In Like Flynn, page 23
Nicholas gently nudged Patricktoward the boat. “She’s safe in King’s Landing. I vow to take care of her.”
“With your life?” Patrick asked, deadly serious. “She’s the best captain I’ve ever had. She deserves . . .”
“She deserves the world, and I will do my best to give it to her.” Nicholas clasped the young man’s shoulder. “Now off you go.”
With everyone aboard, they rowed toward the distant sloop. Dominic, Roberta, and Nicholas waited for the Robbie Darling to collect its passengers. They were safe, at least for now.
“Where’s your ship headed?” Nicholas asked.
“New York. We have a scheduled trade stop there to sell some tea. No one will think anything is amiss with a few new crew members.”
Roberta linked her arm through Dominic’s and grinned at him cheekily. “This is why I insist on planning all of Dominic’s schemes. It went rather smoothly, didn’t it, Nick?”
Dominic harrumphed.
“Yes, it did.” Nicholas looked to his friend. “So what was your plan, Dom?”
“He wanted to blow the fort apart with cannons.”
“It would have been far more fun to blow up that damnable fort than to sneak out of it under the cover of darkness.” Dominic kissed his wife’s forehead and gave Nicholas an evil smirk, as though imagining blowing up the fort in just such a manner.
Nicholas chuckled as Dominic and Roberta continued to argue the merits of various escape plans. “Shall we return home now? My wife will be up soon.”
An hour later, they wearily trudged up the steps of Dominic’s home. All Nicholas wanted was to sink into the feather tick mattress beside Brianna and sleep. Then when she woke, he would tell her the good news, and all would be well. She might be mad that he’d left her behind, but he hoped she would forgive him knowing that Patrick and the others were safe and on their way to New York.
One of Dominic’s men burst out of the front door as they arrived. “Thank goodness you’re back.”
Nicholas saw the concern on the man’s face.
“What is it, Lawson? What happened?” Dominic asked.
“It’s Mrs. Flynn, sir. She’s gone.”
“Gone?” Nicholas echoed the word. It didn’t make sense. “Gone where? How?”
The footman handed Nicholas a sheet of paper that had been folded. “She left this for you in your chambers. I didn’t think it could wait.”
Flynn opened it, staring at the words Brianna had written to him.
* * *
Flynn,
You broke your word to me. I can see clearly now that a life with me, a life we share, isn’t something you truly wanted. Now I’m free and so are you.
Holland
* * *
“Nick, what is it?” Dominic asked.
Nicholas handed him the letter. “She left . . . She thought I didn’t want her. Why the bloody hell would she think that?”
“Lawson, when did she leave?” Roberta asked.
“A few minutes after you and Mr. Flynn, my lady. I didn’t know if I should stop her, but . . .” The former pirate blushed. “I didn’t want to restrain her.”
“It’s all right, Lawson,” Dominic said. “I doubt you could have.
Roberta’s face was stricken with anguish. “Oh, Nick, I’ve been a fool.”
“What do you mean?”
She pointed to the balcony that overlooked the front steps and the road beyond.
“She must’ve seen us, Nicholas, just the two of us before we left.”
Nicholas replayed that departure in his mind, trying to see it from his new wife’s perspective. “Oh. Oh no.”
Dominic sighed. “We had better go after her.”
“But where would she go?” Nicholas asked.
“Back to her father,” Dominic replied, as if it was obvious.
“Where would that be? No one can find the Shadow King,” Nicholas said.
Dominic gave him one of his insufferable grins. “He’s easy to find, if you know where to look. He’ll be on the island where the Brethren of the Coast gather.”
“The Brethren of the Coast?” Nicholas stared at Dom. He, like every young midshipman, had secretly studied the history of pirates. “But . . . they disbanded sixty years ago. These pirates here today don’t trust each other like the old ones used to.”
Dominic barked a laugh. “That’s just what we want you naval men to think. Buck has been the Admiral of the Black for ten years now.”
“Admiral of the Black?”
“You call him the Shadow King. To us, he’s the Admiral of the Black.”
Dominic turned back to Lawson. “Have the men at the docks ready the Dragon’s Enchantress for sail. We need to leave in a few hours.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Lawson disappeared, and Dominic took his wife by the shoulders.
“Robbie, I need you to stay here. Be as angry as you want, but we need eyes and ears on the fort and any ship movements. We need to know what they might be planning. You know who to relay messages to if you need to send word to us.”
She sighed. “All right. Bring Brianna back safe, won’t you?”
“We will, won’t we, Nick?”
Nicholas didn’t answer. His gaze was on the horizon. He was going to find his wife and explain everything. He loved her, and he wasn’t about to fail her.
Wherever you have gone, I’ll find you, my pirate queen.
CHAPTER 18
“Well then, what brings the enchanting and fearsome Brianna to my ship?”
Gavin Castleton was, by all accounts, one of the most notorious and rakish pirates in the West Indies. He leaned back against the closed door and grinned lazily at her like a cat who’d just discovered a bowl of cream.
She’d forgotten how darkly handsome he was. It was little wonder that she’d taken him to bed on more than one occasion. Gavin had been enjoyable enough—raw, rough, passionate—but something had always been missing between them. Whatever it was hadn’t been physical, but something had indeed been missing.
She had never been tempted to linger in his arms, to feel his heartbeat against her cheek or whisper stories of pirate queens to him, not like she had with Nicholas. There had been something deeper about her connection to Nicholas that she didn’t fully understand. She tried to ignore the ache in her chest that thoughts of him created, but pushing them away only seemed to make them stronger.
“I needed a ship,” she finally told Gavin.
“What happened to the Serpent?” His humor faded, and true concern deepened on his face. “Did you lose her in a storm?” He knew she loved that ship more than almost anything. To lose it was to lose a part of herself.
“No, she was taken by the navy to be docked at Kingston.”
Gavin pushed away from the door.
“And yet you are free. Did you abandon her?”
She shook her head. “My father and I were trying to run a blockade at Basseterre. A storm came up, and we were able to draw the navy’s focus from my father so he and his crew could escape.”
Gavin stared at her, his gaze the hard, appraising look of a pirate captain. “And you were taken . . .”
“Most of my men escaped, but a handful, along with myself, were still on board when the navy boarded us.”
“My God . . . How did you escape?” Any other man would have thrown his booted feet up on the nearest table and leaned back to enjoy a well-told yarn of her escape, but Gavin was more serious than other pirate captains . . . and he’d professed to love her once. He wouldn’t treat this tale lightly.
Gavin drew his chair closer to her and reached out for her hand. She almost pulled away; instead, she let him touch her, inwardly marveling that it didn’t feel the same as when Nicholas touched her, perhaps because it didn’t mean the same to her heart. Nicholas knew more secret parts of her than any other person.
“I didn’t.” She played with the sextant on the table as she told him how Nicholas had insinuated himself into her crew, how his duplicity had been uncovered, how her father had intended to use him for leverage, and how he had come back for her once her ship was captured. “He told the officers I was a captive of the pirates and that I was his wife.”
“His wife?” Gavin choked out. “Why would he say that?”
“He felt it was the only way to save me. We were married yesterday. Everything was done secretly, and the magistrate dated the documents to show we married a year ago, of course.”
Gavin gave a disbelieving snort. “Brianna, surely you were coerced. The marriage is void if—”
“I wasn’t coerced.” She wished she had been. But she hadn’t.
“Then why am I sensing there is so much you haven’t told me? We are friends, Brianna,” he reminded her. It always amused her that this fearsome pirate could be so kind whenever he was alone with her.
Brianna owed him an explanation since she was running away on his ship. Once Nicholas returned to King’s Landing, he would find her gone. She had left a note, but she wasn’t sure if it would keep him from chasing after her.
She told Gavin everything in regards to Nicholas, even more than she had told her father. She had this desperate need to talk to someone, someone who knew her, about how she felt about Nicholas. Gavin listened patiently, his honey-brown eyes fixed on her while she spoke.
“So that’s how I ended up here.”
“Running away from the man you love,” he added.
“I only said that to him in a moment of passion,” she argued.
Gavin smiled. “Then he must have been an exceptional lover. You never once said that to me when we shared a bed.”
Brianna blushed, but he was right. When she had lain beside Nicholas, even the brief time that she’d been with him, it had felt real to her in a way no others had because she’d been her truest self. Just herself, fully and completely.
Brianna tried to change the subject. “So, where are we headed?”
“The Black Isle,” Gavin said, lowering his tone. “Your father sent word—the Brethren are convening.”
Hope blossomed inside her. “You heard from my father?”
“Aye. The Sea Hawk’s colors were seen flying on several ships today in the port. The call he sent out was to meet at the Black Isle.”
Years ago, her father had developed a system among pirates to communicate. They planted Brethren on merchant ships to act as normal seamen, unbeknownst to the rest of the crew. They could send signals back and forth between ships as they passed. Large colored handkerchiefs were used on the port side of any given ship, which her father had jokingly called the Sea Hawk’s colors. There were four or five different colors. Black was the signal for a meeting at the Black Isle. Word could travel fast with such a system.
“Why has he called a meeting?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Given your tale, I’m wondering if it might be about you. He could be rallying the captains to come to your rescue.”
“I haven’t seen him since my capture in the harbor of Basseterre,” she mused. “I suppose it’s possible, but he knows I’m safe with Nicholas—or rather, I was. I thought, perhaps . . .”
Gavin leaned in toward her across the table. “Perhaps what?”
“Well, he might be considering hanging it all up.” She trusted Gavin with this knowledge, whereas she wouldn’t trust most others. Her father had maintained a tenuous alliance between the various pirate captains, and while they respected him, she believed they wouldn’t hesitate to strike if they thought it would give them an advantage. The Admiral of the Black was a powerful position to hold.
“If that’s the case, we had better make haste for the Brethren meeting. He’ll need our support to have a successful change in leadership. If you’ll excuse me.” Gavin stood and left his cabin to give new orders to his crew.
Brianna stared down at the charts again. No official map labeled the location of the Black Isle as an actual island. Pirates, at least the ones in charge of navigation, marked the island with a black raven drawn as if it were flying.
When Gavin returned, he made a pallet on the floor beside his bed, but when she tried to take the pallet, he stared at her.
“Gavin . . . ,” she said warningly. She’d never liked being treated like a delicate lady, not by men who should be valuing her as an equal.
“Bri, you’re a fine lady now—”
“Supposedly,” she retorted. “Fine, let’s flip for it.”
He was the quicker of the two to pull a Spanish piece of eight from his pocket and call his side. She called hers, he flipped it, and she caught it, laying it flat on her hand where he could see.
“Blast and hell!” she cursed and stomped toward the bed before she flung the coin at him.
Gavin caught it with a wicked grin and slipped it back into his trouser pocket. Then he took his spot on the floor.
Brianna lay there in the dark long after she’d blown out the oil lamp hanging by the bed.
“Thank you for taking me aboard, Gavin.”
“Of course,” he murmured back. “You’d do the same for me.”
A pang stung her at how easily she wished it was Nicholas’s voice she heard so close in the dark.
“If you want me, I’ll be here, Brianna,” Gavin said. “If you ever decide to let go of the man who holds your heart, there’s always room in mine.”
Once, that might have tempted her. Once, before she’d fallen in love with the enemy.
She listened to the creaking of the ship and felt the rhythmic sway that was far more comfortable to her than the land. What had she done, marrying Nicholas, trusting him with her heart? Even though she had run away, she wasn’t sure she could ever let go.
It could never have worked for the two of them. She was a creature of sea and wind, needing to see every new port and chase new adventures, sometimes against the laws of England. Nicholas was a refined gentleman, one who craved a simple, quiet life with a woman who wanted the same things he did.
We were a disaster from the moment we kissed. But she couldn’t regret the hurricane of passion that had existed between them, nor the infinite peace she’d felt when in the eye of the storm as she’d opened herself up to him, lying in his arms. She wouldn’t let herself regret a moment of it.
But how did one sail through calm seas after experiencing such a raw, powerful storm of the heart like falling in love? She couldn’t go back, but she didn’t know any way forward either. She was sailing without charts. All she could do was find her father and then decide on her future.
The gold signet ring on her finger was warm to the touch. That was the funny thing about gold. It warmed against one’s skin as though it enjoyed being worn. Her wedding band was the same type of gold, resting on her other finger. For as long as she could remember, she had craved the feeling of treasure pouring through her hands, feeling the gems and coins slipping between her fingers in a waterfall of riches, knowing she was going to spread it among people who needed it, but now she knew there were other treasures to desire, treasures of the heart.
Treasures to long for and be haunted by.
Nicholas stood at the bow of the Dragon’s Enchantress, one of several new ships Dominic had named yet again after Roberta. He stared into the night, the black water mixing with the inky darkness as far as the eye could see. The waning moon was a mere sliver, offering no real light. It was as dark around him as it was within him.
He should have listened to Dominic and let Brianna come with them on the rescue mission. He’d been so focused on righting the wrong that had been done against her that he’d stumbled into an even greater one.
What he wouldn’t give to find her, to pull her into his arms and hold her, then get on his bloody knees and beg her forgiveness.
He sensed someone creeping up behind him and saw Dominic when he looked over his shoulder. They still wore their black shirts and trousers from the rescue, and it reminded him of their youth. How they would often dress in dark clothes and sneak about causing mischief. He smiled at the memories. Nicholas had never wanted to be a pirate, but back then he would’ve done anything Dominic asked him to.
“How long will it take us to reach this island?” he asked. Dominic joined him against the railing, studying the sails and the way they billowed out in the direction they were headed.
“Tomorrow evening, if this wind holds.”
They were silent a long moment, listening to the sea and the wind rippling through the canvas above them.
“What will you do when you find her?” Dominic asked.
“I’ll do my damnedest to explain to her what she misunderstood. I’ll tell her that her crew is alive and apologize for not taking her with me. What could she have been thinking, just running off like that?”
“She was raised a pirate, Nick. In case you couldn’t tell, having conversations about our feelings is not really something we are good at. Such things make us predictable, vulnerable. Those are the quickest ways for a pirate to get caught and hanged. She’s doing what feels safe to her.”
“I thought I was protecting her.” Nicholas dragged his hands through his hair as his head dropped beneath his shoulders in defeat.
“Do you remember that hunting party Lord Faulkin had when we were ten years old? The mother fox who was shot?”
Nicholas winced at the memory. He’d never enjoyed watching fox hunts. “I do.”
“We found that vixen crawling toward her den, but she died before she reached it,” Dominic continued.
The sounds of the little orphaned kits still haunted him. “I remember,” he grunted.
“You crawled into that den and collected those three kits before the hounds sniffed them out, and then you carried them home.”
Nicholas smiled. “Mother was furious but didn’t dare to tell Father about them.” He had kept the kits in a basket under his four-poster bed, which, thankfully, was on the opposite end of the house so his father hadn’t heard the kits crying at night. But it hadn’t been easy. Saving the kits had been hard work. They bit and clawed and barked at him and only ventured out from under the bed to eat when he wasn’t in the room. He’d been bloodied and scratched up in his attempts to win their trust.
