My Runaway Heart (27 page)

"I'll wait for you on the beach, Jared. Good-bye,
Lindsay. Godspeed."

"Good-bye?" She tried to face Walker, but
Jared pushed her through the door, Cowan and the three other sailors from the
ship all rising as they entered, as well as two russet-haired young men she
didn't recognize. Intuition suddenly gripping her, she stopped, her gaze flying
to Jared's face, her voice gone hoarse. "Good-bye?"

His nod brought reality crashing in upon her. Lindsay
glanced wildly at the two strangers who came forward, their eyes roaming over
her as if taking in every aspect of her garb not half
so
jarring as Jared's sudden switch to a bold American accent.

"These are the
Killigrew
brothers, Ian and Michael. They'll be escorting you back to England."

Chapter 24

"Back . . . back to England?"

Jared had to steel himself against the anguish in
Lindsay's voice, his own as harsh as he could make it.

"You've nothing to fear, it's all been arranged.
You'll be back in London with your aunt Winifred within a week. You'll have to
stretch to come up with a good story, but pleading amnesia might suffice. As
for your wound" —he shrugged, doing his best not to show any concern that
it had bled again— "a sorry scrape. Good-bye, Lindsay."

Her eyes so stricken he couldn't wait to leave the
inn,
Jared dumped the picnic basket on a table and cast a
last glance at the men he'd hired to do the job. "Take care with her. Don't
doubt that I'll find you if anything
goes
awry."

"Awry?" echoed the taller Irishman as if
affronted. "What could go awry? For the gold you've paid my brother and
me, we'd take her to Russia to visit the Czar!"

The fellow's coarse loudness grated on Jared without
his knowing why, but he did know there were no other men in the village to do
the job. All but the old of the male inhabitants were out on the water for at
least another few weeks, trying to fill their boats with herring, fishermen
every one. And he wanted nothing more than to be out of there, with Lindsay not
moving, not speaking, as if she'd turned to stone.

Yet she wasn't stone, the tears trickling down her
cheeks finally sending him out the door, a grim-faced Cowan and the others
silently filing after him. He didn't look back, telling himself fiercely, as he'd
done all
day, that
it was for the best. Blast it to
hell, it was for the best!

***

"Come on, miss, we've the tide to catch."

Lindsay didn't answer, her eyes upon the door through
which Jared and his men had just disappeared. He had left her. He had truly
left her

"Didn't you hear Ian?" the tall Irishman
shouted at her, making her jump. "If we don't catch the tide, we'll be
stuck here the night, and we've a mind to reach the mainland before dark. So
move or I'll spur you along myself!"

"Here, now, what's all this wild ranting?"

It was the innkeeper clumping down the steps from
upstairs. Lindsay cast a bleak glance at the kindly-faced woman while she was
nudged none too gently toward the door by the Irishman named Michael.

"Nothing to worry your head over, Mrs. Tully,
nothing at all," Lindsay's rough-mannered escort hastily explained, Ian
following close after them.

"No, no, just a minute," the woman demanded,
a frown creasing her forehead. "Are you leaving with these two, miss? What
happened to your friends? What about your picnic?"

"The . . . the basket's over there," Lindsay
managed to murmur before she was rudely interrupted, Ian piping up.

"Uh, we're escorting her about the village—while
her friends tend to something on their ship. That American captain even gave us
a gold bit to entertain her—"

"A gold bit to the likes of the
Killigrew
brothers? You shiftless pair, then out with you
and earn it and take care with the young lady. You might show her our lovely
little church—"

"Oh, aye, the church. Of course, Mrs. Tully, what
a fine suggestion!" agreed Michael, Lindsay grimacing as he pulled her out
the door by her injured arm. Only when they were well away from the inn did he
spit upon the ground and mutter, "Nosy old hag—the church indeed. I'd
rather burn it to the ground than step foot in the place."

Apprehension building inside her as Ian grabbed her
other arm, the two Irishmen hurrying her down a path leading to a pebbly beach
not far from the village, Lindsay felt the numbing daze that had gripped her slowly
lifting.

Dear Lord, what sort of miscreants had Jared entrusted
her to? The innkeeper, Mrs. Tully, had seemed appalled that she shared their
company. Hadn't the woman called them a shiftless pair?

"Watch your step, now, pretty lady,"
came
Michael's gruff command as he handed her off to Ian,
who'd already jumped into a large, battered rowboat. The next thing Lindsay
knew, she was shoved roughly onto a seat in the prow; then the brothers each
grabbed a pair of oars and pushed off from the beach.

"She is a pretty lady, now, isn't she?" Ian
said in a silky tone that sent chills plummeting down Lindsay's spine. "She
must be special to be worth so much gold, wouldn't you say, Michael?"

"Aye, special indeed."

Not liking the way the two men were looking at her as
their powerful rowing carried the boat into deeper
water,
Lindsay decided it was wisest to ignore them. She glanced over her shoulder, a
terrible ache welling inside her at the sight of the
Vengeance
anchored off in the distance. At least she thought it was
anchored until she saw the white sails unfurling. Fresh tears clouded her eyes.

They were leaving the island . . . leaving her behind.
Clearly, Jared had decided not to waste any time—

"I've an idea, Michael."

She met Ian's eyes, narrow green eyes like a snake's,
as he lifted a hand briefly from an oar to brush a shock of reddish-brown hair
from his ruddy face. He wasn't merely looking at her anymore but was openly
leering, his gaze falling to her breasts.

"I say when we get to the mainland we find a cozy
place to spend the night, the devil with finding a coach straightaway. We'll
find a cozy place . . . and get to know our lovely English miss a bit better."

"Are you mad?" she demanded shakily, not
liking at all how both men were ogling her now. "You heard the captain—you're
to take good care of me or he'll find you and—"

Michael cut her off, his tone cruelly mocking. "Ha!
He'll not find us if we decide to disappear, you can be sure. We've enough gold
to take us wherever we want! We never have to return to that scrap of an
island, and good riddance, I say! Just because a man doesn't like to fish, can't
stand the smell of
fish, that
makes him worthless? No,
no, pretty miss, we can do with you whatever we
want,
and your American protector would never be the wiser."

Michael's tirade chilling her to the marrow, Lindsay
looked desperately at the water and back at the beach, so far away now. But she
would jump, by
God,
she would, if they even tried to
touch her!

She tried one last time to frighten them. "You don't
know my protector. If I don't return unharmed to London, he will find you and
shoot you between the eyes with his pistol. Or else he'll use his cutlass to
chop you to pieces!"

"Or maybe he'll hit me over the head with his
picnic basket, eh, Ian? Did you ever see such a fine sight? He looked like he'd
just come from market, the basket swinging so daintily on his arm—"

As the Irishmen broke into uproarious laughter,
slapping each other on the shoulder, Lindsay knew she had failed to daunt them
and seized her chance. If she could just get back to the inn and Mrs. Tully . .
. Grabbing up a spare oar at her feet, she stood and brandished it in front of
her like a sword.

"Stay away from me, both of you, or you'll be
swimming to the mainland!"

***

His throat tight, Jared turned his back on
Dursey
Island and eyed the great sails filling with wind,
the sleek schooner already skimming with ease across the waves.

He stood alone on the quarterdeck, none of his men
coming near. Not Dag, who'd remained by the galleys, not uttering a word since
he'd heard Lindsay hadn't returned to the ship and
why
.
Not Walker, who stood silently between the two stern guns, his face turned as
well from the island. Only Cowan approached, shielding his eyes from the
late-afternoon sun, his voice as subdued as the mood that had settled over the
Vengeance
.

"
Cap'n
, a word if I may."

Jared nodded, though he turned to look out at the open
sea, his first mate coming up beside him.

"
Cap'n
, I think you made
a mistake trusting the
Killigrews
. I would have said
so when you returned with Miss Somerset to the inn—they were a boasting,
slothful pair—but then everything happened so fast, and you seemed so
determined to get back to the ship—"

"Because those damned cruisers are probably still
looking for us, man—have you thought of that, too?" Jared said tightly,
though his gut twisted at Cowan's words. It was true about the ships, he knew,
but that wasn't what had spurred him, his every step taking him farther away
from Lindsay only making him want more intensely to rush back to her. But it
was done, finished. No more!

"I warned them both," Jared added under his
breath, but not so low Cowan couldn't hear him. "You were there, so you
know. I made it clear my orders were to be
followed,
they'd be fools to do otherwise. The deed is done, Cowan. We'll not be
returning to the island—

"C-C-Cap-
tain
! L-l-look!"

At Dag's agitated cry, Jared tensed, thinking for a
fleeting instant the Norwegian had spotted a ship bearing down upon them. Then
he heard Walker's low whistle and he spun around to find his second-in-command
peering through a spyglass, not out to sea, but back toward the island.

"Good God, Jared, she's just knocked one of them
off the boat!"

"
Dammit
, man, give that
thing to me!" His breath stopped in his chest, Jared stared incredulously
through the spyglass at the struggle taking place only three hundred yards
away, Lindsay's hair shining white in the sun as she jabbed an oar at Michael
Killigrew
, the man clearly trying to lunge at her. And the
other man, Ian, was attempting to climb back into the rowboat . . .

"Steer to port!" Jared shouted to the
helmsman, striding to the railing. "Five degrees to port! Walker, have the
gunners fire a cannon. Now!"

Only an instant later, though to Jared it seemed an
eternity, a deafening boom sounded from one of the carronades near the prow,
the huge ball sending up a towering spout only a few hundred feet from the
rowboat. At once through the spyglass he saw Michael
Killigrew
dive into the waves to join his brother, both men setting out at a desperate
swim for
Dursey
Island.

Yet Jared's gaze wasn't upon them but on Lindsay, an
admiring smile lighting his face in spite of himself. She stood with her feet
braced wide in the rocking boat, and hurled the oar with all her might at the
retreating Irishmen—following it with another until four oars had flown through
the air. Then she turned her face to the
Vengeance
and Jared's smile faded, his throat constricting at how pale she looked, her
eyes stricken. Cowan's words coming back to him, he swore then if those men had
dared to touch her in any way . . .

The schooner slowing in the water as sails were hastily
furled, rope ladders unrolled over the sides, Jared didn't need the spyglass
now, the ship almost upon Lindsay and her bobbing craft. Fortunately, she hadn't
thrown all the oars overboard, but she made no effort to row toward them,
instead plunking herself down upon a seat and proceeding to row away from the
Vengeance
, which made Jared's jaw grow
tight.

Damnation, did she think she would take herself to the
Irish mainland now? Alone? With no coin to her name? He could see that her
strokes were awkward at best, her right arm clearly causing her pain. But she
stubbornly rowed on, not sparing them another glance.

"Now what, Captain?"

There was no amusement in Walker's voice, only an
unspoken question in his midnight eyes as he stared at Jared.

"What? You think I'm going to leave her out there?"

When no answer came, Jared lunged past Walker, feeling
the unsettling weight of his entire crew's eyes upon him as he left the
quarterdeck and strode toward the ship's galleys. His orders were sharp.

"Lower one of the boats. If she won't come to us,
we'll have to go to her."

"N-no, Cap-
tain
, l-l-look."

Jared did, following Dag's gaze to see that Lindsay had
obviously changed her mind and begun to row toward them, the schooner drifting
close enough to her now that she didn't have far to go. He turned back to the
Norwegian. "Help her at the ladder, Dag."

"N-not you, C-Cap-
tain
?"

He shook his head, the fact that Lindsay would soon be
back aboard not changing his mind in the least that he would be rid of her.
Maybe not today, but soon. It was the only way to protect her.

From harm.

From him.

His jaw clenched fiercely as he strode back toward the
quarterdeck, he knew bloody well they were one and the same.

"
Cap'n
, Miss Lindsay
Somerset coming aboard!"

Cowan's animated voice ringing out over the deck, Jared
couldn't help noticing that the Irishman didn't sound subdued at all, but
almost elated.
Which made his gut knot, too.