My Seaswept Heart (10 page)

Anne tried to swallow but her mouth felt as
if it were filled with sand, and that feeling, too familiar since
d’Porteau’s raid was making her stomach churn. “Andy,” she finally
managed to mumble.

“Well, Andy, is it.” Stymie licked his thick
lips and his hands worked up and down Anne’s sleeves. “Looks like
ye and me needs to get better—”

“Stymie!”

The word cracked like a whip across the
windswept deck. Anne twisted her head to see the captain standing
less than a rod away. His feet were spread and his arms were
crossed. And his face, darkened by whiskers, was stern. Beside him,
his expression one of worry, was Joe.

It took Stymie longer to acknowledge the
call, though his hands stopped their crawling. His lips spread in a
sneer and he flexed his shoulders as his fingers loosened. Then
slowly, he turned to face Jamie MacQuaid.

“What ye be wantin’, Cap’n?”

Anne didn’t think she’d ever heard the title
spoken with more disdain. The two men stared at each other and Anne
could almost feel the hatred ricocheting between them. She stumbled
back a step, tripping over the fire bucket. It tipped over,
spilling water that soaked quickly into the wide plank deck.
Neither man seemed to notice.

Jamie took his measure of Stymie, wishing he
could simply leap over the barrel separating them and grind his
fist into the curled lip and evil pig eyes. To have it out once and
for all was what he wanted. But there were too many who sided with
Stymie, too many who waited for something just like this to start a
bloody brawl. And damnit, if that happened, Jamie couldn’t be sure
who would end up captain.

So he forced himself to grin. “Just wondering
if ye plan to help with the mainmast. Winds picking up.”

“Ye given me an order, Cap’n?”

“Aye.” Jamie kept his expression pleasant
though his stare didn’t waver. “As I recall ’twas issued a bit
ago.”

For what seemed minutes Stymie said nothing.
The only sounds were the winds stretching the canvas taut. Then he
shook his head, spilling clumped hair over his shoulder. “Well now,
Cap’n, I do recall ye sayin’ something ’bout that sail.” He flexed
his shoulders. “’Course that was before this boy here spilt
seawater all over me.” He flashed a look around at Anne. “Oughta do
something ’bout that, Cap’n.”

Jamie just nodded, which could have meant he
would or simply that he heard the complaint. He wasn’t about to
elaborate. Especially when Stymie ambled past him, close enough so
that he could smell his foul odor. But he headed for the shrouds,
swinging into them without a backward glance.

“He isn’t going to leave it be, Cap’n.”

“I think you’re right about that, Keena.”
Jamie turned to smile at his head gunner, not surprised to see him
standing slightly behind him, Deacon at his shoulder.

“What are you planning to do about him?”

“I haven’t a clue.” Looking back, Jamie
touched Joe’s shoulder. “You did good to come to me.”

“Aye, Cap’n.” Joe nearly beamed, then hastily
grabbed up his own bucket and scurried away when Jamie motioned for
him to get back to work.

“You’re not going to hold him off forever,
Cap’n.” Deacon squinted his good eye toward the sails. “You know
the talk among the men same as I do.”

“’Tis nothing but a lot of wind.”

The eye fixed on Jamie. “If you believed that
Stymie’d be nursing a cutlass wound by now instead of frolicking
over the sails.”

“His being up in the shrouds proves he isn’t
ready to make his move.” Jamie fumed and headed for the hatch. They
already discussed this every way but under and he knew how Deacon
and Keena felt. Hell, it was the same as him. But that didn’t mean
there was a thing he could do about it now.

“Remember what I said about watching your
back.”

Jamie paused when he heard Keena, then went
below.

~ ~ ~

He wanted to see her.

Anne leaned back against the bulwark and
tried to calm her breathing. What in heaven’s name did Captain
MacQuaid want with Andy? She settled the rope-handled bucket on the
decking and tried to think it through.

Joe had come over to her minutes before while
she sat in her little wedge of space eating some god-awful
concoction that one of the pirates had served up. At first she
swore she couldn’t gag down a bite of the vessel’s fare, but after
a few days hunger won out and she was actually wolfing it down.

She’d stopped chewing when Joe spoke.

“Who wants to see me?”

“Cap’n MacQuaid. He said I should find ye and
send ye down to his cabin.”

She swallowed. “Why?”

“Didn’t say.” Joe filched a bite of meat from
her trencher. “But I wouldn’t dawdle.”

So she’d passed her plate to Joe and crawled
out of her corner. When she was near the hatch Joe yelled that she
was to take a bucket of water with her.

So here she stood... wondering.

Had he recognized her?

Though that seemed as likely a reason as any,
Anne didn’t think he would wait this long to call her down if he
had. And she hadn’t seen him since the incident with Stymie this
morning.

Anne crossed her arms, hugging herself around
the middle. Just thinking of that dreadful Stymie gave her
gooseflesh. Oh, why couldn’t they find d’Porteau?

But that didn’t solve her immediate problem.
She would just have to keep the hat low and hope the captain saw
what he wanted to see.

Anne tugged the knit brim over her forehead
and picked up the bucket. Her first knock was tentative and
obviously couldn’t be heard over the singing inside. It was a tune
she didn’t know and different from anything she’d heard before on
the ship. The words were lyrical, and hauntingly sad. And they were
sung in a rich, deep voice that held her entranced. Anne listened,
her fisted hand raised to knock again, but unwilling to break the
spell by pounding harder. And then she realized what she was doing
and hit the paneled wood with as much force as she could.

The song stopped and the pirate captain
growled “What?” with such annoyance that she almost dropped the
bucket and ran.

Instead she swallowed and spoke as low as she
could. “’Tis Andy, Captain.”

“Come on then,” came the command and slumping
her shoulders Anne lifted the latch and pushed open the door. She
didn’t see him at first, but when she did, Anne’s mouth gaped
open.

The captain was naked as the day he was
born.

“Ah good, lad, you’ve brought more water.”
Jamie scrunched around trying to get comfortable in the small,
curved tub. It was a tight squeeze and his chin nearly rested on
his jutting knees. “Pour it on me if you’d be so kind, Master Andy.
I might as well be takin’ a bath in a puddle as trying to clean up
in this wee bit of water.”

The heavy rope bit into her curled fingers as
Anne shifted from one foot to the other. “You want me to...” Anne
realized her voice was even higher than usual and paused to clear
her throat.

The captain didn’t seem to notice anything
but the lack of speed with which “Andy” obeyed his command. “Come
on now, boy, I’ve a need to rinse the soap away.”

He was right about that. Anne could smell the
strong scent of lye and his wide, sun-bronzed shoulders were
covered with a film of flaky dried bubbles. But to pour the
contents of the pail over him would mean moving closer to him. As
it was, though, she could imagine he wore nothing below the waist
and since he was folded into the tub, she couldn’t exactly see
anything.

Other than his naked chest, that was. But
then with his penchant of going about barely clothed, with no
jacket and his shirt blowing open in the wind, she’d seen that much
of him before. Which she would just as soon not, Anne reminded
herself. Though she seemed to have a difficult time keeping her
gaze from straying to the broad expanse of hair-covered skin
whenever she saw him. As always it intrigued her how the hair on
his head was so much lighter than that on his chin and chest. The
triangle of curls that arrowed down below the rim of the tub seemed
almost coppery when wet. The—

“Hell and damnation, lad. Pour the
water.”

The growled order jolted Anne from her deep
contemplation of his body. She jerked the bucket up and advanced on
him, determined to do this thing and be gone. The last thing she
noticed before she hefted the bucket was the look of astonishment
that crossed his face.

And then she upended the pail, splashing
seawater down over his head.

“What the—” Cold, salty liquid spewed over
his face, stinging his eyes and riveting down his cheeks. Jamie
sputtered and spat, knuckling his eyelids, and shaking his head so
that diamond droplets of water flew in all directions.

Too shocked by his reaction to do more than
stand her ground, Anne’s clothing absorbed a splattering of water.
When he squinted up at her she returned his stare, then realizing
her mistake lowered her lashes.

“Is it your desire to drown me, lad?” Jamie
shivered, then wiped at his face again. “And would it have hurt ye
to warn me that the water was cold?”

“I... No one told me...” Anne began but now
that she thought back on Joe’s instructions, he’d said to fetch a
pail of heated water from the galley. Apparently she’d been so
overwrought by the summons to the captain’s cabin that she forgot
that small part of the order.

Thinking that Joe might join her on the
receiving end of the captain’s wrath, Anne cleared her throat.
“Mayhap heating the water was mentioned.”

“Well, that be a relief to know.” Jamie
forked his fingers back through his hair, skimming it away from his
face. “Hand me that towel yonder,” he said, still blinking his eyes
against the salt water.

“The towel?” Anne felt like an idiot for
repeating his words but now that she was close to the tub most of
his secrets were revealed. And she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes
off him. Water lapped around his hips, swirled about the tight dark
curls between his muscular thighs and floated an odd
mushroom-shaped appendage. At least she assumed it was an
appendage. Whatever, she’d never seen such a thing before and was
busy watching it bob and sway among the soap bubbles when he
surprised her by pushing to his feet.

It was attached all right. Now it hung thick
and long between his legs, and Anne realized what it must be. She
also realized she was a lot closer to him than she should be. He
might have trouble seeing with the salt stinging his eyes, but
after grabbing the linen towel himself he was busy scrubbing it
over his face.

While she could, Anne backed up to the door,
pressing her spine against the splintery wood.

After rubbing his face and hair, the pirate
wrapped the scrap of fabric about his narrow waist, then turned to
face her. She couldn’t tell whether he planned to chastise her or
laugh. Then his lips twitched and it was an amused chuckle that she
heard. “Well, I suppose that rinsed me off as well as anything.” He
padded toward a small looking glass nailed to a timber by the
windows, leaving-watery footprints as he went.

As he studied his face in the glass, angling
it first one way, then another, Anne took a good look at his cabin.
It was as messy and unorganized as the rest of the ship. Clothes,
and boots, books and rolled charts were everywhere: on the decking,
piled on the one chair and covering the desk so that she couldn’t
tell for certain if the piece of furniture truly did serve that
purpose.

The room was as unkempt as the captain.

That thought made her eyes roam toward him.
He stood now, his back toward her, hands fisted on narrow hips, his
legs spread. Only the water-soaked piece of fabric covered him, and
that molded to him as if a second skin. Anne forced her gaze
higher, trying to keep her mind on how disheveled he was. His hair
hung in burnished-gold clumps over his shoulders, all attempts at
keeping the wavy locks in a queue gone.

He turned then, his whiskered jaw jutting
out. “I think I could use a shave. Have ye ever given one?”

“Me?” Her voice was little more than a
squeak. “Nay.” Anne shook her head violently.

The captain shrugged those wide shoulders,
the motion slipping the precarious tuck of toweling. “’Twas just a
thought.” Retracing his steps to the tub he bent over, fishing in
the water until he pulled out a congealed slime of soap. Grinning
as if it were a hunk of gold he rubbed it between his hands and
then worked the lather into his whiskers.

When the lower half of his face was coated in
a gray film he dumped a small bag on his pillow, the one bare spot
on the bed, and sorted through until he found a razor. That, too,
he seemed to view as a prize before scuffling back to the mirror
and proceeding to shave.

Anne watched all this with a speculative eye,
wondering if she were dismissed and what the captain wanted her for
in the first place. For the better part of five minutes the only
sounds were the lap of waves against the hull, the creak of
timbers, and the scrape of razor against chin. Just when Anne
decided that she would simply open the door and slip into the
passageway he spoke.