The Pirate Bride (24 page)

At first the decks were busy with men everywhere trying to capture the wind and increase the ship’s speed. Then, once the sails were set, most of the activity had died down and the crew had dispersed to other tasks.

He’d peeked out from his cover and had seen men repairing canvas, while others replaced broken decking. Others went below, presumably to clean and prepare the cannons.

He’d seen at least two dozen men.

But he hadn’t seen Blair Colm.

And he hadn’t seen Red.

He had a sick feeling that both of them were in the captain’s cabin. There would be far too much activity below for the captain to be able to enjoy his vengeance there.

But the helm was near the captain’s cabin, with a huge man at the wheel, and it would be impossible to get by him unnoticed.

There were still barrels of gunpowder topside, and he decided to try to buy himself entry to the cabin with a diversion.

He watched for his moment and seized it, slipping from cover and racing to grab a length of match cord near a rear swivel gun. As soon as he had it, he hurried to a barrel of gunpowder, set and lit the fuse, and returned to his hideout.

In seconds, the barrel exploded. Flames shot everywhere, inciting chaos.

“C
OLM’S AFIRE
!” Jimmy O’Hara shouted down from the crow’s nest.

Brendan heard him from the master’s cabin. With Cassandra following, he burst out on the deck to see that Colm’s ship was indeed on fire. They could see the flames shooting higher and higher, until the sails, too, were ablaze.

“More sail!” Brendan ordered. “Man the guns!”

“We’ve not seen the flare!” Peg-leg cried out.

“I don’t give a damn,” Brendan responded. “Close in on her. Hard!”

S
TUNNED
,
GASPING
for breath, Red blinked furiously and tried to clear her head. She saw that she had landed next to the desk.

She didn’t see Blair Colm at first, and then she watched in shock as he leapt to his feet and rushed to the door, heedless of her presence.

He didn’t even think to shut it as he raced out.

She flew after him, hesitating at the doorway. There was a man down right outside the cabin—and he was
burning
. She reached down quickly for the knife at his waist, then looked around to see men everywhere, many of them screaming with pain. She heard a noise and looked up to see the mainmast crack and start to fall.

She quickly leapt away from the cabin just in time to save herself.

Fires were burning everywhere.

More men were screaming.

“Bobbie!”

She heard her name and was sure she was dreaming….

But she wasn’t.

She shouted his name in return.

Logan suddenly burst through a wall of fire and smoke, racing toward her. A man, his face so blackened with smoke that he was unrecognizable, stepped between them and drew a sword.

Logan drew a pistol and shot him dead, then stepped over the body to reach her. “We have to get to the stern and jump. It’s dangerous, but it’s the only way,” he told her.

She stared at him, still fighting off disbelief that he had come for her.

She had been dying, literally dying, with her enemy’s hands closing around her throat, and then…

“Blair Colm,” she said.

“Forget him! We have to get off this ship. Now!”

He drew her back into the smoke, which helped to camouflage their escape. Logan had a sword, and he slashed their way through anyone who accosted them. When someone grabbed her from behind, she remembered her own weapon and broke his hold with a wild cut.

At last they reached the stern. She was stunned when Logan set off a flare. He had just lifted her to the rail when she cried out a warning. A man was looming behind him, a boarding ax raised high to strike. Logan ducked, and the ax thudded against the rail. Red let out a long scream as she lost her balance and went flying overboard.

She hit the water, which was like breaking through a hard floor from that height, and plunged into the depths. Then the survival instinct took over, and she kicked with all her strength, her lungs burning as she fought toward the firelight that marked the surface.

She made it, gasping, and heard the roar of a cannon. Treading water, she saw that a cannonball had struck hard and true, toppling the mainmast of Blair Colm’s ship.

Another struck, and another….

And then Blair Colm’s ship fired back.

She swam hard, knowing she had to get out from between the ships or risk being crushed. As she swam, she looked desperately around, praying with each rise and fall of the waves that she would see Logan’s face.

But she did not.

T
HE MAN WHO
had wielded the ax stepped back, seeking another weapon. He grinned, hoisted a spar and flew at Logan.

Logan danced away, calculating his opponent’s reach and weapon. He didn’t think he could shatter the spar with his sword, so he kept dancing, allowing his opponent to tire himself out following. Then he lunged, ducking beneath the spar to skewer the man through the middle. With shock in his eyes, the attacker fell back, clutching his gut, and sank down to the deck. Logan turned quickly and raced for the aft rail. Then a knife hurtled past him from behind, so close that he felt it brush by.

He turned.

Blair Colm stood mere feet away across the deck.

He stared at Logan and slowly unsheathed his sword.

The man’s ship was afire, his crew running about in a panic…

But the man looked completely calm. Heedless of the insanity around him.

“And who might you be?” he asked Logan.

“Logan Haggerty.
Laird
Logan Haggerty.”

“I know that name,” Blair said. “A young pup—grown older now, but I’d recognize you anywhere, Haggerty, you’re the spittin’ image of your father!—who thinks he’s quite the man. Well then,
Laird
Haggerty, come die like a man.”

“I won’t be the one dying,” Logan warned.

“You’ll die, just as all the little rats who oppose me die. You had it all, you ungrateful whelp. A man who raised you well. An inheritance you never deserved.
I
gave you all that.”

He was circling as he spoke, taunting Logan.

“You gave me all that?” Logan echoed. “No, what you
gave
me is the memory of my mother murdered, my land betrayed.”

“I gave you the will to fight!”

“My father, who defended his land and his people, gave me the will and the strength to fight. My mother, who had courage against all odds, showed me that a man is lost only when he has lost his soul.”

“Your father was a fool who could not see the truth of what was. And your mother…Ah, what a poor, defenseless little wretch she was. She died so easily, and so quickly. I can still remember the feel of my blade in her flesh.”

Rage soared within Logan.

He fought it.

They were both playing games of the mind now, trying to make each other forget that a duel to the death had to be fought with a clear head.

Blair strode forward, and Logan quickly parried the man’s first thrust, jumping over a pile of rigging. Then he caught his balance and attacked.

Their swords clashed hard, then clashed again. As they disengaged to strike again, Logan saw that the other man was bleeding. His coat was ripped, and a bloodstain had appeared on his arm, matching the red rivulets that had trickled down his face and neck to his collar. Logan pressed his advantage and came on hard.

Again, steel met steel, and again both men backed away.

“So she’s
your
whore now,” Colm taunted. “I shall finish her off as soon as I’ve dispatched you—or perhaps you’d like to kill her yourself? You’ve been sharing her, you know—with that…bloody pirate, the wretched Red Robert.”

Blair Colm slashed down hard at him as he spoke, but Logan merely smiled and easily parried the blow.

“She does sleep with Red Robert. Every night,” he said.

His amusement seemed to touch off something in the other man.

Blair Colm strode forward, swinging hard.

Logan caught the blow with his own weapon.

They were locked together, both straining to shove the other off, to seize the advantage. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw that Blair Colm’s men were regrouping.

They should have been saving the ship.

But it was as if hatred was contagious. Blackened with soot, bleeding, limping, they were coming forward with swords to join their master in battle.

Logan gave a mighty shove, forcing Blair Colm to stumble several feet back, then leapt to the rail, knowing it was his only chance.

As he shot into the sea, he heard the cannons roar even louder than before and knew that a true battle to the death had begun.

T
HEY WERE FAR
from shore, where the waves were large and just staying afloat took an almost superhuman effort. But to survive, Red knew she had to reach her own ship and somehow attract someone’s attention, but her strength was waning quickly.

She heard another roar, and a cannonball fell short, slicing through the water near her. She gasped and drank in seawater, then gasped again and couldn’t breathe.

Forcing herself to ease to her back and float, she found her breath again. Once more she scanned the sea, trying to position herself and choose a course to avoid both ships’ fire and take her to the
Eagle.
She knew Brendan would be firing fast and furiously now, trying to keep the heavier merchantman from causing more damage to their ship. He would board her if he could not sink her. Even now, the men were no doubt prepared with their grappling hooks and boarding axes, ready to wage hand-to-hand combat.

Where was Logan?

She kept swimming, her strength restored as she spotted the
Eagle.
The air around her was now with smoke and black powder, but she didn’t care, because her ship’s sails were still flying hard and proud.

And Blair Colm’s ship was crippled. She was limping, both masts and every sail destroyed.

But her cannons were still alive.

Red swam harder. She closed in on her own ship, and tried shouting for help, but water filled her mouth and drowned her words in her throat.

And then she saw someone looking over the rail at her.

Cassandra.

“It’s Bobbie!” the other woman cried. “Bobbie is in the water!”

A rope ladder was thrown down. Red grasped for it and missed. She tried again, but the ship was moving and the waves were high, and she was thrown hard against the hull.

She caught hold of the ladder and managed to climb a few rungs.

Then the ship swung hard, and she was tossed back into the sea.

Dazed, she sought the ladder again, but it eluded her.

“Oh, no you don’t! You’re not drowning. I won’t allow it!”

She turned.

Logan!

His face was running with soot and seawater, but his eyes were burning bright.

“Logan!”

“Get up that ladder,” he commanded.

She climbed, and he climbed right behind her, his chest bracing her when she feared she would fall.

She didn’t have to climb all the way to the top. Strong arms reached down for her. Brendan was there. And Peg-leg, Hagar, Silent Sam…even Jimmy O’Hara. Lord Bethany and Cassandra watched as she was dragged aboard.

She heard Logan clamber aboard behind her as she went from embrace to embrace, but then she pulled back.

“There can be none of this!” she cried quickly. “We’re engaged in battle!”

“The guns are manned,” Silent Sam assured her.

“And the grappling hooks are at the ready,” Hagar added.

She was weaving, she realized. Exhausted, relieved and trembling, she was near to falling.

Just then the swivel guns let out a resounding volley, and she staggered back, falling against Logan.

“Get her into the cabin,” Brendan ordered Logan.

Brendan saw her start to protest and said, “I can captain the ship for now.”

She stared at her cousin, who was her blood and her dearest friend, the only soul who shared her past, who knew her completely, who had loved and served her, no matter what her madness. She hugged him tightly, her emotions beyond words.

“Aye, Brendan, you can captain this ship,” she managed to say at last.

Then she was pulled from his arms and swept up into the embrace of a soaking wet man in filthy, bloodstained clothes who started carrying her toward her cabin. She allowed herself to relax in his arms and close her eyes.

If only for a moment.

H
E SET HER
down on her bunk and smoothed a sodden lock of hair from her forehead.

She stared at him. “I was so afraid for you,” she whispered.

“I’m so sorry I was detained,” he apologized lightly. Then he rose and hurried to the desk, where he seemed to know she kept a bottle of rum in the lower right-hand drawer. He brought it to her.

“Take a long swig.”

She did so, making a face. The liquor burned.

“I never really did like straight rum,” she told him.

He grinned, swigging in turn. “Right now,” he said, “it will sustain you.”

She brushed her fingers along his face. “Did you see…Colm?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Did you…kill him?”

He inhaled deeply. “No. I’m afraid that our battle was interrupted. I chose to live to fight another day and jumped.”

He was watching her intently, and she wasn’t sure why.

“I was so afraid when I didn’t see you in the water…”

“I already apologized for being late,” he teased, but then his expression grew serious. “I…did what I could as quickly as I could,” he said softly, then frowned, a finger touching her throat. “You’re…bruised. Oh, God. He—”

“He was in the midst of strangling me when an explosion sent us both flying,” she told him. “There has never been anything quite so timely in my life.”

He looked down, smiling, but she could see that he was trembling, as well. His eyes met hers again. “His face and neck were bleeding when we met,” he told her.

“Good,” she said emphatically.

He nodded gravely. “You had a knife?”

“Sadly, no. I was out of traditional weapons. But some fool left a bottle atop the desk.”

“Bless the drinkers,” he said, then took her hands. “You’re shaking, wet and cold. And the real battle is imminent. I’ll leave you to change, but be…careful when you stand. You’re not at full strength.”

She nodded, then said, “Logan…Cassandra, and Lord Horatio. They need to be below, or even here, in this cabin. They aren’t fighters.”

He nodded. “I will see that they head to safety.” He hesitated. “Is there a prayer that you will do the same?”

Something in his eyes was still searching for something inside her.

“Logan, I—”

But he was gone.

O
UT ON DECK
, Logan found Cassandra at Brendan’s side, loading pistols with shot. He looked from her to Brendan with surprise.

“She learns quickly,” the other man said.

“I wanted to be of use,” Cassandra informed him.

“When the fighting starts, you must head to the captain’s cabin or go below,” Brendan told her.

“Aye, you must,” Logan agreed, but neither of them was looking at him.

“Brendan, you might need—”

“Cassandra, if I am worrying about you, I will not be focused on my efforts,” Brendan said.

“Then I will head to safety, as you wish,” she told him.

“If the ship begins to sink—” Brendan warned.

“I will find a solid piece of timber, and I will let the current and the waves carry me to the closest shore,” she said. She spoke as if she were repeating something she had already told him a dozen times before.

They were closing in on Colm’s ship. A cannon spat flame from the opposing deck, and they all staggered for balance. This time they had been hit, and hit hard.

“Fire!” Hagar shouted.

Their eight starboard cannons roared in unison. The sound was deafening. But each ball made a direct hit on the opposing ship. She was already on fire, and now she had started listing.

But her crew was topside, shouting and raising their weapons.

Logan turned to Cassandra and asked, “Where is your father?”

“Below.”

“You must go to him,” he commanded.

She looked at Brendan, who nodded. She turned obediently.

Nearby, the smaller swivel guns began to fire. The men on Blair Colm’s ship screamed, some falling, other cursing with rage.

Logan looked at Brendan, and they both grinned. “It is at hand,” Brendan said.

“God go with us,” Logan agreed.

Then the captain’s cabin door opened. Red was dressed in fresh breeches and a clean shirt, a brace of guns buckled about her waist, sword belt in place, and knives at her ankles and upper arms.

Logan felt his heart ache.

And yet, even now, victory was not guaranteed. She needed to be able to defend herself if he and the others failed her. He had no right to ask her to do otherwise.

She looked at the two of them and arched a brow. “It’s time,” she said.

“Time,” Brendan agreed.

“Grappling hooks and axes at the ready! Men, slam her and board her!” he cried.

There was a mighty tremor and the sound of wood groaning as the two ships collided. Both crews began tossing grappling hooks, and men raged forward from both decks, brandishing their boarding axes. Pistols fired, and there were battle cries and screams of agony.

Logan pushed forward with Red’s cousin and crew, fending off those who attempted to board their ship. A man leapt from a broken mast to the rigging of their ship. Logan calculated his shot and fired, then watched as the man fell to the deck.

He spun around to battle a man with an ax. He used his second pistol, then drew a knife. He calculated his aim again and let it fly at a man who was leaping toward Peg-leg with a raised hatchet.

The men crashed into the rail, then flipped over it and fell into the sea.

Peg-leg nodded his thanks, let out a roar and boarded Blair Colm’s ship.

Within minutes, Red’s entire crew had raged over the side, pushing the battle onto the enemy’s deck, and now it would be hand-to-hand combat to the bitter end.

Logan brought down two opponents with his sword.

Brendan, at his back, fended off a furious giant, standing dead still, and moving with split-second precision to allow the man to impale himself on his sword as he attacked.

With the full effort of Red’s crew, the fighting was soon over. Colm’s crew had been reduced by previous events, and though the remaining men fought to the last, only about eighteen had survived to join the battle.

Logan dispatched a man, spun to protect his back and saw that all Red’s men were doing the same.

There was no one left to attack them.

Smoke billowed from the deck. The ship was on fire, and he reckoned she had taken grave damage to the hull, despite Blair Colm’s insistence that his merchantman could fend off their cannon.

“Abandon ship!” Brendan ordered.

Through the smoke, Logan could see Red. She was standing midship, looking at the piles of enemy dead. Logan knew exactly who she was looking for.

He felt the ship lurch and realized she was going down, stern first.

“Abandon ship!” he called to Red, but it was as if she didn’t hear. She was still examining the dead, searching desperately for Blair Colm.

Logan went over to her and caught hold of her shoulder. When she turned to him, her eyes were enormous and oddly clouded.

“Red, we’ve won. The ship is going down. We have to get off.”

She clutched his arms. “I don’t see him!” she cried.

“Red, you can’t keep looking for him. The ship is sinking. We’ve got to disengage before she brings us down, too.”

“Logan, I have to know he’s dead.”

He turned. Brendan had given the order to start disengaging. All the men were hastily abandoning the sinking ship, eager to reach their own.

“Red, we have to assume he’s dead and save ourselves.”

She pushed him away and started searching almost frantically through the dead men once more.

He followed behind her, swearing, then swung her around to face him.

“Don’t make me do it,” he warned her.

Her eyes widened.

“You wouldn’t dare!”

But he did. There was no other choice. He took a swing.

“You wretched bas—”

It was all she got out. She hadn’t defended herself quickly enough, and he caught her jaw in just the right place. She slumped forward into his arms.

He raced to the center rail. The lines had all been disengaged. The ships were already easing apart.

“Logan!”

It was Peg-leg.

He didn’t ask why Logan had their captain over his shoulder. He just shouted for a line.

A rope swung toward Logan. He caught it, doubled it around his free wrist, stepped atop the rail and leapt. He held Red tightly to him, and together they swung onto the deck of the
Eagle.

Brendan was instantly at his side.

“She’s hurt? What happened to her?” Brendan asked.

Logan stood. “She’ll be fine in an hour or two.”

Brendan stared at him.

“She wouldn’t leave the ship,” Logan explained.

A strange sucking sound alerted them both, and they turned. The ship began to rock violently under them as the merchantman started to go down fast, creating a vortex. Several men stumbled, trying to keep their balance.

The ship was gone completely in a matter of seconds. Then broken timbers and bits of wreckage began popping to the surface, as if spat up by a mighty mouth beneath the waves.

There was dead silence for a long moment, and then a cheer went up among the men.

“Victory! Victory!”

For a man called “silent,” Sam had a shout that could cause the ocean itself to tremble.

R
ED
,
UNCONSCIOUS
on the deck, didn’t get to hear it.

She was drifting.

And it was so sweet….

She could sense the waves as they gently caressed the ship, and she could almost feel the gentle kiss of the sun and the breeze.

And then…

She felt it.

The twinge of soreness at her jaw. Her throat hurt, too. Most upsetting of all, the pain was pushing away the absurdly pleasant feel of the dream.

She opened her eyes and blinked. She was in her cabin. Her hand rose instinctively to her jaw. The soreness was very definitely real.

“You’re awake.”

She blinked again, and turned.

Logan was at her captain’s desk. In her chair. He looked to be annoyingly comfortable there, too. A bottle of rum sat before him, but he was drinking from a porcelain cup.

His legs, in dry, well-fitting breeches, were stretched out so his booted feet sat atop her desk. He was leaning back in her chair, his hands folded behind his head.

She frowned.

“You hit me,” she accused him angrily.

“I did.”

“I was looking for Blair Colm.”

He shook his head, eyes narrowed in disdain.

“The ship was sinking. Did sink—seconds after we got off her.”

“But—”

“You would have gone down with her, you fool.”

She swallowed, closing her eyes again. He was right.

But he was
wrong,
as well.

“He’s still out there.”

“Red…”

He moved at last, swinging his legs down. “Blair Colm’s ship sank. Every man aboard went down with her.”

“But I couldn’t find him,” she said.

“Because he was somewhere else when he died or had already been shoved overboard.” He growled in frustration. “The point is, the ship went down. In another few seconds—if Brendan hadn’t given the order to disengage—you might have allowed it to sink your own ship, along with all these men who would so readily die for you!”

She fell silent, because he was right, and she didn’t want to think that she had so recklessly disregarded the lives of others in her pursuit of vengeance.

But she was still afraid.

“I didn’t see him dead.”

“Does it matter so much?” he asked gently. “So long as he is gone, so long as he can’t hurt anyone ever again, does it matter so much that you didn’t strike the final blow?”

She shook her head.

“Except that…”

“What?” he demanded.

“What if he’s not dead?”

She was startled when he strode over and drew her to her feet. His hands were suddenly at the belt that held her pistols. They were off before she knew it, tossed onto the table.

“What are you—”

“Just shut up.”

She reached for his hands, but too late; her sword belt was gone, as well.

This was madness. She was still dizzy when she stood.

Because he had hit her.

And now he was acting as if he were master of the universe, master of
her…

“Logan, this isn’t the time or the place—”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he snapped.

She stared into his eyes. They were cold, and he was clearly angry.

“I beg your pardon?”

“As well you should.”

“What?”

She tried to stop him, but he was stripping her of all weapons. “Logan, stop acting like a madman! This is my ship.
I
am captain here.”

“That you are. And as a decent captain, you’re going to go out there and thank every man who saved your ship and your hide, and celebrate the victory with your crew.”

She couldn’t protest, couldn’t explain that she was still desperately holding on…

Holding on to what?

Power?

No. She didn’t need to be all-powerful.

She was holding on to…

Fear.

But she found herself propelled toward the door, and she couldn’t fight him, couldn’t even figure out how he managed to keep her moving and open the door at the same time.

As she stepped out, she saw the dear, familiar—and smiling—faces of those who had given her all she possessed: this ship and a means of existence and, several times over in the past days, life itself.

As soon as they saw her, the cry went up.

“Hail our captain!”

And then Brendan stepped forward and gave her a fierce hug. “Bobbie, we’ve done it! We are avenged. His ship is sunk.”

“And that murdering dog who intended to see
me
hang is at the bottom of the sea with it. My girl, this is a tremendous victory,” Lord Haggerty said.

“Grog, Captain, just as you like it,” Hagar said, coming forward with a mug. “To victory over tyrants, liars, murderers and thieves!”

She took the cup and drank deeply. She noticed that Cassandra was there, too, and even in men’s clothes, she was beautiful. Her face was so alive, her enthusiasm sincere. She stood at her father’s side, her arm tucked through his, and she seemed completely at ease in the company of a pirate crew.