The Last Broken Promise (15 page)

“Jess?” Dorcas was getting frantic. Where could the lass be? There were only so many places to hide on a ship. Unfortunately, she was sure her rebellious niece knew them all. “Jess?”

“Where is she?” Now there was another voice in the night. “Adams!” It was a command that brooked no argument.

“Aye sir!” the boy on watch answered smartly.

“Did you see Miss St. John come up on deck tonight?” There was a harsh edge to the captain’s question.

The boy was suddenly frightened. If something terrible happened to the woman, it might end up being his fault. But, even so, with this man, you always told the truth. No matter how awful the consequences might be. Better to tell the hard truth than to be caught in a lie. McLeod didn’t tolerate liars. “I didn’t see her, Captain.”

“Where could she be, Captain McLeod?” The old lady’s voice was both worried and exasperated. “She’s probably tucked away watching us right now.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself and not him.

“Start searching the ship. Find her.” Finn’s voice was clipped and hard as he gave the order. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity all over the deck. Men scurried to do his bidding.

“Saul,” Finn called.

“Aye, sir?” He was there immediately.

“Take Mrs. Moore to her cabin.”

“No Captain, I have to stay here. Jess might need me.” Dorcas wrung her hands. Her voice caught in a tiny sob.

“I’ll bring her to you, as soon as we find her,” he said. “Go, you need to go below.”

Dorcas must have heard something in his unemotional words that sent her away quickly. Something that made her obedient without questioning. She bustled back down to the cabin, looking over her shoulder every few feet until she was out of sight.

Finn wasted not a second. He turned away toward the sailors milling about the dark deck. He promptly forgot Dorcas Moore existed.

The truth was, he didn’t want to waste precious time dealing with the old woman. She may have thought she could do some good in the search, but Finn knew she would most probably get in the way. And at the moment, he could think of nothing but finding Jess. He had to find her. She was somewhere on the ship. Let her be somewhere on the ship- it was a litany that flooded his every conscious thought. Let me find her somewhere on the ship. He had no idea who he was pleading with, but he couldn’t stop. Visions of a woman’s limp body being tossed over the railing haunted him. Let her be alive, just let her be alive and unhurt, the litany pounded through his brain.

If someone had harmed her, he knew he would lose whatever thin veneer of humanity covered his raging instinct to kill. If she was dead. He shook his head to clear the overwhelming temptation to spill someone’s blood. Anyone’s blood. If Jess was dead, it wouldn’t matter who else perished.

Tracking the perimeter of the railing, he searched the blackness with hard eyes. Sailors were shouting all around him. Holding lanterns and scurrying below deck and even up into the rigging, they searched. But Finn didn’t hear a sound. He only continued to single-mindedly search.

“Hellwise!” Finn’s voice thundered as he lifted the lid on a trunk that usually held folded sails. There was nothing inside. “Hellwise!”

“Aye Captain?” the man answered as he slowly strolled up to his superior officer. There was a troublesome, knowing smirk on the first mate’s face.

“Step lively, man,” Finn ordered. He liked neither the sailor’s tarrying nor his attitude. “I want you to organize a thorough search of the ship. Every trunk, box, and corner are to be inspected.”

“Aye Captain,” Hellwise answered. His voice was slurred.

Finn frowned. “Have you been drinking?”

The reluctant first mate shook his head. He lied, “No, sir. I know well the penalty for such disobedience.”

“Then what’s amiss with you, man?” Finn demanded.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Is that blood on your face?”

Hellwise quickly wiped a grimy paw over his chin. He looked at the bright red smear now covering his palm. “I must have hurt myself when I was in the rigging, Captain McLeod. I’ll get it seen to straight away. Cook can put a plaster on it for me.”

“What were you doing up in the rigging? That’s not a job for the ship’s officers.” Finn’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Aye, I know. But the lad who was supposed to be up there keeping watch, was distracted. So I chose to do it myself.

“Distracted, you say?”

“Aye sir, you see. The young lady was down here on deck sashaying about, tempting the men to ignore their duties.”

Finn disregarded the less than complimentary implication concerning Jess’s intentions. He honed in on the fact that his officer had actually seen the woman. “Where, exactly where, was she? Did any of the crew accost her?”

Hellwise shook his head. “No one was bothering her when I started up the mast. But by the time I got to the crow’s nest, she wasn’t on the deck anymore. Why? Has she gone missing?”

“She has,” Finn growled through clenched teeth. “And I’ll rip the hide off any man who’s so much as touched her.”

“You can’t hold the sailors accountable. If the wench wants to set up a little flirt,” Hellwise maliciously commented.

Finn grabbed a fistful of the man’s stained shirt. He dragged him over the side of the ship. He shoved his first mate up and over the railing.

“Take a good look at the sea, Hellwise. Any man on this vessel, no matter the provocation, will not give Miss St. John any reason to take offense. Is that clear? If anyone should be so foolish as to try, they will be given an introduction to the sting of salt water by way of a keelhauling under the bottom of the ship. You can pass that information to all who will listen. I’ll not have any woman, especially Miss St. John, suffer slight while she travels on my vessel.”

The dirty first mate turned his head to look down at the churning sea below. It was not a calm night upon the ocean. The water was dangerous. Waves slapped the sides of the ship with immense force. Even the sea birds who’d attended their progress, had disappeared with the sun and taken refuge on the nearby coast.

“It will be as you say, Captain. I will make your wishes known to the crew. The women will be off limits to all save you,” he sneered.

Clearly the man had no idea in what peril he placed himself. By poking at McLeod’s reputation with the ladies, he was taking his very life into his own hands.

Finn’s fist on the throat of the first mate’s shirt tightened. The smaller man began choking as his airway was constricted by the worn fabric. “I’m thinking you still don’t fully comprehend my meaning, Hellwise. Perhaps you should demonstrate the effects of a keelhauling for the rest of the men?”

“No, Captain McLeod. That will not be necessary. I will gladly inform the crew of your orders as they relate to the ladies.” His attitude changed as soon as Finn challenged him. Suddenly, the officer was almost obsequious in his prodigious bowing and scraping. “I will personally do all that is within my power to make sure Miss St. John and her aunt have a pleasant journey with us,” he whined.

“Good,” Finn said with an amazing amount of sangfroid. “Now, go aid the search of the vessel. I want the woman found. And I want her found safe and unharmed.”

Finn dismissed the sailor. The captain wiped his hands on a handkerchief he’d retrieved from his coat pocket. He made sure Hellwise saw his utter disgust.

“If I find you have lied, in any way, about Miss St. John, I will see you dead, Mr. Smithe.” Finn was not making an idle threat. He was making a promise.

“I’ve told the truth, Captain. I vow she was on the deck.”

“Then she should be there still. Go find her.”

“Aye, sir,” the shaking man mumbled as he made his way past the towering lord.

A hard hand caught him. “Don’t cross me, Hellwise,” Finn snarled. He was not at all sure the sailor was to be trusted.

“Never, Milord. I mean Captain, sir. I vow on my mother’s grave, I would never cross you,” sputtered the man.

Finn turned away. He renewed his efforts to find Jess. As he shoved at a pile of neatly coiled rope, he heard a tiny moan. Scrambling over the line, Finn saw Jess curled tight into a small, pitiful heap. Her hands covered her head, as if to ward off a blow. Her hair tumbled down her back in reckless disarray. It looked as if someone had ruthlessly tore it from its confining pins. She was hidden under the lip of a span of solid railing. Almost as if someone had stashed her into a place they knew would never be easily searched.

Finn crouched low. He reached a hand towards her. “Jess?”

The girl whimpered and cowered away from him.

He cursed under his breath. He edged closer to her. “Jess? Can I draw you away from the railing, love?” He had no awareness of using the endearment. It sprang naturally from his lips.

The girl did not speak. But she raised her head to look at him.

The man hissed when he saw the amount of damage done to her face. Her lip was torn. A thin, steady trickle of blood trailed down over her quivering chin. The beginnings of a set of finger-shaped bruises were blossoming around her delicate throat.

“Who did this to you?” Finn demanded, fury riding him hard.

Jess tried to speak. All that came from her lips was a thin croaking sound. She rubbed her throat and tried again. “I don’t know,” she managed to gasp out. Her words were a thready whisper.

“You didn’t see him?” Finn pressed. He wanted to kill somebody. For the hurt done to this precious, fragile woman, he wanted to resort to the slaughter and anarchy he was often falsely accused of committing.

Jess nodded. “He came up behind me. I fought him. But he was too strong.”

“Did he… did he hurt you in any other way, love?” Finn didn’t want to hear the answer to that pointed question. But he must know the full extent of her injuries.

“No,” she said as quickly as she could. Even the thought of discussing such intimacies with this man was humiliating.

Finn took his first full breath in several minutes. “Let me help you back to the cabin. I’m sure your aunt will want to see to your wounds.”

He easily lifted her up into his arms. He hid her battered face against his chest. There was no reason for anyone else to see how shamefully she’d been treated. He carried her to the set of short steps leading down to the cabin.

Dorcas yelped in dismay, when she saw her niece. “Whatever has happened to you?” she shrieked. Rushing over to them, the old lady laid a comforting hand to the pale girl’s brow. “Did you fall? Was there a rogue wave that tossed you to the deck?”

Jess shook her head. “No.”

She said nothing else. For how was she to explain to her aunt that, in the process of trying to lure Finn McLeod, she’d inadvertently caught the eye of a madman. A ruffian who’d tried to kill her. One who’d taken great pleasure in her struggles. One who’d threatened her with the Maitland name.

“Then what has happened to you, girlie?” Dorcas didn’t understand.

“She was set upon by one of my crew. I will know the man’s identity shortly, I vow this. And when I do, I will make sure he does no further harm to any woman.”

“You can’t kill him,” Jess rasped through her sore throat. “Murder is a mortal sin. You’d put your very soul in peril.”

She looked up into his stormy eyes. What she saw there must have frightened her. For her slight body shivered in his arms. Finn’s jaw locked. He would not terrify this innocent girl with his own inclination towards bloodshed.

“Shh, love,” clucked Dorcas. “Of course Lord Maitland will not harm anyone. Will you, Milord?” She sent a pointed look up to the man as she addressed him by his hated patrimony.

It took every whit of control. Every thread of sanity he still possessed, to nod his assent to the old biddy. On the surface, his face appeared carved from granite. He was unemotional and controlled. Inside his soul was demanding he seek awful, bloody vengeance. Some, heretofore unknown, demon of massacre wrested with Finn for control of his raging soul. He’d always been a cold, meticulous warrior in the countless battles he’d waged over the course of his violent life. In his world, it was very often an instance of kill or be killed. Just as it had been in the low tavern in Port Wentworth. But he’d never, never felt the acute burn of ferocity born in him now.

Someone, no some man, had dared to harm his
woman
. He could not reason how and why Jess had so suddenly become his. And he didn’t care to examine too closely the emotion that birthed that sentiment. He only knew she was wounded. And someone must pay.

“Thank you,” Jess croaked. “I could not stand it if you sinned so grievously on my account.”

Without thinking, he placed a solemn kiss upon her forehead. “Get some rest. You will be sore in the morning.” He settled her atop the counterpane of the bed. “I will send Saul with some willow bark tea and a hot bath. You will need both.” He turned to leave.

“And you won’t punish anyone?” Jess’s soft words stopped him at the door.

The fingers of his hand gripped the door frame with enough strength to turn the bones stark white. He lowered his head. He cast his face towards the dark corridor. He refused to face her. “The sea is a cruel mistress, Miss St. John. Life aboard ship is hard. The men, who take it as a profession, know well the consequences of mutiny. Disregarding a captain’s express order is mutiny, pure and simple. Whoever did this to you must face justice. But I promise you, I will take no pleasure in meting it out.”