Chapter 4
“Wherein our heroine is forced to flee.”
Henri thought that if anyone had predicted that she would be running for her life through the town in the middle of the night in the company of pirates and cut-throats she would have believed them quite mad.
But she was indeed running through the town in the middle of the night in the company of pirates and cut-throats, and she became uncomfortably aware that she should look closer to home for madness.
Whatever had possessed her to embark on this ill-fated endeavour could not be firmly brought to mind at this moment. In fact, the shouts of men and the alarming report of gunfire focused the mind quite superbly on the job of keeping alive while all those around ran for their lives.
“This way,” Savage yelled over his shoulder as Henri hitched her skirts once more and tried to keep up with him.
They were heading down towards the beach, and she assumed that there would be a boat waiting.
What would befall her after that she could not contemplate.
All that mattered at this moment was getting away from the redcoats.
She simply could not be discovered, or all would be lost.
She screamed as a soldier appeared from behind a crumbling building and launched himself at Savage.
Flattening herself against the wall she watched in horror as the two men fought.
The slash of metal against metal seemed to explode in her ears, making her wince and she was utterly unprepared for the violence she was witnessing.
Reading about such things in the papers in the comfort of your own home was one thing, seeing it happen before your eyes quite another.
Captain Savage was aptly named it seemed to her as he bested his opponent and sent the soldier’s sword flying across the cobbles.
To her surprise, though, he didn’t cut the man down as she’d imagined he would.
“Run you fool,” he hissed but the solider, despite the terror on his face, rolled to the side and lunged for the sword.
He ran back towards his foe and with terror and repugnance she saw the captain cut him down without a moment’s hesitation.
She screamed then as blood poured from a wound in the man’s side and he slumped to the floor with an appalling cry of pain.
The fight wasn’t over, though, as another soldier appeared to take the place of the last.
“Run!” he yelled to her, and she screamed again as a hand grabbed hold of her arm and Mousy began to pull her down the street. “Get her to the boat!” Savage yelled.
“But ...” she began, pointing as she saw yet another redcoat join the first and the captain turned to meet the new threat.
“Come on!” Mousy roared, pulling her arm so hard she nearly went face down on the slippery cobbles. “Lars will deal with ‘em.”
As they ran, she looked around, hoping for an opportunity to conceal herself, to be able to slip away quietly once the redcoats had continued in their pursuit of the pirates.
But alas cover was in short supply and Mousy’s grip on her arm too fierce.
A chance to escape both the pirates and militia was far from likely.
And so she ran, gasping for breath, quite unused to running at such a pace as ladies were not supposed to exert themselves in such a fashion.
Mousy let go of her arm but urged her on as they ran down the stone steps to the shore.
She stumbled as her feet hit the shingle of the beach, the surface slipping beneath the smooth soles of her shoes, and she fell, only to be hauled up again by a strong pair of hands.
“Come on,” said a rough voice in her ear, and she looked up to see the massive bulk of Mousy looking down at her. “Can’t stop now.”
The truth of his words was illustrated by the sharp crack of gunfire only too close behind them. She stifled a squeal and allowed Mousy to tow her down the beach. Captain Savage was running towards them at breakneck speed.
“Move dammit!” he yelled, before picking her up, wading into the sea, and throwing her none too gently into the waiting boat.
Moments later and with a screech of gravel and the slap of freezing water against the sides of the small boat, and they were heading out into the fathomless darkness of the sea.
Henri grasped the side of the boat with one hand and clutched her shawl tightly around her with the other, then she closed her eyes and prayed.
There was some childish part of her brain that insisted this was just a bad dream, that she wasn’t really heading out towards a pirate ship in the middle of the night but asleep in her bed.
Sadly, when she dared to crack open an eyelid to see the redcoats arrayed on the beach and disappearing into the distance as they fired at the boat, it became all too real.
Mousy pushed her head down and then jerked in his seat, yelling out, before slumping down in the boat, clutching at his shoulder. Blood oozed out from between his fingers.
“He’s hit,” she screamed with horror, before pushing up from her seat to move beside the big man whose face was contorted with pain.
“Let me see,” she demanded, gently trying to prise his large hand away from the wound.
“It’s clean,” she said, inspecting the hole, high on his shoulder.
“It’s gone clear through the other side. I don’t think it’s broken anything.”
“Maybe so,” Mousy grumbled. “But it hurts like a bitch.”
Henri was tempted to point out she could still feel the bruise he’d left on her right buttock, but it seemed churlish in the circumstances.
“Thank you,” she said, reaching out and squeezing his hand, which was approximately the size of a large ham.
Mousy shrugged and looked sheepish. “S’alright,” he muttered, strangely discomfited.
She glanced up to find Captain Savage watching her curiously.
“Is he alright?”
She nodded. “He’ll live,” she said, wondering if the same could be said of herself. “It will need to be kept clean, do you have a surgeon?”
“Aye,” he said, looking away from her. “On The Wicked Wench.”
“On the...” she repeated, perplexed until she realised he was speaking of his ship. “Oh.”
She looked back to the shore, and the flickering lights of the town twinkling like stars.
And they may as well be in the far heavens, she thought, for her chances of reaching them again were about as likely, as the boat pulled her ever further away.
“What will you do with me?” she asked, keeping her eyes down and hearing her own voice frail and awkward against the sound of the oars in the water and the men’s grunts as they worked themselves hard.
She heard a snort of amusement from the captain and looked up with trepidation.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he said, though the threat in his tone was quite unmistakable. She swallowed, torn between contrition and holding her nerve. In the end she put up her chin.
“I still have the letter,” she said.
In the moonlight his smile took on a wolfish, feral quality that made her skin prickle.
“Oh, but you don’t, my lady. You told me yourself you don’t have it on you, and now you have no means of contacting anyone who does.
” Once again Henri was filled with the sudden desire to slap him, he was so damn smug.
“And don’t bother making out you left it with someone for safekeeping, for I shan’t believe you.
No one knows you’re here. No one knows you’re even away from home. Do they?”
There was amusement in his eyes, and she gritted her teeth, damn the man. She began to think she had taken the wrong tack in dealing with Captain Savage. But it was too late now.
Savage turned his back on her and began speaking quietly with the rest of his men. Henri shivered and drew down further into her shawl. She watched with her confidence sinking into her boots as the hull of a large ship appeared in the moonlight.
The faces of men, bleached silver by the moon, appeared over the sides of the ship. Voices drifted over the water and the realisation she was about to become a prisoner suddenly hit home. Finally, and rather too late, she felt most desperately afraid. What had she done?
One thing was for certain, there would be no question of her marrying the damned fiancé now.
“Always look on the bright side, Henri,” she muttered to herself.
She gasped as the small boat bumped up against the side of the ship, knocking her sideways. Before she had time to right herself, she squealed with alarm as she was lifted and slung over a strong shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“Put me down!” she shrieked in fury. “Put me down, you wretch.” She kicked and rained down blows on the broad back beneath her hands, to no avail. “You fiend! I am quite capable of climbing a ladder!” she protested though she was completely ignored.
She closed her eyes as her captor began to climb and the sight of the drop made her feel she would quite likely cast up her accounts and vomit.
Once at the top, she was sat on the rail and then given a hearty push and fell with a heavy thud to the deck. She felt quite certain her behind was going to be black and blue in the morning. Righting herself as quickly as she could, she tried to get to her feet with as much dignity as possible.
The rabble hovering all around her lifted lamps to inspect the captain’s cargo more closely.
She gasped and stumbled back to the rail as she was inspected under the leering gaze of a pirate crew who crowded around her.
Her heart lodged somewhere in her throat apparently trying to escape her body as it beat in terror, and she wondered what would become of her.
Hard glittering eyes met hers as she took in the swarthy faces of men whose lives were lived as fugitives on the seas, with no laws to constrain them but those of their own making.
There was laughter and a number of predictably ribald comments as to the captain’s plunder, and how exactly he was going to share it.
The man himself stepped onto the deck and grinned at his crew, accepting their congratulations with laughter.
They moved back, making way for him as he walked closer to her.
Henri glowered in return and thought every bad word she had ever learnt in her life in his general direction.
Having grown up with Annie, the list was quite extensive, and she had every intention of using every single one on him.
“Well then, my lady.” Captain Savage walked towards her, took off his hat and bowed with a theatrical flourish. “As you seem to be well aware, I am Captain Lars Savage, and whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
Henri brushed down the now damp skirts of her pelisse, glancing around her as her heart thudded too hard, and too fast in her chest. She had once been told that you never show fear when confronted with a vicious dog. She had the feeling the advice would serve her just as well now.
“I am Miss Henrietta Morton,” she said, relieved that she didn’t stammer. She watched in surprise as the Captain’s eyes widened.
“Lord Morton’s girl?” he said, clearly astonished.
Henri took a step forward. “You know my father?”
Savage frowned. He seemed vexed with her though she supposed that was understandable. “Of course I don’t know your bloody father,” he exclaimed. “But I know the name Morton is an old one.”
Her attention was taken from the irritated captain, however, by the spectacle of Mousy clambering over the rail. His shirt was now sopping wet, stained with blood and clung to his bulky frame.
“Where’s the surgeon?” she demanded, gratitude for Mousy’s surprisingly selfless act in protecting her giving her a little courage. “That wound needs to be cauterised.”
The look of annoyance on the captain’s face grew. “Mousy get yourself below deck and see the butcher. We don’t need any nursemaids here, thank you,” he snapped at Henri, who closed her mouth, stung by his rebuff.
He stood staring at her for some moments, and she couldn’t decipher the expression on his face.
What the devil was he thinking? The distance between them seemed to shrink as he watched her with the unnerving gaze of a predator.
After everything that had happened this evening, Henri began to truly panic.
Her breath began to come in short little gasps as the possibilities of just what he was thinking presented themselves to her with stark, cold clarity.
“Jay,” he said to the little rat-faced man, without once taking his eyes from her. “Take her to my cabin.”