Oh, I bet that inspired some horrified blushes and gasps on His Majesty’s Ship. Proper Englishmen upheld modesty in a degree I considered ridiculously excessive. Not to mention, they never allowed a woman aboard a navy vessel.
And here I was, standing half-naked on the gunwale of a fifty-gun galleon, laughing into the trumpet with wicked delight. “Do I offend your sensibilities, my lord?”
He lowered his trumpet, holding it behind his back, refusing to answer. Even at this distance, I felt the heat of his glare. The tenacity in it. The man seemed impossible to ruffle.
“I must insist that you invite me to dinner, Commodore.” My amplified voice crashed into the wind. “A woman likes to be courted and wooed before she gets fucked. Just ask James here…” I gestured at the scrawny, gray-bearded tar behind me. “He thoroughly woos your mother with his tongue in her unmentionables before he fucks her.”
The commodore snapped out his arm, the only warning I got before the whistling hiss of incoming mortar rent the air.
My lungs crashed together as the shot punched through the tafferel of Jade’s stern, taking out the stately panels and railings in an explosion of splintered wood. I tumbled off the gunwale, the deck shaking beneath my bare feet as the boom dissipated in every direction.
I waved the billowing smoke from my face and glared at the jagged, smoldering hole in my ship. Thank God, Priest was held far beneath the broken timbers. No chance of injuries.
Only surface damage.
It was a slap in the face. He could’ve demolished the rigging, toppled the mizzenmast, and blasted away anything that would’ve prevented us from sailing. The fact that he didn’t showed what little confidence he had in our ability to flee.
All eyes fixed on me. Under the bulwarks with daggers, in the shrouds with muskets, behind the long-range eighteen-pounders with lit matches—every man soundlessly asked me the same question.
What now, Captain?
As the pungent gray smog cleared, tension swelled, rolling through the ship. My blood buzzed. My hands flexed and shook.
I knew what I had to do.
Reynolds wouldn’t like it. Priest would positively combust in a murderous rage. But it was our only option. And I needed Jade in one piece for it to work.
Dragging in a breath, I aimed the trumpet in the direction of my gundeck. “Hold your fire!”
Reynolds flashed me a questioning look. “Shall I prepare to repel boarders?”
“No.” I filled my lungs and shouted, “Raise the white!”
A stunned inhale rippled through the ship and thinned the air. Then footsteps erupted into action.
I spun toward the foremast, my heart cracking into pieces as Jade hoisted a white flag for the first time under my command.
“What the devil are you doing?” Reynolds snarled at my ear. “If we surrender, they’ll hang us.”
“Stop talking.” I grabbed the spyglass and trained it on Lord Cutler, positioning my hands to hide the movement of my lips. “He’s watching.”
Reynolds stiffened on my stern. Jobah appeared at my fore, flanking me. Brilliant. I needed them both to hear this.
“In a few minutes, I’m going to jump up on this gunwale. When I do…” I glanced at Reynolds. “You will push me overboard. Don’t argue.”
He worked his jaw, eyebrows pinning together, and hands opening and closing at his sides.
“Dead or alive,” I said, “I’m worth more to Lord Cutler than all of Jade and her crew.”
My husband’s head was as valuable as mine, but our marriage wasn’t known. Lord Cutler had no reason to connect me to Priest and therefore, no reason to search my ship for him.
The only way to save my crew was to prevent the Royal Navy from boarding. I needed to keep Priest’s presence a secret and remove myself from this vessel.
“After you push me over, take command of Jade,” I said to Reynolds. “Set a course to Harbour Island and wait for me there. Your job is to hide and protect my ship and her crew. Swear to God, if you disobey me, I will keelhaul you until naught a flap of flesh hangs from your bones.”
His eyes hardened, unblinking, and his lips pressed into a line. Whatever he wanted to say bobbed in his throat, but he knew better than to question.
I turned my attention to Jobah. “The instant I hit the water, head up two points and begin your run. Full and by.”
“Captain…”
“Run until Jade is out of range of their guns and too far gone to catch up. If they believe you have no interest in rescuing me, they’ll let you go and focus on pulling me from the water. I’m the one they want.”
Capturing Edric Sharp’s daughter, one of the most wanted pirates in the world, was a monumental boon for a pirate hunter’s career. The noose around my bent neck would likely raise Lord Ashley Cutler to the coveted flag rank of admiral.
My shoulders hunched, reflexively protecting my vulnerable throat.
I’m not giving up. Not even close.
Across the water, the jolly boat began to lower toward the water. It was almost time.
Reynolds rubbed a hand over his mouth, concealing his words. “Once they have you, you won’t be able to escape.”
“That’s why you’re going to release your brother from the bilge.”
His features sharpened and pinched through a squall of resisting emotions before settling into comprehension. He couldn’t argue the glaring truth.
As long as Priest lived, he would hunt me with the ferocity of my greatest enemy.
Once Jade made her escape to safer waters, Reynolds would help Priest lay siege to another ship—a merchantier, a faster, stealthier sloop, anything he could use to pursue me—knowing I didn’t want Jade anywhere near HMS Blitz.
As Reynolds came to this conclusion, reluctant acceptance softened his mouth, and he released a heavy breath.
“Notify the crew,” I said without moving the telescope from my face.
He squeezed my hip, the gesture hidden beneath the gunwale. Then he ambled across the ship, delivering quiet, resolute orders to the men.
Forty yards to starboard, Lord Cutler watched every move through his glass. Perhaps he would reflect on this moment later and decide that this was the point when Reynolds rallied my crew into mutiny behind my back.
“Jobah.” I stared straight ahead, mirroring his pose. “If this doesn’t work…” If I die…
“I’ll make sure nothing happens to him.”
Him. The husband I loathed to love. The libertine who would risk his life to find me.
“Man the helm,” I replied in my captain’s voice.
“I already miss you, Captain.”
“Likewise.” My heart pinched as I glanced at him sidelong, letting him see the gratitude in my eyes. “Godspeed, my friend.”
Without a show of emotion, he retreated, leaving me alone with my rioting nerves.
Jumping into the sea from the rail of a galleon was a risk in and of itself. I could die on impact or lose consciousness and drown before the enemy boat reached me. Nevertheless, I had faith in my ability to swim.
If I kept my head above the swells long enough, Lord Cutler’s soldiers would pull me out.
If I survived the jump, I would become a captive aboard His Majesty’s Ship. Whether I could endure that hell and evade the hempen halter at the end depended on my will to live and the indomitable, possessive fury of Priest Farrell.