Her Pirate to Love: A Sam Steele Romance (2 page)

“Next time you won’t be so fortunate.”

Sweat trickled into her eyes, burning. Grace swiped her palm across her forehead. She braced her legs, even as she pleaded, “I’ll do anything, if you spare me life.”

His gaze was lecherous. “You already have.”

Blood roared in Grace’s ears but her attention was on the dagger. When next he moved, she’d be ready.

Earlier in the morning she’d overheard Roche speak of Cartegena and his intent to intercept Spanish ships leaving with mountains of gold. Despite two ships worth of plunder already filling his hold, Grace knew where he was heading. She couldn’t know how close they were to shore, however, not with the fog that had thwarted her hope of seeing Cartegena when she’d been dragged from Roche’s cabin to the brig. Yet if she could only get past Roche and his crew, if she took her chances by jumping overboard and if another ship were to see her, she’d stand a chance.

It was a staggering amount of ‘ifs’ but they were Grace’s only hope. For sure as she was trembling in her sodden shoes, she wouldn’t be alive by day’s end unless she managed to escape. And unlike her da,
she
was willing to do fight for her freedom, for her life.

A burst of noise came from above. Booted feet, what sounded like hundreds, thudded overhead. Raised voices shouted from bow to stern and every point in between.

Someone yelled through the hatch, “Ship, Captain! She’s flying a pirate flag.”

“How far?” Roche asked, his attention still solely on Grace.

“She’ll be within firing distance in minutes.”

“Bloody hell, didn’t you see her coming before now?”

“She was tucked around an island, sir. And with the fog…”

Roche growled. He loathed incompetence. He shifted his eyes toward the hatch. “Load the guns. Every man to his station.”

The distraction was better than Grace’s feeble plan and she didn’t hesitate. She kicked out, catching Roche’s wrist with the heel of her shoe. He cursed as the blade tumbled from his hand, splashed into the water. Shoving into Roche as hard as she could Grace knocked him aside. She grabbed her heavy skirts and raced for the cell door, her only chance at survival. She cleared the opening. Roche wasn’t far behind. His boots slapped the water, each splash louder than the first as he gained on her. Grace bolted toward the stairs and the hatch.

If he caught her…

Suddenly the opening filled with men and the light dimmed along with her chances.

“Stop her!” Roche bellowed.

Her blood ran cold as she realized the futility of her efforts and yet she couldn’t stop. Life was worth fighting for. Freedom was worth the risk. Without slowing her pace, she charged ahead. The men, hardened by years of hard work, proved impenetrable barriers. She shoved, ducked, dug for purchase and thrust with all her might. She gained nothing.

They pinched her arms, pawed her breasts. Someone grabbed a fistful of her hair. Her scalp exploded in pain. The smell of ripe bodies pressing in on her suffocated her as much as her fear.

“Out of my way,” Roche roared and the men dispersed like a flock of birds scared off a carcass.

He grabbed her from behind, spun her round. Rage pulsed red in his eyes.

“Nobody escapes me. Ever,” he said and before she could do more than lift her fingers to claw at him, his fist flew, slamming against her cheek.

The blow sent Grace reeling. Her ears rang and her eyes struggled to focus. Roche ordered the men who’d stopped to gawk back to their stations. Gun ports thrust open. Cannons were wheeled into position and loaded. Noise throbbed throughout the hull.

“Captain!” someone shouted from the mouth of the hatch. “She’s gaining!”

“Bring us about, and, when ready, give the order.” Roche untied the sash from his waist, wrapped an end around each fist and stepped toward Grace. “This shouldn’t take long,” he muttered.

Grace swallowed hard, a difficult task with a mouth gone dry as sand. Unblinking, her gaze latched onto the sash and what Roche intended to do with it. The cacophony of noise faded in the face of Grace’s distress. She was fast running out of time and options.

Fear had a taste. A metallic, tinny flavor that coated the roof of her mouth and numbed her lips. Roche licked his own as he savored her plight. He took a sudden leap toward her. Grace spun to the left. He’d anticipated her movements. He looped the silk around her throat and yanked her against him.

Grace’s hands flew to her neck but no amount of clawing eased the pressure. Soon her lungs burned. Her vision clouded. Her mouth gaped open but no sound came out.

Roche thrust his hips forward and his shoulders back, lifting Grace off the ground. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks as consciousness began to slip from her grasp.

Dimly, she heard a shot. Mere seconds later, an explosion ripped into the brig behind them. Debris went flying. Roche stumbled and lost his balance. The pressure on her throat eased and they tumbled down. She braced herself above the water and gasped for breath.

“Fire!” Roche yelled. “Now, you blooming idiots!”

Thunder roared around her. Water soaked her, chilling her skin. Grace had never felt anything so wonderful in her life. It meant she was alive. Still wheezing, she searched for Roche. In the melee of men loading and reloading the guns and the smoke hanging in the air, Grace couldn’t locate him. She could kiss whoever had attacked them, for he’d given her an escape when she’d feared one had been hopeless.

Struggling to her feet, Grace sought the hatch. Walking a straight line proved impossible. The battle, combined with the already turbulent sea, had Grace weaving like a drunkard. Cannon fire exploded in rapid succession, blasting her ears. The smoke and Roche’s attempt on her life had her throat burning. Grace wiped her mouth on her sleeve, scrambled for balance when the ship pitched to the side.

Her hands curled around something warm.

“Think you’re going somewhere, do you?”

Before she could answer the blade arced toward her. Grace screamed, the force if it searing her already raw throat. She curved her body away from the weapon but the blade drove through her skin as another round of shots tossed the ship hard to its starboard side. Grace fell amid the debris, the chaos. The blood.

Her blood.

*

Standing on the
quarterdeck of his sloop, wheel firmly in hand and wind slashing through his dark hair and beard, Sam Steele braced his long legs and called for another round of guns.

He didn’t think of himself as Cale Hunter any more, hadn’t since he’d assumed the role of Steele four years ago. It was simpler to be the fearsome pirate. Steele didn’t have any worries other than his ship and crew. Steele wasn’t mired in memories and a lingering guilt, which refused to wane despite the passage of time.

“She’s coming about!” Aidan shouted. While Steele usually referred to his first mate as a boy, though he was in his twentieth year, he couldn’t deny Aidan was a born sailor.

Steele watched the barque begin its turn. She was a bigger ship, three-masted as opposed to his sloop’s one, but she was heavier and it would take her longer to turn.

“Prepare to jibe.”

“Prepare to jibe!” Aidan called as he leapt off the quarterdeck, the tails of the black bandana he wore over his blonde hair fluttered behind him.

Unlike the barque, which was heading into the wind bow first, his maneuver would take them through stern first. It was a trickier move and it wasn’t near as smooth as a come about, not to mention it could do damage to the sails and the rigging, but Steele preferred it. The challenge got his blood pumping.

The sea crashed around them, shooting saltwater up and over the gunwale. Steele tasted the brine on his lips, smelled it in the air. He watched, heart rate accelerating as Aidan and the crew tightened the mainsheet. It would help control the boom during the jibe. He looked further to the bow, ensured there were men handling the jib sheet.

Bracing his feet even further apart, he called, “Jibe, ho!” and turned the sloop across the wind.

The jib was blown backward and the boom and mainsail swung fast across the deck. Men ducked, lest they be caught and thrown into the turbulent sea.

“Hurry with the jibs!” he shouted as one was hauled in while another was released.

Hands moved quickly and effectively. Aidan let out the mainsheet and trimmed the mainsail for the new heading. They’d accomplished their turn and the barque was still in mid-process.

“Fire the guns!” Steele shouted before the other ship could come across for a full broadside.

The sloop shuddered and recoiled as its starboard guns blasted the other ship.

“Swivel guns!” he yelled and the smaller guns mounted at the bow and stern roared.

Every shot that plunged into the belly of the other ship brought Steele a grim sense of satisfaction. His sloop might be outgunned and outmanned but it was unmatched in crew and agility. Still, theirs wasn’t the only ship with swivel guns.

“Watch yourselves,” Steele hollered, though he doubted he was heard over the shot blasting from the other ship.

The cannonball tore through the gunwale, shook the deck below his feet. The next missed, but the whistle of it as it flew past set his teeth.

“Aidan!”

“Captain?” Aidan called.

Down the deck, Aidan already had a hand and foot on the rigging. He had a bow in one hand, two muskets in the other and a quiver full of arrows strapped to his back. Neither Steele nor Aidan were foolish enough to rely on arrows alone, not when every other miscreant carried blunderbusses, muskets, and pistols, but those took time to reload. And so, while Aidan also had muskets, once his shots were spent he turned to his arrows. He was bloody fast and accurate with those.

“Get up there.” Steele pointed. “And don’t come down until you’re out of shots and arrows.”

Aidan was halfway up the rigging before Steele’s orders were fully given.

The barque, in a better position now, let her guns loose.

Screams plunged into his head as they always did, and echoed louder than any cannon fire. He could handle the battle, never turned away from a fight, but the agonized cries of his men were one of the few things that bit into his soul.

Because every time he heard one, Cale Hunter broke through Steele’s defenses and taunted him.
Are you going to fail to protect them as well?

Steel tossed his head. Cale and his damned guilt had no business on the
Revenge
. He yanked the wheel, and the sheets snapped and strained.

“Reload the guns. We’re bringing the wench down.”

With a single-minded purpose, Steele handled his ship, evaded as best he could, and showed no mercy in countering every attack that blew into the
Revenge
. He came at them hard from the cannons and, once closer, the muskets and Aidan’s razor-sharp arrows. Sweat slid down Steele’s back but he kept at them, pushing his men to the point of exhaustion.

His sails were peppered with holes from the pistols and muskets and the mainsheet had a gaping tear where a cannon ball had ripped through. Arrows protruded from the deck and gunwale. Their opponent’s archer wasn’t much of a threat, but the man handling the swivel guns was. With a blunderbuss in hand, Steele extended his left arm, aimed down the barrel and fired. The recoil hadn’t finished when a musket shot blew into the poop deck behind him.

“Goddammit!” He dropped, exchanged weapons from the ones at his feet. Grabbing a pistol he peered over the wheel.

The man on the other ship’s swivel gun was no longer standing but another was scrambling through the smoke and flying debris to replace him at the bow. Steele came up, hand steady, and ensured he wouldn’t be fired upon again.

“They’re dropping the longboat on the starboard side!” Aidan yelled from his perch in the rigging.

Since they were hammering the barque’s port side, Steele hadn’t noticed. And, in truth, he didn’t care who got away. The devil could have their crew for all he cared, so long as he got the spoils of the ship and none of them tried to stop him. If they did, they’d die for their troubles.

With Aidan hurling arrow after arrow, each amazingly accurate, and the rest of his men firing grenados, stinkpots, and any weapon they could get their hands on, Steele kept the guns belching. He didn’t let up until the masts on the other ship were shattered and poked through the fallen sails like broken bones protruding from skin.

With no means of escape, it wasn’t much longer before a sailor, oozing blood from his temple, staggered to the gunwale of the listing ship and waved the white flag. Only then did Steele allow himself to breathe.

“Hold fire!” Steele shouted. He called for the sails to be brought in. “Aidan, shoot anything that moves,” he said, calling up to his first mate, who had yet to climb down to the deck.

With the guns quiet, Steele could once again hear. The slap of the water seemed especially loud as it smacked the ship and spat upward. Seawater dripped from his beard.

Seeing Smoky nearby, Steele called him over. “Take the wheel.”

Smoky, who was only ever seen without a cigar hanging from his mouth when he was asleep or eating, stepped over shards of wood, jumped over a large hole in the deck and took the steps to the quarterdeck. Not only did the man love his cigars, he resembled one as well. Stocky and thick, his arms were like sausages and his legs were sturdy as tree trunks. Smoky and Aidan shared the same fair hair, a complete opposite to their captain, whose hair was black as pitch and whose eyes, he was told, were blue as ice.