“Are you mad?” Jerold asked. “There isn’t time. Leave him!”
“No!” She answered in a low, gravelly voice Chev knew well. “Ineverleave a prize behind. He is mine!”
“I said,” Sir Jerold raised a sword. “leave hi—”
Sir Jerold crumpled, a look of open-mouth shock still on his face. The acrid scent of saltpeter filled the air.
“Bricon,” the pirate said. “Fools—all of you. Why didn’t he listen?”
Chev’s heart lept. She’d used her one ball. He ran his gaze up and down her breeches—she didn’t appear to have a second flintlock...
Chev forced a swallow and attempted to look contrite. “Jerold did not know you like I do.”
She smiled, slowly. “That’s better, mon Jouet. Soon, we will be back on my ship and you may pleasure me.”
She yanked him outside the cave and into the near-dead day, pulling him across the piles of rocks and sand that had, until recently, blocked the entrance to the tunnels. She dropped him by the side of a small boat.
Her ship—with Danish flag still flying—had anchored a few hundred yards from shore.
Had Emmaus failed? Chev’s heart sank.
Chev lifted his head above the stones and gazed as far as he could down the shore. There were, indeed, men traversing sand—but they weren’t soldiers.
They were a motley collection of former sailors. And at their fore?
A woman whose long blonde hair flowed down her back and past the breeches she’d donned—as beautiful in her controlled fury as she’d ever been.
Thank God the pirate had already fired.
“My wife is deadly with a knife,” he warned.
“She is too late.” The pirate bent down to lift him into the boat.
Somewhere behind them, a bowstring pinged. An arrow pinned the pirate to the boat by her sleeve. With a cry, she tore the fabric, freeing her arm.
“There are plenty more,” Thaddeus said from within the tunnel.
“Thaddeus!” Chev yelled. “Get back.”
“He’s not alone,” Thomas spoke from the darkness at the mouth of the cave. A barrel of a musket raised. “And my aim is just as good as yours, madame.”
With a cry of frustration, and a quick, angry glance at Chev, the pirate turned, waded into the water, and then dove beneath the waves.
Thaddeus sprinted toward the shore.
“Let her go,” Chev commanded, raw. “She doesn’t matter.” Nothing mattered but Penelope and his son. “Take cover, Thaddeus.”
Cheverley freed his ankles, his eyes fixed on the pirate as she climbed the ropes, shouting commands and slinging insults in French.
Her crew would fire. They were sitting targets. He had to move.
He had to get Penelope and Thaddeus away.
He had to make sure they were safe before—
Suddenly, the deck lit with torches.
Emmaus stood, legs spread, at the center of the ship. A beautiful, equally dark-skinned woman flanked him, her musket—like everyone else in the crew—aimed toward the pirate.
