"By the all the saints in heaven...and of all the misbegotten bastards sailing this part of the Atlantic, why'd it have to be Rutherford?" El's rage built until she could barely breathe. Finally, she broke into a run back toward the rickety stone jetty where they'd left the shore boat.
Obadiah quickly caught up, and the two of them flung themselves into the boat. She quickly pulled up the shallow water stone anchor and tossed it into the bow whilst her mate positioned himself at the first set of oars. She threw herself into the second rowing position and they made for theLady Muirgenas if the hounds of hell were swimming behind them.
* * *
El hadObadiah instruct the crew to put out all of theLady Muirgen'scanvas. When they caught the first gust of well above twenty knots, the ship shot out of the cove. She watched the farthest east headland of the island until her gut told her it was time to move.
"Jibe ho," she shouted, and every crew member scrambled to manage the massive ship's sails as they all snapped to a different direction when their captain turned the wheel sharply to the left, away from the wind. The ship shuddered for a moment, hanging in negative space, and then the wind caught them. Everyone knew to hang on to something, because when the thirty-plus knots out on open water overtook the canvas, anything not secured shot to the opposite side of the main deck.
Once the ship settled into a close-hauled tack to clear the volcanic Azores, she heeled slightly to port and bit by bit picked up speed. El smiled the self-satisfied smile of her cat Phoenix at the end of his morning stretches. TheLady Muirgenwas doing what she was born to do.
She was sailing closer to the wind than most similar ships of her size. El had made sure of that over the years, fine-tuning the amount, and positioning of ballast to maximize her waterline and speed in high winds. And of course, the ship's original owner, El's old friend and mentor who had snatched her from her long-ago voyage to America, had commissioned the beautiful ship and worked with the builder to make every small detail from the shape of the hull to the dimensions of the storage decks push the sleek ship to fly across the water.
Hours later, when they'd cleared the islands, she gave the order to fall off the wind by ninety degrees. When the wind hit her beam, the ship settled into a smooth, steady westerly surf across the heavy waves, slashing through them one by one. The crew had let out the canvas to accommodate the new angle of the wind, and they belled out, filling like a tall, elegant woman carrying a healthy babe.
Obadiah came to the binnacle where she still kept control of the wheel and gave her a quizzical look. He obviously hadn't expected her latest move.
She gave him an indulgent smile. "I'm taking us out to find our own wind." When her first in command still seemed puzzled, she added, "We'll never catch up to Rutherford if we're sailing in the wake of his wind. We'll get ahead of him, and he'll never see us coming."
Obadiah shook his head slowly in disbelief, but shaded his eyes, stared to the north, and tightened the cord on his straw hat before heading for the main mast. He'd take the first watch in the crow's nest looking for the misbegotten whoreson, Rutherford.
* * *
A scant sixsea miles ahead of theLady Muirgen, Captain John Rutherford steered theCormorantas close to the wind as she'd go, which was a fat forty-five degrees off. But that would do nicely for his purposes, even though the ship slowed like a cow making her way across a field and heeled severely to port.
He wasn't greedy, though. The lack of speed didn't matter. He'd take his time returning the idiot duke to England, and, by God, he'd find someone on that blasted island who'd want to ransom the worthless tot, if nothing more than to be rewarded in turn by the duke's family. Surely, someone in the entire country would be willing to save his worthless carcass.
His crew had resorted to drawing lots for the unfortunate swab who had to take water and food to the man he held below in irons. Every time anyone came within earshot of the man, he'd bleat out more idiocy about how important he was, a peer of the realm, etc., etc.
He turned at a shout close to his ear. "What, man? Speak up. The wind's howling like a banshee."
"He's...gone," his crewman shouted again.
"Take this wheel," he shouted to his first in command. "I'll kill him, bring him back from the dead, and then I'll really start to work on him. He'llwishhe were dead."
17
LATE JULY, 1826
ATLANTIC OCEAN, NW OF AZORES
Percy hid behind three large sacks of flour in the hold below the galley and struggled to keep his laughter silent. Fortunately, he'd had the forethought to hold back a chunk or two of the precious ginger the evil Captain Rutherford had provided him, and he fished one out of his pocket to chew as insurance against the return of the dreadedmal de mer.
Who knew all pirate-like plunderers used similar keys to chain unsuspecting dukes to heavy cannon balls? It had taken long minutes of twisting and turning, but the key he'd hidden from Eleanor and still remained in a seam in his trousers had surprised the hell out of him when it had finally clicked open Rutherford's ankle lock.
Despite all the times he'd cast up his accounts since the ill-advised adventure had begun, he allowed himself an inner chuckle in the dark of the galley storage hold. He'd completely forgotten the one time before he'd been freed and allowed to work aboard theLady Muirgenthat Eleanor had given him the key to his ankle cuff and then absently forgotten she'd given it to him.
Perhaps the lack of sustenance remaining in his stomach had caused him to forget he had the means to his own freedom snugged away in a seam of his used sailor slop trousers. He still had no idea how in the hell he'd manage to stay hidden until they arrived back in England, perhaps a week hence, according to his reckoning from his last trip as a prisoner.
His abysmal failure as a cook's assistant on theLady Muirgenhad, however,hadgiven him knowledge of where vital stores were kept aboard a ship. He knew the approximate location of the water barrels, and, God help him, he knew where the weevil-ridden biscuits would be stored. Perhaps the dire warning of El's shipboard Cook would come back to haunt him before he managed to see the shores of England again.
* * *
Captain Rutherford'sinstincts from having battled Captain Goodrum many times over the years were now crawling up and down his spine. When his men in the crow's nest continued to shout down, along a relay of sailors strung along the rigging, that they were seeing nothing toward the southern horizon, he snapped.
Striding toward the rigging, he motioned to all of the men strung along the message relay to get the hell out of his way. For a man of his bulk and age, he surprised even himself and crawled up toward the crow's nest at a rapid pace.
When he finally snatched the spyglass from the lookout already on the tiny, enclosed platform and shoved him out of the way, he realized the problem immediately. When he swept the glass in a full circle of the horizon, what he finally spotted filled him with dread. The damned woman was parallel to him to leeward, about five nautical miles westward, closing in fast. She'd gradually narrowed the gap in just the few moments he'd observed her progress. He shouted out an oath toward the heavens and shoved the spyglass back at his crewman. "Look westward, you idiot, and don't lose sight of that sea-bitch, or I'll feed you to the brown sharks."
