The Merman and the Barbarian Pirate (11 page)

Or
had
he fallen in love? Raef slumped down. Why
should
the notion of these two being lovers unsettle him? He mustn't grow too fond. He was drawn to Kemp, who made his body ache with need. But if Raef was falling too hard for the pirate, he should fight it. After all, his adoration for Haverford had proven false. Indeed, everything he'd believed about the world had been turned on its head. He'd promised his mother he'd seek love, but he was unsure what that was anymore, or at the least, how to find it. Perhaps he'd never know.

Misery clenched like a cold fist in Raef's chest. He felt deflated and limp as the whelks, which lay beside him in the rag. He was as alone as he'd ever been since he'd left his tribe and had lost even the drive to warn Kemp about Haverford. Kemp would have survived such close calls without warnings before. He didn't need Raef. Nobody needed Raef. But the thought of a solitary night in this cursed human body and wet clothes—then wading back into the sea alone—was more than he could stand.

He puffed out his cheeks and braced himself. He'd knock. Just as soon as he felt brave enough. Maybe Cecilia and her cat would be kind enough to let him warm himself by the fire. He'd encountered cats when stalking around the fisherman's cottages and had enjoyed how they rubbed their furry faces against his cold legs.

An outbreak of shouts and screams from the direction of the alehouse set Raef jolting. He jolted. Between the glowing beacons, he made out the outlines of men on horses with high hats. Others on foot were dressed in scarlet jackets that shone in the torchlight. Haverford's yeomanry cavalry and the royal dragoons had arrived all at once.

Kemp would see and hear them from the window just as clearly as he did. He'd no need to warn Kemp now, and despite the lure of that hearth, he was having second thoughts about wiling his way inside. Raef had best get out of here before Kemp came out of the cottage, found him lurking, and chained him up again for being a lunatic. And Kemp
would
be out soon, unless he was too busy wooing Cecilia to notice.

He dragged himself up and walked as far as the next cottage, seeking the nearest flight of steps to take him down onto the beach. He'd jump, but he didn't want to risk breaking an ankle. Beside the pain, he feared it might jeopardize his ability to shift between forms in the morning, and all he wanted now was to flee and hide. Being so close to Kemp, yet so far, constituted torture.

Is he kissing Cecilia like he kissed me? Is he giving her what I sought, the thrust of that sword of flesh, receiving her willing surrender? Oh gods, to feel his touch again, the brush of his—     

A gunshot shattered through the night, echoed by more screams. The door of the alehouse flew open, and a group of the red-coated dragoons poured out, lugging two men between them. Raef widened his eyes; even from a distance, he recognized those faces. They weren't the sort anybody would forget: George and Peffy.

"Are these the two?" hollered one the dragoons. "Are these the ruffians that robbed Lord Haverford?"

"His Lordship will be here soon enough to tell us," answered another, though the voice was close to drowned by the general tumult, which included many shouts of disapprobation.

"Where were you when our womenfolk were being murdered?" called one man. "You're worse than the smugglers or the picaroons."

"Pirate Kemp would make a better governor than the tyrant we've got," cried a female. "He might lower the bleedin' rents, if nothing else." As it struck Raef that Haverford must be the tyrant she spoke of, there came another bang and a flash. A dragoon had fired a musket into the air, and the woman protestor wailed.

After edging along the quay 'til the wall was low enough, Raef sprang down onto the beach. He felt bad for George and Peffy, but if they were stupid enough to be caught making merry in an alehouse, what could he do? The same went for the villagers, whom the dragoons now pushed about and jostled. He couldn't help them; he was just one merman, though he felt sad all the jaunty songs had ceased. The people's fate was in Haverford's hands. The notion made him shudder as he crept across the beach in quest of an empty boat with a dry corner to curl up in.

From the tail of his eye, he saw the door of Cecilia's cottage swing open. Kemp finally ran out, but he didn't escape across the beach like Raef. He sprinted toward the dragoons.

Don't go that way. Haverford will kill you!

Without pausing for consideration, Raef legged it back up the beach, vaulting onto a fishing boat and then up on the jetty. He crouched behind a lobster pot, about ten paces short of the dragoons and their prisoners. He had to stop Kemp … but it was too late.

"Ahoy there!" Kemp strode toward the armed men, brandishing a cutlass as if he intended to cut them all down in a single swipe. "If you want the fearsome Pirate Kemp, you'll be needing me, not that brace of land lubbers. Never seen 'em before in my life."

Struggling in the clutch of several dragoons, George opened his mouth to protest. Kemp twitched the cutlass in his direction, and he snapped his gob shut again. For a few rushing heartbeats, silence gripped the port. Then Kemp charged for the dragoons, blade flashing, and the dragoons set upon him like a swarm of scarlet bees.

Raef balled his fists at his sides. He'd no experience of real fights but couldn't stand by and watch Kemp injured or killed. That would destroy him. A workman who'd gone to harry the dragoons had left his tools lying on the quay, including a wooden mallet just beyond Raef's reach. Temptation reared. If he could jump up and strike quickly, he might aid Kemp's cause without being taken.

Kemp had been subsumed beneath a wall of dragoons. Raef inched toward the weapon, grasped it, and then approached the affray from behind, weaving between the pots on the balls of his feet. He straightened slowly, gripping the mallet in an unsteady hand… and somebody seized the scruff of his still-damp shirt and spun him around. On being violently shaken, Raef dropped the mallet, which landed with a thud. He stared into the buttery visage of Simpson. The man Haverford had called sheriff. The yeomanry cavalry pressed in, one of them raising a baton in a meaty paw.

Oh, gods!

Humans mightn't be fleet as fishes, but amid the ruckus, this lot proved stealthier than he'd given them credit for.

"What've we got here," snarled Simpson. "Going to help your pock-faced pirate friend, were you, my seedy fellow?"

Pock-faced? Was Simpson blind? And what was wrong with
his
face? Up close, Raef could see red blisters covering Simpson's left cheek and chin.

"He must be one of Kemp's men," said a yeoman, who shoved his weasel-like visage so near Raef saw the hairs sprouting from his nostrils.

Fear paralyzed Raef; he couldn't breathe. And before he could muster any kind of answer, the baton smashed into the back his skull, pain split through him, and everything went black.

Seven

Consciousness returned to Raef with an unkind promptness. He was grabbed from all angles, shaken and hustled. Hostile shouts blended with the screeches of a gull, and he feared his brains would explode. Blood trickled from a wound on his head, his neck ached, and his stomach…
Ugh.
It pitched and churned like a stormy ocean. When he finally pried his eyes open, he found himself ensconced in the none-too-gentle grasp of a couple of yeomen, one of whom had him by the hair. It took effort not to be sick all over the quayside.

Lord Haverford had arrived, mounted on a white horse and sporting an enormous feathered hat. He looked magnificent and terrible, his handsome countenance bent into an ever-changing mask of malice. A few paces away from Raef, he towered over his other prisoner—Kemp.

Kemp was flanked by a couple of hefty dragoons. He had been disarmed, though he stood tall and unflustered. "Well, well, well," he said. "It's the great nip-farthing himself. Have you come to pay back all you've thieved from the folks of Lilhaven? Or are you here to confess that you sent your yeomen to commit murder?"

Murder? The new accusation shocked Raef, but he was starting to believe Haverford capable of anything dastardly.

"Silence, scum." Haverford spat in Kemp's direction, but fell short. Kemp laughed with a defiant air.

"M'lord," shouted one of Raef's captors, joggling Raef 'til his brains seemed to rattle. "We got another of the rogues. He were running to help."

Haverford slid his gaze onto Raef, his viciousness shadowed by a glimmer of surprise. "Good God,
that
young scallywag? Yes, he's one of the pirate's band for sure."

Kemp blinked hard at Raef, as if trying to clear his vision. For the first time, he looked ruffled. Despite his spinning head, Raef managed an apologetic cringe. It exacerbated the ongoing pain of being held up partially by the hair.

"I've never seen this man before either," protested Kemp. He'd have sounded convincing if his voice hadn't cracked.

"Codswallop!" bellowed Haverford. "This little blighter thieved from my stable this morning. Threatened me with my own knife, which
you
stole." He shouted over Kemp's ongoing protests. "Right, men. Put Kemp in the lockup here for the night, and my yeomanry cavalry will take him to my castle for tomorrow afternoon, when I will assemble a special assizes." He sneered at Kemp. "But don't you worry, my sentence is already decided. You'll be subjected to the cruelest form of execution the law allows."

Kemp merely quirked his brows. Raef's heart clenched, though he clung to hope. Maybe Kemp would get away. He couldn't see George and Peffy anywhere, so Kemp's dramatic intervention had allowed their escape, at least. Above all, he prayed he and Kemp would be imprisoned together. He'd confess… well, explain everything he could to Kemp, save his real identity. If he had Kemp at his side, it might make the experience more bearable, whether they were thrown in this lockup or the county jail.

"As for this little devil!" Haverford bared teeth at Raef as if he wanted to chew him to bits. "As Lord Lieutenant of the County, I reserve the right to deal with him personally. Take him to my carriage."

"No!" Raef's protest went unheeded, except perhaps by Kemp, who called his name. But they had already been swept out of each other's sight. A horrible sense of desolation seized Raef.

The yeomen frog-marched him along the quayside. In the gloom beyond the beacons, he discerned a four-wheeled carriage, with a driving seat at the front occupied by a liveried servant, and two footmen on the platform at the rear. One of the footmen held up a lantern, looking down his long nose at Raef and scoffing. Raef's head throbbed too much to glare back, and none of his thoughts seemed coherent, save one.

Will I ever see Jon Kemp again?

A yeoman flung him into the back of the carriage and instructed him to sit on the floor. Even for Raef's slim frame, it was a tight squeeze, and he found himself wedged in the foot well. He could hardly move, but still his captor bound his hands and feet with bristly hemp. By now, Raef's fears had numbed; he simply trembled and panted, letting it all happen to him, praying he'd descended into some bad dream. When the yeoman stepped aside, however, he saw through the open door that he'd still an audience to this nightmare. A group of onlookers gathered, with a face he recognized among them.

It was Sarah, the girl who'd given him the whelks for Cecilia. He read what she mouthed, though he couldn't hear a word.
"He'll come for you."

Then the carriage door slammed, and Raef was lost in the darkness for long enough to wonder whether he'd imagined Sarah's message. Besides, how could she know that
he
—Kemp, Raef assumed—would escape, let alone come after Raef? Why would Kemp rescue Raef anyway? Raef wasn't even one of his men. Indeed, Kemp thought Raef a lunatic, probably all the more so for running into a fight, as a fool would, and getting caught for little reason.

When the carriage door opened again, Haverford climbed in. Raef didn't lift his gaze from the buckled shoes and stocking-clad ankles that came to a rest close by. Haverford touched Raef's sore head, then gripped Raef's hair, twisting hard enough to sting.

"Well, my rum lad." Haverford bore his teeth, more shark-like than ever. He slid his hand over Raef's face, smearing the blood. Upon finding the front of Raef's throat, he squeezed it. He meandered up again to force his thumb into Raef's mouth. The bitter leather of his gloves made Raef want to gag.

"Are you his cabin boy?" asked Haverford, shoving his thumb deeper. Now Raef wanted to bite, but he daren't. "No, don't answer that. I don't want to know. I want to pretend I'm the first to play a little backgammon between those lily-white buttocks of yours. I would like to understand, however, how you managed not to drown this morning. It was choppy out in the bay, to say the least."

He withdrew his probing thumb, then clipped Raef's ear so sharply it rang. "Answer me."

"I-I'm a good swimmer," said Raef, because the truth was all he had. "A very good swimmer."

"I see. Well, swimming won't help you now, my demure little he-doxy, because you're done for." Raef had worked that out. Though he still couldn't comprehend half the strange words the cursed lord uttered, he suspected horrors were in store. "And how delightful," drawled Haverford, "it will be to
do
you."