Island Flame (13 page)

“They didn’t know for sure until you came right out and told them,” Cathy hissed. “Do you have any conception of what you’ve done? You’re ruined my whole life, that’s what. No one will want to marry me now! No gentleman would want the—the leavings of a pirate!”

“But you’re not leavings—yet.” Jon grinned suddenly, eyes dancing wickedly. “And who knows, you might get lucky: I might decide to keep you for a pet. You purr very satisfactorily at times, my cat.”

Cathy caught her breath furiously. “You filthy swine, do you think that my father won’t come looking for me? He will—and he’ll find me. Your only hope is to let me go as soon as we reach land. My father is a powerful man. He’ll hang you twenty times over for what you’ve done to me!”

She was so angry that she barely knew what she was saying. Jon’s grin turned derisive.

“He has to catch me first, little cat, and that’s hard to do. Men have been trying for years, yet here I still stand. What makes you think that your almighty father will succeed where so many others have failed?”

“He just will, that’s all,” was all Cathy could think of to reply. She spat the words through gritted teeth to make up for their inaneness.

“He might not even try, if you were to send him word you had decided to stay with me of your own free will.” It was said in an offhand manner, but Jon’s eyes were suddenly intent on Cathy’s flushed face. She was too angry to notice.

“Stay with you?” She laughed scornfully. “You can’t be serious! Do you think that I’d give up my whole future, my family and friends, to stay with a man who thinks nothing of raping an innocent young girl, a man who murders and
steals, who would starve a helpless old woman? You must think highly of your abilities in bed, Captain. Speaking for myself, I disagree.”

“You’re a conceited little cat, aren’t you, sweet?” Jon drawled, his eyes glittering strangely. “What makes you think I’d have you? I was just mentioning a possibility. Once we reach port, there will be plenty of women eager to warm my bed. Women much better at pleasuring a man than you, I’m glad to say. You’ll become redundant.”

Cathy glared at him, too incensed at this cavalier dismissal of her importance to be able to frame any kind of a reply. “And,” Jon continued coldly, “as for the rest of your remarks, I’ll take them point by point. First, I thought we’d already agreed that no rape occurred. Second, I steal to survive. If you’d ever gone hungry you’d be more sympathetic. Third, if I don’t kill my opponents, they’ll kill me. And I prefer to live, thank you. And finally, as to starving those pudding-bags, let me inform you that the
Margarita
’s rations are carefully calculated before each voyage so that there’s enough to get us where we’re going and back—no more. We have no room for extra stores. When we took the
Anna Greer
, our food supplies were already low. We had followed her for some days longer than I had originally planned, you see. If your three friends were allowed to gorge themselves, then I or my men would have to go without sufficient food to make up the difference. And the prisoners are not needed to sail this ship. They get enough to keep body and soul together, and we’ll reach port before they suffer any real ill-effects. You should be grateful that I was sufficiently taken with your soft curves to want to keep them that way.”

“I despise and detest you,” Cathy said slowly after a
long moment. “You have the hardest heart of anyone I’ve ever met. If you even have a heart, which I’m beginning to doubt.”

“I have one, never fear.” His long lashes dropped to mask his eyes. “But I also have sense enough to realize that if I don’t take care of me and mine, no one else gives a damn. Something you’ll doubtless realize as you grow older, my child.”

“I’m not a child anymore, thanks to you,” Cathy replied bitterly. “You’ve seen to it that I’ve grown up fast.”

“And I’ve enjoyed every minute of your education.” The mocking light was back in his eyes.

Cathy abruptly turned her back, too sick at heart to argue further. She crossed to the window to stare pointedly out.

“Would you please leave? I’d like to be alone for a while.” Her voice was icy.

“Then alone you shall be, my lady. For a while. Just don’t get too fond of solitude. Remember, it’s only temporary.”

Cathy clamped her lips together and refused to dignify his needling with a reply. After a moment she heard the door open, and then click shut behind him. Through the window, the sunlight was making sparkling, ever-changing patterns on gently breaking waves. Cathy stared at them blindly. She felt shattered, drained of all emotion. For the first time she acknowledged to herself how completely she was at the pirate captain’s mercy. Then she smiled, her expression grim. Only a fool would expect mercy from a merciless man.

Five

E
leven days later the
Margarita
sailed into the Spanish port of Cadiz. The weather had turned hot and sunny again, after almost a week of intermittent squalls. Since their quarrel, Cathy had spoken to Jon only when she absolutely had to, and he was equally terse with her. The only use he now had for her was to take her body roughly, quickly, at least once, and sometimes even two or three times a day. Cathy found it increasingly easy to lie as unmoving as a stone statue beneath him while he did his worst to her. It had become a point of pride with her to feel nothing—and to make sure that Jon knew it.

His temper had deteriorated steadily as her resistance increased. Even Harry tiptoed around him as one would around a live and extremely volatile bomb. Petersham took care to stay away from the cabin when Jon was there, telling Cathy frankly that he had no wish to be present when the inevitable explosion occurred. Cathy resolutely refused to be intimidated. Her tactics, though admittedly dangerous, were working.

Her attitude was as irritating to him as a small stinging fly was to a large horse. He was being exasperated to the point where he found it impossible to conceal the fact that she was getting under his skin. Only the night before, as he began what Cathy was coming to think of as his ritual assault, he was goaded into revealing just how
much her total lack of response irked him. She was lying flat on her back on the bunk where he had thrown her, as limp and unresisting as a rag doll while he systematically stripped her. Finally, with a muttered curse, he stopped with one large hand hooked around the waistband of her pantalets to glare at her. Cathy clenched her eyes tightly shut, refusing to respond to him by so much as a look.

“That’s right, bitch,” he sneered savagely. “Just close your eyes and think of England. Do you think I give a damn how you feel?”

With that he lowered himself on her stiff body and proceeded to take it brutally. Cathy made neither sound nor movement to help or hinder. She lay like a corpse, inwardly triumphant. He might walk off with an occasional battle, but she was winning the war.

His hands and mouth were deliberately ungentle, inflicting bruises that were still sore the following day. When he had finished, he rolled cursing onto his side. After a few moments he had risen from the bunk and dressed, stomping out of the cabin without a word. She hadn’t seen him since. Cathy smiled, remembering. She was making him suffer, and the thought brightened her day.

The unaccustomed sight of land out of the small window beckoned Cathy irresistably. She decided to end her self-imposed exile. After all, she was the only one to suffer from her confinement. As Jon had repeatedly said, she could stay in his cabin until doomsday as far as he was concerned. All he cared about was having her body available whenever he cared to avail himself of it. Unspeakable animal, she thought bitterly, and then dismissed him from her mind. She was determined to enjoy the day.

Cathy dressed hastily, suddenly so tired of the four walls of the captain’s cabin that she could have screamed. A simple, peach-colored linen dress seemed the best choice considering the heat, not to mention the way it blended with her creamy skin, giving the illusion at first sight that she was naked. A large straw hat tied beneath her chin to protect her complexion from the sun completed her toilette, and she was ready. She opened the cabin door and stepped out on deck.

Her arrival caused not the slightest ripple in the smooth running of the ship. Indeed, no one even so much as glanced her way. The men were all busy taking in the sails so that the
Margarita
could safely drop anchor. Bawdy songs and jovial curses floated down to Cathy’s ears from the rigging, where the men clung like chattering monkeys.

Jon was not on the quarterdeck. Cathy looked around for him on the theory that it was always safest to know the location of the enemy. He didn’t appear to be anywhere on the ship, in fact. Her eyes were beginning another disbelieving swing when she heard his deep voice high above her. She looked up, searchingly. When at last she spotted him her heart stood still for a frightened instant before resuming its beat double-fast. He was in the rigging with his men, high up near the tip of the main mast, climbing even higher as Cathy watched to release the rope that held the topsail to the spar. At last he succeeded, after several precarious tries, and the canvas came fluttering down like a huge white moth. Jon yelled triumphantly, then began to back down the pole after the sail, legs wrapped tightly around the smooth wood as his hands moved one beneath the other. He was grinning, and Cathy could have
cheerfully slapped the ridiculous smirk from his face. It was dangerous to go up that high! He should have left it to the men! She was too disturbed to wonder why the thought of his falling from such a height should so upset her. She just knew that it did.

“Michaelson, you and Finch check that canvas for tears,” he bellowed, as the sail floated down to the deck.

“Hell, Cap’n, we ain’t tailors!” a man called back amiably.

“You are if I say you are!” Jon retorted, still grinning. “Now get to it!”

The men complied with much good-natured grumbling. Cathy wondered that they dared, considering the mood Jon had been in lately. Even he seemed cheerful, though. Lately he had been about as lighthearted as a graveyard. Then the words to one of the songs began to make sense. Jon had said that when the
Margarita
made port there would be plenty of women willing to warm his bed, and apparently the crew was of a similar mind. Cathy shut her mind to the obscene lyrics, her eyes beginning to narrow. If Captain Hale chose to sleep with whores, she could only be grateful to them for relieving her of the onerous duty! She shrank back against the wall beneath the quarterdeck, suddenly anxious not to be seen. The arrogant beast might take her presence on the deck as a sign that she was weakening toward him!

“Ahoy, Cap’n!” Harry came to stand beneath the mast, neck craned back to look at Jon as he still worked high aloft.

“What is it?”

“About the prisoners, Cap’n. You want me to see about their ransoms while I’m ashore ordering supplies?”

“Hell, yes! The sooner we’re rid of the stinking pests the better!”

Cathy was shocked at the pain this callous dismissal caused her. She stood biting her lip, unnoticed by all, and told herself sternly that she was elated. Soon she would be free to resume her life where it had been so rudely interrupted, to go to parties and balls, to meet handsome young men. She would return to Portugal, she planned. No one there would know what had happened to her, and she could be assured of her good name. Eventually she might marry. … Then the
Margarita
and all that had happened aboard the ship would seem no more real than a bad dream.

“Harry!” Jon yelled after a moment’s silence. The second officer had already turned and was making his way toward the rail; far below a small boat waited to take him to shore. He turned back at Jon’s summons.

“Aye, Cap’n?”

“Uh—just arrange ransoms for the old lady and the couple. I’ve a mind to keep the girl for a while.” This was said in an offhand tone, but Jon had to repeat it at a bellow before Harry could hear him properly.

“You sure about this, Cap’n?” Harry asked worriedly, when the words were made clear to him.

“Damn it, don’t argue every time I give you an order. Just do it.”

“But, Cap’n.…”

“Look, consider her part of my share. Does that make it easier for your puritan soul to accept?” Jon sounded thoroughly exasperated. Harry cleared his throat nervously, remembering the captain’s temper of late.

“Yes, sir,” Harry said smartly, but he was shaking his head as he walked away.

For just an instant Cathy was conscious of a quick stab of delight. Jon meant to keep her with him … ! Then she took herself firmly in hand. Yes, he meant to keep her—until he tired of her. Then she would be cast aside like a pair of worn-out breeches while he found another to take her place. She wouldn’t even have exclusivity while she was with him! Not if she had read his plans for the night correctly. Was that what she, daughter of an Earl, wanted out of life? To be the transient receptacle of a pirate’s lust? Not a chance! She would throw herself overboard before she would submit to being so degraded! Her pride hotly rebelled against the picture she had conjured up. She wouldn’t take it, she wouldn’t! She would escape … !