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  Sam stood slack jawed. “I-I…”

  “Are you determined to get yourself killed?” Tupper bellowed.

  Sam looked to Bump, but any hope of a kinship with the man had come to an abrupt end. His anger only exceeded Tupper’s.

  “I’ve no time to deal with the likes of you. If you can’t follow a simple order to stay below, I’ll cut ye down myself and be done with all the trouble.” Tupper jerked her head at Bump. She narrowed her eyes at Sam. “My cabin, and stay there.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  The fire on the Spanish ship reached their store of black powder at the same instant Sam reached the ladder way. A huge ball of fire engulfed the ship, blowing the sails off the masts, setting the entire ship ablaze, and extinguishing all who remained aboard. The force of the blast punched Sam in the chest. Once more, Bump curled over her, shielding her.

  Burning debris rained down and floated in the waves, but she didn’t witness any more as Bump dragged her below, shoved her into Tupper’s quarters, and slammed the door behind her.

  * * * *

  A sick coil in James’s belly rolled through him as he watched his men finish the processing of the newly captured prisoners. They resembled rag-draped skeletons more than men. “Once they’re away, set us a northeast course.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain Steele.” His helmsman, Michaels, issued a sharp salute.

  The last of the supplies were transferred down to the Flying Cutlass. They had seized ship and crew this morning, and James ordered them back to trial in Virginia rather than carry their ragtag crew all the way to London. He released a dozen of his men to accompany the prisoners back to the authorities. The whole business left a sour taste in his mouth. There was no honor in arresting these pitiful men.

  Ducky came alongside. “Did you note the looks of relief on their faces at being arrested? They almost seem happy with their fate. How long do you suppose they’ve been without food?”

  “By the look of them, more than a week. Perhaps two.” The Flying Cutlass hoisted what little sail they had and moved off.

  Ducky shook his head. “Should have sailed past the poor bastards and saved the crown the cost of good rope.”

  “Hold your tongue.” James turned away and headed toward the galley.

  “James, they were half dead already. We’re going to feed them and build their strength just so we can hang them? How sporting is that?”

  Leave it to Ducky to put James’s thoughts into words. The truth of them grated against him. “It is hardly my fault the Flying Cutlass was more of a floating butter knife. This is war, not sport. The ship is listed amongst those charged with treason. I’m following my orders.”

  “Don’t know if you could call it a war when you only needed to fire one shot across their bow before they tossed up their hands in surrender. They were out of fit ammunition. Did you see what they’d stuffed into the cannon barrels? Chain links and cutlery.”

  “I saw.”

  “So much for the golden age. Guess not all privateers were as successful as your father.”

  “Leave my father out of this.” How many times had James thought of him in the last few weeks? He’d certainly have a thing or two to say about what transpired today. Hell, the puce-wearing Mistress Christian could have captured the Flying Cutlass and not broken a nail.

  “So you’re not sailing into London the battle-worn concurring hero. Lillian will be happy you didn’t damage your bonny face.”

  Lillian. A quick wave of guilt flooded him once again. He should be thinking of his betrothed, not some woman he shared a single dance with…. and a stolen kiss…. lest he not forget that single kiss. Concurring hero, indeed. Lillian wouldn’t attempt to capture anything greater than his passing attention. He scratched at his jaw to cover his sudden smirk at his errant musings. “Lillian did threaten to end our engagement if I came back sporting an eye patch.”

  “Then she needn’t fear. You’ve barely needed to draw your weapon.”

  “I’ve no blood lust, but it’s all been rather too easy. We should have found more ships. I’d like one more sweep before heading for home. However, if we’re to report on schedule, there’s no time.” James opened his spy glass and peered through. “Someone’s tipped them off. Word got out ahead of us, I’m sure.” He scanned the crests of the waves. “They’re out there. I can feel it.”

  “Then they’ve done a grand job of slipping past us.”

  “I’ll not concede.” James snapped the glass closed.

  “Forget it. As you said, you’ve run out of time.” Ducky slapped James on the shoulder. “Time we were heading back to London. You’ve a wedding to attend.”

  “Don’t remind me.” James’s lack of enthusiasm was worrisome. Weeks ago, he’d been impatient. Eager with anticipation. He gave himself a mental shake. Wedding jitters perhaps?

  “What kind of best man would I be to let you forget your last days as a free man? I have my duty as well. I’m to carry the rings and be a constant reminder of the limited time remaining until you’re fitted with your husbandly yoke and plow.”

  James could feel the weight of that yoke all ready. Perhaps it wasn’t simple jitters. He brushed away his thoughts. Lillian was lovely. Wealthy. They were well matched. The only reason he was remembering another’s kiss was because Samantha Christian had caught him off guard. He much preferred a more predictable woman. Lillian would never dream of stealing a kiss from a total stranger. Hell, he imagined she’d never attempt such a thing after twenty years of marriage. His brows knit at such a disheartening thought.

  “You did manage to find a ring, didn’t you?” Ducky pulled him out of his pondering.

  “Not yet. I wanted to give Lillian a ring like my mother’s signet.” James pictured it. Handwrought, hammered gold. A fine scripted “A” for Annalise holding a diamond in its tail. “I thought to have one made with a sweeping ‘L’ for Lillian, with a sapphire perhaps, or a ruby. But when I suggested it to her, Lillian’s taste was for something more…”

  “Expensive?”

  “Traditional,” James corrected. “Refined. Elegant.”

  “Same thing.” Ducky laughed. “She’ll ‘refine and elegant’ you straight to the poorhouse.”

  “I’m not exactly a pauper. I can well afford a wife.”

  “I’ve seen women of her like before. Wouldn’t dare spend a farthing of their own money, but drain their poor husband’s wallets with a careless ease. Best watch out. You’ll end up stuffing cutlery in your cannons.”

  “Very funny. Lill—”

  “Captain!” A call came down from the forward crow’s nest.

  “Yes, Mister Upton, what is it?”

  “Smoke, sir,” the man pointed. “Off the port bow.”

  James once more lifted the glass to his eye before calling the order. “Michaels! Fifteen degrees to port!” He handed Ducky the glass. “Let’s see what burns.”

  Chapter 8

  “Three dead, four wounded, and not so much as a copper te show fer it.” MacTavish rubbed a filthy hand beneath his nose. “Waste o’ good powder, if ye ask me. Nice blaze te warm our hands, tho.”

  “Shut up, ye tartaned ape.” Tupper seethed as she stood in the fantail of the Scarlet Night and watched their Spanish conquest go up in flames.

  “Fought like the devil. What ya suppose they carried?”

  “Doesn’t bloody matter now, does it?” Smoke and flame billowed from the burning hull. The muscle in her jaw threatened to crush her back teeth. “Maybe if ye didn’t cut those sulfur wicks so damn long—”

  “Ye better not be blaming me fer this? I’m not the jackass who threw a smoke pot into the riggin.’” MacTavish held out his hand. “Found this scrapin’ across the boards. Yours, I believe? Not the only thing half-cocked today, eh?”

  Tupper glared at him and snatched the pearl-handled pistol from him. Son of a bitch! “Cabin boy trying to get himself killed.”

  MacTavis
h laughed as he walked away. “Off te a good start.”

  Her fingers curled around the butt of the gun until her knuckles shown white. Maybe there was truth to that old superstition. It was bad luck having a woman aboard. Sam had to go!

  Tupper raised the pistol and fully cocked the hammer. In a final salute to dispel some of her anger and frustration, she shot at the flaming ship behind them. Ironically, the bowsprit of the Spanish ship fell sputtering into the waves. Tupper gave a short bark of laughter before shoving the pistol into her belt. You’d have thought that might make her feel better. It didn’t.

  Tupper inspected the ship’s damage and put the proper men to task. The Spaniards had only clipped the topmost section of the forward mast, but the damage could extend all the way down the shaft to the deck. It wasn’t safe to test its strength with the remaining sail. They could manage with two masts, but it would slow them down until they made land once more and repaired the damage.

  She checked on the wounded. Doubled the watch in the nest. Made arrangements for their dead, and set the new course. Tupper was on her way to talk to Hornbach in the galley. He was in charge of food and drink. Slower speed meant more days at sea. The food they could ration, but Lord help them if the rum ran dry.

  Speaking of rum, she needed a drink. And a smoke. And a wee chat with a mule-headed cabin “boy” who needed a strong lesson in obeying orders. Talk about going off half-cocked.

  Passing Bump on her way to her quarters, their gazes locked. She didn’t blame him for Sam’s stupidity. ‘I’ll deal with the situation below,’ she signed.

  Bump shook his head, frowning. ‘Go easy.’

  Tupper narrowed her eyes. Not the reaction she expected, but the man turned away before she could question him further. She could only deal with one thing at a time, and now was the time to set her new crewmember straight.

  Sam was sitting on the edge of Tupper’s bed reading when she entered her quarters.

  “I can tell Bump ‘thank you’ now.” She held up the leather-bound book of hand signs.

  “How nice for both of you,” Tupper snapped. “Have you learned how to tell him you’re deaf as well?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Or perhaps your ears just flap over, or you’re too damn stubborn to obey orders.” At the rise of her voice. Leviticus joined in the fray. She broke off a bit of bread and tossed it at him to keep him still. “What the hell were you thinking up there?” Tupper slammed the pistol she’d given Sam onto her desk and reached for her rum.

  Samantha hugged the book to her chest. “I thought you’d be happy.”

  “Happy?” Tupper stopped pouring mid-glass. She couldn’t have heard her right. “Do I look happy to you?”

  Sam pointed to the gun. “If I wasn’t there, Bump would have been killed.” Sam relayed the scene with the attacking man.

  “You don’t understand, do you? If you hadn’t come on deck, where you shouldn’t have been, Bump wouldn’t have had to lift you into the rigging, and been trapped against the mast to protect you.” Tupper emptied her glass in one swallow, then slammed it onto the desktop next to the gun. “You may believe you’re strong enough to live in this world, but I’ve been walking this deck for more years than you’ve been breathing, and I’m telling you, you’re not. Or perhaps your life means so little to you that you can be careless. But you aren’t going to put any member of my crew in danger again.”

  “I’m sorry. I was only trying to help.” Sam set her jaw and crossed her arms over her chest. As Tupper glared at her, the chit had the nerve to notch her chin.

  Tupper’s anger ebbed. In its place frustration remained. And something else. A reminder of herself when she first came aboard the Scarlet Night. The first battle she’d witnessed. Bump was a child then. It had been him in the rigging. She’d been the one to try to save him then. Gavin had been furious. When he railed against her, she notched her defiant chin, just as Sam had done. No wonder he had been hell bent on getting her away.

  Tupper glanced at Gavin’s hat, which still hung on the hook by the door. Is this your way of paying me back? She snatched at the rum bottle once more, but set it aside without adding any more to her glass.

  “Grief is an odd thing. You think you’ve beaten it. Somehow gotten through those days when you couldn’t see past the darkness.” She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and ran gentle fingers over a fragile set of letters. Gavin’s letters. Old and brittle, ink long faded. She didn’t dare open them again for fear they’d fall to dust at her touch. She didn’t need to. She knew every line of every page by heart.

  “Think you’re strong enough to make it through a single day without dissolving into useless tears.” She traced the black ribbon holding the stack of letters together. “Then you realize you haven’t thought about them for an hour. Two hours. A day. A whole week goes by and life pulls you back amongst the living. The sun still rises. The tides still move. The raw sting of loss loses its fiery edge. And somewhere along the way, you start fighting to live again. You come to respect how precious life is, and how it can end too quickly.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Tupper slammed the drawer shut. “Because I was like you once. Stubborn. Headstrong. I thought I was invincible. Death couldn’t touch me. But this life we lead out here is death’s playground. It surrounds us on all sides. Toys with us like a cat with a mouse. You may believe you’re strong enough, but I’ve three bodies to slip into the sea who thought the same thing when they awoke this morning. And they weren’t foolish enough to take heedless chances.”

  “Did they sit by and cower in a corner? Or hide in a hold?”

  Tupper flicked her hand. “Of course not.”

  Sam held her gaze. “Would you?”

  “Never.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at Tupper. “Then why would I?”

  “Because you’re not a pirate.”

  The girl jumped to her feet and held her arms wide. “Look at me. Look where I am. I am a pirate.” Sam dropped the book onto Tupper’s desk. “You’ve risked everything by bringing me aboard. Hiding my identity. I’ll never be able to pay you back for all you’ve done. I am forever in your debt, but that’s where your duty to me ends. You’re right, I was unprepared for the reality of this life, but could you imagine it if you’ve never experienced it before? The noise, the sights, the smells? The sheer power of it?”

  Samantha couldn’t hide the tremor in her hands. “Were you fully prepared your first battle? Were any of these men? Did the first blast of the cannons make you scream? Did your blood run as cold as mine did today? Your first sight of a maimed body and blood on the deck make you retch? Do you suppose death will spare me because I’m ignorant? I don’t need a nursemaid. You can’t protect me any more than you could have protected those three men who died, and I’m not asking you to.”

  “You needed to be rescued, but you didn’t ask to be a part of this life.”

  “Did you ask to be?”

  Tupper flashed back to Gavin’s letters, tucked forever in her drawer and her memory. “Yes, I did.” She admitted before shaking her head. “But there was no other life waiting for me. I had ruined any future set out for me. It’s not too late for you.”

  The room got quiet. Sam pulled a deep breath before lifting her eyes to Tupper’s. “You talk of grief, and how it made you value life. You must have known great love to grieve so profoundly. I hoped for that kind of love when I left everything I knew to sail to Virginia. I imagined meeting my life’s love there. What I found was pain and humiliation. I’ve given up naive daydreams of anything more. Nothing awaits me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You have family.”

  “Samantha Christian had family.” She brushed at the thigh of her breeches. “Sam Christian is a pirate.”

  Frustrated, Tupper wondered if she had ever been this bloody infuriating. Time for some harsh reality. “Well, Sam Christian, pirate, come with me. Time you pr
epare yourself for what fate awaits us all.”

  Three shrouded bodies lined the gunwales, waiting for their final slip into the sea. “Good men, these,” Tupper informed Sam. “Thirteen stitches close their sailcloth tombs. The final stitch goes straight through their nose to assure we haven’t attached cannonballs to the ankles of a man still living.” At least the stubborn girl had the good sense to pale at her words.

  Tupper gathered the rest of the crew and said the final words over each man before they were lowered into the waves. After the short ceremony, the men returned to their duties. Sam Christian assumed her role as cabin boy and went off to the galley to fetch Tupper a tankard of ale. Tupper didn’t care what she said, or how adamantly she declared it, Samantha was not one of them and she did not belong on this ship. She still kept an eye on her as she moved through the rest of the crew. Sam may believe her newfound battle knowledge had changed her situation. That her brave fortitude could see her through, but the facts had not changed. Her biggest threat was still these men walking this deck. Tupper wasn’t about to lower her guard.

  Only one other person shared Tupper’s keen interest in a “boy” fetching her ale. Bump. Tupper caught his watchful gaze following Sam as she made her way aft. It wasn’t his watching that struck Tupper as odd. It was the look upon his face. A brief glimpse of unguarded emotion skittered over his features and stopped Tupper in her tracks. It was obvious he was beginning to have feelings for the girl. And not angry feelings. Bloody hell! That’s all I need.

  She called out an order. “I want every inch of sail we can muster, gentlemen.” The sooner this crossing was over—.

  The alarm bell rang out from the crow’s nest. “Captain! Ship! Huge frigate. Running full sail, moving like the devil. Flying a Jack.”

  “Glass,” demanded Tupper.

  MacTavish answered the call. “Who be it?”

  Tupper focused the glass. The hair on the back of her neck stood as the ship came into sight. They were headed straight for them at top speed. The prow of the ship carved through the waves, splitting the water, sending a mighty spray high to bathe the feet of a golden figurehead. As the figure came into view, Tupper’s gut dropped into her boots.