Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) (31 page)

When Rowan turned
to look at her, she realized she had been screaming.

“Ella, stay
back!” he yelled hoarsely as he lunged at the pirate. That was when she saw the
man twist from Rowan’s parry—and check his next charge.

He was hesitating.

When she turned
to look at him fully, she knew before they locked eyes it was him.

Sully stood
alone, immobile. His sword held in front of him like a color guard at a parade,
his left arm a mass of blood where Toad’s bullet had caught him. His coat
swirled wide around his shoulders like a magician’s cape, and when he looked at
her, his eyes sad but honest, he smiled.

Without thinking,
she ran to Rowan and slipped in front of him as he was bringing his sword back
for another lunge. “Rowan, no!” She put her hands on his chest, praying he knew
her, praying the killing lust would recognize her in time to stop his attack.
“Rowan, you can’t.”
 

She didn’t know
the man she married in that face, didn’t understand who this stranger was
standing before her so ferocious, so intent, so determined to kill. She watched
him struggle, his sword held high and ready but he was looking at her, not
Sully.

“Rowan, you
can’t,” she repeated. “He’s my grandfather.
Sully
is my grandfather
. If you kill him, then I…and Tater…we…”

Slowly, Rowan’s
arms sagged to his side. He stared dully at Sully, his mouth agape in shock and
incomprehension and Ella slipped under his arm and held him close to her.

“I’m sorry, Ro,”
she whispered. “You need to let him go.”

She turned to see
Sully standing and watching them, his head cocked as if puzzled, his sword
hanging at his side.

The battle on the
main deck below was nearly over, with only the sound of single musket shots in
the air as the members of the
Mosquito
Fleet
picked off those few pirates still trying to swim to shore or to the
single launch bobbing in the water by the quickly sinking
Die Hard
. Smoke curled up from below deck. Ella could smell burning
cloth and flesh.

Rowan dropped his
sword to the deck with a clang and put both arms around Ella. They stood
together without moving facing Sully, who released his own sword and turned
toward the slanting ship’s railing. The sun was nearly fully up now in the sky.

Sully glanced
over the side rail to the water below, then, putting his hand on his wounded
arm, he turned toward her one last time, blew her a kiss and jumped.

28

Every man jack of them either killed or captured.
That’s what Commodore Porter assured
them when he met with her and Rowan in Judge Morton’s offices three days after
the attack on the
Die Hard
. She had
been surprised the Commodore was as young as he was. His mission of ridding the
Florida Straits of all pirates was now very nearly complete.

Rowan had been
positively broody since the day
Die Hard
sank. When Ella ran up on deck to wave her petticoat at Porter’s men, she and
Rowan were promptly escorted back to Thompson’s Island, where they were met by
Judge Morton.

The judge apologized
profusely for Ella’s terrible experience, and although mildly confused about
the fact that she now appeared to be married, was very cordial to Rowan, too.

“It actually
makes my other news a tad easier,” he said, straightening out the vest of his
suit. “I’ll be announcing shortly Adele’s betrothal to Lord Bingham.”

“I’m happy for
them both,” Ella said.
I have a strong
feeling they deserve each other
. “Please tell her I will visit very soon to
tell her so myself.”

“I’m sure she
would like that.”

All pirates either killed or captured.

She told the
Judge that she and Rowan had taken a room at the
Casa Antigua
and would be staying on Thompson’s Island for just a
few weeks before traveling back to Boston and their family. It occurred to her
to mention Daisy’s part in her kidnapping, but something kept her from
revealing the woman’s role. The poor maid’s life was hard enough. God knows
what drove her to do it. But as far as Ella was concerned, it was over and done.

She thanked the judge
for his hospitality while she was indisposed, and for his quick action in
contacting the authorities when he became aware of her abduction.

Every man jack of them…

Except one.

***

Rowan stretched
out his legs from where he sat on the pine bench facing the harbor. Now that he
was bathed and wearing a suit with proper leather shoes, he looked almost
normal to Ella. She slipped a hand inside his shirt and he looked at her with
surprise.

“You’re
insatiable, woman.”

“I like you clean.”

He grunted.

“I like you rough
and messy, too, but I prefer you clean.”

Rowan held the
lighter in his hand and flicked the lid open and shut.

“Be careful with
that,” Ella said, leaning back into the bench to see what he could be looking
at. “We don’t want to lose it after all we’ve been through to get it.”
  

“It just doesn’t
make sense,” Rowan said, frowning. “If the diamond was Sully’s way of travel,
and that’s at the bottom of the ocean, how did he leave during the battle?”

Ella sighed.
There was no other explanation for the fact that Sully’s body had not been
found other than that he skipped timelines again.

“It’s possible I may
have given him something he could use.”

Rowan looked at
her. “You? Like what?”

“My mother’s
necklace.”

“Ella, no!” Rowan
sat up straight, his eyes wide with shock. “How will you get home without it?”

She held up her left
hand with her wedding band on it. “I still have this, which it turns out, I
value even more highly.”

She watched a
grin tug at his lips and he put an arm around her shoulders pulling her to him
and kissing her on the mouth.

“Careful,” she
whispered. “We don’t want any public floggings to mar our remaining time in
Olde Key West.”

They sat quietly
for a moment.

“Are you thinking
about Ansel?” she asked.

Ansel was one of
the pirates taken prisoner. Rowan had already gone to both Porter and Morton to
plead on the man’s behalf, but people were not feeling forgiving about pirates
these days. Rowan didn’t expect leniency for his friend.

 
“He has a common-law wife in Bermuda,” he
said. “And a kid. I can see to it that they have some money. It just sucks.
Ansel had my back, always. He was a great guy.”
 

Ella let the
moment sit. There was nothing to be done. Finally, she stood and reached out
for his hand. “Let’s walk back to the inn. I’m getting hungry.”

Rowan groaned as
he got to his feet. It always amazed Ella how the man could move with the
swiftness and lightness of a cat in the most stressful of situations, but just dislodging
from the couch after dinner seemed to require herculean effort.

He took her arm
and they strolled away from the harbor, the sounds of the seabirds cawing
overhead.

“Do you know what
day it was that
Die Hard
sank?” she
asked.

“What day?” Rowan
repeated, frowning. “Was it your birthday? Because I think I have a pretty good
excuse for forgetting it.”

She slapped his
arm. “No. It wasn’t my birthday.” She paused for dramatic effect. “It was
November first.”

“Yeah, I already thought
of that.”

“Well, why did
you not die? Or did we change things around without knowing it?”

Rowan walked up
the front steps of the inn—one of the only hotels in existence in 1825
Key West—and opened the front door for her. “I think…when you stepped
between me and Sully you assumed I was going to kill him, but it was probably
more likely, considering his skill with a blade, that he would have killed
me
. When you stepped in to save him…I
think you ended up saving me.”

***

The
meals in the
Casa Antigua
restaurant were
usually good, but always either turtle or fish. Ella was sure she was off seafood
for the foreseeable future when she got back to Cairo. As she and Rowan were finishing
their meal and preparing to return to their room upstairs, she noticed a
foursome at the next table was giving her a disproving look.

 
“Oh, crap,” she said. “I forgot my stupid
hat again.”

Rowan
glanced over his shoulder at them and made a face. “Screw ‘em.”

“Spoken
like a true pirate, my darling,” she said. “I hope you’re going to get all that
out of your system before we get back to Cairo. It scares me a little.”

He
took her hand and kissed it softly, his eyes watching hers. “I’m sorry, babe. I
didn’t mean for it to go as deep as it did.”

“You
rather enjoyed the pirate life.”

“Parts
of it,” he admitted. “When they stopped whaling on me and trying to cut
important bits off me, yeah. I mean
aye
!”

She
laughed and then took a sip of her wine to bolster her courage.

“Look,”
she said, “I’ve got to tell you something, Rowan. And I need you to stay calm
and not go all pirate-caveman on me. But there was this guy…” She saw him
visibly stiffen across from her.

“Shall
we have this conversation in the privacy of our room?” he asked.

“Maybe
we’d better.” She gathered up her purse, and as they walked upstairs she briefly
outlined to him who Lawrence Bingham was. She then spent the next thirty
minutes physically restraining Rowan from going to the Mortons’s house and
dragging the Englishman’s sorry ass out into the street and making him eat his
own ascot.

“Let
me handle it,
please
, Rowan,” Ella
said as they began to undress for bed. “It’s my insult to address and I want to
deal with it my way. If it turns out I need you—”

“Oh,
I’ll be there,” he said grimly. “I’ll be right outside the door.”

“Well,
maybe the front porch would be good, and only if you promise to stay there
until I call for you—
if
I call
for you. Just remember, Rowan,
nothing
happened.”

“He
got his grimy paws on your boobs, didn’t he? Isn’t that what you said? He was
going for gold, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,
but I stopped him.” She held up a hand to prevent his next words. “
Yes
, he saw me naked from the waist up
but, really, Rowan, so did thirty-two French sailors back in Casablanca and I
think we’re just going to have to call it collateral damage and go forward.
Okay? Rowan? Okay?”

In
the end, only an extensive and personal physical inventory of Rowan’s ownership
of every inch of Ella’s body would pacify and distract him long enough to agree
to let her handle it her way.

As
he drifted off to sleep, Ella took comfort in the familiar sounds of his deep
and steady soft snores. He was at rest and his world—her world,
too—was at peace. Finally.

As
she allowed the trials—and the pleasures—of the day to slowly claim
her in sleep, she found herself wondering if Sully had gone forward, back to
his own time. If he did, he was probably catching World War II just as it was
getting started. She looked out the hotel room window, the louvered slats
allowing a nice sea breeze into the room, the netting surrounding the bed
keeping the vulturous mosquitos out.

That
would be just like him, she thought sleepily. Eager to be a part of history, to
make things happen. An image of his laughing face came to mind. He was always
laughing. All at once she realized she was already seeing bits of him in Tater,
and even herself. And she realized with surprise that, come what may, it really
wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.

***

Even though Ella
had planned her visit for a time when she knew Adele would be out shopping, she
was nonetheless taken aback to see Lawrence open the door himself. She was also
surprised at the level of fury just seeing him ignited in her breast.

The fool broke
out into a wide grin and reached out with his hand to pull her inside as if
nothing had changed—as if he didn’t know she had found her husband and as
if he wasn’t planning to marry someone else himself. She pushed past him into
the house without speaking.

In truth, she
didn’t trust herself to speak. Rowan was standing out on the street, and she
knew he’d gotten a good look at Lawrence. If he felt anything like she did,
there was going to be a murder committed in this house before the day was done.

“My dear Ella!”
Lawrence said as she walked straight down the hall to where the stairs began.
“I am so gratified to see you in order that I might have the opportunity to
tell you how…how much I…I say, Ella, where are you going, my dear?”

Ella trotted quickly
up the narrow and steep stairs and turned at the top toward where her bedroom
was. She heard Lawrence running up the stairs behind her.

“Ella,” he
called, “I really don’t believe it is appropriate for you to be upstairs while
the Mortons are not to home. You are not a houseguest any longer, if I may
remind you.”

She jerked open the
bedroom door and walked to the bed, where she dropped to her knees and began
feeling around under the bed. Her fingers felt the hard, cold metal of the
derringer. Lawrence entered the room and immediately went to the window to jerk
the curtains closed. While his back was to her, Ella cocked the gun, aimed it
at him and fired. He screamed and grabbed his buttocks, sagging against the door.

Ella stood and looked
at the little gun in her hand with satisfaction. “And here I was disappointed I
never got a chance to use this.”

“Dear God, you
shot me! My good Lord…I…” Lawrence hobbled over to the dresser, his face
bleached white, his eyes bugging out of their sockets at the gun she held on
him.

 
“These little peashooters aren’t much
good in a real confrontation, but they do pack a wallop at close range,” Ella
said, looking at the gun in her hand. “Or so I’m told. Perhaps you could
confirm that?”

Lawrence rubbed
his backside and straightened up as if realizing the damage wasn’t as bad as
he’d originally thought. “It is an unholy weapon dispensing untold agony, I can
assure you,” he said dramatically.

“Well, thanks,
because your
assurances
mean so much
to me. You know, Rowan wanted to handle this little interview with you himself,
Lawrence, but I think it involved tying your balls around the back of your
head.”

“I did nothing
wrong!” Lawrence said, his face contorted with indignation, his hands still
rubbing his posterior, but Ella saw his eyes dart nervously past her as if he
half expected Rowan to burst into the room.

“You led me to
believe we were engaged,” Ella said.

“I wanted to
marry you!”

“You just skipped
over the whole
asking me
part.”

He hesitated a
moment as if to consider the truth of this. “That was reprehensible, I admit.
But it was because I loved you.”

“Trust me, Lawrence.
Love had nothing to do with it.”