My Lady Pirate (16 page)

She had dressed. Trousers, a loose shirt, a leather vest, and a cutlass completed her attire.

Her hair was wild, her eyes blazing with hatred and betrayal.

“Bastard,” she snarled.

He waited. Silence all around as she contemplated his fate.

One of the two little Irish sisters tugged at her sleeve. “What are you going to do with him, Majesty?”

“What I
should’ve
done from the very first, feed him piece by piece to the fish. But I will take him to Nelson and let
him
do the honors.”

She stared down at him. Then she turned away, calling for the anchor to be weighed and

leaving him to his own misery.

Take him to Nelson.

He’d gotten what he wanted. But it was a hollow triumph, and as the anchor came in and he lay soaking in the brine and seawater the incoming cable brought with it, he could only wonder if such a victory had been worth the price.

Draped with a blanket, his small fist curled around the miniature that hung slackly from his neck, the exhausted admiral lay in his swinging cot, dreaming.

The mighty, thirty-five-hundred-ton
Victory
swung gently beneath him, the tallest of her three masts reaching two hundred feet into the heavens to scrape at the twinkling stars, her massive decks piled tier upon tier above a waterline that lay stories beneath her poop deck. But her admiral was no longer the debt-plagued, guilt-ridden, haggard hero, hope of a nation and pride of a navy; he was the intrepid, twenty-three-year-old captain of the dashing frigate
Albemarle,
and he still had both his arms, the sight in both his eyes, and a terrified new midshipman who was balking at a lieutenant’s orders to go aloft.

They were in the North Sea and the lad, thirteen years old and the newest addition to that cheeky group, stood huddled in the shadow of the mainmast, his expression miserable, his mouth a taut slash of terror in a face that was pale with seasickness. He was trying in vain to look brave in front of his peers, but it was a blustery day, with a fast-running sea and a stiff wind to make the twenty-eight-gun frigate jump and lunge like a racehorse. Captain Nelson glanced at the new midshipman, the youngest of his “children,” as he liked to call them, and took pity on him.

The poor lad. This one was too tall, even, to huddle. Cheerfully swinging his spyglass, he walked up to the wretched boy and touched his shoulder. “Such a woeful face, my fine fellow!

Might I ask the cause for it?”

The boy’s throat worked and he turned frightened blue eyes upon his captain. Tears swam

there, but his jaw, too young to even meet a razor, came up and his eye never wavered.

“Homesick, sir. And . . . and—” Admitting fear of going aloft, of course, was not a manly thing to do. And poor little Gray, fresh from the weepy good-byes of six adoring sisters and his parents, in his very first ship on his very first voyage, was trying very hard to act like a man.

Tall, gawky, and all arms and legs, he towered over his captain by at least a head.

Nevertheless, Nelson placed his body in front of the wretched boy’s and turned him so that his tears would be shielded from the possible malice of the other youths. Gray sniffled and looked up, his face going paler still at the sight of thick, boiling clouds sailing above the snapping pennant at the mast.

“I can’t do it, sir,” the young voice quavered, “I want to but I’m”—he looked away, his

features flushed with shame—”I’m scared.”

Nelson smiled. “Well now, my good fellow! I would not ask you to do anything that I

wouldn’t instantly do myself. What do you say we go up together?” He grinned, pretending that he had only just hit upon this idea of challenging a young recruit to go aloft when in fact it was a method that he often employed, and with unfailing success. “We shall call it a race. Yes, a race!

Whoever gets to the top first, wins.”

The boy’s dark eyes widened. “But sir . . . you’re the
captain!
You’re not supposed to climb aloft!”

“What I am
supposed
to do, my good man, is my business. Now, do we have a race or do we not?”

The lad stared at him.

“Well?”

The lad gazed up at the tall masts, the bulging sails, the streaming, snapping pennants.

“Sir . . . do you think that
pirates
”—he said the word with awe, and a peculiar reverence—”used to go aloft very much?”

An odd question, Nelson thought, taken slightly aback. He pursed his lips and gave the

matter some thought. “Indeed, young man, I’m sure they did.”

The lad reflected on this for a moment, obviously torn between the challenge his captain had issued and his own fear of those dizzying, swaying heights. The dark blue gaze, determined now, swung to Nelson’s once more. “Very well then, sir,” he said solemnly. “I will race you . . . But would you mind very much if we took the mainmast?”

Nelson raised a brow. “The mainmast, my good fellow? And why is that?”

“It’s the tallest of the three, sir. If I’m going to go aloft, I should wish to defeat the strongest enemy first. Then, the others will seem insignificant in comparison.”

Nelson, infinitely pleased, threw back his head with rare laughter and clapped the boy

between his sharp, angular shoulders. “Very well then, Gray, the mainmast it shall be!” He gave his sword to a lieutenant, slung his telescope over his shoulder, and strode to the lee side, his body easily absorbing the roll of the deck. “Ready, young man?”

From the weather shrouds—safer and easier to climb in a stiff wind than the lee shrouds

Nelson had discreetly chosen—the lad faced him, pale-faced and terrified but determined to measure up to the proud uniform he wore. “Aye, sir. I am ready.”

“Well then, let us be about it!”

Nelson vaulted atop the gunwales and seized the tarred shrouds. Cheers erupted from the

deck below, for him, for his determined opponent, and hand over hand he climbed, his watchful, paternal eye on the youth ascending the shrouds, some thirty feet away and directly opposite him. The boy’s smart uniform was already streaked with tar, his unruly black hair standing out like wings beneath his hat. They climbed higher, and the wind got stiffer, colder, biting through Nelson’s uniform and chilling him to the bone. The boy was still with him. Nelson slowed, pretending to tire, for it would not do to arrive at the maintop before his young protégé. They lost each other behind the great main course, then emerged above its yard; calling encouragement, and now so high above the plunging deck that the steeply angled shrouds were nearly apexed, Nelson glanced down. Sure enough, there was the customary sea of upturned faces, drifting in and out of the shadows of clouds.

He glanced to windward and paused, pretending to wipe nonexistent sweat from his brow.

The boy was almost there . . . A few more feet . . .

And then—

“Beat you!” the lad yelled triumphantly, scrambling through the futtocks and appearing in the maintop just above him. Nelson clapped his hat firmly down and tilted his head back, hard-pressed to conceal his own grin of triumph. The youth’s face was flushed with pride, and he was breathing hard; but he had conquered his fear and made the climb, and for Nelson, that was all that mattered.

“So you did, young man!” he exclaimed, laughing, and pulled himself up to sit beside his

happy charge. “By God, I am only ten years your senior, yet you make me feel like an old man!

Huzzah for you, my good fellow, I am thoroughly embarrassed!”

In effect, he was thoroughly
pleased,
and proud.

“Thank you, sir! You were right, there is nothing to it!”

“Indeed, young fellow. How a person must be pitied who fancies there is any danger in

making the attempt!”

Moments later, the lad was on his way back to the deck, where he was met by a triumphant

circle of grinning peers who clapped him on the back, punched him in the shoulder, and

huzzahed him to the sky . . .

The memory faded, the years folded beneath themselves, and other remembrances drifted

into the admiral’s dreaming mind . . . Gray, no longer a tall and gawky midshipman, but a lean young man, glowing with triumph after passing his lieutenant’s exam . . . Gray, now in the bright new uniform of a post-captain, bursting with ambition and pride as he escorted Captain Nelson on a tour of his own first command . . . Gray, in trouble over a scandal with an admiral’s wife and fighting a duel not with pistols but with cutlasses— cutlasses
!—but sir, they're what
pirates
would’ve used! . . .
Gray, wounded at St. Vincent . . . Gray, now one of Nelson’s famous Band of Brothers, snugging his two-decker alongside a Frenchman and pounding the stuffing out of her as the sun set on the glorious Battle of the Nile. . .

Memories.

Nelson saw a commodore’s flag grace his protege’s mast now, saw him knighted for his

bravery at the Nile, saw him transferred to the West Indies Station . . . and hadn’t seen him since.

What would he see when the Pirate Queen brought that same man to him?

Horatio Nelson sighed softly in his sleep, his never-resting mind moving as swiftly in his dreams as it did when he was awake . . . to annihilating Napoleon’s fleet . . . to retirement at Merton, his home . . . to Emma, dear, beloved Emma! . . . to Horatia, his sweet little daughter . . .

Emma . . .

A hand touched his shoulder and he jerked awake. He looked up and saw the Pirate Queen.

“Good evening, milord.”

“By God, how did
you
get in here?!” he cried, bolting up in the cot and shielding himself with the blanket.

“Not by invitation, I can assure you.” She moved away, allowing him time to recover, and

stood quietly in the shadows, her back toward him. She was dressed pirate-style, in a purple gown clewed up at the hips to permit free movement, and a choker of sharks’ teeth ringing her lovely throat. She held a cutlass, and he wondered at the strength this lean woman must possess to wield such a weighty weapon with apparent ease. ‘Take your time, milord,” she said, her voice oddly devoid of spirit. “I will await you in your day cabin.” She sauntered off, quietly, leaving him to stare after her in shock and puzzlement.

“Madam, this is most unseemly!” Thank God he was in his nightshirt. “I do not allow

women aboard this vessel; I made a solemn vow to my dear Lady Hamilton that I would not—”

“Milord.” She turned then, a stray beam of moonlight from the distant windows slanting

across her face. In the dusky gloom he saw that her eyes were haunted with pain, her mouth tight and unsmiling. “I did not come here to try to steal you away from your precious Emma. So

please, do not distress yourself. I only bring you your traitor, as promised.”

“My traitor? What traitor? . . . Oh, yes, my traitor,
that
traitor!” Fumbling in the gloom, he fastened his breeches, the act taking twice as long as it might have had he two hands instead of one.“ And here I thought you had news of
Veal-noove,
you don’t, do you? Oh, please, tell me you do, I was a fool, a
fool
for disregarding your word before; oh, never mind, I will catch up with him and when I do I will thrash him soundly!” Nelson hurried out into the huge and shadowy dining cabin. “Where is my traitor, madam? I don’t see him!”

“Still on my schooner. My second-in-command is having an argument with your officer of

the watch about bringing him aboard. Pardon my unseemly intrusion, milord, but I thought I would personally prevail upon you to set the matter straight.”

“Oh, yes, yes, of course!” Nelson cried, in high excitement and agitation. He threw himself into a chair and tugged his shoes on over his feet, but when he went to don his frock coat, emblazoned with ribbons, orders, and stars, he gave a helpless exclamation of dismay and, peevishly, flung it over the sofa.

Maeve looked at the coat, and with a rather distant look in her eye, murmured, “Surely, a traitor is not deserving of such respectful dress, milord.”

“He is not just a—oh, can I tell you?
Can I?
No, never mind, now is not the time and if he wanted you to know, he would have told you, such is not my business and I will not interfere, but oh, my heart, my head, what this does to me! I am in a fever, a turmoil—by God, where is my servant? Damnation, there are some things a one-armed man simply cannot do—”

“Milord?”

He came up short in the middle of his tirade and glared at her. She thought of how he’d been just minutes ago, asleep in his cot, legs drawn up to his chest and his one hand curled around the miniature of Emma Hamilton like a child with a favorite toy. How oddly vulnerable he had looked.

And how sad it was that he, the one man, the
only
man, who’d been able to stop the dreaded Napoleon Bonaparte, couldn’t even put on his own coat.

She put out a hand, deliberately touching his severed stump through the empty shirtsleeve.

Bleak eyes turned to her, brimming with pride, defiance, anger, and humiliation.

She smiled, for the first time. “I’d be honored, sir, if you would let me assist you.”

“I cannot, my dear Lady Hamilton—”

“—would probably be grateful for this small favor to you . . . and
England.”

He stared at her, fighting an inner battle of conscience and need. Finally, his spine went stiff and wordlessly, he thrust the coat into her hands.

The minute her fingers touched it, Maeve was jolted by an awful, sweeping premonition of

violent death. She gasped and dropped the coat as if it had burned her, then, red-faced under the admiral’s piercing, eagle-eyed stare, picked it up off the deck. She was shaking. It was only a coat, a blue coat with white lining and gold lace and decorations of valor.
God, it was the orders,
the stars!
that the sniper would see to target the admiral for death. It was all she could do not to heave the coat out
Victory's
stem windows and into the sea. Her hands trembling, she held it out while Nelson turned his back to her and slipped his arm into the sleeve, then tossed his proud shoulders to settle the coat snugly in place. Murmuring an embarrassed thank-you under his breath, he stole a guilty glance toward the pastel portrait of Emma Hamilton that hung on the bulkhead.