Moonlight Lover (28 page)

With an annoyed huff, Rachel looked away. Undeterred, Sin-Jin took her chin in his hand and forced her look at him. "And when I said this shouldn't have happened, it was my own weakness I was referring to." The smile, she saw, had reached his eyes. "But I am only human, Rachel and you are divine temptation."

There was nothing divine about temptation and they both knew it. She found herself on shaky ground, unfamiliar as to what her reaction should be. She knew what was required, but also knew she was not given to lies. To pretend that he was right, that he was responsible for her "fall" would have been a lie. She had never enjoyed anything so much as she had enjoyed this lovemaking they had shared.

But his words demanded a reply. As she opened her mouth, there was suddenly a deafening roar that rocked the ship like a toy bobbing haplessly in a child's bath water. Sin-Jin and Rachel heard the mad scrambling of feet and panicked shouts above their heads.

Rachel looked at Sin-Jin in stunned bewilderment. The
hour was much too late for such furious activity. "What is it?"

Sin-Jin threw aside the blanket and reached for his breeches. Despite the uncertainty of the situation, Rachel couldn't help looking at him unabashedly. Admiration shone in her eyes. Unlike the pathetically pale and paltry flesh that had hung from Lancaster, Sin-
Jin's body was firm and magnificent. It warmed her down
to her toes just to look at him.

Sin-Jin saw the way she stared and he laughed. She was
going to be a handful and a half. But he was man enough for the task. Cupping her face in his hand, he kissed her quickly. "Vixen. I don't know what's going on above, but until I do, I want you to stay here."

As he moved from the bed, Rachel scrambled from it and reached for her nightshirt. She dragged it on over her head defiantly. Shaking her hair free, she pushed her arms through the sleeves as if she was delivering twin punches to the air.

"The hell I will."

Nothing had changed. She was still impossibly stubborn and foolhardy. "Rachel, I have no idea what's happening, but it might be dangerous." He reached for
the sword he kept as a reminder of his past and strapped it
about his hips. He glanced at her. "And the sight of you parading in the moonlight in your nightshirt might be more temptation than those poor devils can stand."

If he meant to frighten her, and he did, he realized he should have known better. She didn't have enough sense to be frightened, he decided, annoyed.

Rachel scowled at him as she shrugged into the robe that Krystyna had given her as a parting gift just before
they put out to sea. She stood next to him, her chin lifted
pugnaciously. "I'll not be left behind, to cower in the dark and wonder what's happening."

"I can't picture you cowering." He pulled his sword from its scabbard. Resigned, he put out his hand toward her. He knew her well enough to know that there was no way short of hitting her over the head and knocking her out that would make her remain.

"Very well, then. Come," he snapped. Now he spoke like the lieutenant he had once been. It was an order he gave her, not a request. "But stay behind me."

She yanked the ties of her robe tightly into a knot. "Like an Indian squaw?"

Even this she had to argue about. He had to be daft to be in love with this she-devil. "Like something that you're not. A sensible woman."

Rachel opened her mouth to retort, but he cut her short, slicing the air next to her with his sword. It whooshed and hummed, backing her into momentary silence.

"Another word, woman, and I'll leave you here tied to
the bed." His eyes were dark and there was no room for argument. "Do I make myself clear?"

She clenched her teeth together and nodded. Rachel had no doubts that he could make good on his threat. "Perfectly."

They made their way up the darkened stairway
cautiously. The sound of their movements was lost in the
din.

The full moon bathed everything in yellow and cast eerie shadows in its wake. The noise and confusion mimicked a scene from hell. The deck was crowded with colliding bodies vainly seeking refuge from the enemy without. It was as if a madness had ignited aboard, with men screaming and crying in terror. The sound of a cannon being fired only underlined the horror.

Sin-Jin squinted as he tried to discern individual faces amid the milling bodies around him. Releasing Rachel's hand, he grabbed the man closest to him by the arm.

The sailor spun on his heel, panic flashing in his eyes. "Let me go!" He twisted vainly around, trying to free himself like an animal caught in a trap.

But Sin-Jin kept a firm hold of the man's arm. "Not before you tell me what's going on."

"Are you blind? It's pirates!" the man gasped, pointing a shaky finger to the starboard side. There was a ship not far off. "Can't you see her? We'll all be lost." The words tumbled out in a sob. "Slaughtered and sent to a watery grave."

Sin-Jin's expression hardened. He felt Rachel's hand on his shoulder. "Don't be too quick to die yet," Sin-Jin ordered. "Where's your captain?"

The thin man was shorter than Sin-Jin and his knees buckled as he trembled. He looked around frantically, as if he was searching for somewhere to hide from the deadly cannon fire.

Sin-Jin shook him, attempting to free the man from his stupor. "Your captain, man?"

Rather than answer, the sailor pointed again. This time it was toward the front of the ship. The captain lay sprawled out on the deck, wounded. Two young sailors, not old enough to place a blade to their faces, milled around the man like sparrows about a chick that had fallen from their nest.

The sky lit up as another volley thundered into the night. The ship lurched from the force of the cannonball sinking not a foot off its starboard side. Rachel pitched forward, but grabbed the mast to steady herself. She hurried past Sin-Jin to the captain. On her knees, she cradled the man's head in her lap. He was unconscious, but still breathing.

All around them, sailors were scattering like mice before a cat. They were aboard a merchant vessel, not a fighting man o' war. Sin-Jin looked at the older of the two sailors. "What's happened here?"

The boy, his nightshirt stuffed into his britches, gave Sin-Jin the same befuddled look the other sailor had had.

"He's hurt," he blurted out, as if it wasn't apparent to anyone who looked. "He went down in the first assault." He pointed over their heads. "The mast broke and a piece of it stabbed him in the shoulder," he added brokenly. "Are we going to die? Will they haul us off in irons?" He hiccupped as he tried to keep from crying and disgracing himself.

"We're not defeated yet," Sin-Jin told him. Although we probably will be. He looked around. Why wasn't there anyone in authority trying to organize these men? "Where's your first mate?"

Shoulders the thickness of twigs rose and fell. "Sick," the boy admitted.

His friend scanned the sky nervously, waiting for the next assault. "Rum poisoning's more like it," he grumbled under his breath.

"Oh God, we're lost," the first sailor lamented. Eyes that belonged to a hunted animal looked to Sin-Jin for deliverance.

Sin-Jin saw Franklin hurrying toward them, his heavy robe flapping on either side of his spindly legs. The captain stirred.

Rachel tugged on Sin-Jin's breeches. "Sin-Jin, he's awake."

The grizzled-looking captain opened his eyes and stared unseeing at the men who were gathered around him. "Someone has to take over the ship," he said weakly. Sin-Jin leaned closer to hear him. The captain grasped his shoulder and blood oozed from between his fingers. "They're going to board us."

And he had hoped, with the pending peace, that they were done with this. The war seemed endless. "What cargo are you carrying?" Sin-Jin demanded.

"Tobacco." The captain swallowed, trying to gather enough strength to stay conscious. "But they have no way of knowing that."

Sin-Jin straightened and felt Franklin's hand on his shoulder. When he turned, he read the words in the man's eyes. "The mantle of leadership seems to have fallen to you, Sin-Jin."

"Me?" Sin-Jin shook his head even as the ship rocked once more. They couldn't all miss, he thought. And the pirate ship was edging closer to them. "I know nothing about a ship."

"But you do know something about fighting," Franklin reminded him. He glanced momentarily at Rachel for emphasis before continuing. "About defending your ground."

Sin-Jin let out a sigh. The man had made his point clear. If he didn't do anything, they would surely be lost. He couldn't let that happen, not with Rachel aboard. "It seems that there's no escaping it, is there?" It was a rhetorical question.

Franklin raised his voice as the noise grew lower. "There are wars everywhere, my lad. Some are just noisier and bigger than others. We're all called on to do our part, one way or another." So saying, Franklin knelt heavily and addressed himself to the captain's wound.

Sin-Jin turned and saw the pirate ship drawing closer. Their torches were lit. Flames licked the sky like the tongue of a cat moving along its lips at the sight of a meal. Yes, they were set to board them. And to plunder. He looked at Rachel and remembered her story. If they were boarded, she'd be ravaged.

No. Not, by God, while he had breath in his body.

"You," he turned to the sailor closest to him. "Get the men together."

The man only wanted to find a hiding place below deck. "But—"

There was no arguing with the look in Sin-Jin's eyes. Nor any shrinking from its piercing gaze. "I said, get the men together, or you're all lost!" He raised his voice so that the sailors could hear him above their own feverish cries. "And gather your muskets. Muskets, swords, anything you can use as a weapon. Find them quickly. You'll be defending your very lives before the next quarter of an hour is gone."

Sin-Jin took Rachel's hand and pulled her to her feet as Franklin ministered to the captain. "I want you to go below. Now."

There was fear in her eyes. But stubbornness overshadowed it. "I told you once, Sin-Jin, I'll not be cowering in some corner."

He gripped her by her shoulders. "I don't want to have to worry about you."

She pulled away, but her voice lowered. Rachel understood the feelings that made him order her away and was grateful. But it wouldn't change anything. "Fine. Then don't."

Franklin interceded. There was no time to be lost in this. "There's no changing her mind, Sin-Jin." He ripped the edge of his nightshirt to use as a bandage for the captain's wound. "You might as well save your breath and your energy. You're going to need them both."

Sin-Jin scowled as he looked at Rachel, her hair flying in the wind like a dark reddish banner. She'd be a prize for any of them. He cursed the day they set sail, but there was no good in that. What was done was done.

Franklin's voice brought him back. "What do you propose I do?"

Sin-Jin sliced the air with his sword, testing its weight. He found himself wishing for his old regiment and wondering if he was going to die so soon after tasting paradise. He looked squarely into the old man's bespectacled eyes. “Pray.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

Duncan Fitzhugh's hand tightened on his cutlass as his ship, The Golden Reward, drew steadily closer to the merchant vessel. The wind and the gods were all in his favor, at least for the moment.

He smiled to himself, knowing that both could shift whimsically within an instant. They had before, many a time. He himself was a product of luck, both good and bad. His father was highborn, his mother the stable master's daughter he raped in a drunken binge one summer's eve. It had taken Duncan nineteen years to repay the wrong done to his mother, but he had and gladly.

Payment of the debt had placed the price on his head he bore now and sent him to the high seas to make his fortune. He couldn't complain. Privateering had seemed a good enough way to earn his living, especially when his family of unfortunates steadily grew beneath his guidance. He had responsibilities now. There were women to feed, children to nurture and old ones to give comfort to.

Had he been born on the right side of the blanket, he would have been able to do all this and more as easily as taking snuff.

But then, he mused philosophically as he leaned against the railing, had he been born on that side, he would have never met this family of wayward thieves and misfortunates to begin with, except, perhaps, at the point of a sword.

He felt himself rich in ways that wealthy men could not begin to fathom.

As it was, Duncan had fallen in with this band when he was orphaned at ten. Then they had lived in the shadows and alleys, scavenging for food. They had fed him scraps, clothed him in rags and gave him as good as they had themselves. He couldn't have asked more of them.

On his own, he learned how to use a sword almost as well as he learned to use his wits. So schooled, he bided his time until the day he could avenge his mother's rape by the man who gave him seed.

When the time had come, Duncan found that revenge was not sweet, only final. He took to the sea the very night he killed his father. To remain would have meant risking death at the hands of his sire's legitimate sons, half brothers who would have liked nothing better than to kill their bastard sibling.

And now, years later, Duncan led the very people who had taken him in, and saw to their needs. He was a privateer, not a pirate, and proud of the distinction though it was lost on many. Fat purses and fat bounties saw his family through many a winter.

There was always another winter coming soon.

The ship that bobbed and wobbled before him would be an easy matter to take, he thought. "Brian, raise your torch," he ordered.

Placing his spyglass to his eye, Duncan attempted to get a better view. The ship indeed had the look of a merchant vessel about it. If nothing else, there might be someone of importance on it to ransom. Like as not, there would be goods aboard to sell. It would put food in his people's bellies and clothes on their backs. And that's all he cared about.