Bound by the Heart (14 page)

"Rum? What in blazes do we need with more
rum?"

"Lafitte has offered us a fair price on every
puncheon we can lay our hands on. Rum and gunpowder are running about even
pricewise on the black market."

"Why doesn't the bastard just go out and get it
himself? I've never known Jean Lafitte to sit back and be content to take
deliveries."

"Frankly he's, ah, been entertaining a pretty
stiff British blockade around New Orleans. He's been drawing heavy fire since
opening the route to us through Cat Island. He figures a little rum in exchange
for cooperation is the least we can do."

"He does, does he?" Wade unlocked the
cabinet behind his desk and withdrew his documents and dispatches. "And
what else have the two of you been cooking up in my absence?"

"Well, ah—" Roarke glanced uncomfortably at
the bed where Michael was beginning to stir awake.

Wade looked up. "Oh. The boy is Michael
Cambridge, the girl is his governess. We fished them out of the drink off Saint
Bart's."

"Cambridge?" Roarke's expression altered at
once.

"Aye. Sir Lionel's cub. They were on board the
Sea Vixen
bound for Barbados."

"The
Sea Vixen,"
Roarke murmured, and a look
came into his eyes as if he were mentally leafing through a sheaf of manifests.
"She's British registry
...
a
passenger ship, for Christ's sakes— what happened?"

"It was none of my doing," Wade said
defensively, arching a brow. "She was caught in the same storm that threw
us up on the reef. We just happened to cross paths afterward and found these
two floating on some debris."

"Did the
Vixen
go down?"

"I saw no wreckage apart from these two,
but—" He shrugged.

"And you brought them here?" Roarke's eyes
widened incredulously. "Morgan—"

"I had every intention of letting them off on the
Virgins when we passed—" Wade cut in sharply, "but the governess
there went through my desk like a plague of locusts. I couldn't be sure of what
she saw and wasn't about to ask."

Stuart Roarke looked at Summer, causing her to redden
selfconsciously.

"I see," he murmured at length and glanced
away again. "What now?"

"Now we haul the
Chimera
onto the blocks and see if we
can't repair her properly. As soon as Bull gets back, we'll retrieve the cargo
from the Sisters and deliver it, along with these"—he tossed the packet of
dispatches on the desk—"to Norfolk. From what you've been telling me, we
can't afford to lose a single crate or barrel. I'll see to it myself."

"What about the
Northgate?
She'll still be in the area,
won't she?"

"I sincerely hope so," Wade said, and his
blue eyes were like chips of flint. "I sincerely and truly hope so. I owe her
captain a few lessons in gunlaying."

"Morgan—"

"He took us at anchor, Roarke. He saw that we
were crippled and unable to return fire, and he raked us without even offering
the option to stand to."

"Would you have taken it?" Roarke asked
dryly. "Would you have allowed the Royal Navy to board you?"

"Not bloody likely."

"Well, don't you think the captain knew that?
You've used about every other trick in the books to catch the revenuers
unaware.
 
It may just have crossed the
Englishman's mind you were only feigning your predicament."

"Nevertheless, it is a debt I won't be forgetting
too soon."

"You seem to have chalked up a lot of debts for a
trip that was to be so unremarkable."

"That French bastard must have known the patch he
gave us would buckle in any kind of a current. Hopefully the
Northgate
took her frustrations out on
whatever ship the Frenchman alerted to follow us."

"You don't know that he did. He may have intended
just to see you sink gracefully to the bottom."

Wade shook his head. "He knew what we were
carrying. There is enough powder in those barrels to—" He stopped,
catching the warning frown on Roarke's face. He had forgotten the listeners on
the bunk. "I must be more exhausted than I thought," he muttered.
"What I wouldn't give for a hot bath, a hearty meal, and a full bottle of
rum."

"All arranged," Roarke grinned.

Michael whispered a question in Summer's ear, freezing
as Wade's eyes flicked instantly in his direction.

"So you've decided to join us again, have you,
lad? I trust you feel better than you did when you were brought down here.
Though if it were by my choice, you'd feel a good deal worse." He looked
at Roarke and explained, "They tried to swim for it off the Sisters."

Roarke's eyes widened again.

Summer draped a protective arm about Michael.
"Please don't take your anger out on Michael. If the fault was anyone's,
it was mine."

Wade crossed his arms over his massive chest.
"Are my ears deceiving me, madam, or was that just an admission of
stupidity?"

She flushed. "It was no such thing. Under normal
circumstances, Michael and I could have swum the distance easily."

"You must give me your definition of normal one
day," Wade mused, "for surely nothing on this voyage has come
remotely close to it."

"You have my complete agreement there, Captain,"
she said coolly. "And since this so-called voyage has come to an end, may
I ask what you have planned for us now?"

Wade smiled briefly at Roarke. "Among her other
lovely qualities, the governess seems to think she knows our business better
than we do ourselves. She thinks we should send a ransom demand to the boy's
father without delay. She has found my company objectionable and barbaric and
wants a speedy end to our association."

Roarke adjusted his spectacles and dropped his hand to
clasp the other behind his back. "Only the two complaints? You must be
mellowing."

"My very thought." Wade's grin broadened. He
gathered up his logbook and papers. "Come along then, Governess, and bring
the boy. We'll see what manner of hospitality I can frighten you with on
shore."

"Are we still to be treated as prisoners?"
she asked haltingly.

"Prisoners?" The dark blue eyes locked onto
hers and held for several moments before his gust of laughter heightened the
flush in her cheeks. "There are no locks on any doors, madam, if that is
what you are asking. And since we are on an island, I fear you can only run in
circles. Unless, of course, you prefer to swim for it again . . . how far would
you say it was to Crab Key, Roarke? Ten miles?"

Stuart looked pensive. "More like twelve. Fifteen
if the currents are against you."

"She obviously doesn't think too much about
currents," Wade remarked, "and she has a streak of stubbornness in
her wide enough to handle any undertow."

Summer turned her back on the two of them as she
helped Michael down from the bed. Wade's laughter carried out into the companionway,
and she held Michael's hand, arching a stiff chin past Roarke's mockingly
gallant bow.

The
Chimera,
she was astonished to see, was tied up to a jetty that
ran half the length of the deepwater inlet. The lagoon was enormous, capable of
sheltering three or four ships the size of Wade's frigate. A neat row of
longboats were drawn up onto the sandy beach, and men were moving back and
forth on shore greeting the crew of the
Chimera.
The cove was completely enclosed by trees and a high,
rocky crest of land. Summer's earlier surmise that Wade's port would be
invisible from the sea was reinforced when it took her several minutes of
searching to locate the exit.

"Coming?" asked Wade, holding a hand to her
from the gangway. First Michael, then Summer was assisted down the narrow
boarding plank to the jetty. She inspired varying degrees of interest and
curiosity in the new men, curiosity that was quickly satisfied by the
Chimera's
crew.

She held Michael's hand as they followed Wade and
Stuart Roarke along the dock to the beach. The sand was soft and cool underfoot
and she suppressed a shiver as the dampness rustled down through the ring of
stooping palm trees. As soon as Wade finished giving last-minute instructions
to the men, he headed toward a space between the trees leading over a sandy
knoll.

"Where do you suppose they all live?"
Michael whispered.

"I have a feeling we are about to find out,"
Summer replied, not waiting to be called again. She set off up the knoll after
Wade, followed in turn by the weary members of the
Chimera's
crew.

Bounty Key was shaped like a concave wishbone whose
ends overlapped to form the hidden cove. The neck of the wishbone created a
second natural harbor on which Wade had apparently spent a great deal of time
and money to make it appear harmless. Small stone and thatch huts were
clustered in the scoop of the bay, and there was a second long jetty anchored
to the rocks to which small fishing boats were moored, complete with the nets
and tools of the trade. Further out in the bay, riding easily at anchor, was a
slim, graceful two-masted schooner, half the size of the
Chimera
and, again, suited to its
innocent surroundings.

The bulbous swelling at the head of the wishbone
earned a gasp from Summer Cambridge and a "gosh" from Michael.

"You act surprised, Governess," Wade said
wryly. "What were you expecting? A pirate's den? Stone fortifications and
a castle keep?"

Summer flushed again, for his accusation was not far
wrong. She did not expect to see lush trees and manicured gardens covering the
slope to the sea. She certainly did not expect to see—sitting like a
whitewashed jewel against a backdrop of blue sky and crisp green lawns—a house
of such elegance and beauty it could have taken its place alongside any one of
a dozen manors in the English countryside. It was two stories and sat sprawled
atop a level saddle of land midway up the slope. The upper story was balconied
and fenestrated, its railings and posts ornately carved and shaded from the sun
by clinging vines of corallila and ivy. The main floor was surrounded by a wide
veranda. The windows, arched and stretching floor to ceiling, were louvered and
reinforced by intricately designed hurricane shutters. The main house was
joined by a covered flagstone breezeway to a second smaller building that
contained the kitchens and servants' quarters.
"Captain Wade!”

The happy shriek cracked the air and brought an
instant grin to Morgan Wade's bearded face. The source of the jubilant cry was
running toward him from the beach, her black face beaming, her hands waving and
her feet churning the sand out in small puffs behind her.

"Captain Wade!"

"Reeny!" he roared and caught the woman as
she hurled herself into his arms. He swung her around twice, setting her to
fits of laughter as he growled good-naturedly and scraped the curve of her
throat and shoulder with his furry chin.

"Where you been, Captain?" she demanded,
pushing breathlessly out of his grasp. "You had us all plum frettin' out
of our minds."

Wade laughed and slapped her playfully on the rump.
She wore a brightly patterned wrap skirt and nothing else. "Have you
managed to keep these pirates under control?"

She grinned, and her mouth turned down slyly.
"Much as I hankered to, Captain."

She was still smiling as her jet black eyes darted past
Wade and settled on the phalanx of crewmen coming over the knoll. The laugh
became a throaty growl, and she took a deep breath, making her breasts jut out
like two ripe fruits.

"Where you been, black man?" she scowled.
"Why you always gotta be the last man off that blamed ship?"

Mr. Monday stopped dead in his tracks. She moved
forward, hissing like a panther stalking its prey.