Читать книгу The Tiger's Bride - Merline Lovelace, Merline Lovelace - Страница 10

From the moment Sarah had climbed aboard the Phoenix with the streams of Chinese bringing supplies, she’d debated over the right time to leave the tiny, airless rope locker where she’d hidden herself and make her presence known to the captain.

She certainly didn’t wish to do so until after Macao had fallen well astern. She’d wanted to wait until they were too far out for Straithe to turn about…or toss her over the side to swim back to shore, which possibility she considered far more likely.

And she had more sense than to cause a disturbance during the nerve-racking run past the warships patrolling the entrance to the bay. Even from her uncomfortable perch atop a coil of prickly hemp inside the dark closet, Sarah had sensed the tension that gripped the entire ship as the captain ordered all lights doused and absolute quiet above decks.

For what seemed like hours, she’d huddled on the rope, her every nerve tingling, with only the sounds of the timbers creaking and the sheets rattling to disturb the silence of the night outside. Sarah knew that the heavily gunned frigates had orders to blow out of the water any smugglers caught trying to slip up the coast. Only by such draconian measures could England hope to maintain the East India Company’s tight grip on the China trade and, coincidentally, enforce the Emperor’s edict that all barbarians conduct business only at Canton.

When at last the Phoenix had gained the wide, seaswept straits and the captain ordered the sails rigged to run with the stiff southwest winds, she was so limp with relief that she couldn’t quite summon the courage to emerge from her hiding place. Instead, she scrunched her legs under her and folded into a pillow the loose, padded jacket she’d worn over her blue cotton trousers and robe. Lulled by the slap of the waves against the hull and the steady rise and fall of the schooner, she soon fell into an exhausted sleep.

In the early dawn, the ship pitched violently and dumped Sarah out of her prickly nest. She banged her head against the locker’s wall and came awake to the realization that the monsoon winds had caught the Phoenix firmly in their grip. She was struggling to right herself in the tiny space when the ship dipped again. This time, it seemed to stand almost on its head.

Looped lengths of rope dropped from their pegs and pounded Sarah’s head and shoulders. The timber walls around her groaned. Without warning, the latch securing the locker entrance popped. The door banged open, and Sarah tumbled out.

Instantly, warm, driving rain pelted her body. Waves foamed the deck, which tilted at a sharp angle under her. Floundering helplessly, she slid across the slick boards and came up hard against a raised hatch. Grabbing the coaming to anchor herself, she scrabbled onto her knees and flung her head back to clear her wet hair from her face.

The first thing that caught her eye was the seaman hanging onto the halyards a few feet away, his mouth slack with astonishment as he gaped at her. The second was the towering wall of green that rose above the rail behind him. Sarah opened her mouth to shriek a warning. The cry never left her lips.

A hard band clamped around her waist, cutting off her breath. She was yanked upward and carried like a sack of beans away from the illusive safety of the hatch cover. A heartbeat before the onrushing wall crashed down on the Phoenix, her rescuer pulled open a door and tossed Sarah down a shallow flight of stairs. She landed on a hip and an elbow in a narrow companionway.

The figure behind her braced a huge shoulder against the door to hold it against the smashing force of the water. When the surge subsided, he swiped dripping dark-red hair from his eyes and shouted an order over his shoulder.

“Stay below! The captain will be seein’ to you when the winds break!”

With that, he plunged back outside. The door banged shut behind him. For a few blessed seconds, the ship leveled. A momentary calm descended. Then the Phoenix dropped into another trough and the wild ride began again.

Sarah knew the daily monsoons that came with late summer usually blew through within an hour or less, but this time it seemed as though the ship plunged and rolled forever. After a while, she gathered enough strength to slowly, carefully, push herself to her feet.

With an arm braced against either wall, she made her way down the narrow passageway. She passed two minute sea cabins on her left. The mates’ quarters, she assumed. On her right was the open space that served as the dining saloon, where the captain and his officers would take their meals. The door at the far end of the passageway opened into the master’s cabin.

Thankfully, Sarah stumbled inside and flopped into one of the chairs bolted to the floor on either side of a similarly anchored round table. It was some moments before she’d collected herself enough to take stock of her surroundings.

Not much larger than the room she shared with Abigail at the Mission House, the cabin contained only the table and chairs, a bunk built to the captain’s rather large proportions, and a massive sea chest secured to ring bolts in the floor. A railed shelf running the width of the room at eye level held an assortment of books, decanters, instruments, and smaller chests, all secured against the pitching sea by straps.

Despite its unpretentious size and few furnishings, the cabin still conveyed a sense of richness and warmth. Perhaps it was the way the brass fittings gleamed in the gray light that seeped through the high, narrow transom window. Or the dark sheen of the Spanish mahogany paneling and trim. Or the exquisite gold embroidery decorating the green silk covering the bunk.

Richness and warmth…but not opulence.

How strange, Sarah mused. Straithe risked his life with every run he made up the coast He also gained enormous profits, if the rumors whispered about him were to be believed. Yet his private quarters displayed little evidence of a man addicted to wealth. No doubt he squandered his ill-gotten gains on drink, games of chance, and the denizens of such establishments as the House of the Dancing Blossoms, Sarah decided with a sniff.

One sniff led to another, and then to a sneeze. Shivering in her clammy clothes, she wrapped her arms around her chest. She was wet to the bone and most uncomfortable. The change of clothing and few personal necessities she’d smuggled aboard with her lay under a pile of rope in the locker…she hoped! She desperately wanted to shed the thin, wet cotton, but didn’t wish to open the captain’s sea chest to search out dry clothing. Secreting herself aboard his ship was one thing. Pawing among his personal possessions was quite another.

The Phoenix plunged on, its timbers creaking and groaning like a discordant chorus. As the minutes passed, Sarah’s eyes returned to the green silk coverlet again and again. Finally, she pushed herself out of the chair and crossed to the bunk. Bracing against its side, she quickly peeled off her robe and trousers. She hesitated a moment longer, then unwrapped the length of unbleached cotton she’d bound around her upper chest to disguise the generous bosom Straithe had referred to in such an ungentlemanly way.

The wet breast band dropped to the floor with a plop, and Sarah gave a sigh of sheer relief. Clad only in her clammy linen drawers and camisole, she swirled the silk coverlet around her shoulders. It settled over her body with a warmth welcome even in the muggy dampness. Feeling much restored, she returned to her chair to await the captain.

As suddenly as it had come, the monsoon blew through some moments later. The Phoenix ceased its violent bucking. The sea calmed. In contrast, Sarah’s heart started thumping painfully. By the time she heard the door to the companionway open and Straithe’s deep voice bellowing to someone to hold her hard to the wind, she could hardly breathe. She clutched the embroidered silk and braced herself for a storm of a different sort.

Sure enough, Straithe entered his cabin with the force of a typhoon. The door crashed back against the bulkhead. The captain stood on the threshold, his wet clothing plastered to his body and his blue eyes so dangerous that Sarah scrambled to her feet.

Under his soaked linen shirt, she could see every tight, corded muscle clearly delineated. He looked as wild and untamed as the sea he’d just battled. In that moment, Sarah understood why the Chinese sometimes referred to the elemental masculine force as a white tiger.

And the female as a green dragon, she reminded herself.

“I knew it,” he said in a low, menacing voice. “The moment Burke told me that an Englishwoman dressed in Chinese clothing had stowed away aboard the Phoenix, I knew it could only be you.”

Since the scathing remark didn’t seem to call for a response, Sarah made none.

“Are you mad?” he demanded, advancing slowly into the cabin.

No coward, Sarah nevertheless took a step back, then another, until the table behind her blocked any further retreat.

“Not mad,” she returned with somewhat less confidence than she would have liked. “Only determined.”

“To do what?” His anger leapt across the few feet separating them. “To prove yourself as addlepated as your father? To destroy your reputation completely?”

The idea that the notorious Lord Straithe might harbor any concern for her reputation struck Sarah as so novel that she didn’t answer immediately.

Straithe put his own interpretation on her silence. His face hardening, he let his gaze drop insultingly from her face to her shoulders. Only then did Sarah realize that the silk coverlet had slipped down her arms. Her wet camisole clung to her upper body every bit as revealingly as Straithe’s shirt hugged his. Heat surging into her face, she hitched the coverlet up.

The captain took another step closer. His lip curled in what Sarah could only describe as a sneer. “I must offer my apologies, Miss Abernathy. Had I realized you were so determined to put yourself in my bed, I wouldn’t have allowed you to depart the House of the Dancing Blossoms as readily as I did.”

His nearness unnerved Sarah. She’d forgotten how overpowering the man was at close quarters. It took every measure of her courage to infuse her voice with the same no-nonsense tone she’d use if one of her brothers was up to some prank.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I don’t wish to put myself in your bed. I want only to find my father.”

“I told you I’d make every effort to find your father.”

Her chin lifted. “I didn’t trust you to keep to your promise.”

Jamie stared at her, the force of his anger colliding with the tattered remnants of his pride. He’d been accused of many wrongs in his day, most of which he readily admitted to. But for all his free-spirited ways, he lived by the code that had been bred into him as surely as his black hair and stubborn nature.

He’d never killed a man except in battle or a fair exchange of fire. He’d never bedded a woman who didn’t want it. He’d never run opium or slaves, as the East Indiamen did. And never, ever, had any man…or woman, for that matter…accused him of not holding to his word, once given.

That this bedraggled missionary’s daughter would do so stoked his simmering anger at her recklessness into fury. His jaw working, he took another step closer.

“You might come to rue your lack of trust, Miss Abernathy. You chose to stow away on a ship crewed by outcasts and misfits. Until I can put you on another ship heading back to Macao, you will stay in this cabin. If you so much as show your nose outside the door, I’ll treat you as I would any man jack aboard who disobeyed my orders.”

“But—”

He grasped her chin in a cruel grip and tipped her face to his. “This is one promise you can believe. If you disobey me, I swear I’ll strip you naked, tie you to a rail, and lay a strap across your shoulders.”

The blood drained from her cheeks. “You…you would not!”

“Aye, Miss Abernathy, I would. With great pleasure.”

Jamie slammed the cabin door behind him, as furious as he’d let himself become in many a month. Damn the woman! Had she no sense? No thought for her own safety?

She didn’t trust him, yet she put herself at his mercy! She’d be well served if he showed her how truly a master ruled his ship and all aboard. He could toss her onto the bunk at his whim, tear aside the strips of transparent linen covering her lush curves, and take far more than the lips he’d already sampled. The fact that Jamie wanted very much to do just that only fueled his ire.

He emerged onto a poop deck that glistened with the aftermath of the rain. As he’d expected, the crew had gathered, all agog to know about the female who’d stowed away. Taking a wide-legged stance, Jamie eyed the motley assembly. He’d handpicked every man jack of them, and would trust them with his life. He knew better than to trust them with a woman, however. If she placed any value on her virtue, Sarah Abernathy had damned well better heed his orders and keep herself from their sight.

To a man, they voiced loud and prolonged disappointment when Jamie informed them curtly that the female below decks was not an enterprising boat girl, eager to sell herself to the captain and the crew.

“Who is she, then?” a wizened, one-eyed veteran of the wars with France demanded.

Jamie hesitated. There was a chance, he thought savagely, a slim chance, that Sarah Abernathy could save her reputation if she returned to Macao before word of this idiocy got around. Not sure why he gave a groat for the blasted female’s reputation, Jamie was formulating a careful reply when the one-eyed veteran came up with an explanation of his own.

Hooking his thumbs in his waistband, he grinned. “Never say you convinced the Dutch factor’s sister to steal away with you! The yeller-haired one, who come up you as brazen as any waterfront bawd, when you was atryin’ to cut a deal for that twelve-pounder the Dutchies shipped in.”

“No, Hardesty,” Jamie drawled, “I did not convince the Dutch factor’s sister to steal away with me.”

The seaman’s grin widened at the sardonic response. “Oh, aye! And I suppose you didn’t diddle the admiral’s wife, either.”

The crew’s sullenness vanished in a round of hearty laughter. They basked in their captain’s reputation with the fairer sex almost as much as they relied on his seamanship. Jamie’s mouth curved in a grin as well, although when he thought back to that long-ago episode, he acknowledged silently that it was rather the other way around. He hadn’t diddled the admiral’s wife as much as she’d diddled him.

From the moment he’d joined the crew of HMS Dove, Arabella Cathwright had hounded him. She’d made no secret of the fact that she’d bedded every other officer in her husband’s command. She wouldn’t rest until she’d added the newest lieutenant to her trophy rack.

To be truthful, Jamie hadn’t exactly resisted the skilled assault. Arabella’s midnight hair, milk-white skin, and so-talented mouth had pleasured far nobler men than Lieutenant James Kerrick. None of those men had been discovered in her bed, however. The admiral had been too cowardly to demand satisfaction by challenging his wife’s lover to a duel, but he put an end to the blackguard’s commissioned status quickly enough.

Her brief, sordid affair with Jamie had destroyed what little remained of Arabella Cathwright’s reputation. He wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen to Sarah Abernathy…if he could help it.

“I don’t intend to reveal the lady’s identity,” he told the smirking crew. “I do intend to put her on the first ship we hail making for Macao.”

“Good enough,” one of the seamen muttered. “Women aboard ship is bad joss.”

“Very bad joss,” the ship’s carpenter exclaimed. “Damned if the blasted female ain’t already brought pirates down on us! Look to starboard, Capt’n.”

Jamie spun around. His jaw clamped shut at the sight of a war junk in full sail beating out from shore to intercept them.

With ships from around the world sailing into Canton for the trading season, the pirates that fed on the merchantmen like sharks gathered as well. Almost one European ship in three fell victim to the marauders each year, their cargoes seized and their crews tossed overboard with throats slashed. For that reason, Jamie had added extra cannon to his ship’s armament. The sharp-hulled Phoenix could outrun or outgun almost any junk in these waters.

Jamie didn’t need his brass telescope to see that the huge, seagoing vessel bearing down on them carried considerably more firepower than most. His blood began to pound with the thrill of impending battle. He had enough confidence in his schooner’s maneuverability and his crew’s skill to know he could circle around and blast the predator out of the water. He’d lead him a merry chase in the process, though, and…

His racing thoughts scudded to a stop. He had a passenger on board. An unwanted one, it was true, but not one he could expose to unnecessary risks.

Damn the woman!

His mouth tight, Jamie turned back to his crew. “Crowd on the sails. Let’s show this rice hauler our heels.”

The men’s faces reflected varying degrees of astonishment. Never before had the Phoenix run from a fight, especially one with the mangy scum that preyed on other ships. Any seaman worth his spit would rather sink a murdering pirate than piss. Only the first mate dared question Jamie’s order, however.

“Are we not agoin’ for him, Captain?”

“No, we’re not.”

When the brawny Irishman frowned, Jamie jerked his head toward the hatch leading to the officers’ quarters. Liam Burke grasped the situation immediately. Turning, he thundered orders to the crew.

“You heard the captain. Smith, get the steam up in the donkey boiler! Hardesty, ready your men to raise all sails.”

Since the first mate had been known to lay about with his beefy fists when the crew didn’t move fast enough to suit him, they scrambled to obey.

Cursing the absent missionary and his eldest daughter with equal approbation, Jamie conferred with the Chinese pilot. Second Harvest looked disappointed at being told to lay a course that would take the Phoenix clear of its pursuer, but obeyed without question.

They made their escape, but not without cost.

The master of the junk knew his trade. Working his ship with a skill Jamie could only admire, the pirate strove to catch his quarry. In a daring move, he spread his sails so far to the wind that the ship’s rail cut water and his crew dangled from the sheets like monkeys. The added burst of speed gained him enough on his prey to fire his heaviest cannon.

The ball tore through the schooner’s rigging and slammed into the deck, throwing up a shower of splinters. Undaunted, the crew of the Phoenix hooted in derision and shouted obscenities at their pursuers. Jamie ran a quick eye over the damaged rigging and knew it would hold. Shouting at the crew to stand ’ware, he brought the ship hard over. Pulleys creaked and lines slackened as the massive, swinging booms began to cross the deck.

From the corner of one eye, he saw his first mate stagger. A foot-long wooden splinter protruded from his shoulder.

“Liam! Down, man!”

Jamie’s warning came a second too late. The huge aft boom caught Burke a glancing blow to the head. He crumpled soundlessly.

“Get him below!” Jamie shouted.

His gut knotting, he brought the Phoenix around. The wind caught the specially rigged topsails, then bellied the mainsails. The schooner lifted almost out of the water and skimmed the waves like a gull.

Within the space of a few minutes, the crew had cleared the tangled wreckage from the decks. Within not many more, the junk had dropped so far astern that Jamie could give the wheel back to the helmsman and go below decks.

Worry over Burke clawed at his stomach. The brawny Irishman was more than his second-in-command. He was the only man Jamie counted as friend.

A onetime blacksmith, Liam Burke had been shanghaied from a pub in Dublin. He’d left behind a wife and three children. After five years of involuntary servitude in the Royal Navy, he’d returned to learn that his family had died in the potato famine. Broken, he’d been drowning in sorrow and his own vomit when Jamie, newly stripped of his rank and his career, had found him face-down in a ditch. With nothing left to lose, Burke had joined ranks with the former lieutenant. Eight years and uncounted adventures later, he still mourned his family, but no longer tried to drown himself in drink.

Sliding down mahogany handrails worn smooth as glass, Jamie hit the companionway deck. A quick glance at the end of the narrow hall showed his cabin door shut tight.

At least the blasted female had the sense to stay where he’d left her. No doubt she was quaking in fright, wondering what in God’s name was going on above decks. Good! Maybe a healthy dose of terror would teach Miss Abernathy to keep to her skirts and her Mission House.

His boots sloshing in the inch or so of water that had come in with the storm, he headed for the officer’s mess. The stench of singed flesh emanating from the saloon told him that the ship’s cook had cauterized Liam’s shoulder wound. He only hoped that the blow to the head hadn’t shattered the first mate’s skull. Jamie’s dog-eared copy of The Ship Captain’s Medical Guide offered little useful advice for head injuries.

Two long strides took him to the mess. He stopped on the threshold, stunned by the sight of an unmistakably feminine form in blue cotton trousers bent over the figure on the table.

“What the devil!”

Sarah paid no heed to his exclamation.

“I warned you what would happen if you left your cabin,” Jamie began, advancing into the saloon.

She twisted around, impatience stamped across her face. Only then did he see the bright red blood that colored the front of her robe.

“Yes, yes, I know,” she snapped. “You’ll strip me naked, lash me to the mast, and lay a strap across my shoulders. But I do wish you would wait until I finish stitching up your man’s head!”