Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (27 page)

She stowed away. Stowed away!
“She's with me,” Tom said, hiding his anger and stepping quickly to her side.
How does she know this Hawkins? Pretend that it's no surprise. Cover up as best I can and get us the hell out of here
. “I thought I told you not to leave the ship,” he said sternly.

The role of a petulant mistress, Adriana decided, made the most sense. “I was bored,” she said with a shrug. “I meant no harm, but this … animal!” She jerked away from the pirate and took Tom's arm.

Neither Tom nor Maurice knew what to think. Tom kept an eye on the lecherous Gambi and tried to concoct a graceful way to make an exit. Maurice shared a glance with Tom, decided Tom had had no idea Adriana was aboard, and mentally took inventory of the arkansas toothpick in his boot. If it came to a fight, he'd take out You and Beluche on his way to Laffite, let Tom handle Gambi and Nez Coupe, and hope that Hawkins would remain neutral for a few seconds.

No pirate woman would have dared be caught eavesdropping on Laffite and his captains. That this woman had done so reflected badly on Tom. “I suggest, Mr. Paxton,” Laffite said coldly, “that you return your woman to your ship. Gambi? Nez Coupe? This … gentleman … has my permission to leave the island without harm to him or anyone with him. I hope I make myself clear. And now, if you'll excuse me—”

“One minute, Captain Laffite.” Hawkins stood, met the challenge in Laffite's eyes, and didn't quail. “I know what you're thinking, and it's true, but this is no ordinary woman. I ought to know, because I'm the man who brought her to America.”

Tom groaned audibly.
So that's it. He's the one she told me about
.

Hawkins glared at Tom, then turned back to Adriana. “You're bound for San Sebastian, aren't you?”

“How the hell did you know?” Tom interrupted.

“I asked Adriana,” Hawkins snapped. “Well?”

“Yes, Isaiah.”

“Very interesting, Captain Hawkins,” Laffite said. Obviously intrigued, he took a seat between Nez Coupe and Dominique You. “Don't stop now. Please go on.”

Hawkins briefly related how Adriana had brought him good luck and the story of her brother's death and her determination to avenge him. “I trust her,” he finished simply. “She brought me luck and was my friend when I needed a friend. I owe her, and can't believe she'd bring harm to me or mine.” He drew a deep breath. “So I'm changing my mind, and voting to let them have the cannon.”

“No!” Gambi roared. “One vote don't make any difference.”

Laffite ignored him, sat silently and drummed his fingertips on the tabletop. His respect for Tom was restored. Any man with the courage to sail into a British-held port with four guns deserved respect, after all, and under the circumstances not wanting to announce his intentions was a reasonable precaution. But still, there was something about the whole mess that smelled of rotten fish. Something in Paxton's eye—a man with one eye was harder to read than a man with two—told Laffite that part of the story was being left out, and he wanted to know what.

“You say the girl brings good luck,” he finally said. “Maybe, maybe not. She's not lucky right now. You say she reads the future. I can believe that, because there are those who can. But that is not the issue. The question is: can we trust Mr. Paxton? Tell me, girl.” His eyes turned to Adriana and bored into hers. “If we sell him the guns, will he use them against us? And why should we believe that he won't?”

Adriana felt a slight nudge from Tom. A warning? Had Laffite laid a trap for her? And what should her answer be?

“You are in no danger from this man,” she said boldly, deciding, because she had no idea of what had been said earlier, that only the truth would do. “Thomas Gunn Paxton is a man of honor whose only intention is to rescue his sons from their kidnapper, the governor of San Sebastian.”

Laffite and the other captains exchanged looks of bewilderment. “I don't understand,” Dominique You said. “I thought you were going to kill this Bliss.”

“Well, ya see,” Maurice began with every intention of straightening out what had become an impossible mess, “it's like this. Tom … that is …” He paused and threw up his hands in despair. “Ah, hell, you explain it.”

“It's pretty simple, really, I was—”

“No, Thomas,” Adriana interrupted. “Let
me
explain.” The words tumbling out, she addressed Laffite. “
He
is going to get his sons back.
I
was going to avenge my brother, only Thomas wouldn't let me go with him because it's too dangerous, so I stowed away on his boat and—”

Hawkins erupted in laughter. Wounded, Adriana watched as the others joined in, one by one. Maurice looked as if he hoped he was dreaming, and Tom looked as if he wished he could sink out of sight through the floor.

“But, Monsieur Paxton,” Laffite said as the merriment finally died, “why didn't you simply tell us the truth in the first place? We're all men here. We would have understood.”

Gambi's glare was fierce as he leaned across the table. “You think Gambi would let a British pig—
any
man—take his sons?”

“I didn't say that,” Tom protested, his face reddening. “But would
you
announce to all the world that you were planning to—”

“Thomas, Thomas.” Laffite waved him to silence. “You wanted us to trust you, but you didn't trust us, eh?” Disconsolate, he shook his head and sighed. “That was wrong, my dear friend. But—” The sad look disappeared, to be replaced by a wide smile. “We forgive you, eh? And grant your request. Four nine-pounders shall be yours.”

“Thank you” wasn't quite enough, but it was a good beginning. An hour later, the price negotiated, Laffite's men began loading the cannon aboard the
Cassandra
, and Adriana began reading palms, starting with Jean Laffite's. Three hours later, the
Cassandra
was ready to sail on the morning tide and the party was in full swing. Not until after Adriana's second dance did Tom have a free moment with her. “You're an amazing woman,” he said as she nestled in his arms. “The only problem is, what am I going to do with you now?”

Adriana looked up at him, at the fierce face gentled by moonlight and shadows. “I know exactly what you're going to do,” she told him, the amulet he wore warm against her chest. “You're going to take me with you.”

CHAPTER XIV

Midnight, starlight. The wind had died with the setting of the sun. The
Cassandra
had long since slowed to a dead stop, and lay rolling gently on the long, shallow swells. When the moon rose, they noted the first faint glimmering of the phosphorescence that, common in the wake of a ship, was rarely seen in a sea so calm. By midnight, the glow had become a bright, ghostly, dazzling light that covered the dark sea.

“It's doomed we are,” a shaking voice announced fearfully. “We be dead men afloat on hell's black belly.”

Someone guffawed. “How can a man be afloat on a belly, you damned fool?”

“You'll see. We'll all see. That's my fear.”

“Enough of your heathen rumblings,” Slurry shouted, his voice sounding frail despite his determination to be brave. He crossed to the starboard rail where Adriana stood and stared across the silent water. “Tell us, Gypsy, what it is you see in store for us. Read that, if ye will.”

Adriana looked past the old sea dog to the careworn faces that turned as he spoke and drew closer to listen to her reply.

“Now ain't the time for secrets or holdin' back,” Strickland said from the shadow of the mainmast.

“Each man must read for himself,” Adriana said.

“Not good enough, wench. You're hiding the truth as plain as can be.” Strickland loomed out of the darkness and his solid, rough-hewn form blocked Adriana as she turned to walk away from her unwanted audience.

“Now, looky here,” Slurry protested, putting out a hand to restrain Strickland.

Strickland brushed Slurry aside. “Stay out of it, old man. I want an answer.”

“Somebody get Tom or Maurice,” a new voice whispered hoarsely.

“Don't disturb them,” Adriana ordered, to the surprise of the men slowly gathering around her. “What exactly is it you wanted to know?”

“What you see,” Strickland growled, stepping closer. He liked the smell of her, liked the way the heat seemed to emanate from her body, the swell of her breasts against her cotton bodice. “Out there, pretty one … pretty wench …”

His eyes glittered and he smelled of tobacco, of rum and salt and sweat. Adriana had heard of the madness that temporarily seized some men when the ships they rode lay becalmed and helpless. A ship had only speed and mobility to escape the black sea's predators, and without a breeze to fill the sails, it had neither.

Danger fired Strickland's senses and filled him with excitement. Fear of the unknown fed his lust, and he could feel himself growing. “What do you see out there, pretty one?” he repeated, his arousal complete as he lifted a hand to touch her breast.

Adriana smiled seductively to draw attention from the sudden blurred movement of her hand and leg. Without warning, a razor-sharp sliver of steel pressed against the crotch of Strickland's cloth breeches. “I see you spending the rest of your days as a gelding if you don't stand aside,” she said as sweetly as if she were asking him the time.

Strickland's lust vanished as quickly as his courage. Tamed in a second by a mere slip of a Gypsy girl, he lowered his hand and head and allowed her to pass. The rest of the crew parted to let her through, and more than one man suppressed a laugh at Strickland's expense.

Adriana turned to them and gave them a glimpse of her calf as she returned the dagger to its sheath. “If you must know,” she said quietly, “I see nothing but vapors and will-o'-the-wisps. I see nothing but your fear.” Her gaze swept over the crew. “You men have taken Tom Gunn Paxton's gold. You can earn it by putting away your fear. The wind goes, the wind returns as God wills. No man, no woman can say why, nor see anything beyond the coming and the going. Your time is better spent thinking of the good days past and those to come. Which of you can play a pipe?”

“Why, I can,” Jeffrey Crane said.

“And I've a fiddle stowed away,” another voice called.

“I heard a squeeze box the other night,” Adriana prompted.

“You'll hear it again,” said Joe Reese, the old-timer of the crew, already on his way below.

Crane played his pipe to the accompaniment of Slurry Wall's rhythm on an empty water keg. Before the fiddle could sing or the accordion wail, Adriana began to dance. Her hair flew like the wind, her hands dipped and dived like seabirds. Her hips emulated the undulating waves, and her slippered feet sounded like the whisper of rain on the deck. Her smile seeming a promise of better days to come, Adriana danced by Fairleigh, caught him by the wrist, and dragged him into the center of the clapping, cheering circle of men. They danced the hornpipe, and when Fairleigh fell winded to one side, Engle, the sail maker, took his place. No tonic could have worked better, for as the men danced and laughed and sang, they forgot the listless air and the sea's tricks. Even Strickland forgot his fear, because Adriana danced.

The dancing ended with the arrival of the wind. Chilled by its passage across the Atlantic, the breeze sent everyone scurrying for warm clothes. By the time Adriana returned to the deck, the sails had been set and the starboard watch had gone below to get some sleep. On deck, the seven men left to tend the ship clustered around the wheel, drank hot coffee, and spun yarns.

Wrapped in her shawl, Adriana strolled forward and, finding a perch on a crate that held a half-dozen chickens, sat and stared out at the black sea and the star-spangled sky. To be alone was a luxury. Rarely had she felt more alive in the past two years. She listened to the slap of waves against the hull, the hiss of the bow cutting through the water, the low, intermittent hum of lines vibrating in the wind, the rhythmic creaking of straining timbers—and, in her mind, the incessant buzz of unanswered questions.

Did she love this man, this Thomas who made her heart sing? The song said yes. She liked being with him, liked the way his voice sounded, the way his skin felt, the way his hands felt on her. She wanted to be with him, to nurture him and be nurtured by him, to live her days and the long nights through with him.

And yet, he had never spoken of love. Was it his natural reticence, his doubts, his ghosts that muted him? Or was it simply that he didn't love her?

She stared at the stars, wished they could supply her with answers, and realized that stars, for all their cold beauty, knew nothing. What did stars, after all, know of vengeance and retribution, of loneliness and love? Better to be a star burning brightly to light a lover's night, yet never have to know a lover's doubts or pains. Or joys?

And there lay her answer, in all its bright ambiguity. There was no answer; there was only love's desperate gamble: grief and pain on one side of love's coin, and on the other, joy and ecstasy.

To dare to play was to chance remorse, but having played was to live for love.

I would have it no other way. I have him now, and whatever dear pleasure I find, I will take and cherish
.

And if tomorrow comes and love is gone?

Then I shall dance, as I always have
.

Feeling Tom's eyes on her, Adriana turned. He stood behind her, and opened his arms as she went to him.

A cannon thundered and the sound jarred Tom awake. He sat up, yawned, and tried to stretch the kink out of his shoulder. Adriana's hand snaked up his side to massage the muscles around his neck. Tom groaned, then sighed in relief. “Hand's asleep,” he explained, flexing his fingers into life. “Damned bed's built for one.”

“Poor Thomas,” Adriana teased. She kicked the covers aside and, sleek and tawny, stretched luxuriously. “You suffer so. Perhaps you'd rather sleep alone?”