The Devil's Fire (15 page)

It seemed an hour before she finally allowed him to face her again. He turned and gasped. The shiny green gown worked beautifully with her copper skin and dark hair. The gown barely held to her shoulders, plunging into her nicely heightened cleavage.

She gave a slight curtsy and grinned. He reached out, took her hand, and drew her near. He slid a hand around her waist and placed the other on her chest, just below her neck. He shook his head in disbelief.

"What?" she said, her face turning red.

"You're beautiful."

Her eyes narrowed and her lips twisted into a mock scowl. "Because of the dress?"

"A dress won't work without something beautiful to fill it," he said.

She rolled her eyes, but her frown had faded.

Dusk along the beach beheld a far greater beauty than day, the dark blues of both sky and ocean accented by thousands of glowing candles from the hundreds of pirate ships floating in the harbor. The orange glow danced off of the calm water in shimmering streaks. The star-filled sky, which appeared so brilliant when seen from the open sea, paled in comparison.

The beach was deserted, aside from a few pirates snoring in their hammocks. Nathan and Annabelle had walked nearly to Sawney's Fort by the time their legs grew tired. They rested on a small mound of smooth rocks that faced the harbor.

"You've told me nothing of yourself," he said. "How did you come to this island? You're Spanish, yes?"

"I'd much rather talk about you."

"What more is there to say? I'm a pirate. That's really all there is to it."

"I'm a strumpet," she smiled. "That's really all there is to it. I suppose we're not all that interesting, you and I."

"That would explain the match." He nudged her shoulder playfully.

"When do you leave?" Her tone was less than cheery.

"Not for a while," he said, putting his arm around her.

"But you'll leave just the same." She rested her head on his shoulder.

"Can't stay forever, of course. The money is good now, but it will run out."

"Will you come back?"

He looked at her and found that she was staring at him and not the view. "There's no better place for pirates, or so I'm told."

"None better," she agreed. "But that doesn't mean Nassau will remain this way forever."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm a whore, Nathan. I hear every gossip that touches this island. People are saying that the British want to do away with the pirates. Word is they're sending a governor."

Nathan smiled reassuringly. "It's just talk. Why would the British want to stop pirates? The island officials are perfectly happy to accept our plunder."

"They are," she nodded, "but the British are greedy. That's no secret."

"The Bahamas rightly belong to pirates, if you ask me. The British have lost these islands fair and square." He indicated the hundreds of ships in the harbor. "Stay your worries. I'd like to see their warships meet a fleet as that one."

Her silence made it clear that she was not convinced. For a long while, the only sound was that of the gentle waves washing over the sands of the beach. Finally, she brushed her nose against his cheek. His lips found hers and passion took them both. They made love on the rocks, looking into each other's eyes the entire time.

When they finished, they used their clothes as blankets and gazed up at the stars. Their naked bodies were saturated with a blend of sweat and salt from the briny ocean air. He rested his hand atop her belly and she held it in place with both of hers.

Nathan now knew that however long
Harbinger
remained in the harbor would not be long enough. He had once realized how small
Harbinger
was in comparison to the world; he was now aware of how small his piratical ambitions were in comparison to falling in love with a woman.

A more qualified man, such as Livingston, might have dismissed his prompt declaration of love as premature, but Nathan could not deny the glorious ache in his heart.

As he lay on the rocks with Annabelle, he wished that the moment would last forever. However, he had never accepted God and therefore had nothing to pray too, and there were no stars falling from the sky that night. He doubted that a sudden acknowledgement of religion or whimsy would fulfill his desires.

He remembered a story he'd read as a child that took place in medieval times and centered on an old sorcerer whose name he could not recall. One of the sorcerer's more powerful spells magicked time to a halt. A young knight in love with a princess who was set to marry a prince she did not love begged the magician to use the spell on him and the girl, so that they could extend one night into a lifetime. Nathan couldn’t remember exactly how the tale ended, only that it had ended in tragedy. Nevertheless, Nathan wished he knew a sorcerer.

Frustration consumed him. Captain Griffith was sheltering a woman aboard
Harbinger
without hazarding the consent of his crew. It was becoming obvious that Griffith did not intend her for any kind of ransom, as he originally indicated. Any other man would have been marooned for so blatant a crime. Nathan didn't wish this on Griffith, and he doubted the crew would turn on their overly fortuitous captain, but he thought it profoundly unfair that Griffith should be permitted such privileges while others were strictly forbade them.

He looked to the sea. There was a time when one glimpse was all he needed to bring him contentment. A single day had changed that. Now he viewed the sea as an insurmountable adversary that would ultimately steal him away from the harmony he had discovered on an island in the Bahamas.

The pirates would have made her rich, if not for Charles Martel, the owner of the Strapped Bodice, who took a fair portion of every night's wages. Still, she profited well enough to eat, buy suitable clothes, shiny trinkets, and even save a bit, which was more than most women could hope for.

Her troubles were seldom and her occupation far more comfortable than stories alleged. She was well known among the strumpets of the Strapped Bodice, which was the most renowned brothel in the colony. She had no qualms taking pirates into her bed, so long as they paid well enough. It was a job and it paid better than any other that was available to her, and there were so very few jobs available to a woman on a pirate island.

Her career was not nearly as hazardous as gossips that spread with the fervor of a plague would have you believe. She knew for a fact that the rumor of Edward Teach murdering a whore in her brothel was false. Yes, a whore had indeed perished, but she had taken her own life by slicing her wrists. The rumors no doubt started because the whore's suicide took place on the night of Teach's visit. Purely coincidental, though not unlikely, given that Teach frequented the brothel whenever he was in Nassau Port.

Annabelle had known the girl well. Her name was Mary and she had been careless in her whoring, which led to an unwanted pregnancy. Mary's recklessness plunged her into a spiral of depression. She was a fretful woman who had heard horrific tales of botched abortions and was equally terrified by the prospect of raising a child on her own. Annabelle had not been surprised when the girl was found dead.

Pregnancy was one of the worst mistakes a whore could make, and also one of the most frequent. Annabelle was meticulous in her precautions. Her life was not a complicated one, and she had no desire to make it so.

She was thankful, however, that her mother had made that very mistake. Her mother had been seized from a Spanish ship by pirates and, after finding herself stranded on Tortuga, turned to the brothels in order to earn a decent living. Annabelle's father was a random pirate that she would probably never meet, or simply not recognize if she did. She had nightmares about unknowingly bedding her own father.

She was born and raised in a brothel and introduced into the profession at the age of twelve. Shortly thereafter, Annabelle's mother contracted an inexplicable malady that claimed her life all too swiftly. Annabelle hadn’t shed a single tear for her mother, whose affection blossomed for men with deep pockets but rarely for her own daughter.

When Martel moved his business to Nassau, where it was guaranteed to rake in a tremendous profit, he took the best of his whores with him, and Annabelle had swiftly proven his most prized strumpet. "Her skin outshines your best gold," Martel would tell his clients on rare occasions when they actually attempted frugality. "It's a fair exchange as far as you should concern yourself. As for my views, I must have lost a piece of my mind to give her priceless pleasures away, if only for a night, and entreat so scant a sum in return. Take advantage of this fine tender while I'm still inclined to madness."

And never did the pitch fail. Annabelle took to bed every manner of pirate and, after a time, was surprised by none of their sordid eccentricities. In addition to her physical talents, she was gifted in making each man believe that he was different than the one before. In truth, she forgot each as quickly as she took on the next.

Apart from his clothes, there was little about Nathan Adams that resembled the pirates she was used to; he possessed virtues that were notorious for escaping his kind. Nathan was attractive, intelligent, and a romantic.

"You're a terrible pirate," she told him. It was the highest compliment she had ever paid.

He was too good to be true, and she often wondered if his wide-eyed innocence was a ploy. As time progressed, she came to realize that he was interested in no other part of Providence. He had eyes only for her. She could not deny that his affections instilled her with an uncharacteristic bashfulness. Instead of masking her timidity, she used it to her advantage.

In the month they spent together, he treated her like a princess, showering her with extravagant dresses and jewelry. He allowed her to take no other man to bed while he courted her, and overpaid her in exchange for her temporary fidelity. Martel offered no objections once he saw the wages she was collecting from Nathan alone.

By the end of that month, she suspected that the boy had exhausted his earnings. That night, in the privacy of their room, while she was washing her clothes, she spoke her mind. "I'll have no more of it," she said sternly. "You've wasted on me what I reckon most men spend in a lifetime."

"I’ve wasted nothing," he shot back curtly. "It was money well spent."

He'd been distant all day; chuckling faintly at her jests, as though he hadn't really heard anything she'd been saying, but wanted to remain polite.

"What's wrong, Nathan?"

"Nothing."

She tilted her head and smirked, like a knowing wife. She knew he fancied the prospect of marriage, as foolish a notion as that was, so she acted the part. "You're lying."

"Fine," he sighed. "I suppose it's unfair to keep it to myself any longer. Won't make it any less true, will it?"

"What?"

"I leave on the morrow."

The revelation did not impact her as intensely as she pretended. Nathan was a pirate, and a pirate was bound to his ship. A pirate ship never remained in one port for long, not even the best of ports. Nor was it usual for a whore to stay with one pirate for a month, but that is exactly what had happened.

"Oh," was all she said. She knew men hated a stunted, emotionless reaction. She turned away from him and went back to scrubbing a fancy dress against a rippled washboard. Her disappointment was not an act, though it was hardly for the reasons Nathan probably expected; she doubted the next pirate would be as generous with his purse.

"Annabelle . . . " he started.

"I'm not angry," she said too readily, too cheerfully.

"No of course you wouldn't be," he conceded crossly.

"And when will you return?" she asked as heedlessly as possible.

"I don’t know," he replied. There was a long silence. And then she felt his hands on her waist and his breath on her ear.
This is how husbands hold their wives,
she thought. "But I will return," he whispered.

She didn’t look at him just yet. She knew exactly what he was thinking. He was thinking that if she looked at him, the balance of her emotions would be tipped too far and she would burst into tears.

She stifled a giggle. Men were such simple creatures. Boys were even simpler.

She woke in the middle of the night to find him wide-awake, sitting up and staring pensively through the open window. The candles in the room were extinguished and the only light was that of the moon, which cast their naked bodies in a ghostly white radiance.

The rustling of palm trees mingled with the endless crashing of waves as each washed over the beach and then retreated back to the sea, one after another.

Annabelle put her hand on Nathan's stomach, brushing the tips of her fingers over his rough abdominal muscles. His belly shuddered in reaction to her touch. She had discovered that he was ticklish and she exploited it at every opportunity.

"Have you slept at all?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"What were you looking at?"

"My ship."

"Show me."

"I’ve shown you a hundred times."

"And I never once believed you." She sat up and snuggled close to him. "Perhaps a hundred and one will do the trick."

He sighed and pointed to the harbor. She followed the line of his finger to the same ship he had indicated before. "Still that one, eh?"

"The very same. Her name is
Harbinger
. Watch me on the boat tomorrow and see which ship I row to, and you'll know I've not steered you false."

"I believe you," she said, patting his stomach. She had already spied him boating back and forth on a number of occasions, but she enjoyed teasing him. "I'll watch you on the boat, but not to see which ship you board." She realized that part of her truly meant this; she would likely never see him again.

"I would bring you to sea with me," he told her, "if not against the code."

She cackled. "I always get a laugh out of hearing a pirate utter the word ‘code’."

"I was serious."