Wherever You Are (3 page)

“What is your name?” he asked, carefully spacing each word.

She swallowed, her throat working, but no words escaping.

He spoke to her in rapid Spanish, most of which she didn’t understand. In the middle of his tirade he switched to yet a third language, and after several moments of angry speech his voice trailed off.

They stared at each other in the dim light with the ship swaying and the straw scratchy under her feet. She couldn’t read his eyes but his face was hard, his expression thoughtful.

“I didn’t set fire to your ship.”

His head tilted, the thoughtful expression deepening. “Didn’t you?”

She shook her head, unable to tear her gaze from his. That whole sense of the unreal descended on her, numbing her. More seconds passed. Seconds in which the large man stared at her with eyes that seemed to pick at her thoughts. Suddenly his face hardened, the thoughtful expression gone. With another hard look he turned on his heels and said over his shoulder, “Flog him.”

Juliana gasped. “No.” She rushed forward.

Thomas reached for her.
Air. Air. Breathe. Breathe. Calm down. This isn’t happening.
Her body did that separating-itself-from-reality thing again. Surely they weren’t going to flog her.

Surely not.

Thomas’s arm wrapped around her waist.

“I didn’t do it,” she cried out, but the man was halfway down the corridor. She turned to Thomas. “I didn’t do it.” Panicked, running on raw terror, she shoved the heel of her hand into his nose. He stumbled back as blood spurted.

“Bloody hell!” He covered his nose with his hand but blood continued to pour down his chin.

Juliana ran out the door.

“Hell and damnation! Come back here!”

Juliana raced down the narrow corridor in the opposite direction as the man who’d ordered her flogged.

Flogged. How barbaric was that? Where the hell was she that men still flogged each other?

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Don’t let him catch you. Keep running.

She stumbled. Her shoulder scraped the rough wooden wall and tore the fine silk of her ruined blouse.

“Stop, I say!”

She brushed at a stray tear with the back of her hand. Her legs trembled, threatening to give out, but she pushed through the weakness. Until a wall loomed before her.

With a cry she flung her arms out. Her torn and bloody palms smacked against the wall.

End of the line.

She leaned her forehead against the wood, her shoulders shuddering from unshed tears. The pounding of feet had her spinning around. Her eyes widened as the two obviously furious males came closer.

Thomas grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward him, his face still smeared with blood, his gaze hard and unyielding. “Bloody fool,” he muttered.

The captain leaned forward, brown eyes so cold and full of malice they made her shiver. “You may run all you want but there’s nowhere to go, whelp.”

“I didn’t do it,” she said. “Please believe me. I didn’t do it.”

He crossed his arms and leaned back. “Then who did?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did you get on my ship?”

“I…” She didn’t know that either. Oh, Lord, what was happening to her?

A corner of his lips lifted in a sardonic smile. “My orders stand. And you’ll get two extra for breaking my quartermaster’s nose.”

The breath went out of her. Her body went cold and something inside her died. This wasn’t a dream or a hallucination. Somehow, someway this was real.

Thomas yanked on her wrist and she was forced to stumble along behind him.

The captain was gone. She didn’t remember seeing him leave.

They ascended a set of steps and headed down another corridor. There were more signs of life up here. Men with hard eyes and even harder bodies who stared at her as she passed. Men who spit at her and cursed in languages she didn’t understand. She shrank closer to Thomas.

After another set of steps they emerged into the sunshine. She blinked against the brightness until her eyes adjusted and she saw they were on one of the top decks. If she remembered correctly—and she wasn’t sure she remembered correctly—it was one hell of a drop to the ocean. An ocean she couldn’t swim in because she didn’t know how to swim. She had a choice. Flogging. Or drowning.

Thomas led her to one of several massive poles. Masts, as they were called in sailing language. Still holding her hands, he bent and pulled something out of a canvas bag. A long rope, unraveled at one end so nine or ten very long threads hung loose, each end knotted. She swallowed. This was what he was going to beat her with. The rope and the knots would cut into the skin of her back.

It was a no brainer. She much preferred to drown.

Sailors were beginning to notice. Some cast speculative looks her way. One man’s gaze flickered away when hers met his. She didn’t have much time. Already they were beginning to drift closer.

Thomas steered her toward the mast and when he released her hands she bolted.

Behind her Thomas cursed. Men were laughing and jeering. One stepped in front of her and bent his knees, his arms wide. He looked like a football player ready to tackle but Juliana was lighter on her feet and she dodged him, managing by the grace of God to make it to the railing.

Don’t look down
. She threw one leg over. Before she had time to throw the other over, she was grabbed by the shoulders and pulled back.

“No!” She struggled in her captor’s hold. It was the same man who’d tried to tackle her.

“It ain’t so bad,” he laughed. “It’ll ’urt for a moment or two.” Everyone around him laughed as well. Juliana tried to kick him but he side-stepped.

“Now that ain’t nice.” He dragged her back to Thomas, who was glaring at her, his nose bigger than ever. It took Thomas and the other man to spread her arms wide. She fought with everything she had but her strength was nothing compared to theirs. She was pushed against the pole. The breath rushed out of her. Her arms were pulled tight around it, her wrists bound. She could hardly breathe and her arms were stretched to their limit.

She tried not to think of the sight she made, spread eagle on the mast of a sailing ship that shouldn’t be in existence in the twenty-first century.

Dirty men crowded around, closing in on her, their stench gagging her as tears pooled in her eyes. This was really going to happen. Splinters of the wooden mast pressed into the skin of her arms. The wood was wet beneath her feet and the harsh sun shone down on her, heating her shoulders. The smell of brine and the scent of unwashed men nearly gagged her.

“Cat out o’ bag!” someone yelled.

“What say, mates? How many lashes d’ye think?”

“Ten,” one yelled, followed by a loud raucous of laughter and jeers.

“Twenty!” someone else yelled. A chorus of boos erupted.

The taunts vibrated around her.

“Nah, he’s a strong bugger. I say thirty.”

Juliana’s eyes snapped open.

He’s a strong bugger.

Flog him.

Him? She took another look at the men betting on her ability to stand upright while beaten with a rope. With her shoulder length hair, black pants and white silk shirt she looked like them. In fact, they all wore some sort of silk shirt and pants. With the exception of clean-cut Thomas, every one of them had long hair. The only difference seemed to be that she had all her teeth and had taken a bath sometime within the last six months.

“Wait!” she tried to pull away from the mast but the rope cut into her wrists. “Stop, please. You’re making a mistake. I didn’t set fire to the ship. I swear. I’m not what you think. I’m…” The men stopped jeering and were looking at her in surprise and anger.

The one who’d kept her from jumping stepped forward. “You set the cap’n’s ship afire?” His voice was low, laced with fury.

She was bound so tight to the mast it was hard to breathe, but her mind whirled. For some reason these men hadn’t known why she was being flogged and they definitely didn’t know she was a woman. A woman among a ship full of men who looked like they hadn’t seen a female in months. Who looked as if even if they had seen one they had no honor in them to treat her with respect and they surely didn’t respect her if they thought she set their ship on fire.

Thomas stepped into her line of sight. “Tell me who sent you. I’ll give you one last chance.” There was no warmth in his eyes, no remorse for tying a person, a human being, to a pole with the intent to beat him—or her.

Tell him. Tell him you’re a woman.

What was worse? To be flogged or gang raped?

He ran the roped whip through his hands.

“I didn’t do it,” she whispered.

His eyes flickered over her face and after a moment he nodded. “So be it.”
 

She lifted her gaze to the crowd of men and immediately noticed a newcomer. A woman with a long, black braid draped over her shoulder but dressed like the other men. Her expression was not one of anticipation like most of the men placing wagers, but hard acceptance, her lips a thin line. She placed one hand on her hip while the other rested comfortably on a sword at her other hip.

Juliana didn’t see Thomas raise his arm, but she heard the whip whiz through the air. The knots dug into her skin, ripping through the sensitive flesh on her back. She arched her body and pulled against her bindings. Pain erupted. Pain like she’d never felt before. It buckled her knees and set every nerve ending on fire.

Her screams echoed off the billowing sails, reverberated through the watchful crowd. And ascended to the heavens.

Chapter Three

Juliana slumped forward. She tried to breathe through the pain but there was no breathing through this pain. White-hot, the searing agony stole her breath. It engulfed her, took over her senses until her stomach heaved.

The second lash tore her shirt in half and ripped through already shredded skin. Juliana threw her head back and screamed again. If she could have found her voice she would have begged Thomas to stop, would have admitted to setting fire to the ship. Anything to stop the agony of her skin being torn from her body.

She gritted her teeth and ground her forehead into the mast.

Thomas loomed in front of her. His face faded in and out of focus. His voice came from far away. “Tell me who sent you.”

She licked dry lips, trying to think of a name. Any name. She didn’t remember her own at the moment.

The noise from the betting sailors rose until the wooden deck vibrated. Thomas stepped away and Juliana heard the rope fly through the air.

“Cease!”

The rope whizzed past Juliana’s head and hit the mast high above her. In a great whoosh she let out her breath. Only the ropes lashing her to the mast kept her upright.

Forehead pressed to the weathered wood, she turned her head and opened her eyes. The woman she’d seen earlier strode forward. The men, who just moments ago were tossing around bets and laughing, fell silent but watched avidly. The slap of the waves against the hull and the clink of the sails above filled the sudden silence.

Aqua-colored eyes flashed fire as the woman yanked the rope from Thomas’s hands. Afraid she would swing the rope at her, Juliana cringed and gasped at the tremendous pain of the slight movement.

Thomas stepped into her line of sight, next to the black-haired woman.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” The woman’s voice was all hard fury.

Thomas took a hesitant step back. “Captain’s orders, Cap’n. Ma’am.”

One finely curved black brow inched upward. “Captain’s orders?”

Thomas swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Captain Morgan, ma’am.”

Both eyebrows shot up. “Captain Morgan ordered you to flog a woman?”

Thomas’s gaze swung to Juliana. His mouth fell open and his eyes went wide with shock. “A woman, ma’am?”

The black-haired lady ripped Juliana’s shirt away from her back and pointed to the sides of her exposed breasts. Juliana was in far too much pain to object. “Obviously, that is a woman.”

She pulled her wicked-looking sword from its sheath and raised it high. Juliana flinched and closed her eyes.

Please, God, a quick end. Please stop this agony
. She relished the thought of ending this torture and if she could find her voice, would thank the woman for killing her.

But the sword silently cut her bindings and without the support of the ropes, Juliana collapsed onto the deck, not caring that dozens of men were leaning forward, staring at her as if they’d just pulled an alien from the ocean. A wet sticky substance covered the front of her and she realized with sick certainty that she was lying in a pool of her own blood.

Hands touched her arm and with a cry, Juliana shrank from them.

“It’s all right,” the lady whispered in her ear. “No one else will hurt you.”

She let the woman help her stand. Immediately her world went dark. Her stomach heaved and she threw up all over the deck. The woman held her gently, waiting for the spasms to abate. She began to shiver even though the wind was balmy, almost hot.

Hot wind.

Come inside, sweetheart. It’s too cold to talk out here.

Emily Langtree. Zach’s mom had said that when Juliana visited. It’d been cold. And now it was hot.

Slowly she straightened. The skin on her back screamed in agony, causing her stomach to churn even more but blessedly she didn’t throw up again. Her vision faded and all she concentrated on was standing upright.

“Give me your shirt,” the woman said to Thomas.

“My shirt?”

“Your shirt, damn it.”

Thomas yanked his shirt over his head. Carefully the woman pulled it over Juliana, covering her bloody back and exposed breasts. Juliana whimpered. Every sigh of the wind, every dip of the ship on the ocean, every muscle twitch added to her misery until there was nothing but pain.

She wished the woman would put her out of her misery. Her rescuer turned to the unruly mob who now watched silently. “Back to work,” she barked out, and the frightening men scrambled away.

Morgan sat at his desk with his sextant and map in front of him. He needed to chart their course to London, but his mind kept wandering to the past.