In Like Flynn, page 14
For a moment, Nicholas suffered a small flare of green-eyed jealousy. Reese was an attractive fellow, tall with stormy grey eyes and built like a warrior of old. Had he known pleasure in Brianna’s arms? “Are you one of them?” he asked quietly.
“No, I cannot tame such a wild woman, not when I am also wild. We would burn down the world together,” Reese said. There was something sad in the way he said that, as though he might never find someone who would suit his nature, or perhaps tame it a little.
“She is wild,” Nicholas admitted, but he didn’t want to think of Brianna as a tamed, docile creature. She was as free as the stormy petrels that took flight over the shores of Cornwall. He’d often sat upon the rocks and watched them catch and ride the wind with their wings. Men harnessed the wind with canvas sails, but petrels rode it like no other beast on earth could.
“So what is this favor you need of me?” Reese asked, getting back to their discussion.
“I told Brianna that I have been sailing on your ship. She and I were supposed to part ways, but I don’t want to walk away, not yet. Could you convince her to partner with your crew and chase a few merchant ships on the way to Cádiz?”
Reese sipped his ale again. “And are there such prizes to be chased? Or is this simply a way for you to spend more time with her?”
“There truly is a trio of Spanish merchant ships bound for Cádiz. Assuming they survived the storm we passed through on our way here, they should still be within easy chasing distance. But I won’t lie—my motive is to stay close to her. I’m not ready yet to let her escape.”
Reese chuckled. “Then you have fallen under her spell.”
Nicholas nodded. It was true enough. If she were a witch born of the sea winds, then she had cast her spell over him.
“So if Holland agrees, I should ask for you to stay on her ship as my emissary and she could send someone to mine from hers?”
“Yes, exactly.” Nicholas hoped the other man would agree. It would make things much easier. Flag signal communication was easy to do between ships staying close together.
“Well . . . my crew have been a bit bored since Dom settled down with Robbie. It would be nice to chase a few prizes.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“We’ll do it.” Reese laughed. “Never thought I would see you, a navy—”
“I am that no longer,” Nicholas cut in, silencing Reese from saying anything that might get him into trouble here.
“Oh? But I thought—”
“Finding Dominic was the reason I went to sea in the first place. Now that I have, I saw no reason to stay.”
As he said the words, it occurred to him that there was more truth to them than he cared to admit. The cut-and-dried morality he once believed in was far less absolute than he’d once thought, and he had trouble seeing himself continuing on like this year after year. Once this mission was done, he would tell the admiral he wished to resign his commission. He wanted to leave and return to Cornwall to start a different sort of life.
“And now you’ve set your sights on Holland. Well, I wish you luck with her. Why don’t we meet down at the docks tomorrow morning and I’ll speak with her.”
“Thank you, Belishaw.” He shook the man’s hand, then bid goodbye to the other sailors he’d befriended as a prisoner aboard Dom’s ship, something that now felt like a lifetime ago.
He left the tavern and strolled through the village until he found what he was searching for. A drunken man lay half propped up against the wall next to a blacksmith’s forge. The man’s once-white powdered wig was now a dirty gray, his face was unshaven, and his clothes were covered in mud. Under one arm, he clutched a bottle of rum and hummed a bawdy ditty to himself.
“Ho there.” The man’s speech slurred as he spotted Nicholas looking at him. “Got a shilling for a poor bloke?”
Nicholas dug in his coat for a few coins to press into the man’s grimy palm. As the coins touched the man’s hand, Nicholas said, “So you can see the White Cliffs once more.”
The man’s drunken, bleary façade vanished, replaced by a sharp, knowing expression.
“Send word to Admiral Harcourt in Port Royal that we are to chase merchant ships at sea bound for Cádiz. I will notify him when I discover our friend’s location.”
The coins vanished and the keen look in the man’s eyes did too. “Aye, thank ye.” The man took a dramatic swig of his rum and winked slyly at Nicholas before he stumbled to his feet and wandered off.
Not wishing to linger, Nicholas took a new route back to town. As he passed by a brothel, a buxom woman waved him over. He would’ve ignored her, but she had an urgent, panicked look in her eyes that made him think she may be in trouble. She gestured for him to come to the back of the brothel through the kitchen, where a fat cook labored over a pot of stew.
“Miss, are you all right?” Nicholas asked when he caught up with the woman. Her face was painted white and her lips were dark with rouge, but he could tell that underneath the paint she was probably a pretty creature.
“Ye’ll help me?” she whispered.
He kept his voice low. “Help you with what?”
“There’s a man here, says ’is name is Buck and I know there’s a reward for ’im. Will ye help me take ’im to the navy so I can collect it?”
Nicholas highly doubted Buck was here. No doubt this girl had seen some other man and assumed he was Buck. Still, Nicholas wanted to verify this for himself. “Miss, where is this man?”
“I ain’t showing ye unless ye are who I think ye are.”
“And who do you think I am?”
“An officer in the navy. That’s what ye are, ain’t ye?”
This was a dangerous game. Admitting that to the wrong person was a sure way to get himself killed. It felt and sounded like a trap, but if he was clever he could see who was involved and escape before it snapped shut. “I could take your information to an officer,” he said cautiously.
She pouted and folded her arms across her bosom. “Not good enough. You’ll just run off and claim it for yourself. I’ll only speak to an officer.”
Stubborn chit, he thought. “You’ll have a damned hard time finding a naval officer here, madam, though I might know where to find one. But what makes you think I’d be inclined to do so?”
“Same reason as me, the reward. ’Tis too much to resist. I’ve been waiting a long time to see money in me pockets for knowing about him.” She smiled slyly. “Think of how much fun we can have if you help me. I’ll split it with you.”
He decided to play along, if only to see what the woman’s game was and who her partners might be if it was in fact some trap for unwary officers. “Very well, we’ll split the reward. Show me where Buck is.”
“This way, love.” She led him out of the kitchen and into an alley behind the brothel. He gripped his dagger tightly, ready for anything he might face. They walked half a dozen feet before the attack came.
Without warning, he was grabbed from behind, a blade digging dangerously into his neck. If he struggled, his throat would be slit instantly.
“So, flying yer true colors at last, are ye?” an angry Scottish voice growled.
A moment later, pain exploded in his skull and he fell to his knees. Before he passed out, he heard the girl say, “Told ye I can always spot a navy man. Too gentle-like, this one. Too bad ye have to kill ’im now, eh?”
The world shrank to a single pinprick of light before darkness swallowed him whole.
CHAPTER 12
Brianna heard the commotion in the passageway outside her cabin and left her charts and maps abandoned on her table. She opened the door to find Joe and Patrick talking, and between them on the wooden planks lay Nicholas’s unconscious form.
“Joe?” Brianna rested her hands on her belt, her cutlass within easy reach.
“We have a problem, lass.” He nudged Flynn with the toe of his boot. “And it’s him.”
“What do you mean?” Part of Brianna wanted to run to the fallen man, but she didn’t dare. Instead, she raised an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation.
Joe shrugged. “The lad’s fine. I knocked him out is all.”
Patrick gave Joe a concerned look, and Brianna knew she was going to need to be more direct about all this.
“All right. Why did you knock him out?”
“Because he’s no pirate. He’s a bloody naval officer,” Joe spat.
The floor beneath her feet seemed to suddenly drop away.
Brianna couldn’t process his words right away, but her body stiffened. “He’s what?”
“He’s the enemy, lass. We brought him here so ye could decide what to do with him before the rest of the crew finds out.”
Brianna was shaking as she stepped back to allow Joe and Patrick into her cabin. “Bring him inside.”
Joe hoisted Flynn up and threw him over his shoulder before he carried him inside.
“Patrick, fetch me a bottle of rum,” she said, sending the cabin boy away.
Once they were alone in Brianna’s cabin and Flynn was once more lying on the floor, she rounded on her first mate.
“So you think he’s a spy. How can you be sure?”
Joe sighed heavily. “Because I was the one who discovered it.” She could see he was taking no joy in revealing any of this to her.
“How?”
“I followed him. He made a stop at the edge of town and spoke to a man I’ve seen before, a man who I hear delivers messages to the navy.”
“That’s it? That’s not enough to—”
Joe cut her off. “I hired a wench at a brothel to ask for his help, to tell him what I reckoned he wanted to hear and that she needed an officer. He told her he was one.”
“A man might lie for a pretty woman’s attention—”
“In Sugar Cove?” Joe snorted. “Only a fool would say that to get under a woman’s skirts. No, he said it because it’s true.”
“Then why the masquerade? He was flogged by his own men in Port Royal, Joe. He nearly died.”
“He nearly died for ye, lass. What better way to win yer trust? A man dedicated to a cause will do that, and more.”
Brianna’s mind was fogged with pain as she tried to understand what Flynn’s betrayal meant. “Why, Joe? Why me?”
“It isna because of ye, but who ye ken.”
Realization dawned on her. “My father.”
“Aye. Even if they didna know ye captained the Serpent, if they thought ye sailed with me, they could use ye in hopes of finding Buck.”
She stared down at Nicholas. Her dreams of another life withered like crops without rain. She felt as though her soul might drift away beneath the slightest breeze.
“We’d best chain him up before he wakes,” Joe suggested. “I’ll be back.”
He left the cabin, and Brianna collapsed on her bed, staring at Nicholas’s face. Assuming that was his real name. He was vulnerable, completely under her power. Any other pirate captain would kill him and be done with it. But she had too much of her father in her. She was not a ruthless killer.
Even if he was a navy man as Joe said. The thought made her shudder. She’d watched a twelve-year-old cabin boy hang alongside his crew for piracy. She’d seen homes burn with women and children inside because the navy thought a wanted pirate was inside. This entire time she’d been lulled into some enchantment by Nicholas’s blue eyes, he might have been plotting her and her crew’s death. The betrayal was infinitely deeper than she ever imagined anything could be.
“Traitor,” she murmured. No, she couldn’t bring herself to think of him that way. They had been through too much for her to simply dismiss him out of hand. She had dared to let her guard down, and now she was paying for it, dearly.
“Oh, Nicholas, what have you done?”
She didn’t move until Joe returned. She just watched him breathe as she debated what to do.
When Joe returned, he hoisted Nicholas into a seated position with his back to the wall opposite Brianna’s bed and clapped a manacle around Nicholas’s left wrist. The other end was secured to a metal ring in the wall where Brianna normally hung wet clothes to dry.
“That should keep him out of trouble for a bit. I dinna trust the crew to leave him alive down in the brig should they hear why he’s there.”
Brianna nodded, her chest hollow. She didn’t want Nicholas hurt, despite his betrayal and deception.
“Will you be all right with him here?” Joe asked.
“I’ll be fine.” It wasn’t quite a lie, but Joe didn’t press her on the matter.
“Call if you need me, lass.” He gave her a regretful look, which only drove deeper the fact that she held Nicholas’s fate in her hands.
And what would that fate be? Right now, she had no idea.
Nicholas groaned. He awoke with pain beating a senseless rhythm into his skull. The darkness lifted from his vision to reveal Brianna’s cabin. How the devil had he ended up here? The last thing he remembered, he was leaving a brothel to help a woman—
He lunged to his feet, ignoring the way the room spun around him. Brianna was perched on the edge of her bed, watching him. She wore knee breeches and a white blouse pulled in by a leather waistcoat. Her hair was tied into a queue at the nape of her neck by a black ribbon. She looked both beautiful and dangerous.
“Brianna.” He took a few steps toward her and jerked to a halt. His left hand caught on something holding him fast, and he realized he was chained by the wrist to the wall. A sinking feeling took over his insides, like he was being dragged below the ocean’s surface. Brianna knew who he really was.
“Why?” Brianna’s voice was cold as the steel of her blade, but it couldn’t completely mask the pain she surely felt.
Nicholas didn’t answer right away. What could he say that wouldn’t doom him further?
“Flynn, why did you betray me?”
“I didn’t betray you, and I never intended to. My mission was to find Thomas Buck. Just him.”
She looked away from him. “This was all about Buck? You drove a dagger into my back for that?”
He sucked in a breath, barely able to breathe. A vast weight was pressing him down, crushing him. “Brianna—”
“Captain Holland,” she corrected. Her words hit as if she’d backhanded him.
He tried again. “Captain Holland. I was tasked to find Thomas Buck, and Admiral Harcourt thought you might . . .” He paused. “But that’s not why. Not really. I did it because Captain Waverly was going to hang you once he had what he wanted, and if he discovered you were a woman before that, things would’ve been infinitely worse for you. There is no controlling that man. I don’t want to think about what he would’ve done to you.”
Brianna’s eyes hardened. “Oh, so this was all for my benefit, was it?”
“Admiral Harcourt wanted me to win your confidence and gain your trust because he learned you had a close connection to Buck. He thought at first you might be Buck’s son, but when I told him you were a woman, he thought perhaps you were a daughter or lover.”
“Is that so?” Brianna’s tone conveyed nothing about how she was taking his explanation.
“Yes. Admiral Harcourt has a daughter of his own. He would never hurt a woman. This was the only way—” Nicholas’s voice trailed off. He realized there was nothing else he could say to win her trust back. It was lost forever. The best he could do was stay alive and keep her safe, if she would let him. But he’d never reclaim what he’d once thought might be possible . . . to find his own kind of happiness.
“I understand,” Brianna said.
Nicholas blinked. “You do?”
Brianna nodded slowly. “I understand that if I had been Bryan instead of Brianna I would be dead now. That my only saving grace in your eyes is my gender. Tell me, what would have happened if it had been Patrick in that cell with you instead of me?”
“Patrick?”
She got up and took a step toward him. “My cabin boy. Young lad, barely old enough to shave. You know, the one you saved from Billy. He’s never once fired a shot in anger or engaged in any actions against another ship. What mercy would you and your admiral have shown him had he been in my place at Port Royal?”
She was close now, close enough to run him through if she chose to pull out that cutlass of hers. Flynn looked down. He knew the answer just as well as she did, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. It was the truth; he might not have thought about a boy like Patrick. He would have gained the information he sought and been on to his next mission, and in the back of his mind . . . he’d know the lad would have swung from the gibbet.
“I thought as much. You disgust me.”
She turned and walked away from him. Somehow that hurt more than if she had stabbed him. She had laid bare his hypocrisy, and yet he still could not regret the choices he’d made.
“How did you find out?” he asked after a long moment of silence.
“How?” She echoed the word softly as she looked out the window of her cabin.
“Yes, how did you know?”
She laughed, though the sound was bitter. “I didn’t. Joe saw you speaking to a man known to pass messages along to the navy. He then hired a woman to trick you into showing your true colors.”
Even though his head was throbbing, he could put everything together now. He had been a fool, clumsy and far too eager to see an end to this.
Now Brianna did pull out her cutlass, though she kept her back to him. “What did you tell the messenger?”
Nicholas could lie, but after seeing her face tonight, seeing the pain in her eyes, pain he had caused, he was done with lies. What good would lies do him, anyway? He would likely end up dead one way or another. She had no cause to grant him mercy, and even if she did, her crew would have other plans. Knowing his death was imminent made him value the truth that much more.
“I told him we were planning to chase Spanish merchant ships to Cádiz and that I hadn’t found Buck yet. I told them I was still searching. If the navy caught you then, I’d be able to tell them that I’d only witnessed you chasing Spanish ships, a country we are at war with. It wouldn’t be viewed the same as attacking English ships.”
