The Pirate Bride (26 page)

He was sure the sailor thought he was the ugliest whore imaginable, but he knew well enough that many a whore was not a beauty.

“I’ll tell him.”

“No, please, I must tell him what’s been said, what’s happened.”

“Come up, then, woman. Be fast. He’s in his cabin and not wantin’ to be disturbed.”

He
was
fast. The minute the crewman helped him aboard, he knifed him in the gullet and let him fall silently to the deck.

There were others aboard. He could hear men calling orders to one another. He had no intention of dealing with them. He strode instantly for the captain’s cabin.

D
OWN IN THE TAVERN
, Jimmy was bemoaning his luck with women.

Blimey, he couldn’t even propose properly to a whore.

A hand fell hard upon his shoulder. “O’Hara, you rutting little dog. I heard tell you went off and served under Red Robert. And I’m hearing that you fought a battle and didn’t go hiding beneath any sheets, neither.”

Jimmy turned. The massive pirate known as Blackbeard was standing behind him.

“Aye, it’s all true.”

“So that bastard Blair is dead, is he?”

“Must be, for the ship went down to Davy Jones’s locker,” Jimmy said cheerfully.

Teach had always treated him like scum. All right, so perhaps he had been scum. But he wasn’t anymore. He was going to be an honest man.

“So why do you look like a man drinking his woes away?” Blackbeard asked.

“I want to marry Sonya,” Jimmy said.

“Aye?” Blackbeard gave out a mighty laugh. Then, looking at Jimmy, he sobered. “She turned you down?”

“She went racing off to see Captain Red. Wanted to know if it was true that Blair was dead. She must have had a mighty hatred of the man.”

Just as he spoke, they both heard the cry in the street. “They found her down at the docks! They found Sonya!”

Jimmy actually pushed past the giant of a man to run all the way to the docks.

And then he saw her.

W
HEN THE DOOR
opened again, Red expected Logan.

He wasn’t making her come to him, she thought in relief. And she wanted to talk to him; she needed to admit that she was afraid—and why. Pirates weren’t supposed to be afraid, but she was terrified. Maybe she wasn’t a pirate after all, she thought with a wry grin.

Maybe she had hated too long.

Maybe…

But it wasn’t Logan. It was a woman. “What is it?” she asked.

The woman closed the door behind her, then seemed to stagger and fall. Red rushed forward to help her, but as she bent down to help, she felt steel fingers grasp her wrist. She tried to rise and free herself, started to shout out an alarm, but she was silenced and forced back, an arm like a steel pipe against her throat.

And then she saw who it was.

He eased his hold just long enough to lock both hands around her throat, still forcing her to move backward. She tried to raise her hands to fight him, but he was too strong.

And still he pushed her back.

Back to the bunk.

Where she had just lain with Logan.

She stared at him, struggling, trying to scratch and claw, but she was weakening, losing air, seeing the room grow dim. She could feel the wig slipping and expected him to squeeze harder, certain that whatever happened after, he had come to kill her, and kill her quickly.

But first he took one hand off her throat to rip the wig from her head, and then he smiled in a combination of disbelief and amusement, still keeping just enough pressure on her windpipe that she was rendered powerless.

“
You
are Red Robert?” he said.

She struggled fiercely. With his free hand, he was ripping at her clothing. She realized that he meant to rape her, then kill her. Debase her, take away all her pride. Hurt her.

His hands were on her. The hands that had slain her mother, her father. Little children. Hands that were covered in blood.

She had to find a way to fight. He was touching her breasts, ripping at the linen of her breeches. His hand was between her thighs.

No.

She knew he had a weak spot, and she managed to raise a hand and claw at his throat where she had cut him with the bottle.

Startled and in agony, he let out a scream but quickly rallied, bringing a knife that was wet with blood straight to her throat. She went still, but his hold on her had eased. He was relying on the blade to control her.

“Kill me now,” she told him. “Because I will never let you touch me.”

He smiled. “Dead or alive, my dear, I will debase you. I will use your dying flesh, and when I’m done, I’ll hang you out for the crows.”

It was over. Her life didn’t flash in front of her eyes.

She just waited for the blow.

It didn’t come.

He was suddenly wrenched away from her and thrown across the cabin.

And Logan was facing him with murder in his eyes.

Blair threw the knife. Logan barely ducked in time to miss the deadly missile, as Blair turned and flew out the door. Logan followed him, and Red jumped to her feet, straightening her clothing as she raced after the men…

And plowed straight into Logan’s back.

She caught her breath, looked around and saw that Blair Colm had been stopped.

They were not alone on deck.

Blackbeard was there, like a living wall of fury. There was nowhere for Blair Colm to run.

“Give me a weapon!” Blair Colm bellowed. “I demand my right to fight like a man.”

“You want a weapon, man? You think you should receive a fair fight?” Blackbeard asked.

“Aye, pirate’s honor, I demand it.”

Blackbeard hiked a bushy brow.

“Bull,” he said simply.

Then, he smiled, drew his pistol and shot Blair, point-blank.

The man stared at the huge pirate.

Slowly, he fell to his knees.

Blackbeard shot him again.

And he pitched forward.

There was silence for a moment. The air reeked with the spent powder and shot, a strange contrast to the beauty of the day.

Then Blackbeard shrugged, looking at the two of them.

“I suppose I should have allowed one of you the honor,” he said.

Red stepped around Logan and smiled at Teach.

“No, he is dead, and that is all that matters.” She walked over and put her arms around his giant girth.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“Get this rubbish off the deck!” Blackbeard roared.

Two of the carpenters hurried forward and quickly took the body.

“Not overboard! His like rots in a gibbet, even in New Providence!” Blackbeard looked over Red’s head to Logan. “A lot of people will want to know he’s truly dead and gone.”

Logan nodded, still silent.

Red pulled away from Blackbeard. “Want another ship?” she asked.

He bellowed with laughter.

Then she turned and walked over to Logan. “I have just one question.”

“Aye?”

“Was that…a proposal?” she asked softly.

He grinned, going down on a knee. “Is this better?”

“You want me—
me
—to
marry
you?”

“Aye, that is what I want.”

It couldn’t work. He was a
laird.

“Well?” he said.

“Well, lass?” Blackbeard prompted.

“I want what you want,” she told the only man she had ever loved.

T
HE BREEZE WAS SOFT
as it drifted in off the water.

Magnolias dripped moss that gently swayed in the glory of the afternoon sunset.

“Are you nervous?”

She turned. Brendan, in a brocade vest and matching jacket, was at her side. He looked glorious. But then, he was attending the College of William and Mary up in Virginia, and he had learned a bit about attire from some of his classmates.

He grinned. “And you…You look like…a girl!”

She elbowed him.

“Truly, Red, you’re stunning.”

“Thank you.”

“But are you nervous?” he persisted.

In her own mind, Red had been married since that night in New Providence.

That was when Blackbeard had decided that, as a ship’s captain—and a pirate with a swiftly growing reputation—he needed to marry her and Logan then and there, that night. And so they were married, with a court of pirates and whores and thieves—and amazingly good friends—around them.

That had been easy.

She had a new friend in Cassandra. And it had been Cassandra then—as it was now—who stood up for her as maid of honor. Word had gone out that Red Robert had died in the fight with Blair Colm. Red Robert, being an upstanding member of the pirate community, had been buried at sea, while Blair Colm was placed in a gibbet.

Red didn’t need to see it done.

But Sonya was still at death’s door, with Jimmy O’Hara keeping watch over her, tending to her every need.

The crewman from her ship had miraculously survived, as well, though at first they had not thought he would. He had gone overboard—mostly dead, in his own words—and clung to the hull until Logan had arrived and pulled him in.

Red meant for Blackbeard to have her ship to add to his fleet.

He accepted.

So Roberta was married to Logan in a ceremony many didn’t understand but were still pleased to celebrate. And when it was over and they were alone, she had voiced all her fears for the future, and he had shushed her. He loved her. She loved him. And they would make it work.

It helped, of course, that once they were taken to an island near Charleston and “rescued,” they were quickly able to commission a ship and return for the treasure Logan had tossed overboard.

It had helped a great deal. In fact, Lord Bethany had merely rolled his eyes in amused surrender when Brendan and Cassandra had asked permission to marry. His time with the pirates had broadened his mind indeed.

But today…

Today she was to walk, on her cousin’s arm, down the aisle arranged in the garden of Lord Bethany’s very impressive Savannah estate. And she was nervous. For Logan’s sake, she prayed she might be accepted by society. Not that he cared. He assured her that they could go to the Highlands at any time, but she wanted to make a place in the New World, for theirs was a new life.

The music began.

“This is it, Red,” Brendan said softly.

She nodded, and they walked out. She saw so many wonderful people.

Jimmy O’Hara.

And his new wife. Sonya.

And there, unbelievably, was a happy if somewhat plain woman: Lygia. Lygia, who had made her own life bearable when she had been young.

Lygia, who appeared to be a bit tipsy, was on the arm of Silent Sam, and given how wealthy she was, society had no choice but to accept her flouting of convention.

She smiled as Red walked by her. And giggled.

Red kept moving. There was an altar in the gazebo, where a minister—a real minister, Lord Bethany had assured her—waited.

And there was Logan.

Tall, smiling, assured. And waiting for her.

She vaguely heard the minister asking who gave her hand in marriage, and she heard Brendan’s reply.

She turned and clung to him for a minute.

Then she met Logan’s eyes and took his hand.

The last mist of the past rolled away with an explosion of cannon fire from out at sea.

She saw Logan’s smile.

Blackbeard’s salute, sent from as close to the harbor as he wished to come.

The minister spoke, and she and Logan answered in turn.

Then they were being told to kiss.

Before his lips touched hers, she whispered to him, “I want what you want.”

He drew her into his arms. “I have what I want,” he said.

And she laughed, for they were alive, and they were in love, and the future was theirs.