Bound by the Heart (40 page)

"This was not a part of our agreement," de
Ville said quietly.

"Consider this a new agreement."

De Ville pursed his lips. "What of Commodore
Winfield? Was he not supposed to follow the
Chimera
from Bridgetown?"

Glasse's eye twitched in a nervous spasm. "He
was. But with or without his support, I will accomplish what I have set out to
do."

"I'm sure you will, Monsieur Glasse. You have
done remarkably well as it is." De Ville approached the bedside and kept
his nose delicately covered as he peered down at Stuart Roarke. Summer did not
move or avert her eyes. She summoned every last scrap of contempt in her body
and directed it toward the refined Frenchman.

"Monsieur Roarke's condition
...
it is serious?"

"If he dies, it will rest squarely on your
shoulders," Summer said evenly.

De Ville seemed to notice the puffin ess around her
eyes, the swollen residue of her tears.

"Such a lovely face," he mused. "It
pains me to see it so distorted by grief."

"The grief also will be yours,
monsieur,
when Captain Wade hears of
your treachery."

"In matters of business, madam, one cannot allow
emotions to dictate rules. I regret seeing the brave captain in such an
irretrievable position, but. . ." He shrugged.

"I had thought you were friends."

"Friends?" The handkerchief was raised
again. "My dear, in times of war there can be no friends, only illusions
of such. A friend one hour becomes an enemy the next. Harsh, perhaps, but the
Captain understands this as I do."

"If you have finished wasting our time, de
Ville," Glasse broke in irritably.

"Yes. Yes." The general looked back at
Summer. He frowned and wiped at a dried spot of blood on her chin. "Hold
fast to your illusions,
ma chère.
They will see you through."

He pressed the handkerchief into her hand and bowed,
striding briskly back toward the door. "Monsieur Glasse? A word in private
if I may?"

Glasse followed the Frenchman to the door, muttering
gruffly to the guard holding Sarah's nurse. She was yanked to her feet and
pushed out the door ahead of Glasse, the gun in plain view at her temple.

It was the first time the three in the cabin had been
left completely alone.

As soon as the door shut, Phillips was on his feet.

"Thorny," he hissed and glanced at the door.

"Aye." The old sailor darted over and stood
with his ear pressed against the wood listening for sounds in the corridor.

Mr. Phillips went to the far side of the cabin, to the
bookcase beside the dining table and chairs, and reached up over the carved
pediment to run his hand along the recessed surface. He took down two
razor-sharp filleting knives and a short-snouted pistol. He tucked one of the
knives into his belt at the small of his back and handed Thorny the other while
he scanned the possible hiding places for the gun.

"Mr. Phillips?" Summer whispered, her face
ashen.

He finished secreting the gun under the mattress of
the bunk near where he would be sitting and frowned at Summer. He looked at her
outstretched hand and saw the lace handkerchief and the note that had been
concealed within its folds.

"It's from Morgan," she said, and her voice
trembled. "It was meant for Stuart."

Phillips was by her side in a pace. The note was
brief, cramped onto a two-inch square of paper. Phillips read it twice, and
when he looked back up at Summer, his face was hard and decisive. His grin was
almost eager as he showed the note to Thorny, then tore it to shreds and fed it
into the belly of the stove.

"Danged Frenchies," Thorny grumbled.
"Cain't trust a one o' them, can ye? Jest when I were comin' ter hate 'im
ripe proper, too."

"Can Morgan do it?" Summer asked Mr.
Phillips. "Can he find a way to get on board?"

"He'll surely try, ma'am. But we have to be ready
to help him. First thing is to find some way to get the baby away from the
guard. I doubt if the captain knows about her being held as the prime hostage."

"If n ye distract that bastard Glasse two winks,
I'll see ter the young 'un," Thorny declared, patting the knife in his
pocket.

"It's the bastard with the gun we have to
distract," Summer said, and flushed at her own boldness.

Mr. Phillips seemed not to notice. "And we have
to do it without raising an alarm. De Ville nicely managed to warn us how
conditions stand with the rest of the crew. He also gave us a time—one
hour."

"How do you know that?" Summer asked.

"A friend one hour becomes an enemy the
next," he quoted. "He also referred to an illusion. Chimera means
illusion, and that could be his way of telling us the
Gyrfalcon
is somewhere within
range."

"And the
Northgate?"

"Yes," he nodded grimly, "that, too.
But they must already know about her. It was the
Caledonia
de Ville was interested
in."

"Or
warning
us about," Summer suggested. "He said she
was supposed to follow the
Chimera
out of Bridgetown. If she followed the
Gyrfalcon
instead, she could be out
there now and the reason we only have an hour."

"By God, you're right," he murmured, and
Summer flushed with the look of admiration he gave her.

"Hst!" Thorny crabbed away from the door and
went to stand by the berth. Phillips returned to his seat at the foot of the
bed.

"Whatever happens," he murmured to Summer,
"stay beside Mr. Roarke."

"But Sarah—"

The door swung open, and Glasse strode through, his
black eyes warily searching the cabin as he checked on the whereabouts of
Thorny and Mr. Phillips. Satisfied that nothing was amiss, he nodded to the
guard to bring in the nurse and the baby. Glasse laid his gun down on top of
the captain's desk and sat in the leather chair again, prudently keeping the
desk between himself and Thorny. The guard pushed the girl toward the table and
chairs, again keeping the full width of the cabin clear. There would be no
excuse for either of Wade's men to go anywhere near the Englishmen.

Chapter 23

M
organ
W
ade's
mouth and nose broke the surface of the water long
enough for him to clear his lungs and draw in fresh oxygen. He ducked back
beneath the side of the fishing ketch, clinging to the rope that was slung
under the keel. The ketch moved swiftly out from behind the French warship
Condor,
hugging the shoreline until it
could unobtrusively join the slow-moving flotilla of fishermen rounding the
point into the harbor. The
Chimera
was several hundred yards away. The pilot of the ketch
would stay on the inner edge of the flotilla, hopefully bringing Wade and Mr.
Monday close enough to swim to the frigate unseen. Fifty feet from the ship
would be ideal. They would be able to dive deep enough to avoid detection in
the dark, rich blue water.

Mr. Monday was naked but for a belt strapped to his
waist holding an assortment of knives; Morgan was dressed in a black silk shirt
and black breeches.

De Ville had reported the position of the guards, the
conditions under which the crew was being kept locked in the hold and the situation
with the hostages in the aftercabin. The entry ports and gangways were well
guarded; there were men in the bow and men in the stern and one perched high on
the mainmast sweeping the bay periodically with a spyglass. There was only one
way to get on board. A small loading bay had been built into the stern just
above the storeroom where the fresh drinking water was kept. Roarke had
designed it for two purposes, for loading the fresh water and for acting as an
escape hatch if men were trapped belowdecks during a battle. It was an unusual
addition, and Wade was counting on the fact that Glasse would be ignorant of
its existence.

Morgan's lungs signaled the need for more air. He
stayed as flat to the hull of the ketch as he could, knowing the eyes on the
Chimera
would be probing the flotilla,
searching for signs of deception. Their ketch was as innocent as the scores of
others. It was loaded to the gunwales with nets and silvery fish; the two
elderly occupants rowed lazily and smoked on hand-carved pipes.

Mr. Monday's bald head was beside Wade's this time,
breathing slowly, deeply, before the mighty chest swelled and he slipped back
down the rope. Wade remained on the surface a moment longer, risking a glimpse
of the
Chimera.
They
were within a hundred feet, and there were shouts from the deck of the frigate
warning the ketches to steer well clear of it.

Wade sank beneath the hull, using the taut rope as a
guide. Mr. Monday was curled against the spine of the keel like a huge black
barnacle, his eyes wide open, and he gave a broad wink when he saw Wade join
him.

Thank God for you, Mr. Monday, Morgan thought. De
Ville's gloomy report on the
Chimera
had scarcely produced a frown on the black face. He
had accepted Wade's plan with a nod of approval even though they both knew it
was reckless and foolhardy.

Wade heard three watery taps on the hull of the ketch.
They were as close as the fishermen dared to get to the
Chimera.
Wade and Mr. Monday rose to
the surface for their last bearings and to prime their lungs for a final
swallow of air.

Eighty feet.

Morgan refused to think about the distance and
concentrated on filling his lungs. On a signal, a boat farther ahead began
veering away from the pack to head straight for the frigate. By the time it was
within ten yards of the hull, the guards on deck had been alerted and were
crowded at the bow, aiming their muskets threateningly at the three jeering
French fishermen.

To Wade and Mr. Monday, moving like black wraiths more
than a fathom beneath the rippling surface of the water, the sounds were
indistinguishable from countless other muted plops and hums. They ignored
everything but the mottled green gleam of the copper-sheathed hull coming
closer and closer with each powerful stroke of their arms.

Two-thirds of the way across, Wade's lungs began to
burn, and he saw, with a pang of alarm, that he had risen closer to the surface
than he should have been. He had no way of knowing if they had been spotted
from the deck. He released a stream of tiny silver bubbles from his mouth and
angled his stroke deeper, noting that Mr. Monday had pulled well ahead and
seemed to be swimming evenly and effortlessly. Wade clenched his teeth and
released another jet of air to relieve the pressure building in his chest. The
blood started to pound in his ears, and his arms were numbing rapidly as he
clawed and pushed the water behind him.

Twenty feet to go . . . fifteen . . .

His vision blurred, and he could no longer see Mr.
Monday or the
Chimera.
He knew he was in the shadow of the frigate because of
the inkiness of the water, but he no longer had a sense of direction or
distance. Worse, he was beginning to feel cramps along his ribs and thighs.

The last of his air escaped on a groan just as a stray
current washed by and somersaulted him out of control. He fought toward where
he thought the surface should be, but the current played with him a second time
and he was slammed painfully into the crust of barnacles hanging from the
bottom of the ship. He groped for handfuls of the weed and shells, hoping to
pull himself hand over hand up the rounded hull. Something tangled around his
wrist, and he struggled against it furiously, but Mr. Monday kept a firm grip
and hauled his captain quickly up to the oily-bright surface.

Wade's head surged free of the water, and he gasped
desperately for the fresh air, pressing his forehead on the timbers as he
agonized to bring the pain and panic under control.

"You all right, my Cap-tan?" Mr. Monday
asked quietly.

"Fine," Wade gasped. "Fine. Lead the
way; I'll be fine."

"Yas, Cap-tan." Monday took one of Wade's
scraped hands and placed it firmly on his shoulder. "But you hold me
now."

There was no hint of smugness on the black face, no
air of superiority, only a deep-rooted respect. He knew few men would have
attempted such a swim, let alone completed it. Wade blinked his eyes clear and
nodded.

They were amidships and had to swim half the length of
the hull before they were beneath the outcurved section of the stern where the
hatchway was. There were crosspieces attached to the timbers affording Mr.
Monday hand and toeholds as he swung himself up and out of the water. He worked
the iron bolt free of its ring to release the inside pulley and grinned down at
Wade to indicate that the latch was free and not secured on the inside. That
had been the one drawback to their plan, the only insurmountable flaw that both
men admantly refused to mention or even think about.

Now they both felt a resurgence of confidence. The
portal opened down into a small platform, where Mr. Monday knelt and thrust a
hand out to Wade. The opening was large enough for one man at a time to crawl
through the three-foot-thick outer shell and into the dark musty storeroom that
ran the width of the ship. It was stacked with barrels of water and, at the far
end, rum.

Mr. Monday closed the hatch and tied it off. The two
men moved stealthily along the familiar corridors between the storerooms until
they arrived at the ladderway leading to the gun deck above. Wade saw the guard
stationed at the top and flattened against the bulkhead. Without needing to
communicate his intentions to Mr. Monday, he waited until the Englishman had
turned his head, then crept noiselessly up the steps.

The guard felt rather than saw the danger but was too
late to save himself. Wade's arm went around the man's throat and his hand
snapped the neck quietly and efficiently before the guard's arm could be
raised. Mr. Monday caught the musket as it slipped from the lifeless fingers,
and together he and Wade lowered the body through the hatch to the darkened
deck below.

They located a second and third guard on the gun deck
pacing between the forward ladderway and the gallery. Mr. Monday and Wade moved
simultaneously when the guards reached the ladderway, darting out from behind
two cannon to silence the intruders without so much as a hiss of escaping air.

Wade crept to the door of the galley, startling Cook
into dropping a full crock of salted beef on the floorboards.

"By all what's holy, Cap'n! Where'd ye come
from?"

"Never mind that now. Where are the rest of the
men?"

"Locked in the cargo bay," Cook said
promptly. "The scurvy dogs have 'em sitting in with the kegs o' black
powder, and they say they'll set the whole of it off if n a one of 'em
moves."

"Any word from the aftercabin?"

"No, sar. Last I 'eard, he were still
alive."

Wade's dark eyes narrowed. "Who was still alive?
Has someone been hurt?"

Cook glanced from Mr. Monday to the captain. "Mr.
Roarke, sar. He's terrible hurt. The limey sods caught 'im when he brung the
lady aboard. Fought like Satan, he did, but it weren't no use. Four of 'em went
after Mr. Roarke with knives—would'a left him to bleed to death, too, if not
for the lady."

"The others?" Mr. Monday asked.

"Mr. Phillips were cut some. T'orny bought a lump
on the back of is noggin. . .but it were Mr. Roarke what took the worst of
it."

Wade's face had turned to stone. Only his eyes were
alive, searing into the beams overhead as if he could see through the barriers
into the aftercabin.

"Cap-tan?" Mr. Monday touched his arm.

"We'll deal with the guards in the hold
first," Morgan said in a brittle voice.

"Aye," Cook said. "But they have orders
to set off the powder if n they 'ear a sign."

"Then we'll just have to make sure they don't
hear anything," Wade snarled and turned abruptly. He wiped the blood from
the blade of his knife and added a length of iron bar to his arsenal. Mr.
Monday and Cook were close on his heels, their expressions as grim but not
nearly as terrifying.

* * *

Sarah was crying fretfully and Summer could see how
the sound was aggravating Glasse. She had been crying off and on all afternoon
and no wonder: Glasse had not permitted the nurse to see to any of the child's
basic needs other than feeding. Her clothes were soiled and wet, the tops of
her legs were chafed red from the irritation. Summer dropped the cloth she had
been using to wipe Stuart's brow and patted her hands dry.

"I would like to bathe my daughter now," she
said to Farley Glasse.

"You would, would you?" He peered at her
through a cloud of cigar smoke. "How motherly of you."

"You can see how uncomfortable she is. At least
allow me to clean her and change her into dry clothes. She'll only cry longer
and harder if you don't. You can have your bully hold his gun on me all the
time, if you like. I will not do anything other than see to my baby."

Glasse pondered his answer a moment before the crying
turned into a miserable wail and finally snapped his patience. He waved a hand
curtly to the guard.

Summer ignored the look of stupefaction on Mr.
Phillip's face as she walked over to where the nurse was sitting and took Sarah
into her arms. For a full minute she could do nothing but hold the child close.
The crying stopped immediately, and the big blue eyes peered up at Summer's
face as if to say
finally.

Slimmer whispered endearments,
kissed and petted her daughter as she returned to the bedside. The berth was
wide, and Sarah took up little space at the corner below Stuart's feet. Summer
could hear the guard's harsh breathing over her shoulder, and she could sense
the pistol aimed ominously at the back of her neck.

She could also see the edge of the
barrel of the gun Mr. Phillips had tucked beneath the mattress.

She made a fuss of smoothing the
quilt before she settled Sarah on top. She moved away and felt the guard's gun
dig sharply into her flesh.

"I am only fetching water and
clean clothes," she said.

The guard questioned Glasse and
received a second curt nod, but instead of staying beside Summer as she had
hoped, he merely moved the pistol so that it was pointed at the baby. Sarah
chuckled and playfully reached for the gleaming iron barrel. Summer's heart
sank and her mouth went instantly dry. She saw Mr. Phillips stiffen and
Thorny's eyes bulge from the webs of crow's-feet.