My Lady Pirate (33 page)

—broken spars and splinters of wood, ragged cordage, and pieces of shot-torn sail—that littered the lonely patch of sea and dropping it into each successive trough.

Silence, and the haunted sighs of the wind.

A battered British frigate lay in the lee of a noble leviathan whose mizzen still flew the proud colors of a rear admiral. Where there had been three frigates, there was now only one, and some thousand feet below them the wreck of the
Chatham,
and those who had died with her, made her final anchorage on the bed of the Atlantic.

The other,
Harleigh,
had been dispatched to catch up to the unprotected convoy.

Deep in
Triton's
innards, the orlop was as dark as the long night had been, with only the meager glare of swinging lanterns to illuminate that dismal space that had not seen daylight since the great ship was built.

The smell of blood, sickly and sweet, lay heavily on the air. The deck planking was

drenched with it. Vomit and excrement and suffering made a choking stench strong enough to make one’s eyes water. But the surgeon and his mate had had no respite since
Triton
had engaged the mighty Spanish
San Rafael
and now, twelve hours after the battle, Dr. Ryder moved like a sleepwalker, his apron crusted with dried blood, his movements mechanical, his sweat-damp hair clinging to his brow.

It was a wonder they were all even here at all, and not lying dead on the decks, sunk, or worse, chained as prisoners of war in the hold of one of the enemy’s ships.

And they could thank their admiral, Sir Graham Falconer, for
that.

With him to inspire them and Captain Lord to lead them,
Triton
’s crew had fought well—

and they had fought hard. So hard, in fact, that after
Triton
and
San Rafael
had pounded the stuffing out of each other for nearly three quarters of an hour with the Spaniard clearly getting the worst of it, Villeneuve, safely aboard his flagship three miles away, had finally recalled his battleship and frigates—which were also taking a beating from their own—and the enemy fleet had fallen off to leeward under a full press of sail. Why Villeneuve hadn’t sent in additional heavy battleships to handle
Triton
was a mystery, but Ryder suspected the French admiral had no desire to see his ships so heavily damaged that it would cost them valuable time in the flight back across the Atlantic.

Valuable time that might, Ryder thought wryly, give Lord Nelson all the more opportunity

to find and destroy them.

It was a damned good thing that Sir Graham had come up with that ruse with the signals,

because if Villeneuve had known that the sails on the horizon were not, in fact, Nelson’s fleet, but a harmless and lucrative sugar convoy, the outcome would have been very different indeed.

Yes, thank God for their admiral.

Ryder thought of how, his Bible in hand, Sir Graham had solemnly recited the Twenty-third Psalm in his clear baritone as the bodies—sewn in sailcloth and weighted by cannonballs—had awaited that final journey to the bottom. Ryder knew the solemn ceremony would soon be repeated; already, the sad shapes of those he'd been unable to save lay waiting to be sewn into their canvas coffins. Less fortunate men lay groaning in pain in the gloom around them, some babbling in delirium or screaming in agony as a limb was removed or a splinter cut out, while others merely lay on the deck propped against the bulkhead, their eyes staring into space as if they were already dead.

One of the survivors was set a bit away from the rest, still and unconscious now after the agonies he had suffered earlier: Ryder’s eyes went bleak that the fates had laid waste to such a fine young officer as Captain Colin Lord. It was always ones like him that God took; the finest, the most promising, the cream of the crop, the
best.

He heard footsteps approaching and sighed heavily. Well, if God wanted Captain Lord, He

was in for one hell of a fight.

The admiral paused to comfort a ship’s boy who had lost a finger and was sobbing brokenly for his mother. And then, his face solemn and the ship’s cat struggling in the crook of his arm, he walked slowly to where his flag-captain lay, and knelt down beside him.

“Colin.”

Out of the corner of his eye, the surgeon saw Sir Graham set the little animal carefully down against the flag-captain’s ribs, then reach out to take the still hand in his own.

“He’ll not hear you, sir,” Ryder said quietly, watching as the cat flattened itself protectively against Captain Lord’s side. “I dosed him up good with rum before I set the leg. He appears to have a remarkably low tolerance for alcohol and will be out of it for a while, I’m afraid.”

“It is better that way.” Sir Graham looked up, his dark eyes troubled, anguished. “I should like to have him moved to my quarters, Ryder. This is no place for him to—”

To die,
he’d been about to say.

“Pardon me, sir, but the captain extracted from me a promise to leave him here. He didn’t want to desert his men, sir.”

“Of course,” Sir Graham said, in complete understanding, “but he extracted no such promise from
me.
I am his admiral and I want him moved to my cabin as soon as possible, is that clear?”

He reached out, curved his arm beneath Captain Lord’s neck, and lifting the lolling head, adjusted the crumpled and bloodstained coat that served as a pillow. It was the young officer’s own, the tassels of one sad epaulet lying against his cheek. With paternal tenderness, the admiral smoothed the damp hair away from the young man’s brow and gently lowered his head back down.

“Will the leg be saved, Ryder?”

“I don’t know, sir. I did all I could for him, but the ball did break it quite badly . . . shattered it, in fact. At the very best, he’ll have a limp. At the very worst—”

“Never mind, Ryder, I do not wish to hear the
very worst
.”

“Aye sir.” He looked at the admiral’s shoulders, slumped with fatigue and grief, yet still proudly reassuring beneath the bright epaulets that crowned them. Aye, it was a sad thing about the young flag-captain, but didn’t Sir Graham realize or care that his actions had saved them all, including the whole convoy? Didn’t he realize or care that he had met, and beaten, nearly impossible odds?

That he had outsmarted Villeneuve and a Spanish admiral besides?

Apparently not.

“What is the dead count up to, Ryder?”

“Thirty-three, sir,” the surgeon answered. “Not including the master’s mate. I don’t expect him to last the day.”

Sir Graham nodded wearily. He pulled the sheet up to Captain Lord’s chin and dragged

himself to his feet. His face was stubbly with new beard, his shirt, so fine and bright before the battle, now torn and smudged with blood and soot. He looked nothing like an admiral, yet he looked
everything
like one. For a moment, he stared blankly at the ship’s timbers, started to rake a hand through his dark hair, and let his arm drop to his side.

“Sir?”

“Carry on, Ryder. Summon me if my captain’s condition worsens—”

“Sir Graham!”

The admiral glanced up as a midshipman burst into their midst , his cheeks flushed with

having run down several decks to reach this hellish hole. The boy snapped off a hasty salute and blurted, “Lieutenant Pearson’s respects, sir, and there’s something he thinks you should come topside to see!”

Gray looked at the pile of covered bodies and felt the last of his spirit draining out of him.

Villeneuve.

He took a deep, bracing sigh. “My compliments to the lieutenant, Mr. Fay, and I will be up shortly.”

The midshipman fled the room. Gray stood for a moment, steadying himself for the

inevitable sight, knowing already that Villeneuve had discovered his ruse and returned to finish the job. He looked at Colin, shattered beyond repair; he looked at the dead and the dying, who would never fight again; he thought of Maeve, and her heartwarming refusal to leave him in those last moments before he had turned his ships to face the enemy. But even the possibility of hope where
she
was concerned failed to rouse his spirits, and he despaired of being able to muster the confident optimism he knew he must summon, if only for the sake of his men. Their captain was down, out of action, and in all likelihood crippled for life; they had lost a frigate, had lost a lot of good men, and now, with Villeneuve coming back to sweep up the pieces . . .

He nodded to Ryder, picked up his hat, and trudged up through the hatch to the next deck, too dispirited to notice that with each level it got brighter and brighter, the darkness falling away behind and beneath him, the sunlight probing through, weak at first, now getting stronger, stronger, stronger—
Cheering.

He heard it, at first just as a dull, muffled din, now an unmistakable roar bursting from a thousand raw throats throughout what remained of his fleet.

The admiral hauled himself up the last hatch, out onto a quarterdeck blazing with sunlight—

and stopped in his tracks.

Their backs to him, several hundred wildly cheering men lined the rail, the hammock

nettings, the shrouds, the yards, standing atop cannon and out on the catheads. Some were throwing their hats to the sky, others dancing with excitement, and in the shadow of the

mainmast a ship’s boy was weeping openly.

Someone turned, saw him, and a hundred sailors cleared away to make a path for their

admiral as he stepped up to the hammock nettings.

“There, sir,” Lieutenant Stern said, hoarsely, and handed him a telescope. “Look.”

Gray raised the glass to his eye. He looked far to the west and saw it, even as the cheering grew so loud his head rang, even as the realization of what he was seeing made his eyes begin to water with strain and emotion. For there, hull up on the horizon was a ship, a magnificent, mighty ship, with an invincible fleet spread out around her in a glorious array of power and majesty and strength.

Nelson.

And
Victory.

And there, leading them—a tiny, mothlike speck nearly dwarfed by the magnificence of that formidable array—was
Kestrel.

A sailor through and through, Maeve refused the bosun’s chair and, looping her skirts up

and over one arm so they wouldn’t tangle in her legs, scrambled up
Triton's
side the minute Lord Nelson returned to
Victory.

She’d waited all morning for Gray’s business with Nelson to conclude so she could go to

him, impatiently pacing
Kestrel's
deck and watching the sun blaze down to scorch the deck planking until the rigging oozed tar and the very guns baked and sizzled in the heat. Now, as she scaled the massive wall of the big warship’s tumblehome, she tried not to look at the angry gouges the French and Spanish shot had struck in the wood, tried not to envision her beloved admiral, standing unprotected on the quarterdeck as H.M.S.
Triton
had sailed into battle—and tried not to think about what awaited her in the moments ahead.

Her nerves were tight. True, he had proclaimed his love for her before dispatching her to find Nelson, but that had been a desperate moment. Now that the dust had settled, that last scene in his cabin with his mistress was all she could think about.

He might have died. And she had mistrusted him,
deserted
him when that
woman
came into the cabin. She had let him down.

She almost turned back.

Almost.

Don’t repeat with Gray, the mistake that you made with your family. Don’t run and hide and
allow yourself to believe the worst. He deserves the chance to explain about that woman. Trust
him. Believe him. Give him the benefit of the doubt, give him a chance, go to him and give him
your love.

Then she was through the entry port and a moment later, standing on the warship’s broad

quarterdeck, and there was no turning back.

A lieutenant, his hat tucked under his arm, had stepped forward to receive her. He was a

round-cheeked redhead with an equally round belly, and he blushed like a schoolboy at sight of her. Clad in a satin gown purple enough to please any monarch, gold earrings kissing her

shoulders, a straw hat atop her head and her long chestnut tresses caught by a dark purple ribbon, she looked sweet, soft, and feminine . . .

As long as one discounted the choker of sharks’ teeth around her neck, the cutlass in her hand, and the wicked, gleaming dagger strapped to a bejeweled belt about her waist.

“Please don’t ogle, Lieutenant, it makes me damned uncomfortable.”

“Sorry, ma’am, it’s just that—well, we don’t have ladies aboard very often, you see,

and . . .”—he flushed and gulped, staring at her bare feet—“well, you look quite fetching, ma’m, and, uh, well . . .”

“Never mind me,” she snapped, looking about her. “Where is your admiral?”

“Sir Graham is in his cabin with the flag-captain, Miss Merrick.”

“
Captain
Merrick.”

“Yes, of course, forgive me,
Captain
Merrick, sorry, ma’am—”

“Or you may call me ‘Majesty.’ But since I am here as the commander of a ship, I would

prefer ‘Captain.’”

She saw several men smirking and elbowing each other at the young officer’s obvious

discomfort.

“Oh, yes, ma’am, I mean Majesty, do forgive me, I meant to say Captain—”

“Oh for God’s sake, Lieutenant! If you cannot manage any of that, simply ‘Maeve’ will do!

Now where are your senior officers?”

“Captain Lord has been seriously wounded, ma’am.” The lieutenant looked down at the

deck. “The admiral is with him now.”

Maeve's eyes darkened with alarm. “Wounded? Take me to them, immediately.”

The lieutenant looked around as though for orders, but he was the most senior officer

present.

“I said,
now,
Lieutenant!”

“Yes, ma’am. Of—of course.”

She straightened her spine and followed him aft, her heart beginning to pound all the harder.