The Notorious Lady Anne: A Loveswept Historical Romance (12 page)

Emmaline grabbed her dagger from its sheath at her waist, and thrust. He twisted away, but there wasn’t enough room to avoid her knife. He fell on her and the dagger impaled him in his soft underbelly.

He grunted. Warm blood washed over them, coating her hands and chest, the smell metallic and cloying.

“Anne!” Phin pushed Shamus away.

Emmaline drew in a deep breath, kicking Shamus’s legs off hers.

Phin helped her up. “Are you hurt?” His concerned gaze took in her blood-soaked clothes.

“His blood.” She placed a hand on the wall to keep from swaying. Her skull felt like it’d been cleaved in two. She gingerly touched the back of her head and winced when her fingers encountered a large lump.

“You hit your head.”

“A small bump.” She squinted, trying to focus, until there was only one Phin instead of two.

Phin toed Shamus. “Think he’s dead?”

“We can only hope. What happened to the girl?”

“She’s the daughter of the merchant ship’s captain. He’s with her now.”

“Bastard,” she said softly, looking down at Shamus’s still form. She hadn’t expected that from him—attacking such a young girl. His actions surprised and disappointed her. “I guess we’ll have to take him back with us. We can’t very well leave him with the merchant crew.”

Phin grabbed Shamus beneath the arms and dragged him up the stairs. Each bounce of Shamus’s head on the steps was punctuated by a moan. Phin dumped him on the deck as Emmaline looked around. Rain slashed down and the thunder reverberated in her throbbing head.

The captain of the merchant vessel rushed over, wringing his hands. His daughter stood back, eyes wide with shock. “Sir, if I may?” He spoke to Phin, yet his fearful gaze flickered to
Emmaline.

Phin nodded at the man pointing at Shamus, a soggy heap at Phin’s feet.

“That man. He was protecting my daughter. She was afraid.” Again his gaze flew to Emmaline, before skittering away. “She was running. Not looking where she was going …” His voice trailed off and he looked over his shoulder at his daughter. “She was afraid,” he repeated. “Of pirates. We’ve heard what pirates can do to young girls.” He shot Phin a fearful look. “She was going to jump over.”

Emmaline looked down at Shamus in disbelief. He was trying to save the girl from drowning? Not hurt her? Ashamed, she sank to her heels and rolled Shamus over. The wound pulsed bright red, mixing with the rain sluicing down on them, and turning the deck beneath him pink.

She looked up at the captain. “Do you have a surgeon on board?”

Nicholas fought the memories threatening to steal his sanity. He tried to concentrate on the voices above, to block the terrified cries from the plundered ship. But his resistance merely made matters worse. The dam broke and he saw nothing but that fateful day when his ship had been attacked. He’d been so horribly injured he could do nothing to save his men, and now he heard nothing but the sound of battle and the cries of the men he’d come to care for.

He pressed his palms against his temples and ground his teeth. His thigh throbbed. His head ached. His hands sweat. The smell of burning cordite surrounded him. The pop of guns, the roar of cannons long in the past deafened him.

He’d been in battle before. But those fights had been different. Each enemy had a purpose, a driving need. Each believed they were in the right, fighting for a cause they deemed worthy to die for.

Pirates were driven by lust and greed. They’d been more than vicious. And they’d been unrelenting.

He didn’t fear them. He’d faced death before and come out the winner, fully aware he might not be as lucky the next time. No, he didn’t fear them—he despised them. Despised their lack of honor, their lack of morals and ethics in a time when honor and morality was looked upon with favor.

Nicholas wished with all his might he had the power to help the poor captain of the merchant vessel.

He listened and waited and vowed his revenge on Lady Anne.

Although they’d been planning on it, preparing for it as best they were able, when the gales hit, they hit hard.

The wind whipped Emmaline’s long braid into her face. The spray of the sea stung her eyes.

There was something strangely elemental about standing on the deck of a ship while Mother Nature threw her worst at you, and you stood tall and straight, daring her to duel.

Crewmen struggled up the mizzenmast, the winds buffeting them. Before the full impact of the storm hit, Emmaline gave orders to reef the sails, hoping to outrun the worst of it. Now that the winds were upon them, and blowing far harder than she had anticipated, the storm sails were more a hindrance than a help and she’d ordered the crew to go bare poles.

Climbing the rigging in these conditions was quite possibly the most dangerous thing a sailor could do. Emmaline watched, breath held as a few men clambered up the ropes. This was the part she hated the most about being a captain—giving orders that might lead to a crewman’s death.

One of the men was barely a man, more a boy, but eager to prove himself. Too eager. He laughed at his counterparts as only an uncaring youth, unaware of his mortality, could. He reached for the next rope. His bare foot slipped and Emmaline pulled in a gasp, narrowing her eyes against the driving rain. The mizzen topgallant sail whipped around him, the ropes flogging him like the dreaded cat-o’-nine-tails. His leg flailed, trying to find purchase on the next rope, and his confident laughter turned to shrieks of terror.

The other men paused before moving on. Emmaline didn’t fault them. They understood that the important thing right now was to get the sail secured, to keep the ship and the rest of the crew safe.

She raced to the mast and began to climb, her bare toes digging into the ropes, the wind at
her back pinning her to the rigging. The lad held on, his face white with fear, his muscles straining. She didn’t look down, because she knew what the view would be. Churning black sea tipped with white foam, waiting to swallow a person whole.

Her heart thundered above the rumbling of the storm clouds. Her chest ached with each exhalation and her head still throbbed from her fight with Shamus.

She’d lost crewmen before—in battle, in illness and in much the same circumstances as these. No matter how they died, a little part of her died with them.

The command to attack the merchant vessel had been a sound one, yet the knowledge didn’t stop her guilt. They might have been able to outrun the storm, but doing so would have left them without provisions.

Her shoulders screamed in agony every time she lifted herself to the next rope. The wind howled, reminding her more of a person doomed to the watery depths of Davy Jones’s locker than mere nature rolling along its course.

She pulled her battered body up one more rope. Rain pelted her face and ran down her neck. The lad above her hung on for his life.

Nicholas clung to his bunk but his strength wasn’t enough. The horrendous noise was like a living thing, wrapping itself around the ship, imprisoning everyone in its awful clutches. The terrible shrieking worked its way inside his head until it became a part of him. All thought of his captivity was replaced with nothing more than the will and strength to stay alive.

Over the sound of the wind, the sloop groaned in protest. The boards creaked against the force of the gale. Only mere wood, pitch and tar stood between him and drowning.

The ship tilted starboard. Nicholas rolled, hitting his head on the side of his bunk. His vision wavered.

Slowly, he pulled his legs beneath him and attempted to stand. His thigh screamed in pain, almost buckling his knees. He flung out a hand and braced himself against the wall.

Water began rolling in under the door, swirling around his feet. With a growl of rage he put his shoulder down and charged the still-locked door. He was damned if he was going to die in this cabin, locked in as a prisoner. The door shuddered under the impact. The ship tilted, forcing him back. Putting all of his weight on his bad leg, he gritted his teeth and kicked with his good leg. The wood cracked. He kicked again. And again and again until the wooden door finally gave way.

He raced out of the cabin that had been quickly becoming his coffin.

Where was everyone? Were they battened down? Or had they been swept overboard?

He struggled down the corridor, tossed from side to side. Another door stood open and a man lay half-in, half-out of the cabin. He was shirtless, with a bloodstained bandage around his torso. Nicholas hurried to him, bouncing from one wall to the other. The injured man opened eyes glazed with pain. ’Twas the giant from Alphonse’s ship. How the devil did he get here?

Nicholas grasped the man under his arms and tried to move him into the cabin and onto the bunk. Not that it would do much good. He’d probably be tossed right back off, but Nicholas couldn’t leave him lying on the floor.

Thankfully the man was conscious enough to help, and together they staggered to the bunk.

Fresh blood soaked the bandage, but there wasn’t much Nicholas could do without supplies. Besides, attempting to change the man’s bandage would be fruitless in this storm.

Sweat beaded his gray face. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

“Should I fetch the surgeon?”

He shook his head. His eyes drifted closed.

“What the hell happened to you, mate?” Nicholas spoke more to himself, not expecting an answer, but the giant responded.

“Lady Anne …”

Nicholas’s eyes widened. “Lady Anne did this to you?”

He nodded and licked his lips.

Lady Anne? Emmaline?
She
did this? By the looks of the bandage and the fresh blood, he’d probably been stabbed. What would possess her to stab him?

“Is there anything I can get for you?”

But the man had passed out. Nicholas left the cabin, hoping the giant survived.

He splashed through water as he made his way to the stairs leading to the upper decks. Each time the ship pitched, the water sloshed in his direction, soaking his pant legs. Before long it would be up to his knees. The injured man would probably succumb to the sea, rather than his wound. There wasn’t anything Nicholas was able to do about it now.

Outside, the wind howled. He didn’t know which was worse, remaining below and drowning if the ship took on more water, or going up top and being swept overboard.

He’d take his chances up top.

Once there, the wind forced him back a few paces until he was able to plant his feet and lean into it. Instantly, he was soaked, the stinging rain pelting him.

A few men worked to lash down whatever was loose, slipping and sliding across the deck as the ship rolled one way and then the other.

He spotted Phin by the mizzenmast, hands on hips, head tilted back. Nicholas followed his gaze.

Emmaline, barefoot and dressed in men’s trousers and an oversized overcoat covering a white shirt, was at the very top of the mizzenmast, a leg thrown over the yardarm as she struggled to pull a sailor up beside her.

A loose rope whipped in the wind. Several times, she had to duck to avoid it. The boy flailed his legs, his fingers trying to find purchase on the slippery, hard wood.

Nicholas stepped up beside Phin before he even realized he’d moved. Phin shot him a distracted look. “Forgot all about you down there.”

Nicholas ignored the verbal stab and stared up at Emmaline.

“Don’t worry, mate, she hasn’t fallen yet,” Phin said.

Hasn’t fallen yet?
Yet?
How often did the foolish woman climb the masts? Didn’t she realize
how dangerous it was even in calm seas? Why, one gust of wind, a foot planted wrong, and a man could fall to his death. Hell, Nicholas had witnessed seasoned sailors make a false move and plummet to the sea below. Sucked under the ship’s hull, they were never seen again.

Was she mad? She was so small, so light, the wind was going to knock her off the damn yardarm.

Nicholas moved toward the mast. Phin’s hand clamped down on his arm. “Where are you going?”

“She needs help.” He yanked his arm away and reached for the rigging.

Phin pulled him down. Nicholas struggled in his grip, swung his free arm and planted his fist in Phin’s jaw. The large man didn’t even step back.