In the Arms of a Pirate (A Sam Steele Romance Book 2) (12 page)

Aidan ran his tongue over his dry lips. He hadn’t bothered with his quiver but he had two pistols, three dirks, his hands, and his determination. His men, too, were heavily armed. They wouldn’t fail this night.

There, the ping on the window he’d been waiting for. Aidan crouched down, it meant Roche and his men were approaching. He envisioned it in his head, the men strolling down the beach, forming a protective circle around Roche in case an enemy had discovered his home. Then the whistle, as was the signal. If the signal was returned, and Chunk would ensure Jacob returned it, then Roche would deem it safe. If the whistle wasn’t answered, Roche would know his home had been breached.

In his mind, he heard Jacob’s whistle, saw Chunk fold into the shadows, his pistol on Jacob. He heard the rattling of keys, the squeak of the gate as it opened. Aidan slid his pistol from his sash, pulled the hammer back. It locked into place moments before the keys jingled in the front door. Not imagined, this time, but real. Aidan slid forward on the balls of his feet. He pressed against the wall, to the right of the dining room entryway.

Before the front door clicked shut Aidan’s men flooded silently through the one in the kitchen. He stood, then, muscles poised, raised his arm and gestured toward the foyer. Then, tightening his hold on his pistol, Aidan moved.

He fired, leapt, and tumbled to the ground. He grabbed his second pistol. Seven men? Maybe eight? He rolled to his feet, crouched, fired a second shot as gunfire exploded within the parlor. Staying low, Aidan tossed his spent pistol, reached into his boot for his dirk.

“Cap’n!”

Aidan spun, kicked out, and knocked the pistol from his adversary’s hand. The shot went wide, thudded into the wall at his back. He plunged his knife into the man’s thigh before he could attack again. Ignoring his piercing scream, Aidan yanked the dirk free, pressed his back to the wall and prepared to attack.

The only men left standing were his own.

A cursory look confirmed at least three dead with another four moaning and bleeding on the floor.

Roche was not among them.

Aidan clamped his hand around the knife. “He’s not here.”

Mouth set, he stalked across the foyer, toed the man who gripped his wounded thigh with bloodied hands. “Where’s Santiago?”

Roche’s man looked up at Aidan with immoral eyes, sneered, and spat at Aidan’s feet.

Aidan knelt, pressed his blade against the man’s neck. The stench of the man’s sweat was nigh unbearable.

“Have you ever seen a man without a tongue try to spit? I have. It’s both ugly and impossible.” He dragged the blade across the man’s throat, over his jaw to the corner of his mouth.

“I’ll ask you again. Where is Santiago?”

The pirate smiled, showcasing a mouth of greenish-black teeth that smelled as repugnant as the rest of him.

“I think he needs some help remembering, Cap’n.”

Aidan looked over his shoulder. “Indeed, Chunk.”

Aidan moved aside as Chunk stomped closer.

“Cap’n wants to know where Roche is.”

“Pity for the captain,” he answered keeping a wary eye on Chunk.

“More a pity for you, I’d wager.” Before the pirate had a chance to respond, Chunk lifted his tree-trunk of a leg and let his oversized foot drop onto the man’s seeping wound.

“Ah!” The pirate screamed, cursed. Sweat suddenly beaded his face, dripped off the edge of his crooked nose.

Chunk leaned forward, putting all his weight into it.

The pirate’s skin went sallow; his eyes bulged then rolled. Before Aidan could ask the man again, he turned his head and vomited onto the floor. Aidan gave a sharp nod and Chunk lifted his foot off the man. Like a crab, the man scrambled away from Chunk, leaving a smear of blood on the once gleaming floor.

Again, Aidan knelt at the man’s side. He wasn’t smiling any longer and his smell certainly hadn’t improved. “Roche isn’t here to witness and appreciate your solidarity. Save yourself another bout with Chunk and tell me where Santiago is.” This time Aidan held his knife aloft, turned it side to side, let the light reflect off the serrated blade before positioning it over the man’s spurting wound. “This is nothing compared to the carving knife Chunk favors.”

“This little thing?” Chunk asked, sliding a mean-looking blade from a sheath. It was still stained red from the battle.

“All right! Enough!” With a trembling hand the pirate wiped the sweat from his upper lip, the tip of his nose. “Roche was hurt in a recent battle. He sent us here to tell his daughter he wouldn’t be coming for her birthday.”

Aidan angled the knife toward the man’s wound.

“I’m not lying!”

“Perhaps not but neither have you told us where he is.”

“No wait!” He yelped when Aidan slid the blade over the wound. “I don’t know, and that’s the truth of it. We were to come tell Miss Sarah he would not be coming and then meet him at an arranged location.”

“And where might this location be?”

“Tortuga.”

Aidan settled back on his heels. As a meeting place, it made sense. There was no greater pit of debauchery than Tortuga. However, it did pose a problem. He wanted Roche’s life, but not at the expense of his own. He might have the element of surprise if he attacked Roche in Tortuga but he had no way of knowing how many allies the man had. And, unfortunately, some pirates would likely jump into the battle for the sheer pleasure of it and not care who they shot at. If he was going to take on Roche and live to tell the tale, it couldn’t be there.

Besides, he already had the perfect place in mind.

He leaned in close. “Go tell Santiago I have his daughter.”

The pirate’s eyes bulged. “Have you lost your mind? You take her and he’ll stop at nothing to have your head!”

Aidan grinned. “He has to find me first.”

“He’ll be enraged. He’ll be-he’ll be—”

“More of a madman than he already is?” Aidan supplied.

“Yes!”

“It’s time Roche learned what it feels like to have
his
family threatened.”

“But—” The pirate looked about. “How do I know she isn’t already dead?”

“You want assurances? Chunk, fetch the girl.”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

“You’re mad, I tell you. You don’t know what Roche can do. You take his daughter and—”

“Actually, I know exactly what he’s capable of and he has this coming. This and worse. Ah, here’s your proof now.”

“Where is he? Where’s my father?” Despite Chunk being three times her size, and having a solid grip on her arm, she was pulling him as she hurried into the hall. Her fear-filled eyes skipped over the fallen men. She paled at the sight of blood and what she had to know were dead men, but she remained surprisingly composed. Her gaze latched onto Aidan’s. “I don’t see him. Where is he?”

Aidan stood. “Not here, your highness. Seems he’s going to miss your birthday this year.”

“Then he’s alive?” she asked. Fear fell from her rigid body.

“For the moment.”

Her scowl told him exactly what she thought of his comment.

Ignoring it, he addressed the pirate on the floor at his feet. “Tell Roche if he wants his daughter back he needs to think back fifteen years ago to what he did to a boy and his mother. If he remembers where that was, he’ll find his daughter.”

Panic filled the pirate’s eyes. “Fifteen years ago? What if he doesn’t remember?”

Aidan shrugged his shoulders. “For your sake, I hope he does.” He slipped on the quiver he’d left behind the door, grabbed the bow. “Oh, and you’ll be needing a ship to get to Roche as I’ll be taking the
Revenge
back.”

“How do you know about the-You were there! You were there when Roche was hurt.”

“Indeed. You can tell him it was my arrow that pierced him.”

“He’s hurt?” Sarah gasped. “How badly?”

“Not nearly as badly as he deserves.” Aidan looked to his men who’d been waiting patiently for their orders. Some were sporting bruises and a gash or two stained their shirts crimson but they were steady on their feet and appeared no worse for the battle. “Go on ahead, make sure the others have secured the
Revenge
.” His gaze landed on Sarah. “Do I need to toss you over my shoulder to keep you from attempting to escape or will you come quietly of your own accord?”

Fear and anger were no longer evident in her eyes. In fact, if he didn’t know better, he’d say she looked…eager.

“I’ll go quietly. But can I fetch my bag first? It’s already packed and just up the stairs.”

“You had a bag packed? Why? You couldn’t have known we were coming.”

“Oh.” She pursed her lips, looked away. “I’d planned my own escape. Your arrival yesterday came at a most inopportune time.”

*

She wasn’t afraid.
Perhaps it was foolishness on her part, or pure naivety, but she’d been in Aidan’s company for almost two days and he hadn’t harmed her. He’d made a point of taking her onto the beach as a reprieve to the struggle he knew his words had caused and he’d let her fetch her bag when she’d asked—or more accurately he’d had one of his men get it. He’d claimed he would never lie to her and inexplicable as it was, she believed him.

Which meant her father was indeed a vile, heartless pirate. She wanted to reject the thought, wished she could. While it was difficult to envision her father torturing, raping, or killing anyone, neither could she deny there was a coldness about him. Hadn’t she witnessed it herself? He never embraced her, never truly seemed to listen to what she had to say or hear her. How many times had she felt she was simply an object to him, like a priceless statue to be taken care of and prized, something to be kept high on a shelf?

It was why she’d been planning to escape and, as she strode beside Aidan through the garden gate, it was why she had butterflies fluttering in her belly. Tonight, she was leaping off that shelf into a whole new world. While she’d resented Aidan’s appearance just as her plan was coming to fruition, she now relished her good fortune. Before Aidan’s appearance, she’d known it would be difficult to gain passage on a ship without any currency and knew if she couldn’t she’d have to hide from her father’s men until she could find a way to leave the island. But now a ship awaited her and it would be days until her father even knew she was gone. Days!

Days of freedom where she could learn what she’d been missing, where she could, finally, live. It wouldn’t be without worry. She knew her role was to draw out her father; her very presence would, if Aidan succeeded, aid in her father’s death. However, she had a few days to consider, to think of an alternative plan which wouldn’t culminate in her father dying. In the meantime, she wasn’t going to waste this moment. This was the most freedom she’d had in her life and it was worth savoring.

“I believe you are the first captive I’ve seen smile,” Aidan remarked.

She pulled her attention from the moonlit ripples, to his moon-washed face. Both, she decided, were equally enchanting. “Perhaps it’s not as I’d planned it, but I’d intended to escape my home and that is what I’m doing. For now, it’s enough I’m away from San Salvador.”

“You’re not afraid?”

“Were you honest when you told me you would never lie to me?”

“Aye.”

“Is it your intent to harm me?”

His steady gaze held no doubt. “No.”

“Then if I take you at your word, captive or not, I am not in any danger and it does no harm to enjoy what is surely to be the grandest adventure of my life thus far.” His puzzled look remained as they walked the water’s edge, prompting her to ask, “Would it make you feel better if I were scared?”

“Not better necessarily, but it would be more expected if you were.”

“And you prefer what’s expected?”

“I
understand
what’s expected, it does not mean I trust it.”

“The unexpected scares you?”

He stopped, faced her. “Not usually.”

Nothing more was said as they made their way down the beach and around a bend. Not too far out into the water two ships bobbed close together like a couple dancing. On the beach ahead of them, Sarah recognized the big man named Chunk standing next to a longboat that had been dragged partway ashore.

“Any problems?” Aidan asked once they were within easy speaking distance.

“None that weren’t easily taken care of,” he answered with a sly smile.

“And the ships?”

“As you instructed. Jack’s already on the
Freedom
. He’ll captain it back to Luke with a minimal crew. Lucky and the others are already aboard the
Revenge
awaiting us and Carracks has been set into your cabin.”

“Then we’re ready.”

Chunk nodded, shoved all but the nose of the longboat into the water. Aidan stepped into the boat and set Sarah’s nerves singing when he took her arm and helped her do the same. The boat creaked and rocked underfoot as they made their way to the rearmost bench and several times it was Aidan’s grip which kept her upright. She wondered if he realized it was gestures such as those that reassured her she was not in danger from him.

When the hull scraped the sand Sarah thought it the most glorious sound she had ever heard. She was leaving, finally leaving the prison she’d been raised in. She was about to embark into a world she’d done little but read about.