My Fallen Angel (16 page)

Lucy decided, nothing ventured nothing gained. “And I’m looking forward to cutting
yours
from your head. And … and other body parts, too,” she added before she lost her nerve.

He chuckled nastily and straightened, releasing her chin with a painful flick. “Think ya could hack off somethin’ that big?”

Lucy slowly looked toward his crotch and said, “I’ve seen splinters that were bigger.”

She started as the duke let out a shout of laughter. Tully didn’t look amused at all. He leaned toward her, his breath touching her with its foulness. “That tongue o’ yers is sharp, but we’ll see ‘ow much fight ya have left in ya after watchin’ yer lover hang from a rope.”

“You’d think they’d feed us more’n that little scrap o’ bread. Me dinner pail’s still rattlin’.”

“I’d be thankful they remembered to feed us at all, Tom, though I’d wager it was you they were concerned with most.”

“Well, if they was tryin’ ta impress me with their hospi-toe-tality, they gots a long ways ta go.”

Garrick smiled grimly in the dark hold where he and Tom and the rest of the
Swan’s
crew were being held. Dankness surrounded them—it was in the air, on the floor beneath them, and seeping into Garrick’s soul. He could still see Lucy’s face and the terrified look in her eyes as she was dragged off to Tully’s cabin.

He thought back to the time they’d shared, of her smiles, her laughter, and from that came the notion that perhaps if he hadn’t been so enchanted by that smile, none of this would have happened.

He frowned. Once there, the idea haunted him and teased his conscience, making him vow to escape and save her.

“I think I ‘ear footsteps again,” Calico said.

The rest of the
Swan’s
crew, all twelve of them, broke into murmurings which quickly grew silent when the door rattled, then was shoved open; a torch momentarily blinded them all. When Garrick held his hands out before him, the chains which bound his wrists rattled and the movement sent a spasm of pain through his wounded knee.

“Which one is ‘e?” asked a small-framed man with the evil grin of a felon.

“The big one,” answered his companion, a wrinkle-faced brute with a red scarf tied around his head and a gold hoop hanging from his left nostril.

“Saay,
ain’t that painful?” Tom asked, spying the adornment.

The brute’s response was to glare down at him. The smaller pirate came forward, a pistol held out in front of him. “I’ve orders ta bring ya above,” he said to Garrick. “If ya give us any trouble, I’m ta kill one o’ your crew, starting with that one.” He pointed his long-barreled pistol at Calico.

Garrick didn’t say a word as the pirate unlocked the chains around his wrists, tied his wrists, then motioned with his pistol for him to get to his feet.

“Garrick!” cried a desperate voice when they reached the main deck.

Garrick turned, blinking against the brightness of the deck. Lucy streaked toward him, one of the crew at her heels. Her hair streamed out behind her like a ruby standard. He winced as she slammed into his bruised chest. When she tilted her head back, there was fear in her eyes, more fear than he’d ever thought possible for such a brave and courageous woman.

“Garrick,” she cried as she was pulled away. “Oh, Garrick, I thought you dead.”

“Now ain’t that touchin’,” Tully said, using her hair to jerk her against him.

Garrick growled, rage such as he’d never felt before filling his soul. “If you touch her, Tully, you’re a dead man.”

“Oooh, I’m frightened, yer lordship. ‘Specially seein’ as how yer ‘ands be tied.”

“I’ll use more than my hands by the time I’m through with you.”

“Like ta see ya try, Wolf.”

Garrick wanted to try. Now. The fear in Lucy’s eyes was doing strange things to his insides. But he knew if he were to vent to his rage, Tully wouldn’t hesitate to use the pistol aimed at his heart. The feeling of helplessness enraged him even further.

Tully, the bloody bastard, knew he had the upper hand. The expression on his face was one of a man who intended to enjoy every minute of his revenge. “What’s the matter, Wolf? Afraid ta fight?” he taunted.

Lucy squirmed, swiped hair from her face and exposed aqua eyes filled with as much animosity as Garrick felt. “He’s not afraid of you … you … you …
walking soup bowl!”

Tully’s complacent expression vanished, replaced by one of pure nastiness. “Gonna let you lick it off a me ta’night, lovey.”

Lucy screeched, her hands clenched into fists. Tully’s grip on her hair tightened, holding her immobile.

“Don’t provoke him, Lucy.”

“But, Garrick, I—”

Tully jerked her again. “Listen to ‘im, woman, afore I fetch yer friend Beth an’ string ‘er up, too.”

“If you harm either of them, Tully …” Garrick warned.

“Eh?” Tully asked, darting him a glance. “What’re ya goin’ ta do, Wolf, haunt me from the grave?” He chuckled. The sound turned into a gasp when Lucy’s elbow slammed into his gut.

“Ill
haunt you from the grave, you
worm.”

Tully, apparently, had had enough. He turned to the man who stood by his side. “Where’s Scabbs?”

The man looked as if he was standing on shards of glass as he answered, “He’s, ahh, he’s sick, cap’n.”

“Sick!” Tully boomed.

“Aye, cap’n. There’s a few o’ us here who don’t feel too well.”

“Argh, well, pussies be the lot o’ ya. You there,” he called to one of his men. “Get over here an’ hold the wench.” He thrust Lucy at the man, then turned toward Garrick.

“Well, Wolf, say good-bye to yer woman.” He motioned for Garrick to be guided to the rope by two burly looking men.

Garrick waited until they were an arm’s length away before he sprung into action. In a move which he’d perfected over the years, he ignored the pain in his leg and spun on one heel, kicking the pistol from Tully’s hand. Lucy yelped, then pulled free from Tully’s grasp. The pistol fired harmlessly into the air.

Arms encircled him from behind, but Garrick thrust an elbow into his assailant’s gut. A whoosh of air was released, and the arms around him slackened. Garrick spun around, using one of his legs to kick the legs out from beneath his enemy. The man cursed as he fell to the deck with a grunt. Garrick’s booted heel silenced him. Another man came out of the darkness to take up where his crewmate had left off. A quick, sharp kick to the man’s gut left him gasping for air.

“Garrick!” Lucy screamed.

Garrick whirled.

Tully and Lucy were engaged in a battle over a pistol Tully had had tucked in his belt. Lucy’s hands wereclasped around his wrist as she tried to ward him off from aiming the weapon at his head.

Garrick charged. Hands reached out and grabbed him. Pain sent sharp spasms of fire through his insides and his knee as his assailant knocked him off balance and threw him to the deck. The pirate landed on top of him. For a second he couldn’t breathe, his enemy’s leering face grinned evilly from atop him, a pistol aimed at his head.

And then he was gone.

His assailant was jerked off of him and sent careening into a mast. The pirate’s head connected with a thud, then his body collapsed into a heap.

Stunned, Garrick looked up and into the face of a man so black, his teeth were the only thing visible against the backdrop of stars. He bent down and helped him to his feet.

“Help your woman, sahib. I will go help her friend.”

Garrick didn’t waste a second. He charged at Tully, his hands reaching for his throat. Tully shot him a look of surprise which turned to shock when Garrick jerked the pistol from his grasp.

“Step away, Lucy.”

Lucy nodded, her chest heaving from her struggles. She stepped back, but a hand materialized out of the darkness and pulled her against him. A gleaming knife was held to her throat.

“Let the cap’n go,” a man said. He jerked Lucy up against him, moving the knife up her neck further. Lucy tilted her chin to avoid contact with the blade.

“Scabbs! Bless yer eyes. A promotion fer you, it is.” Tully chuckled nastily, his face filled with smugness as he turned to Garrick. “Drop the pistol or yer woman dies.”

Hope seeped out of Garrick like water through a sieve.

“I think not, Tully.”

Every head swiveled in the direction of the feminine voice.

“Beth!” cried Lucy.

Beth stepped from the darkness, the pistol she held out in front of her shaking like tree leaves in a gale as she pointed it at Lucy’s captor.

“Let go of her, you cur!” Beth ordered.

“Beth, oh, Beth,” cried Lucy in delight. “I do believe I could kiss you.”

“Release her,” Beth ordered again when Lucy’s captor failed to comply. She even went so far as to take a threatening step toward him. “If you don’t release her, I warn you I shall blow a hole in your stomach.”

“No,” the man gasped, and his face seemed to turn green in the lantern light. “Not me stomach.”

“Scabbs!” Tully took a step. “Damn yer eyes, Scabbs,” Tully yelled, “if ya let ‘er go I’ll rip yer bloody throat out.”

“Sorry, cap’n,” Scabbs gasped just before he dropped to the deck, knife and all. Within seconds he was writhing on the ground, his arms wrapped around his abdomen, moaning in pain.

“Good heavens.” Lucy cried.

“It’s working,” said Beth in equal astonishment.

“What’s
working!” Tully roared.

“We poisoned your soup,” Lucy said primly. “You should all be dead by morning.”

Beth stifled a laugh; Lucy heard it and began her own soft chuckles. It was a lie, but she wasn’t about to tell Tully that. Let the worm wallow in fear. By the time he realized she’d not told him the truth, he’d be wallowing in something else.

“You poisoned the soup?” Garrick asked.

They both nodded.

“How?”

“Tully made the mistake of asking Lucy to cook,” Beth answered.

“Bloody whores!” Tully announced. “Is that where all me men are?” He stomped his feet in childish frustration. “I should’a known better than ta let a red ‘aired witch like ya onta me ship.” He turned to Beth. “An’ you! No better than her, ya are. A curse on ya. Ya hear! A curse on ya—”

“Silence!” Garrick roared, stepping forward and poking the nose of the pistol into Tully’s ribs. He turned to Lucy. “What kind of poison did you use?”

Her grin turned into a full-fledged smile. “Dandelion root.”

Garrick nodded, obviously familiar with the herb. “Lucy, hand me that line over there.”

“Here, sahib.”

Lucy whirled toward the voice. “Mousad!” she cried, “where have you been?”

“Detaining the crew, sahib.” He held up the rope he had clutched in his left hand.

“Mousad! Damn yer black hide! Was it you what showed ‘em ‘ow to poison that soup?”

Mousad smiled. “It was, sahib.” He bowed low and when he straightened, amusement filled his chocolate-colored eyes.

The words seemed to be Tully’s undoing. His face grew positively blotchy. His eye patch looked as if it were about to pop from his head.

“Ya bloody whoremongers. Ya bloody
buggerin’ whoremongers
! I’ll get even with ya. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get even with ya … with
all
o’ ya!”

Lucy didn’t even see Mousad draw his fist back, but she heard it connect with a satisfying splat. Tully slumped to the deck.

Mousad’s startling white smile grew. “I have been longing to do that for a great while,” he observed.

Lucy smiled, feeling her heart bloom with happiness. She had done it. By God, for the first time in her life, one of her plans had gone flawlessly. She rushed forward, straight into Garrick’s arms.

She felt him tense and thought he might have patted her back, but in the next instant he pushed her away. Lucy felt confusion stampede through her.

“Garrick, what—”

“Find me Ravenwood,” he called to Mousad, turning away from her without a backward glance. Her last sight of him was of his white-clad back as it disappeared into the darkness.

Hours later, Garrick headed to Tully’s appropriated cabin, his bones heavy with exhaustion, yet filled with an elation that made his steps light.

He’d found the evidence he needed to prove the countess guilty. Letters. At least ten of them, all of them addressed to the duke and all of them asking for his help in taking care of her “problem.” And though the boy wasn’t mentioned by name, the letters, combined with the duke’s testimony, should be enough to convince the earl.

He smiled grimly. And the duke
would
testify. If he didn’t, Garrick would deliver the bastard to the magistrate himself. And if it was a choice between swinging from the gallows for engaging in pirating or cooperating with Garrick, there was little doubt the duke would chose to cooperate to save his own miserable hide.

Of course, he would have liked to have killed the bloody bastard, but he’d taken great delight in pitching Tully and his crew overboard in his place. Lucy—his brave, courageous, incredible Lucy—had cheered from the rail as they were dropped into the ocean one by one.

Garrick’s smile spread. Little hoyden. She was as fearless as she was clever and never had he met a woman more suited to his taste.

But he couldn’t have her.

He clenched the handle on Tully’s cabin door. The thought rose bile in his throat.

Blindly, he stepped inside the musty-smelling cabin. A huge table stood before him. He went around it, wanting only to duck beneath the skull archway and strip away his dirty clothes and try to decipher why he felt so bloody odd when he thought of Lucy.

“So you’re going back to London?”

Garrick jerked around.

“And here I thought you might not succeed. I’m glad to see I was wrong.”

Garrick’s eyes narrowed. The voice belonged to Arlan, no doubt of it, but where was he?

“Over here.”

Garrick scanned the interior of the cabin, his gaze landing on the table.

“Like my new outfit?” Arlan asked, ruffling his gray feathers, his claws anchoring him to the back of a chair.

Garrick blinked, then opened his eyes. The bird was still there.

“Birds are one of the few earthly forms guidance counselors are allowed to inhabit,” Arlan explained. “Usually we choose doves, but I wasn’t in the mood for cooing.”

Garrick shook his head. If he’d been less exhausted he could have come up with some sarcastic remark. Just now he didn’t feel like it. “What do you want?” he asked instead.

Arlan sidestepped a few paces, his talons click-click-clicking on the wood. “I’m here to give you a warning, Garrick.” The words were uttered in a serious tone; unfortunately, the effect was spoiled by his head tilting to the left. Arlan raised a claw and tilted it back “Hate when that happens. Braaah.” A wing rose to cover his beak “That, too.”

“Warning? About what?” But he knew. Bloody hell.

Arlan turned so one eye faced him. “There. Now I can see. I’m here to warn you about your feelings for Lucy.”

“I have no feelings for her.”

Arlan squawked, his wings beating like a bird ofprey’s. “Wrong, wrong, wrong,” he cried when he’d gained control of himself. He pointed a wing tip at Garrick. “The Chief knows these things, Garrick, you can’t lie. That’s why He sent me. He wanted me to talk to you.”

“Very well, you’ve talked. Now leave.”

“I’m not leav—braaahh—” Arlan shook his head. His feathered chest expanded with an exasperated breath. “I’m not leaving until I’ve said what I’ve come here to say.”

“Then say it.”

“Fine. I will. Goodness, sometimes I wish I weren’t an angel. Calling you a horribly crude word would feel good right now.” He wagged a wing at him. “Don’t try to deny it, Garrick. We know you’re developing feelings for the girl.”

“I am not,” Garrick spat out, “developing feelings for her.”

“Are too.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous
?” Arlan asked.
“I’m
not the one talking to a bird.”

Garrick narrowed his eyes.

“Anyway, you didn’t let me finish. We know you’re growing fond of her.” Arlan held up a wing. “Don’t interrupt. Just let me finish. You’re down to fifteen days—”

“Fifteen days?” Garrick protested.

“Yes. Now, I don’t see any problem with restoring the boy to his rightful place in that amount of time. But, Garrick—and this what I came down here to tell you—ifyou don’t watch yourself, you might find yourself distracted by Lucy. You can’t afford to be distracted right now. Ignore your earthly feelings. Do what you came here to do, nothing more. And I mean
nothing.”

Garrick crossed his arms in front of him, refusing to say a word.

“Keep your distance from her. Don’t let her near unless you absolutely have to. And above all,
don’t kiss her again.”
Arlan punctuated the end of his sentence with a pause.

“Is that all?” Garrick asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Leave.”

Arlan wagged a wing tip at him. “I’ll leave, Garrick, but I’m telling you to be careful. Lucy has a long life ahead of her. You don’t. It’s best you remember that she’s fated for someone else.”

Fated for someone else.

The words still echoed in his ears when a knock sounded on his cabin door not two minutes later.

“Garrick?” a familiar, tentative voice called.

Lucy. Ah, God, Lucy.

“Garrick, are you there?”

He almost didn’t answer. He almost took the coward’s way out, but he knew what he must do; delaying it would only cause more pain in the end.

Still, his feet felt heavy as he walked toward the door, and when he reached for the handle, his hand shook He stared at his fingers for a moment before clenching them, then forced them to unfold and open the door.

“Garrick,” she gushed, working through the crack and throwing herself in his arms. “Oh, Garrick, I thought you might be angry with me.”

It was harder than he thought. Automatically, his hands lifted to stroke her back, only to fall to his sides. He clenched his eyes closed, knowing what he must do, hating to do so.

“Garrick, whatever is wrong?”

He opened his eyes. Lucy stared up at him, concern clouding her features. She worried her bottom lip.

“Lucy,” he moaned. What to say? What to tell her? “You must leave.”

A red brow arched. “Leave? Why?”

Because if she didn’t, he knew he’d pull her into his arms and do something they’d both regret; because with every breath he took it grew harder to resist her; because, God help him, he loved her more than he thought it possible to love a woman.

“Because I need to plot a course to London.”

Her face cleared. She smiled. “May I help?”

“No!” And if the word was a bit more strident than he’d meant to make it, so much the better. He watched as her eyes grew wide. Immediately, he wanted to apologize, but he didn’t. If nothing else, his stay in the hold had made him realize how little time he had left. He would be gone soon, and the sooner he started preparing Lucy for that moment, the easier it would be on her.

“Lucy, please understand,” he said, the confusion and hurt in her eyes was nearly his undoing. “I need to concentrate.”

To his surprise, her face cleared almost instantly. He had no idea why, but he knew it most likely boded ill for him.

“So I distract you, do I?” she asked, taking a step toward him.

Damn,
Garrick thought,
she
would
take it the wrong way.
He backed up, nearly groaning when her hips took on a seductive sway as she stalked him toward the bed. “Lucy, don’t.”

Her lips tilted in amusement. “Why, Garrick, are you afraid of me?”

Yes,
he silently answered. God, yes, he was afraid of her, of how much it would hurt to leave the thoroughly engaging woman who was only inches away from him now, her sweet smell rising up to excite his senses. She was everything he’d wanted and more.

Her hand rose. He released a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding when she gently reached out and shoved a lock of his hair away from his face. But instead of her arm dropping back to her side, she playfully drew a finger down his cheek until she found his lips, her touch as light as a wisp of air. Gently, suggestively, she encircled his mouth with a soft finger. Their eyes met, hers blazing with an inner fire which he longed to be scorched by. “Lucy, I mean what I say.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that you do,” she whispered with a sly look. “But will you be able to stop wanting to touch me?
That
is another question entirely.”

“You don’t understand,” he answered, knowing what he must do, hating to do it.

“Garrick,” she squeaked as he reached down, scooped her up, and tossed her over his shoulder. Shegiggled, then said, “Now this is more like it.” But her laughter slowly faded when, instead of turning toward the bed, he strode toward the door.

“Garrick—” she warned, obviously surmising his intent.

He ignored her and ducked under the skull archway, made his way around a chair, then came to a halt before the battle-scarred door. She started to struggle in earnest when he took a firmer grip on her behind and reached for the handle.

“Garrick, I warn you. I’ll not forgive you for this.”

The light spilling out from the open door allowed Garrick a perfect glimpse of Lucy’s startled and furious gaze as he gently set her outside his door. Before she had a chance to dart to her feet, he turned and strode back to his cabin, slamming the oak door in her face.

It was without a doubt the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.