The Mercenary Pirate (The Heart of a Hero Book 10) Page 5

  He merely sidestepped it. The lantern landed on the wet floorboards, and flames ignited as fire met the fermented brew, the flames shooting upward to the ceiling. Screams rent the air. Women who’d been standing by meekly began to scatter. Several men broke away from the captain and Jolie to smother the inferno, which only seemed to burn hotter as the flames nipped at broken, splintered wood and rose ever higher to the ceiling. Smoke thickened inside the tavern.

  “Your tricks will soon be done,” Cuvier vowed.

  She glanced at the still-intact window as she abandoned her perch behind the bar, spying two broken chair legs next to unmoving bodies on the ground. She knelt down and grabbed them. Owen had taught her how to combat an assailant with a parasol and a cane, and this was hardly any different. If she calmed her mind—and was quick and smart—she could stop Cuvier.

  Selina didn’t have long to plan her attack. Cuvier was there, arching a sword high to swipe a deadly blow against her torso.

  Keep your wrists supple. Shoulders square. Hips balanced. Head erect. Draw your chin in. Fix your eyes on your adversary.

  She turned her body at a angle, pointing her right shoulder at Cuvier to protect her torso. She raised the fragmented chair pieces, crossing the wood to repel his attack. She’d spent a lot of time watching Cuvier fight weaker men. He was lazy and predictable, and she thanked God she’d had time to study him during her captivity.

  He surged forward to overwhelm her with his size. She hit his hand with the wooden chair leg to disarm him and then spun around to the left, reclaiming her former position. The sword dropped, but Cuvier’s momentum took him toward the window. She raised her leg and gave his back a great kick, shoving him headfirst through the glass.

  Cuvier clawed at air, screaming as the glass broke beneath his weight, impaling him, and he disappeared out the window.

  “Follow him,” Jolie ordered. “We will be right behind you.”

  Selina’s chest swelled. She sucked in air, fighting back her elation. The moment she’d been waiting for had arrived. She was free! She stepped on the sill and glanced back over her shoulder for one last look at the man who’d risked his life to purchase her. He crouched, lunged, swiped his deadly arms, kicked a man’s leg out from under him, and planted one of his blades in another. He was the greatest fighter she’d ever seen and probably ever would see again.

  Regret pierced her gut. What would happen to him and Jolie?

  She shook her head. Why did she care? Emotions were merely fleeting things. She was free!

  As the question faded from her thoughts, Selina climbed over the sill. There, Cuvier lay bleeding to death on the ground below her. She felt no sympathy for the batârd as she vaulted out the window and hit the ground running, fleeing into the street.

  Chapter Four

  Wolf drew back his elbows and harnessed his energy to parry a blow to his face. Deflecting his opponent’s assault, he swiped his fists down and around, meeting his mark and ramming his blades into his attacker’s belly. Beyond the wall of flames, wounded men howled in pain. Robillard stood among them, wildly ordering his men about, his face mottled with rage. Whatever was happening, the corsairs were on the losing end, thanks to the girl’s quick thinking.

  “One hundred francs to anyone who brings me their heads!” Robillard shouted as lumbering bodies struggled to put out the fire. Their exhaustive efforts were for naught. Dry timber seasoned with all manner of waste ignited like kindling.

  Men and women armed with muskets pressed as close to the fire as they could without getting singed. The building moaned around them and above their heads. Timber crackled and popped. Gunfire exploded, the percussion scenting the smoldering air with sulphur. A musket ball whirred past Wolf’s head. He dodged for cover, and then grunted as someone jumped onto his back and clasped their fingers around his throat. He clawed at the legs that clamped about his middle, discovering his assailant was wearing skirts.

  “You killed Claude,” the harlot spat. She tightened her grip, squeezing his waist with muscular thighs to prevent him from dislodging her.

  Wolf struggled to buck the woman off. He wheeled around, using his burden to knock down other attackers in his path. In an instant, he caught sight of Joanna. She was engaged with two men who had attempted to chase after the girl through the window. Bollocks. The girl was as good as dead if these buggers caught up to her now. And he was responsible for her plight. He pressed his lips together, silently cursing himself to hell and back. It was futile to run from corsairs, and he should know. The tactic hadn’t worked for him, and he’d been younger, faster, and better equipped to protect himself.

  “Argh!” Eager to be rid of the woman on his back, Wolf flung himself against the wall to knock her off.

  “Need help?” Joanna asked, holding a chair leg in her hand.

  Wolf spun around, providing her access to his attacker’s back. The foolish prostitute stiffened as Joanna hit her mark, and then arched her back. Wolf pried her hands from around his neck and let the woman slip to the floor with a loud thump at his feet.

  “Go,” he told Joanna. “Catch the boy.”

  “I won’t leave you.” Joanna launched herself forward and dropped to the ground, sweeping a man’s legs out from under him. She grabbed a discarded sword and impaled the man’s shoulder, pinning him to the floor.

  Smoke thickened in the tavern, the darkening haze obscuring the whereabouts of their would-be assailants. Bullets whirred out of their chambers, ricocheting around them.

  Joanna vaulted to her feet, grabbed the end of the bar, and borrowed its height, kicking a man in the chest with both feet. She landed beside Wolf. “We go together or not at all.”

  Wolf bent at the knees, grunted, and cut a punch to a man’s jaw, breaking it. “What about the boy?” he asked, pushing the injured man aside.

  Joanna grunted with the effort it took to poke out a man’s eyes. “Phosgene gas, remember?”

  He shook his head. “Go,” he said as another man emerged from the smoke. He spun on his heel, planting one of his blades in a corsair’s bread basket. Wolf was expendable; however, Joanna was not. Devlin, Wellington, and the Legion depended on her. “Go! I’ll follow.”

  The fire raged, becoming a living, breathing thing, a monster devouring everything in its path. If something wasn’t done to stop the hungry flames, the Wasp would be nothing but a smoking shell of the pirate haven it had been. Wolf had to hand it to the girl. He didn’t have the balls to what she’d done.

  Bells chimed, and sounds of coughing and choking grew louder and more frequent.

  “Let’s go.” Joanna glanced out the window and then called back to him again. “The Legion needs you.”

  He’d always thought it was the other way around. He needed the Legion, needed a purpose. His life had been one endless fight since the day he’d last seen his brother on the docks. Survival had been costly. He’d been beaten, caged like a wild animal, and forced to perform like a marionette, pummeling men unconscious in the boxing ring. Joanna’s arrival and her offer to join Wellington had changed all that. He didn’t know her past and didn’t want to, but he trusted her with his life. For her sake, and for her husband’s sake—Devlin had saved his life on several occasions—Wolf had to make sure she made it out of the Wasp alive.

  He upended a table and used it as a shield to hold off stragglers still intent on killing them. He pushed the table into the fire, motioned for her to jump out the window, and then climbed over the sill to follow her into the street.

  His crew was gathered there, muskets primed, swords drawn, prepared to defend them if need be.

  One of his boatswains, Thunder, a member of the Blackfoot tribe who’d followed him after Wolf’s lover Sinopa was murdered, held the wriggling imposter girl by the scruff of her neck. “We were waitin’ to see if ye survived the fire, Cap’n.”

  Wolf nodded to Thunder. “Luck seems to be on our side.”

  Men started pouring out of the Wasp as flames engulfed the build
ing. Timber groaned and embers traveled on the air. Chief among those bearing down on them was Robillard.

  “Assez!” Wolf shouted with an upheld hand. “Enough! I kept my end of the bargain. No one else has to die. You have my figuerados, Robillard.” He grabbed the girl to his side. “I have the boy.”

  Black smoke billowed from the tavern, swirling about Robillard’s head. Surrounded by injured men, the corsair seemed to ponder Wolf’s words. He, Joanna, and the girl, had done damage to the man’s reputation, an offense this upstart of a Frenchman would probably never forget.

  “It’s time to put this matter to rest before Saint-Malo burns.” Wolf made a fist and raised it skyward.

  His men moved forward several paces, shielding Joanna, the girl, and himself from any further violence. In the time it took to glance over at the two who’d fought beside him—intending to thank Joanna for her assistance—Joanna had vanished.

  “Did you see which way Jolie went?” he asked the girl.

  “No, Capitaine.” She shook her head, no empathy registering in her eyes. What had this slip of a girl experienced? “She was here, and then—” she shrugged “—suddenly, she wasn’t.”

  He flipped a lever in the wrist guard on his right hand, and his blade retracted. He repeated the action on his left, thanking the Earl of Hartland once more for bonding science and steel.

  “Jolie has a tendency to do that,” he said, more convinced than ever that Joanna had studied under a master in Japan, as Wolf had. “Come. My men can handle Robillard and his men. Right now, you need to disappear.”

  She nodded solemnly. “Thank you for coming to my aid, Capitaine, but I fear it’s not just me they want anymore.”

  “You’re right,” he said. Her concern was endearing. He could count the number of women who’d been concerned for his safety on one hand, Joanna included.

  Wolf put his hand on her back, pointing her in the direction they needed to go. Together, they navigated the center of the city one crowded street at a time, moving along the stone fortress walls in the opposite direction of everyone else. The narrow thoroughfare leading to the dock where the Sea Wolf was berthed had become a quagmire as citizens darted out of their homes to man buckets in order to save the city.

  The girl looked over her shoulder, fear finally mounting in her widened eyes.

  “You did a very brave thing,” he said.

  “Are you not the least concerned for your men?” she asked. “They might be killed.”

  “They know how to take care of themselves.” He chuckled. “That’s why they are still alive. And that is also why it’s imperative that we get you as far away from Saint-Malo as possible.”

  “But where do you plan to take me?” she asked, sidestepping a merchant cart that jutted out into the road.

  “Home,” he said. “Where you belong.”

  “Home?” Her breath caught, and she nearly tripped over her own feet. He reached out a hand to steady her. “But you do not know where I come from. How can you possibly make such a promise?”

  “I am a man of my word.” He smiled, hoping the gesture would be of some comfort. Instead, he felt like a buffoon. “That is all you need to know.”

  “All I need to—”

  “For now,” he cut in, considering the contrary young woman hurrying to keep up with his strides. “But first, a ship is no place for—” he caught himself “—a boy like you. Not until you learn how to perform shipboard duties.”

  “What duties?” She stopped in her tracks, the action making him tighten his grip on her arm.

  “Whatever a cabin boy does,” he said.

  “What makes you think I will be your cabin boy?” she asked, her voice hinting at how stubborn she was.

  Bollocks. This girl knew more about self-preservation than most of his crew. She knew how to wield a knife, cause bodily harm, escape danger, and burn down taverns. It made him extremely curious. Captain Charve had taught him those things, but where had a young woman learned to transform ordinary objects into weapons? Who had taught her such a thing, and why? Those questions made him both curious and suspicious.

  He cleared his throat. “I think you will do whatever it takes to survive,” he told her. “If you want to be a man,” he said, cocking his brow and hiding a smile, “you’ll learn how to earn your keep.”

  “But I don’t know anything about being a cabin boy,” she said.

  “Neither did I.” There weren’t many who could withstand the type of torture he’d suffered during his education. If only she knew how hard he’d had it on Captain Charve’s ship, L’échole. “Time, my young swab, reveals all.”

  Selina stepped through the fortress gate, leaving Saint-Malo and her days of imprisonment at the Wasp behind her. The scent of salt and pine tar combined with something decidedly revolting—was it dead fish?—permeated the air. Covering her nose to keep from breathing in the repugnant aroma, she hurried after the Sea Wolf’s captain, maneuvering past crates, wagons, and desperate harlots who reached out to touch him.

  One grabbed his leather coat. “Mon chéri, come with me.”

  The captain shrugged her away. “I’m not the man you think I am.” He reached out for Selina’s arm. She grabbed his in return and followed him down the wharf.

  “Take me with you, Monsieur,” another prostitute purred, darting out from her perch in a doorway to greet them.

  “Ignore them,” he said, his voice deepening as they passed the women. He squeezed Selina’s arm, and a strange wave of pleasure washed over her.

  Incapable of speech, she nodded. Why did she want to throttle those women within an inch of their lives?

  Busy dockworkers stepped in and out of warehouses as Selina pushed the prostitutes—and jealousy—out of her mind. He’d promised to take her home. Did she dare believe he was a man of his word? He was a pirate, after all, and she’d been kidnapped by pirates before. But the captain was different from those other men. She’d seen it. There was something about the way he looked at her, a tenderness beneath his gruff exterior that spoke to her soul.

  Oh, she was playing a foolish game trusting this hard, dangerous man. But what other choice did she have?

  Horses clip-clopped across the cobblestones where merchants hawked their wares. Large, shirtless men with sturdy backs and muscular arms toiled in the sun, supplying ships with foodstuffs, rope, and provisions, all that was needed to sustain a crew on a long voyage at sea. Beyond them, the landscape opened, the glassy blue expanse contrasting miles of brilliant white canvas furled at the yardarms of masts bobbing along the wharf.

  “Keep up,” the captain ordered. “When my crew arrives, we’ll make way with the tide . . . if we’re lucky.”

  “What do you mean, ‘if we’re lucky’?” she asked, trepidation surging through her.

  He stopped and looked down at her. “I mean as long as Saint-Malo doesn’t fire cannons at my ship.”

  She needed to ponder his comment only a moment to understand. “Won’t the tavern fire keep them occupied?”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  “Saint-Malo is a walled city.” She glanced back over her shoulder at the fortress walls and the black ring of smoke rising into the sky. “One fire can ignite the entire village.”

  “Aye.” When she turned to look at him, she found him glaring at her. “Would you rather have me believe you set that fire on purpose or out of stupidity?”

  So this is what he thought of her. Did he believe she was capable of burning people out of their livelihoods? “What do you think?” she asked, unsure if she really wanted to know his opinion of her.

  “That I won’t regret this.” He frowned and turned away before she could read his eyes. “Let’s go.”

  “But where are we going?” she asked, hurrying after him. She was fearful of being left behind or getting lost on the crowded docks as she had been in Cadiz.

  “The Sea Wolf,” he answered.

  “I know that, but which ship is it?” All the ships looked
exactly the same to her.

  He pointed at the end of the wharf. “She’s there.”

  Selina followed the direction his finger pointed to a three-masted ship. Sunlight glinted off its massive shrouds. As they neared, the glare subsided somewhat, and her gaze traveled over the ship’s lines to the shape of a figurehead attached to the bowsprit. The wooden sculpture slowly took shape, capturing a wolf in all its white-fanged glory as it vaulted into the air, its feet raised beneath its head, exposing its belly to the sea.

  “Isn’t she a beauty?”

  Selina was taken aback by the respect and affection in the captain’s sensual tone. It was a low timbre that stirred something in her belly, and she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be regarded as deeply as a beloved ship. In Portreath, she’d heard tales of men devoted to their vessels—mourning the destruction that gales had wrought on ships in the dangerous Cornish harbor—though she’d believed the emotion had more to do with a decrease in Welsh coal than anything else. Becoming emotionally attached to a thing made little sense to her. She wasn’t even attached to her home, Trethewey House. There was no love to be found within the ornate pieces of wood there. Not dissimilar to Trethewey’s cob walls, the Sea Wolf’s decks were covered in pine tar, which she knew made the planks waterproof. Things, however, could always be rebuilt.

  But he’d said she, which meant the ship was not just a thing to him.

  “She?” Selina asked, looking up at him.

  “Aye.” He glanced down at her as they neared the Sea Wolf’s berth. “We seafaring folk spend so much time aboard ships that they become our lovers.”

  Gracious! Suddenly lightheaded, she swallowed back the foreign and delicious warmth that spread over her body and down to her toes. “Is that all?” she asked, feeling sheepish.

  “Ships carry life.” His eyes twinkled, and a smile slowly transformed his face until she suddenly could only see him as devilishly handsome. “They have a waist and stays, and like a woman, they can be a lot of trouble.”