The Pirate and the Puritan (19 page)

“Put the prisoners in our hold,”
Drew ordered. “The rest of you gather anything of value, we’ll burn her when
you’re done.”

Though McCulla deserved a
flogging to be witnessed by his crew—the standard punishment for a captain who
resisted a pirate attack—Drew didn’t have the stomach for it at the moment. Too
many things battled for priority in his mind. Both his father and Marley’s
betrayal multiplied the pain of discovering Ben’s imprisonment. Did his vicious
old sire want to destroy the only living evidence left of his indiscretion?
Drew felt like a cornered animal. First he’d been framed for crimes he hadn’t
committed, then his father had stepped down from a cloud to condemn him.

And of course there was Felicity.
He’d made himself vulnerable to her, and when she found out about her father
she would go for his throat.

Drew sheathed his sword. Solomon
herded McCulla’s crew—most of them too drunk to walk straight—to the other
vessel. Feet apart, bare arms over his chest, Drew surveyed the scene with
outward fierceness, but his mind tripped over one thought. How the hell was he
going to tell Felicity Ben had been arrested?

“Cap’n?”

“What, Avery?” The irritating
nature of Drew’s thoughts was reflected in his curt reply.

The second mate never asked his
question. A musket exploded, crumpling him. Drew dropped down beside Avery,
scanning the deck for the source of the shot. Blood seeped just above the
second mate’s right hip. Drew quickly placed his hand over the softly
fountaining wound.

“Get the surgeon!”

“We don’t have one. Our last was
killed taking a French frigate a few months ago.” Solomon came to stand before
Drew. In one of his fists, he held the collar of a copper-haired child, in the
other, he gripped a musketoon. An acrid smell drifted from the weapon’s short
barrel.

“Tanner?” Drew recognized the
skittish child he’d bribed a smile from with a piece of eight. Tanner’s efforts
to get away doubled at Drew’s attention. The boy held back tears with a few
loud sniffles.

McCulla lurched forward but was
restrained by Smythe. “You little brat. You can’t do anything right. You got
the wrong one.”

One of the crew hastily recruited
to act as a physician came forward and began to rip the
Carolina
’s
downed sails to make a bandage for Avery Sneed’s wound. The sailor took Drew’s
place at the wounded man’s side.

Drew crouched in front of Tanner.
“Did McCulla order you to shoot me?”

McCulla erupted into a blustering
string of denials.

“Shut up,” commanded Drew. A blow
from Smythe quieted the drunk captain when Drew’s order hadn’t.

Tanner shivered and kept his eyes
downcast.

Drew reached out and raised the
boy’s chin. “I’m not going to hurt you, Tanner.”

Solomon still held the boy by the
collar, stopping him from squirming away from Drew’s touch.

“He was hiding in some coiled
rope,” said Solomon.

“McCulla set him up as a marksman
while he found a good hiding place.” Drew gentled his voice. “Is that right,
Tanner?”

Tanner avoided Drew’s gaze
despite all efforts to coax him out of his fear. Drew dropped his hand from
Tanner’s chin and rose to his full height. He reached out to ruffle the boy’s
hair, but Tanner flinched. Glancing at his blood-covered palm, Drew couldn’t
blame him.

McCulla had gone too far. He’d
earned what Drew had once been reluctant to do. “Bring the rest of the
prisoners over to our ship and leave them on deck while you flog the captain,”
Drew called.

“No!” cried Tanner, straining
against Solomon’s grip. The boy managed to connect his fist with Drew’s thigh
before Solomon pulled him away. “Don’t hurt him. I thought you were nice to me,
but you’re nothing but a pirate like the ones who murdered my real mum and da.”

“Let him go,” said Drew. The boy
flew at him, kicking and throwing punches. Drew blocked only the jabs aimed at
his groin. Luckily, Tanner couldn’t reach his face, though Drew deserved every
blow.

When he realized his attack
didn’t wreak any damage, Tanner broke into hysterical tears. Drew had caused
Ben’s destruction, a crewman’s injury, a boy’s loss of innocence, and that was
just today. Felicity’s seduction remained to be completed. Tanner’s paltry
assault didn’t do Drew justice.

When the jeers of his crew only
enraged the boy all over again, Drew stopped the show. He hooked an arm around
Tanner’s middle and hauled him off his feet. “Take him to the hold with the
other prisoners. Except for McCulla. Tie him to the mainmast. I’ll deal with
him myself after we tend to Avery.”

McCulla’s outrage fell on deaf
ears. After all, he was the one who’d come after the bloodthirsty
El Diablo
.
He was about to get what he’d wanted.

Solomon swung the frantic Tanner
easily over his shoulder. The boy’s kicking limbs didn’t appear to faze him.
“Aye, Captain. But don’t you think the child would be more comfortable
somewhere else?”

Drew moved the crewman tending
Avery aside and gathered the unconscious second mate in his arms. “No. I think
he’d rather be in the stench of the hold than anywhere near me.”

He stepped over the gap between
the two ships, careful not to jar Sneed’s dead weight. Another unscheduled
passenger would feel the same as Tanner if she had the slightest inkling of
what had transpired this afternoon. Drew would have to do everything in his
power to see that she never knew he was and always had been the infamous
El
Diablo
.

“I don’t want to do this anymore.
Teach me to read instead.” The quill Hugh held stiffly in his hand drifted to a
corner of the parchment to sketch a stick figure animal.

“Hugh, don’t. Paper is
expensive.” Felicity left her seat beside Hugh to stand directly behind him. A
pattern of wrinkles on her silk skirt’s front revealed the toll that appearing
calm had taken on her nerves. Every clink, boom and scream coming from above
deck had her gripping the delicate material tighter.

Hugh glanced at her over his
shoulder. The battle raging around them didn’t seem to bother him in the least.
“You said you were going to teach me to read and write so I can keep Captain
Drew’s log.”

“You have to learn your letters
before you can read or write.” She wrapped her hand around Hugh’s, helping him
to form the rest of the letters. After Hugh found pen and paper in an ornate
box complete with sealing wax, she justified the use of Drew’s precious writing
paper for the noble purpose of teaching Hugh to write as well as creating a
distraction. Of course, keeping busy soothed her own nerves and stopped her
from running to the porthole every few minutes.

The unknown clanks and thuds
seeping through the walls had brought her close to tears. The sudden unnerving
silence worried her more. Visions of Drew lying in a puddle of his own blood
grew with his extended absence. The not knowing was torture. Her stomach tied
itself in knots as she imagined different forms of his demise.

She had badly misjudged him. If
Drew survived and she still had the chance, she’d show herself to him in a
different light. Perhaps she could find the trusting, vibrant young woman who
had withered while hiding her shame. Perhaps she could open herself enough to
trust a pirate with the heart of an angel. She had trusted an angel with the
heart of a pirate once, and the reverse could be no worse.

All her years of pious repentance
meant nothing to her now. For the first time since Erik, she wanted to take a
chance on caring for a man. The irony in her choice of men didn’t escape her.
Reason had nothing to do with her desire for Drew, which made it all the more
powerful. Would she have the courage to step out of the rigid role she’d forced
herself into? Now that she realized how badly she wanted to, would she even
have the chance?

A solid rap on the door startled
her from her fretting, sending her into a full-blown panic. She rushed toward
the bed. The pistol Drew had given her lay tucked beneath a pillow. She hadn’t
wanted to frighten Hugh with the weapon. When she noticed the trembling of her
hands, she wondered why she bothered hiding it at all. Hugh with his nerves of
steel would undoubtedly handle the weapon better than she.

Hugh exhibited none of her fears
and got up to unlock the door.

“Hugh! No!” she screamed.

“Felicity…are you all right?”
called a familiar voice from the other side.

The weapon forgotten, she rushed
to wrestle the door’s brass handle from Hugh’s grasp. He opened the door in
spite of her efforts, scowling in displeasure at her unwanted assistance.

Drew stepped into the cabin, and
all of Felicity’s fears conspired to squeeze her breath from her lungs. Drew’s
beautiful face was tight with pain. His bare arms and exotic vest were smeared
with fresh blood.

***

“Are you hurt?” Drew dodged Hugh
with the intention of placing his hands on Felicity’s shoulders. He remembered
the blood on his hands and stepped back. From arm’s length, he examined her
from head to toe. In that moment, not touching her was one of the hardest
things he’d ever had to do. Not even when she tumbled out of the armoire had he
seen her so pale.

Hugh tugged at the end of Drew’s
ruined vest. “I learned my letters. Want to see?”

She reached out and began to
unbutton Drew’s vest. “You need to sit down. Back in Boston, I doctored several
parishioners and not one died.” The tremor in her voice revealed she stretched
the truth to comfort him. “Where is your wound?”

When her fingers grazed his bare
skin, his sharp inhalation was audible. She froze for a second, then began to
rid him of the vest more cautiously. She obviously thought she had hurt him.
She had. Her frantic concern over his welfare combined with the flood of relief
to find her safely in one piece overwhelmed him.

He wanted nothing more than to
take her into his arms and prove to her how truly healthy he was. The look in
her eyes told him she would respond favorably, but eventually she’d learn the
truth. Before fate had trapped her in his armoire, he could have smiled and
lied. The honesty they had shared changed everything. He deserved her hatred,
not her concern. Guilt or something like it—he wasn’t sure since he usually
wasn’t plagued with such an awful emotion—weighed him down like a suit of iron.

To stop her before her trembling
fingers grazed his chest again, he grabbed her wrists. “I’m not injured.” He
let her go and turned away abruptly. Truth was, he was more wounded than she
knew.

Delivering McCulla’s punishment
had done little to return Drew’s sense of control. He still reeled from his
father’s betrayal. Marley he could understand. The man was a realist to Ben’s
over optimism. But Drew’s own father...

To offer a reward for Drew’s
demise gave a new definition to the word betrayal. His father’s actions wounded
Drew in a way he’d no longer thought possible. And the only place he had to
turn for comfort was Felicity. He knew he could lean on her and she wouldn’t
crumble.

“If you’re not hurt, why are you
covered in blood?” Felicity’s voice held fear.

Drew forced himself to face her.
“It’s somebody else’s.” Despite his clipped words and hard stare, her
compassionate gaze didn’t falter. Were those actual tears making her eyes look
so wet and inviting? All he had to do was open his arms and she’d be in them,
doing whatever he wanted, whatever he needed.

But he had no right to find
solace in her luscious body. Telling her of her father’s imprisonment would
accomplish what his weak morals alone could never master. Their seductive
interludes would be nothing more than a vague memory or a forgotten dream. When
she learned he was the infamous
El Diablo
, her feminine concern would be
replaced by gratification at the sight of him drenched in blood, preferably his
own.

“Did you kill somebody, Captain
Drew?” Hugh’s question reminded him that the boy was still in the cabin.

Drew strode past him to pour
himself some brandy.

Hugh sat at the table drawing on
something Drew hoped wasn’t a map. “No, Hugh. I didn’t kill anyone. Go find your
father. He’s worried about you.”

“That wasn’t much of a battle.”
Hugh sighed with obvious disappointment.

“Maybe next time. Now go.” Drew
gulped the brandy he splashed into the tankard, then refilled the container
halfway to the top.

Hugh dashed from the cabin.
Felicity quietly closed the door after him, then began moving about the room.
Drew tried to ignore her as he swilled his brandy. He shouldn’t have come here
until his mind had cleared.

After seeing to Avery’s comfort
and McCulla’s lashing, he’d convinced himself he needed to attend to Felicity’s
safety. A dozen bizarre accidents could have befallen her during the battle.
And now that he’d seen her, he knew he had to tell her what had happened to
Ben. The rift that would come between them already seemed like a stone wall
stretching across the room.

He sank into a chair. The suit of
iron guilt made it hard to stand—and Ben’s fate pressed harder in Felicity’s
presence. He clutched his tankard as if it were a lifeline.

Felicity appeared beside him
holding a basin of water floating a clean white cloth.

“What’s that?” he mumbled between
gulps of brandy.

She set the basin on the table.
“Despite your present appearance, I know you’ve seen soap and water before.
Would you be so kind as to remove your vest?”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

She picked up the cloth and
squeezed out the excess water. “I’d like to see that for myself. You could be
stunned and not realize you’re hurt. That happens, you know.”

Drew sat up and shrugged off the
vest to prove to her he was intact, physically anyway. “I’ve met the wrong end
of a sword more than once. If all this blood were mine, I’d know it.”