Ransome's Quest (19 page)

Shaw returned to gazing out the stern windows. “If you disobey me again, I will forget you and I share the same blood.”

Henry grabbed the edge of the table and pulled himself up. “When are you going to admit that what I did turned out to work for our advantage?”

“I fail to see how that’s true.”

“It got her away from the house. With the protection her husband and that overseer set up after the Ransome girl was abducted, your men might not have been able to get to Julia Witherington—Mrs. Ransome—anywhere but away from the plantation.” Henry opened the casket holding his brother’s remaining few cigars.

Shaw snapped the lid shut before his brother could take one. “Do not mistake mere coincidence for a successful plan. Your greediness could have ruined everything.”

Henry shrugged. “I could have taken the Ransome girl myself. If only I’d recognized her when she first came to speak to me,” he muttered to himself. “She’d never have broken off the engagement.”

Shaw laughed, though he felt no mirth. “Even in that you failed. How could Charlotte Ransome be the one woman in the whole of Jamaica who didn’t fall for your supposed charms?”

“If I’d had more time, I could have wooed her back to me. I made her fall in love with me once. I could have done it again.” Henry rubbed at the red marks around his throat.

“I find that highly unlikely.”

Shaw turned at the soft female voice. Near his feet Julia Ransome pushed herself up into a sitting posture from her prone position on the floor and lifted her bound hands to feel her right cheek.

“So good of you to rejoin us, Mrs. Ransome.” Shaw leaned over and grabbed her jaw, yanking her head to such an angle that the light from the windows fell over the side of her face, showing that her cheek and eye were already swelling under the red mark that would, in a few hours, turn purple. “However, it seems you did not learn your lesson. Unless you want to feel the back of my hand again, you will keep your thoughts and opinions behind your teeth.”

Julia worked hard at focusing on Shaw and his words through the throbbing of her cheek and the searing pain in her side. After a night locked in a windowless, airless compartment barely large enough for her to sit and stretch her legs out in front of her, she’d made the mistake of once again demanding an explanation as to why she’d been brought here when dragged to Shaw’s cabin earlier.

She’d been in the middle of her statement when Shaw smashed the back of his fist into her cheek, knocking her unconscious. Now, in addition to cracked ribs, she had a bruised cheek and an eye swollen nearly shut.

Shaw jerked her jaw upward, and Julia struggled to gain her feet rather than let him cause her further injury. After another long moment of the painful grip, Shaw pushed her backward with a sinister smile. Julia took a few steps to keep from falling to the floor again.

“Why not just kill her now and be done with it? Ransome will never know the difference.” Henry Winchester seemed to take a measure of cheer in the thought of killing her, given his tone of voice.

“No ransom will be paid if I am dead.”

Shaw raised his fist, but Julia refused to cringe.

“Ransom?” Henry laughed. “You think we took you for money? Did you not discover already that I could take as much as I wanted from your coffers without that slave of yours realizing it?”

“Had it not been for Jeremiah’s careful calculations, I might never have caught the false entries.” Julia refused to rise to Winchester’s bait about Jeremiah’s status as a freeman.

“But if he—”

“Enough.” Shaw slammed his fist on the Chinese lacquer table, startling both Winchester and Julia.

“If you did not take me to hold for ransom, why did you take me?” She tensed, waiting for Shaw’s blow. After all, the last time she asked, he had knocked her senseless.

“Revenge has a value far greater than gold.” He traced the edge of the table with one finger. “Your father and husband will learn what it feels like to have their family taken away from them one person at a time until no one is left. Then they will know my pain.”

Julia shook her head—which reminded her she was on a ship under sail. Whether from Shaw’s blow or the motion of the sea beneath her feet, her stomach threatened revolt. “But you have not lost your family. I heard you say Mr. Winchester is your brother.”

Shaw took a step toward her, brows in a straight, angry line. “I lost everything because of your father and your husband. When I learned of my mother’s and sisters’ deaths, I vowed I would exact revenge on the men responsible.”

Papa and William were accountable for the deaths of Henry and Shaw’s mother and sisters? Not possible. “Tell me why you blame them for the loss of your family.”

“’Twas because of that upstart Ransome. At seventeen I was pressed into the navy. A year later I was assigned to
Indomitable
under the command of Captain Witherington, bound for Jamaica. We had been promised we would make our fortunes in the Caribbean, hunting pirates and privateers. The night we reached Barbados, we celebrated.” Shaw glared at her as if demanding her agreement that celebrating was the appropriate thing to do.

“I still fail to see—”

“I’m not finished yet,” he snapped. “The purser was stingy, so my mess mates and I subdued him and took the key to the stores to liberate what remained of the grog. Midshipman Ransome came down to act the little king and order us to be quiet, as we were disturbing the captain’s family with our revelry.”

“And that’s why—” Julia swallowed her question at Shaw’s menacing step toward her.

“The purser revived and told Ransome I was the one who had hit him. Ransome tried to arrest me. So I hit him. A few times.”

“Oh.” Julia covered her mouth with her bound hands.

“Captain Witherington sentenced me to be executed upon reaching Jamaica, but I escaped. I signed on to a French privateer, which was then taken by pirates. After weeks of imprisonment and torture, they made me part of their crew. I knew the Royal Navy would never stop hunting for Arthur Winchester, so I took the name Shaw—my mother’s family name.” Shaw dropped onto a velvet settee in the corner of the cabin and sprawled on it.

“I came looking for him several years later,” Henry took up the story.

Julia shuffled around until the backs of her legs touched the seat under the stern windows—where she could see both Shaw and Winchester.

“When Arthur was sentenced—and then escaped—the navy stopped his payments. Our mother and sisters and I ended up in the poorhouse. Mother, Elizabeth, and Mary fell ill and died after just a few weeks. I escaped by agreeing to sign on as crew on a supply ship sailing to the West Indies. Arthur had managed to get one letter through to us, to let us know he was still alive and still in the Caribbean. It took me a year to find him. By then he had seized command of the pirate ship.”

Julia twisted her wrists, trying to alleviate the raw, burning sensation under the ropes binding them together. “Your mother and sisters died of illness in the poorhouse. How can that be the fault of anyone?”

This time it was Henry rather than Shaw who attacked. He bolted from his chair and grabbed Julia by the throat, pushing her down onto the bench and knocking the back of her head against the windowsill. “Your father and husband interfered with my brother—sentenced him to execution, branded him dishonorable—and my mother was unable to bear the humiliation of the reports in the London newspapers of my brother’s supposed misdeeds.”

Black spots danced in Julia’s peripheral vision. She clawed at Winchester’s hand, trying to get him to let go or loosen his grip.

“Release her, Henry. A quick death is too good for her. Besides, I want her husband to witness the deed.”

Fear pounded through Julia’s body with the deep gulps of breath she took. She wasn’t sure what to pray for. The sooner William caught up with them, the shorter her life expectancy; but though she hoped he would find her quickly, the longer she stayed on this ship, the more opportunities she might have for escape.

“Henry, take the launch back to Kingston. Spread the word that the pirate Shaw has taken Julia Witherington Ransome of the Tierra Dulce plantation and that it is because of a debt of honor Commodore Ransome owes me.” Shaw rose and came to lean over Julia, putting his face only inches from hers. “Because when I complete my mission, I want everyone to know it was Shaw who killed William and Julia Ransome.”

C
harlotte flung her head to the side, making her short hair flip. “I will not go back with you.”

Ned stared, openmouthed, at her. “You must return with me, Charlotte. You cannot stay on a pirate’s ship, no matter how noble and courteous you believe him to be.” He paced Salvador’s cabin. “And for all his explanations that he targeted Tierra Dulce’s ships because he knew them to be the richest, I do not believe him. He is hiding something.”

She drummed her fingers on the dark tabletop. “And I told you it is not because of him that I refuse to return to
Audacious
. Ned, my reputation is already ruined. Even if we tell others that Salvador rescued me from another pirate and was bringing me home, you cannot take the time to return me to Kingston—not when finding Julia is of utmost importance. I cannot stay on
Vengeance
, but I cannot go with you on
Audacious
, either.”

“We can put you ashore at Negril and secure overland transportation back to Kingston.”

Charlotte snorted a laugh. “And how, exactly, do you believe that will be safer for me?”

Ned wanted to tear his hair in frustration. Instead, he stopped at the end of the table and wrapped his hands around the finials of the chair in front of him. “I surrender. What is your solution?”

“Salvador’s sailing master.” Charlotte smiled sweetly at him.

Ned thought about shaking her until she gave a straight answer but settled for increasing his grip on the chair. “What about him?”

“Jean Baptiste had his own church in New Orleans before he ran away for fear of being captured and put into slavery.” She raised her eyebrows and nodded her head.

The chair started rattling against the floor under Ned’s grip. “And what has that to do with you and where you will deign to go?”

Charlotte sighed and rolled her eyes. “Ned, he is a minister. That means he can marry us.”

The chair stopped rattling with a thump as Ned released his grip. “Marry us?”

“Yes. If I return to
Audacious
as your wife, none of the crew will question my presence there, as we have already determined you cannot turn me out on land. And it ameliorates any blight on my reputation. After all, you would not marry me if I were a woman with a soiled reputation.”

Oh, he would marry her no matter how soiled her reputation. But marry her now? To even entertain the idea was foolish. William had not given his consent when Ned told him he’d asked Charlotte to be his wife.

“No. I cannot.” He crossed his arms, clinging to that decision.

“You mean…you no longer wish to marry me?” Charlotte’s voice turned reedy and high pitched. “It
is
because of my reputation. You believe my honor to be too damaged and that it will reflect poorly on you.” She stood so quickly her chair fell backward. “I never thought you would—”

Ned rounded the table and grabbed her by the shoulders, kissing her before she could accuse him of anything horrible. Her soft lips, and the way her body melted into his, added wind to the sails of his confusion. Before he lost all his senses, he pulled back.

“I still want to marry you. Never doubt that. But without your brother’s blessing, it would not be right to do so.” He tucked her head under his chin so he did not have to see the disappointment in her face.

“William will understand. I am certain there is no one else he would rather see me marry than you.”

Pride expanded in Ned’s chest.
Pride goeth before a fall.
The memory of the Scripture deflated him.

“And it is a matter of honor, Ned. If you do not marry me, no one else will. After all, it is partially your responsibility that I lived in the cockpit aboard
Audacious
for so many weeks. You could have turned me over to William when we docked in Madeira.”

He growled in the back of his throat. Again, he wanted to shake her, but this time settled for increasing the pressure of his embrace until she squeaked. He loosened his hold, kissed the top of her head, and then held her at arm’s length.