richard!

She wrung her hands, again seeing in the doctor the prospect of an ally, but afraid to hope this time, afraid to lose such a precious opportunity. “It’s all right,” she ventured hesitantly. “You can say what you want to me.”

Bern frowned and clasped his hands behind his back, gazing at the candle by her bedside. “Many times, too many times, the duke has issued rather
sadistic punishments when perhaps a verbal reprimand would have sufficed. When I spoke to him about the vicious floggings, he explained that the crew needed to be toughened before they engaged Spencer and his pirates in battle. Of course, you already know about the towing accomplished when we engaged Spencer in the doldrums. We lost a dozen men to the heat.”

Bern exhaled, sounding wearied beyond his years. “While we docked on the mainland seeing to repairs, the first lieutenant and I asked that he cease the madness. Such barbarism may be common practice on some ships, but we wanted no part of it.”

“But he didn’t stop,” Carly murmured.

“And he won’t. He flogged the first lieutenant to death that day. But he let me live, because I’m the only man who can keep alive the poor souls he needs to work this ship.” His mouth twisted. “The few healthy men left are his minions.”

He gestured to her untouched dinner. “Please, don’t let me keep you from your meal.”

“Actually, this situation is not conducive to my appetite.”

He considered her, then nodded. “The
Longreach
is paralleling the coastline, and it will through the night.” He hesitated, as though mulling something over.

Puzzled, she said, “Go on.”

“If . . . if I were to say to you, milady, that the opportunity exists, this very night, to take advantage of that proximity . . . might you?”

She froze. Was he talking mutiny? Jumping ship?

She clamped down on her surge of excitement. She wasn’t leaving without Andrew.

Her heart thudded in her throat as she carefully chose her words. “If I were to say to
you,
ensign, that
true love comes first . . . might you understand why I cannot go?”

Bern’s countenance softened. He withdrew a ring of large, old-fashioned keys from his pocket. “Take these.” He pressed them into her hand. “You’ll know why when morning comes,” he said softly, then backed out the door.

Richard burst into her cabin. “Get up!”

Having slept fully clothed, she glowered at him from a cot littered with mangled white bows that had come loose from her gown.

“Come on,” he snapped, snatching her upper arm in a painful grip.

Carly hurried to keep up. The warship’s timbers creaked on the swells. But there was no one to work the sails. Except for the man at the wheel, the deck was deserted. Yesterday, six longboats trailed the stern on ropes. Now only one remained.

“Where is everyone?” she asked innocently.

In his most pronounced display of emotion toward her to date, he growled, “They’ve mutinied! Deserters, the lot of them! I’m going after them, however. I’ll find where the bounders have ferreted themselves away.” He plowed one hand through his hair. “Now I’ll have to speed up our friend Spencer’s demise, as if I didn’t have enough things to worry about.”

Carly’s stomach twisted. Richard had never intended for Andrew to stand trial. He meant to kill him first, and that made their dilemma far more desperate.

“I’ll be in the wardroom with my officers, discussing the situation. Serve us breakfast there.” He deposited her into a large cabin that was as hot as a furnace.

“You want me to
cook?”

“Yes, I want you to cook. And don’t tell me you never learned how. You’ve half a brain—use it!” He slammed the door.

Gasping, she leaned against a wide wooden table riddled with slashes. Daylight seeped through the smoke vent in the ceiling, making it difficult to see more than a few feet in front of her. She ignited a rush from the galley stove, which was thankfully still burning, and lit a few stubby candles.

She sat for awhile, trying to collect her wits. On the downside, she had no weapons, and all the good guys who might have gotten her some had jumped ship. On the positive side, very few sailors were probably left onboard, and they’d be overburdened and distracted trying to sail and navigate a warship, while placating an angry lunatic.

Her hand closed over the bulge in her skirt. Bern’s keys were hidden in her dress. There were five. He said he treated prisoners. One key must be for the hold, and another for shackles. Andrew’s shackles, she prayed.

She busied herself with the mundane chore of preparing breakfast as she struggled to take advantage of the new situation. She scrounged around the galley, looking for biscuits, oatmeal, and sugar. Her dress pasted itself to her sweaty skin and her hair hung in dreadlocks. Better not to tidy up, she thought, in case the duke or his thugs were contemplating using her for sustenance beyond food. With that in mind, she rubbed ashes on her cheek and sprinkled some in her hair.

The galley grew dimmer as she worked. The cheap, foul-smelling candles had already burned down to
pools of hissing, melted tallow. She was sloppy in replacing them, not bothered, for once, by splattering hot tallow on a wooden floor and table. The duke and his entire ship could go up in flames, for all she cared. Heck, why not throw a few candles in the powder room for some added excitement?

A candle in the powder room.

“Whoa.” Her heart stopped, then restarted with a thunderous beat. Could she? Blow the ship to smithereens, the duke and his murderers with it?

Squeezing her eyes shut she concentrated, remembering the sketch of the warship Andrew had used the day they formulated their plan to destroy its rudder. The powder magazine was located well below the waterline, three or four companionways below the topmost deck. The room was small, with a hatch only the gunner could unlock, something hardly ever done at sea—no one wanted to chance a stray spark getting inside.

She stopped herself in the middle of loading silverware onto the cart. If she were to set off an explosion in the powder magazine while she and Andrew were still aboard, they’d die with the duke.

They’d have to escape first.

But how? How did one blast apart a ship after the fact?

Leave a candle burning in the powder room.

She’d learned that during battle, boys known as powder monkeys squeezed through small windows in the powder room walls, hunkering down inside to shuttle powder out to the men operating the cannons. She was petite, too. Well, except for her butt. Certainly she could squeeze into the magazine like a powder monkey.
Once inside, she’d set a candle on the powder bags she knew were stored next to wooden barrels of the stuff.

She wheeled a rickety wooden cart of food to the wardroom, while her mind percolated with hatching plans. A burning candle was a ticking clock. She’d have to free Andrew, swim to the longboat, and row away in the finite minutes it gave them.

How much time would a candle give them? An hour? Two? They burned at different rates depending on thickness and quality. The beeswax candles in her quarters were cleaner and slower burning than the tallow ones in the galley. . . .

The whole thing was awfully dicey.

She paused in front of the wardroom door, listening to the voices of the duke and his men. Her gaze drifted to the horizon, where warm rain obscured the craggy African coastline. As the shower passed overhead, droplets softened the edges of the half-dozen huts in what she guessed was a village.