The Blue Diamond (The Razor's Edge Book 1) (3 page)

“Yes, Captain?” Roman
answered, rushing in from the veranda.

“Please escort Captain Ivory
back to her room, and Zara, tend to Lasher until I return.

Chapter
Four

“Keara! Find Miranda and
meet me up at the house!” Cassandra shouted from the beach.

“What is it?” Keara shouted
back, pulling the seining net along the shallows in the evening sun.

“I’ve word of Ivory! She’s
alive!”

Keara Shepard dropped the
net into the water. She ran through the surf and up the beach, through the
tents and into the camp, searching for Miranda. She called out to her over and
over again, when a young boy asked, “Ye lookin’ fer Miranda?”

“Why no, boy, whatever gave
you that idea?” Keara asked, leaning over him with her hands on her hips. Her
skirt was still tied up at her waist, and at only five feet tall in her bare
feet she barely stood an inch taller than the lad.

“Follow me, ma’am,” the boy
said as he dashed off towards the center of the colony, leading Keara among the
dilapidated structures towards the pub. “She’s in there,” he said, pointing his
thumb at the open doors.

Keara wiped the sand from
her bare feet on the doorstep and walked inside. She looked around, but Miranda
was nowhere to be seen. She untied her skirt and shook it loose, fussed at her
hair a bit, and walked up to the bartender.

“Miranda?”

The bartender looked over
his shoulder and up the stairs, raising an eyebrow.

“I should have known,” Keara
sighed, heading for the steps.

“I should warn ye, lass,
they’ve only been up there fer a few minutes. She’s not gonna be happy to be
dragged out from under ‘im so soon!” the bartender shouted, causing the patrons
to erupt in laughter. Keara shook her head and, with a stomp, she raced up the
stairs and down the hall to Miranda’s favorite room and knocked on the door.

“Miranda, can you come out
here, please?”

“She’s not here!” shot back
the familiar voice of Tommy Boston, the carpenter on her sloop.

“Miranda, could you come to
the door, please…just for a moment. And Tommy, need I remind you to whom you
are speaking?”

 
“Sorry, Master Shepard…but…we’re kinda... I’m
sure…you…understand…” he panted.
 
Keara
could hear the moans and sighs of Miranda, as well as the banging bed.

“That does it,” Keara
mumbled, pulling her pocket pistol from the waist of her skirt, firing at the
lock, and then kicking the door wide open with a second bang.

“Dammit, Keara! You could
have killed him!

“Well, I didn’t.
 
Now let’s go,” she said, waving the pistol
towards the door.

“We only needed a
few…more…minutes,” Miranda shouted, as Tommy continued on his way to his
destination, his bare derriere smiling up at Keara.

“Oh, for the love a’
Christ!
 
Can you just get it over with
already, Tommy? I suppose he had something to tell you, aye?” Keara said,
turning her back to the spectacle.

Just then, Tommy let out a
noise that sounded something like a dog that just had his paw stepped on.
 
He fell atop Miranda, sweating and panting
like an injured pup.

“Okay, Miranda let’s go.”

“Well, can you help me
here?” Miranda cried out and laughed, pointing to the rather muscular and tan
slab of sweaty, male flesh now plastered against her naked body. Keara stomped
to the side of the bed, and with a roundhouse slap on his fine pirate ass,
brought Tommy back to his senses and to his feet all in one whack.

“Whatcha do that for?” he
whined, covering his still happy man parts with his hands and turning his back.
Miranda roared with laughter at the sight of Keara’s tiny hand print rising on
Tommy’s right ass cheek.

“Now you’re modest. Come on,
woman, get dressed. Cass has word of Ivory. She’s alive.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so
in the first place? And by the way, he did have a few things to tell me.
However some things I keep to myself!” Miranda yelled, scrambling into her
clothes and tossing Tommy his as she sorted through the garment heap on the
floor.

“Come on. You can pick this
up later, after we find out what Cass knows, and what we’re going to do about
it.”

Miranda pulled on her boots
and sauntered over to Tommy.
 
She stood
behind him, running her hands across his broad, thick shoulders and down over
the front of his chest. “See you tonight, Tommy-boy?”

He turned and pulled her
into his lap, pressed a hard, wet kiss onto her mouth, and then slung her back
to her feet. “What do you think?”
 
He
winked, swatting at her backside as she giggled.

“Oh, God, that’s quite
enough,” Keara said, grabbing her cousin by the arm and pulling her along out
of the room.

“Why do you have to be so
mean?”

“I’m not mean, Mir! If I was
mean I would have slapped him before he finished,” Keara said as they both
broke into laughter.

“I think I have a new name
for my Tommy-boy,” Miranda whispered to Keara, as they strolled arm in arm
through the pub, “Tommy the Rabbit,” she giggled.

“Come back anytime,
Miranda!” shouted the bartender.

“Like she needs an
invitation!” Keara shouted back, pushing Miranda out the door.

They hit the sand running
and burst through the door of the cottage they’d shared with Cassandra and
Ivory since they’d all arrived in Port Royal from Charles Towne.

The cousins had come to the
colonies as children aboard a ship from England in 1698. They settled with
their wealthy great-aunt and great-uncle on their sprawling estate, until a Spanish
raid left them homeless and penniless, as well as orphaned. Their elders were
struck down during the raid trying to protect them. A mere three months after
they had arrived in America, all of their parents were lost at sea on their way
to join them.

Throughout their teenage
years, the young cousins were forced to work long, hard hours in wealthy
households for little pay, refusing to take the road down to the easy dollar
for fear of finding themselves lost forever.

Their bond was as strong as
they were. By the time they’d reached their late teens, they’d saved enough
money among them to purchase a piece of land and a small home of their own, and
had all but forgotten the night of the raid. They farmed and raised chickens,
selling the eggs and vegetables at a roadside stand, as well as at the open
market.
 
They managed to carve out a
decent living for themselves; until the day the pirates showed up.
Unfortunately, that was a memory that burned like an eternal flame and ignited
each day that followed.

* * * *

“We
don’t have anything of value but ourselves,” Miranda said from the porch, as
she tapped lightly on the front door and ducked down behind the railing.

“Miranda, what’s going on?”
said Cass when she opened the front door.
 
She looked toward the sunset and saw six male silhouettes coming from
the direction of the river, each carrying a blade of some sort. Their faces
weren’t visible, but she could plainly see that all were intent on some
ravenous and bloody mayhem.

“Get back inside and put out
the lanterns and candles.
 
And for God’s
sakes, that blunderbuss better be loaded!” Miranda ordered.

Cass drew up her skirt and
ran back into the house, gathering up anything they could use in defense. After
the Spanish raid, knowing how vulnerable they were away from the peninsula
which was fortified and protected from such invasions, they’d made sure to arm
themselves as well. Keara flew into the front room from the kitchen with a
wooden box and flipped open the lid, exposing half a dozen blades. They reached
in, took two each, and barricaded the front door with a heavy sideboard.

It was the golden age of
piracy in the world, and Charles Towne was not immune to their brutal
pillaging, among other horrors. However, knowing the dangers that four young
women alone could inevitably face, they’d painstakingly prepared themselves,
and weren’t about to go down without a fight. On this evening, just before
twilight, their fates were sealed.

“Where’s Ivory?” Miranda
gasped, looking over at her cousins at the ready, one crouched at each window.

“Dammit to hell! She went
down to the river for water for the chickens about a half hour ago,” Keara
whispered. “She’s still out there—alone.”

“Wait, her razor wasn’t in
the box. She must have it with her,” Cass said, never taking her eyes from the
window.

“Of course she does. She
never leaves the house without it,” Keara commented, and then hushed the girls
and slid the blunderbuss through the open window, resting it on the ledge.

The pirates were loud and
howling like wolves, causing the girls to tremble and eye each other with
terror. Keara nearly dropped the gun and then took a deep breath, turning the
barrel in the direction of the approaching men. Cass held her pistol at her
side, and as the hoots and howls drew nearer, she heard the picket gate kick
open.
 
She stood with her back against
the wall next to the front door and slowly raised the heavy weapon until it was
level with her own head, pointing it straight at the door.

“We know yer in there! We
seen the light all the way from the riverbank!”

The girls held their breath
and not a muscle or strand of hair strayed from its frozen place. Cass glanced
to her right at Keara and mouthed to her, “Don’t shoot until I say so.”

They listened as the weighty
boots pounded the porch boards, and once Cass was satisfied that all of the men
were now upon them, she motioned to Keara to fire. The screams of the pirates
were more terrifying and deafening than their howls as they were splattered
with tacks, nails, broken glass and any other sharp object that Keara could
cram into that barrel. Cass joined her with the pistol, firing into the night.

“You got ‘em,” Miranda
whispered.
 
She drew aside the curtain
and was peeking out to see the damage done, when a thick, bloody arm reached
in, snatched her by her hair, and pulled her out of the window.

Keara was lying on her back
on the floor, having been slammed in the shoulder by the kick back of the gun.
She rolled back and forth, holding her arm, when Cass rushed over, grabbing her
under her arms and yanking her to her feet, “Get up!
 
One of ‘em has Miranda!”

Cass pushed the sideboard
over to open the front door, finding four of the men, either dead or dying, at
her doorstep. It was nearly dark, and she stopped for a moment to allow her
eyes to adjust. She had just raised the pistol and stepped to her right, when
she heard her cousin’s screams coming from the side of the house.
 
She leapt over the bloody body of the dying
pirate before her and raced down the steps.

“Keara, watch them!” she
shouted.
 
In the darkness, she came upon
Miranda, with that same bloody arm pulled tightly around her neck and a dirk
pointed at her side. The man was enormous and stood at least a foot over
Miranda’s head. His arm looked like the low, thick branch of a tree covered in
sap in the now risen moonlight.

“Cass, stop…he’ll kill me.”

“Not before I splatter his
tiny brains all over the yard, he won’t.”

A moment later, the tree
branch fell as if struck by lightning, and Miranda ran towards Cass shouting,
“Shoot him! Shoot him now!” But when Cass raised the pistol to fire, the man
already lay on his back on the ground. Bent over his slit throat was Ivory,
wiping her razor on his shirt.

“Is everyone accounted for?”
she asked as she stood and folded the razor in her hand.

“Wait, weren’t there six of
them?” Keara asked, looking in every direction. “Let’s get back in the house
and figure out what to do.”

“I saw Mister Six take off
for the riverbank. From the looks of him, he was hit, but obviously not as bad
off as this bunch,” Ivory stated upon seeing the rest of the damage littering
the front porch. “Cass, help me with these bodies.”