Care and Feeding of Pirates (24 page)

Pieces flew, juices spurted. Honoria stepped
back when she was finished, panting.

"Well," Mrs. Colby said, "That's one carrot
won't bother nobody again."

Honoria gathered up the pieces and tossed
them into the pot of water then selected another victim. This
carrot was a bit shriveled from days at sea. No matter. She slammed
down the knife, neatly decapitating it.

"Something on your mind, love?"

"Men!" Honoria snapped.

Mrs. Colby craned her head to look at the
carrot. "Any man in particular?"

Honoria's knife went up and down. "My
brother, my husband, all of them."

Chop, chop, chop!
She threw the pieces
into the stew pot and eagerly grabbed another carrot.

"Tell me, Honoria," Mrs. Colby said, her
voice deceptively calm. "When you're hacking like that are you
thinking of the whole man or just a certain bit of him?"

Honoria looked down at the carrot, long,
firm, and tapering. She hadn't thought of it, but perhaps there was
a reason she'd chosen that particular vegetable. "I don't know,"
she said. "It's only a carrot."

"Just asking, love," Mrs. Colby said.

Honoria stood still, her knife poised. "Am I
a living, breathing human being?"

"Well, of course you are, dear."

The knife came down, cutting as Honoria
spoke. "Then why is it that my brother and my husband believe that
I should not act, or think, or feel without their permission? I
should do nothing, say nothing,
think
nothing that they have
not decided."

Mrs. Colby raised her shoulders in the
universal women's dismissal of the oddities of men. "It's their
way, I'm afraid. The good Lord told them that they were the
masters, and they believed it. When you're first married, they test
the waters, but after a while, they start to learn the way of
things. You have to be patient with them."

Honoria viciously whacked off the top of
another carrot. "The whole of my life, I've been the perfect lady.
I kept our house running for years. Did James ever thank me for it,
ever even
notice
? No. And now, when I've done something for
myself, he races after me to fetch me home like a disobedient
child. The one thing that marriage has done for me is to make me no
longer have to answer to my brother. I am supposed to answer to my
husband now, and my brother has no more say in the matter."

Mrs. Colby watched her for a time. "Are you
worried Captain Raine will give you back? Don't worry, lass, he
won't let you go. He needs you."

"Ha."

"He does. I see it every time he looks at
you. He's a man what's found something good, and he won't let go of
it quick."

"
I
think he simply likes having
someone he can order about," Honoria said, selecting another
carrot. "He treats Manda completely differently."

"Well, he and Manda have been together since
they were tykes. Mr. Raine raised her himself." Mrs. Colby resumed
her more sedate chopping of turnips. "But a lad doesn't know much
what to do with a little girl, does he? So Mr. Raine treated her
same as if she was his brother, taught little Manda the same he
would a boy. They're used to each other. Most like, the captain
don't know much what to make of you."

"I don't know what to make of him either,"
Honoria said.

"That's what happens when you're in love,
dear."

Honoria sat on a stool, suddenly weary. "Am I
in love?"

"You wouldn't be so angry if you wasn't. Nor
would you blush when you talk about it."

Honoria laid down the knife, despondent.
"There's no love left in me. I've used it all up, I think. I only
have anger anymore."

Mrs. Colby's face wrinkled up with her smile,
the laugh lines nearly hiding her eyes. "You have young anger, and
you've hurt like no girl should ever have had to hurt. No, don't
draw yourself up, Mrs. Raine. Thirty is young yet, you'll see."

"Thirty-one," Honoria said in a dull voice.
She'd often wished she hadn't had such a happy childhood. Then she
wouldn't know about the joys that had been taken away from her.

Mrs. Colby smiled again but subsided. Honoria
knew the woman was trying to comfort her, and she was grateful. Not
Mrs. Colby's fault that Christopher was an arrogant, interfering
man who thought all women should do as he wished, and James was no
better. Why women fell in love with the blasted men was beyond
her.

Honoria positioned another carrot, raised her
knife, and viciously chopped her way down its long, hard
length.

*** *** ***

In another part of the ship, Manda Raine was
drawing a similar conclusion about men.

Alden Henderson stood on the threshold of
Manda's cabin, blocking her exit and igniting her blood.

The cabin was a tiny compartment the length
of her bunk. Manda had enough room to stand, dress, wash her face
in the tiny washbasin, and stow a trunk in which to keep a few
personal items. She preferred small quarters--easier to keep them
clean. But there was not enough room in here for her and Henderson
together, and she felt that with every muscle of her body.

Manda supposed she could simply knock
Henderson out of the way and step over his prostrate body on her
way out. She just didn't want to.

"I understood from your brother that you
would tell me what was going on," Henderson said.

Manda folded her arms. The gesture closed
herself in, made her feel more protected. "What he meant was that I
should use my womanly wiles to sway you to our side."

Henderson's brows, perfect lines of gold,
drew together. "I doubt he said that, or meant it."

His lack of derision annoyed her for some
reason. "What he meant is that you're a threat, and I am supposed
to keep you under control."

A puckered line appeared behind the noseband
of his spectacles. "Why don't you tell me what it's all about,"
Henderson said. "Then we'll talk about control."

Manda pressed her fists together, suddenly
nervous. She was never nervous. She assessed situations and found
ways through them. Even when she'd been stuck in that cage for the
awful Switton, she hadn't worried very much. She'd get out somehow,
sometime--it was just a matter of when.

Alden Henderson flummoxed her. Manda did not
want to fight him, although she supposed she might feel better if
she gave him a good punch.

Henderson had kissed her again a few moments
before the ship had caught the wind four days before. They'd
encountered one another in the chart room, and after some verbal
sparring, Henderson had cupped Manda's face in his hands and given
her a long, deep kiss.

Manda had forgotten everything around her,
including the subtle signs that told her a wind had sprung up at
last. She'd been late on deck for the first time in her life, and
Christopher had noted it.

She realized that Henderson had shaken loose
something inside her, and she neither understood the sensation nor
knew how to respond.

"I bet you let no one control you," she said.
You do as you please, go where you like, a spoiled English
gent."

"And you drag the fact that I'm an Englishman
into every conversation."

"Not English
man,
" she corrected
coldly. "English
gentleman
. Sure the whole world exists for
your privilege."

The spark of rage in his gray eyes pleased
her. "If that is true, then why did I leave my fine English home to
hunt pirates? Life aboard Ardmore's ship is not exactly soft."

Manda lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "You
needed entertainment?"

"I needed a purpose, if you must know. I was
supposed to be a clergyman."

Her eyes widened. "A clergyman?
You?
"

"A respectable vicar with aspirations to a
bishopric. I was promised a living by an earl--after the current
vicar passed on, which he showed no sign of doing year after year
after bloody year. I met Ardmore by chance and admired what he
did."

"I see. So if you can't save souls, you'll
save people from bloodthirsty pirates?"

"Something like that."

Manda had lived her life having to prove she
was as tough as a man to survive. Men either wanted to fight her or
take her to bed, often both. She'd never met anyone like Henderson,
who preferred talking to fighting, and she wasn't sure what to do
with him.

Yet, she'd seen him do battle at Lord
Switton's. His punches had been neat and efficient, and he'd helped
clear her way out of the garden without so much as bending his
spectacles.

But he mostly fought with words, and here
Manda, for the first time in her life, was at a loss. She and
Christopher had learned to communicate almost wordlessly. When she
tangled with Henderson, she did not know what to do. Or say.

"Well?" Henderson asked. His hair had grown a
bit longer in the past few weeks, and it glinted in the lantern
light. Manda knew his hair felt like silk, and that fact made her
somehow even angrier. "What is it Raine wants you to tell me?"

Manda let out a long breath. "He's after the
gold he was forced to leave behind. I'm betting Ardmore has come to
stop him."

"The gold from the
Rosa Bonita
?"
Henderson looked thoughtful. "I remember. The Mexican gold bound
for Napoleon. I hear the emperor was livid when it went
missing."

"I am surprised your hero Captain Ardmore
didn't force Christopher to tell him where he'd left it."

"I'm not. Ardmore doesn't give a damn about
gold, and he certainly wouldn't give it to Napoleon, or even worse,
the British Admiralty. He's happy to let it stay buried."

"Then why is he bothering Chris about it
now?"

Henderson's gray eyes glinted. "Because
neither does he want your brother to have the gold. Raine's a
pirate. Ardmore won't let a pirate win."

"And that pirate stole Ardmore's sister."

"Maybe, but I honestly believe that if not
for the gold, Ardmore wouldn't bother to chase us. He and Honoria
do not get along. At all. And that's an understatement."

"So I gathered."

Manda could not imagine having her brother
perpetually angry at her. She and Chris were friends and
partners--the two of them against the world. They never talked
about their feelings or cried on each other's shoulders, but they
each knew that the other would be there for them. Always.

"All right, I've told you," she said, drawing
into herself again. "Don't you have things to do?"

He continued to stand in the way, so Manda
looked him over. She didn't like light-haired men. She preferred
men with dark hair and dark eyes, not tall men like colorless
statues. Henderson's hair was so pale yellow it was nearly white,
which went with his white-gray eyes. The sun had turned his skin a
golden hue, tanned rather than burned.

His lips were thin but satin smooth. She knew
that. Before Manda could stop herself, she leaned into him and
kissed them.

Henderson caught her in his arms. His
answering kiss was hungry, opening her mouth, his tongue stroking
into her, exploring her, as though their angry words never existed.
He tasted like fine wine, though Manda knew they had none on
board.

Henderson pulled her closer, hands lifting
her hair, caressing the nape of her neck. He deepened the kiss, his
body tight against hers so that she could feel the ridge of his
cock through her breeches. Her heart pounded, blood hot in her
veins.

In all her life, Manda Raine had never been
afraid of anyone. But what trickled through her heart as Henderson
kissed her made her very much afraid. And confused. She felt like a
downy chick just hatched, one who stared at the big sky and
wondered what it meant.

Henderson eased away from her. His gaze,
clear behind the glass of his spectacles, fixed intently on her.
Manda closed her hands around his coat's lapels and started to tug
him gently with her into the cabin.

Henderson remained firmly where he was and
shook his head, his expression never changing. Hurt flooded her,
and confusion.

Henderson swallowed, anguish in his eyes,
then he silently turned and walked away.

Manda should have flooded him with scathing
invective, or at the very least, given him a roundhouse biff on the
jaw. But she could only stand helplessly while he, a stuck-up
Englishman, strode away and left her alone.

Manda turned around and kicked her bunk. She
kicked and kicked until her foot hurt.

When she limped out of her cabin again, she
spied Honoria in the passage, watching her, sympathy in her light
green eyes.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Honoria asked
her.

Manda's rage focused into one shout. "I don't
want to talk--to anyone--ever again!"

She raced past Honoria and up the stairs.
Ignoring Henderson, her brother, and the rest of the crew, she took
refuge in the shadows and busily worked the sails and ropes, things
she knew would not confuse her and make her insides feel rubbed
raw.

*** *** ***

Christopher watched the
Argonaut
draw
ever closer. For a day and a night, the other ship chased them,
gaining slowly.

His men knew that the
Starcross
could
outrun Ardmore if Christopher wanted to. They also knew that
Christopher never did anything without good reason. Therefore, if
Christopher wanted Ardmore to catch them, then Ardmore catching
them must be to their advantage.

By sunset of the second day, the
Argonaut
had drawn close enough to send a signal. Her gun
ports were propped open, black holes of metal glinting in the sun's
rays. Christopher resolutely kept his ports shut.

St. Cyr raised his spyglass and studied the
flags fluttering from the
Argonaut's
forward rigging.
Christopher stood next to him, his hands on the rail, waiting.