Sea Fire (14 page)

When they reached the
Cristobel
, Tinker shouldered the trunk up the rope ladder flung from her deck by another of her makeshift crew. O’Reilly, his offer to help with the clearly rebellious rug curtly declined, followed. Jon, carrying his burden easily, brought up the rear, and the ladder was pulled up after them.

The deck was alive with men who were doing their best to get the ship ready to put out again to sea. Few of the former prisoners were experienced seamen; there were just enough of those to form a very skeleton crew. The rest were, at least, willing to learn and hardworking. Jon had ruthlessly weeded out those who weren’t, and had put them ashore along with the vessel’s former captain and crew and most of the women prisoners, who were quite willing to go. Jon knew that it would be only a matter of time before word of the mutiny got back to England and ships were sent in pursuit. But by that time, he hoped fervently that the
Cristobel
would be well away.

Jon strode briskly along the deck toward the captain’s cabin under the quarterdeck. As the only man aboard who had ever captained a ship of this size, he had been selected by default. But from the first he had made it clear that he expected to be obeyed. The men had come to respect his knowledge, his fairness, and his sheer physical size, and there had been little trouble. Those who had seemed bent on making mischief had been re-imprisoned in the hold; they, too, had been put ashore with the others. Jon knew from his long years as a pirate captain that mutiny was like measles: contagious. It had happened once on the
Cristobel
, and he meant to do his utmost to see that it didn’t happen again.

The captain’s cabin was small and dingy, as was everything else on the prison ship. Besides the bunk, it had only an ugly, belching coal stove and a small square table bolted to the floor, with two straight-backed chairs for furnishings. The bunk was a hard,
narrow shelf built right into the wall. That it was hellishly uncomfortable Jon knew only too well from the week he had already spent sleeping on it.

When he had entered and closed the door behind him, Jon lit a candle. Then he lowered a wriggling Cathy, still wrapped in the rug, to the dusty plank floor, setting her carefully on her feet. Slowly he unwound the rug from about her. She was very dishevelled, her golden hair tumbling over her shoulders to stream across her heaving breasts to her waist in wild profusion. That flimsy orange thing that was all she wore barely veiled her charms. The gag in her mouth effectively prevented her from speaking, but then, she didn’t have to: her eyes said it all for her. If looks could kill, Jon thought, he would be lying dead at her feet. He took savage satisfaction from the realization. By the time he had finished with her, she would have good cause to feel that way!

“I’m going to take the gag off now, but I warn you: give me any trouble and I’ll put it back. And leave it there! Do you understand?”

Those slanting sapphire eyes still looked murderous, but after an obviously reluctant moment she nodded. Turning her around, Jon worked the knot loose and removed the cloth tied around her head. Cathy spat out the wet and crumpled rag that he had stuffed in her mouth. Then, ankles and wrists still bound, she whirled rather clumsily to face him. The lower part of her face was pinkened from the chafing of the gag; her lips were dry-looking and slightly swollen. She was also quivering from head to toe with temper.

“This time I really do believe you’ve lost your mind, Jonathan Hale!” she spat, running her tongue over her dry lips. “How dare you manhandle me in such a fashion? You are a low-down, loathsome, stupid pig, and if I’d had any sense I would have let them hang you!”

“Why didn’t you?” he drawled, his eyes narrowing dangerously at her abuse. “I admit, that part has had me in something of a
puzzle. What happened, Cathy? Did the thought of me being hanged actually prick that very convenient little conscience of yours? Is that why you and Harold arranged to have me transported and sold as a slave instead? Neat, that. Your guilty past safely and permanently out of the way without a spot of blood on those lily-white hands. Tell me, just as a matter of curiosity, how did you propose to rid yourself of Cray?”

“That is a filthy thing to say!” Cathy was nearly speechless with fury. “You know full well, you ungrateful cad, that I love Cray more than anything in the world! I would never want to rid myself of him, as you put it. And I loved you! You notice that I said loved! Past tense! Because after the way you’ve behaved to me tonight, I begin to wonder if I’ve ever even known you!”

“Next I suppose you’re going to try to tell me that you did it all for love of me?” he mocked, only a muscle twitching convulsively at the corner of his mouth belying his light tone.

“I did! I did!
I did!
” Her voice rose to a crescendo as she screeched the words at him.

“Like hell you did.” He dismissed her claim brutally. Rage flared like a flash fire in Cathy’s eyes.

“You have a mind like a sewer!” she said in a shaking voice. “You sicken me, did you know that? You’ve been warped beyond saving! You. . . .”

“That’s enough!” he ordered sharply, his face grim. “I don’t have time to listen while you spin your little web of lies. Unless we want dear Harold and his buddies to catch up with us, we have to sail with the ten o’clock tide. And we wouldn’t want that, would we, love?”

The taunting way he called her “love” told her he meant just the opposite. Cathy, glaring up at him as he stood towering threateningly over her, nearly snarled with wrath.

“Oh, yes, we would!” she said venomously, and at that moment she almost meant it.

“The truth will
out,” he quoted ironically, then took her arm, pushing her ungently toward the bunk.

“What do you think you’re doing now? Take your hands off me!”

At her attempted resistance Jon bent and scooped her easily up in his arms. Fiercely Cathy resented the overwhelming strength that made her helpless as a babe in arms against him.

“Oh, no, my sweet. We’ve been through this before, remember? I’m not taking any chances on leaving you loose in here, only to return to find that my pretty little bird has flown her not so pretty cage.”

“You can’t mean to keep me tied!” Cathy gasped indignantly, wriggling wildly in his arms. He controlled her struggles with little seeming difficulty, smiling down at her unpleasantly all the while.

“Can’t I? Try me!” With that he dropped her without warning onto the bunk. Its thin mattress was hard as a board, and Cathy winced from the abrupt contact. She had been so knocked about already tonight that she ached all over, and this last jolt certainly did nothing to make her feel better! But she didn’t have time now to worry about her aches and pains. Disregarding her still bound ankles and wrists, Cathy struggled to get to her feet.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Jon was pushing her back with one hand against her chest. Then, to keep her in place, he straddled her, pinioning her bucking body between his knees.

Cathy lay on her back, twisting uselessly, her bound hands striking out at him until he caught them and drew them up over her head As he secured them with a piece of rope to the bunk frame, she called him all the filthy names she had ever heard. He ignored her, going calmly about his business. When he had her hands positioned to suit him, he stood up, moving down to the foot of the bunk. Cathy kicked at him, aiming viciously for his groin. Jon caught her flailing feet by the rope that bound them, and despite her efforts accorded them the same treatment
he had her hands. Cathy was left lying helpless, her arms bound together at the wrists and stretched above her head, her ankles bound and secured to the end of the bunk. Her knees were raised and slightly bent, her nightdress hitched up around her slim white thighs. The long, pale length of her legs gleamed invitingly. Golden tangles of hair streamed across the bunk to spill in an unruly mass toward the floor. Spots of angry scarlet color burned becomingly in her cheeks, while her eyes threw sapphire daggers at him. She seemed to have run out of invective at last, for she lay panting and glaring silently at him. Jon stared down at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then his eyes flickered. With an almost savage gesture, he reached down and twitched the hem of her nightdress into its proper place about her ankles. Then, without a word, he turned on his heel and stalked from the cabin, pausing only to blow out the candle as he went.

Out on deck, Jon drank deeply of the rapidly cooling night air, hoping that it would help to clear his mind. The little bitch’s fragile beauty and pitiful mewlings were, unbelievably, beginning to cloud his judgement once more. Was it possible that she had done what she had done for love of him, as he had asked her so sarcastically? No! He ruthlessly extinguished that tiny flicker of hope. If she had truly wanted to save him from the gallows “because she loved him,” he mocked mirthlessly, there were any number of things she could have done that did not involve marrying a wealthy lord or letting that lord use her body. Her father would have helped, for Cray’s sake if for no other reason. That mangy-looking butler who had admitted him to the house on Grosvenor Square had said that Sir Thomas was much improved, out of danger, in fact. So the lying bitch needn’t think that she could plead her father’s illness as an answer to that! Or she could have bribed a guard to let him escape, or. . . . Besides, out of her own mouth she stood condemned. That day she had come to Newgate she had
admitted everything, then walked calmly away, leaving him shattered. He had actually howled out his grief like an animal in pain. No, it was only now, when she feared that he might exact some sort of revenge, that she was once again bleating about her supposed love for him. Jon tried to convince himself that it was a desire for revenge that had sent him sailing after her into La Coruña, carrying so much canvas that sometimes even he had questioned his sanity. Painful as it was, it was time he faced facts: like better men before him, he had been taken for a ride by a two-faced little slut who was perfectly prepared to trade her body for whatever she wanted. Surely he was not such a besotted fool as to let her wrap him around her little finger again!

“Hale—I mean, uh, Captain—could you take a look at this? Somethin’ don’t seem to be workin’ quite right.”

Glad to escape from his own thoughts, Jon followed the man to the mizzenmast where he saw that, in the act of unfurling the cross-jack, the lines had somehow gotten snarled. The sail hung pathetically, like a woman with her petticoat half torn off. Jon sighed, then climbed the mast himself, clinging to the rigging with one hand while he patiently untangled the lines with the other. He then proceeded to demonstrate for what must have been the dozenth time the proper way to unfurl a sail. Under his eye, the inexperienced men in the rigging with him managed to do a creditable job. He told them so, then lowered himself back to the deck, leaving them to their work. God help all aboard the
Cristobel
if they should run into a storm! With her crew of amateurs, prayers were the only way they would survive it!

“Cold, Jonny?” The studiedly girlish voice belonged to Sarita Jones, as she called herself, a black-headed, black-eyed gypsy of a woman who had been sentenced to transportation for the crime of prostitution. She was one of the few women prisoners who had elected, and been allowed, to stay on board. O’Reilly had an eye on her and had pleaded her case, which was why
Jon had permitted her to stay. But since then Sarita had made it clear that she found the
Cristobel
’s new captain far more to her taste. Jon sighed inwardly as he looked down at her, posturing and preening before him, her ample breasts nearly bared by the low-cut peasant blouse she wore. Women on shipboard were nothing but problems, he thought, harassed. And one thing was sure: he had enough woman problems of his own without adding this one to them!

“Females aren’t permitted on deck after dark, Sarita. I’ve already told you that.” His voice was patient, but he clearly meant what he said. Sarita fluttered her eyelashes at him.

“But I brought you a bottle of grog, Jonny. Surely that’s allowed, to bring you up a bottle of grog, when it’s chilly out?”

Jon looked down at her for a moment, not speaking. It was impossible to get really angry at Sarita, exasperating as her behavior was. She was slightly stupid, a tart from the gutters of London, but there was no real harm in her. And at least she was what she was, which was more than he could say for some.

“Thank you, Sarita,” he said, accepting the bottle from her outstretched hand. He pretended not to notice when she caressed his fingers with hers as she passed the bottle over. “Now get below. Scoot!”

“Oh, Jonny!” Sarita protested sulkily; then, to his secret relief, she flounced away, her full hips swinging provocatively beneath their covering of full black skirts. Clearly she expected him to watch her go, and, watching, to lust.

“Women are the very devil, aren’t they, Cap’n?” O’Reilly spoke rather wistfully beside him. The shorter, stockier, florid-faced man clearly envied Jon his dark good looks. Jon grimaced at him.

“They are that, O’Reilly, and no mistake,” he answered in heartfelt tones. “Here, have a drink.”

Jon passed the bottle over to the other man, who accepted it, took a swig, and handed it back. Feeling the need of some fortification before facing what was likely to be a very long night, Jon wiped the
bottle on his shirtsleeve and then raised it to his own lips, swallowing healthily. The two men stood on the quarterdeck for the better part of two hours, talking only desultorily as they killed the bottle of rum between them. By the time the moon came up, a shimmering white crescent playing hide and seek with drifting gray clouds on a field of black velvet, the
Cristobel
was once again well out to sea. Jon stared somberly at the milky path cast by the moon across the dark water, knowing that he was ever so slightly the worse for wear. Not drunk, mind you, but not precisely stone sober either.

“I think I’ll turn in,” he said to O’Reilly, who nodded, and then, recollecting that Jon had a lady waiting in his cabin, grinned. Jon saw the grin with a slight twinge of annoyance. O’Reilly clearly imagined him to be heading in for a long night of passion, when he was likely to be greeted with a tantrum instead.