His eyes flashed with renewed anger. “One day, milady, so help me, I will see that you rue those words. For now, however, we will return to the business at hand. The pirate is better suited to finding your father, so the pirate I will remain. You may have my cabin to yourself, milady. But the bargain stays the same. When your father is found and rescued, you had best come to me laughing, your hair draping your shoulders, your clothing at your feet.”
“Bastard!”
“Are we agreed?”
“I hate you!”
“Hate me, love me, have it as you will. Until I do hang, madame, you are mine!”
A sudden noise, the cocking of a pistol, sent them both flying around. Skye gasped softly, for they were no longer alone upon the sand.
Logan was there. Captain Logan.
Logan, with two of his henchmen at his side, standing before them.
“I beg to differ with you, Hawk!” Logan announced. “I intend to take her. The lady will be mine.”
Roc drew Skye around behind him in an instant, holding her there. He watched Logan very warily, for the man had two pistols aimed straight toward him.
Roc’s sword and knife lay in the sand. His pistols were lost to the sea and his powder was sodden anyway. He had nothing, nothing at all with which to fight.
“Move away from the lady, Hawk!”
Behind him, Skye shivered. There was no help; no help anywhere at all. Logan had all the power, and he knew it. He was elegantly dressed in a crimson velvet coat and high black boots, and his hat bore a dashing plume. Skye wondered from where he had pilfered his finery, then she did not care. His lip was curled in an evil grin, and he scratched his chin with the hook he wore for a hand.
He would kill the Hawk, she thought. With the greatest pleasure and relish, he would kill the Hawk, probably ripping him open from groin to gullet with the very hook he wore because of the Hawk’s prowess with the sword.
The henchmen with him were not so dandified. They were both young men, in their early twenties perhaps, one blond, one dark. They were both barefoot, in knee breeches with no hose, and in coarse cotton shirts. They were both smiling, too, glad of this confrontation.
Logan’s smiled deepened. “Dear, dear, how have we come to find you here? And engaged in this oh, so touching scene!” He laughed to his companions. “Methinks that the lady is no creature of ice! She comes in this fight to the pirate, knowing him so, so well! It seems that the Hawk did teach the lady the finer points of love, which is well enough—I shall enjoy her the more.”
“You’ll never touch her, Logan!” the Hawk snapped.
“Oh, I think I will,” Logan replied pleasantly. “Damn you, Hawk, but you have always been a cocky bastard. The lady is behind you, and you are unarmed, and I have here six pistols and three swords at my disposal. I knew that the girl would have to come if I had her father, and that you would have to come after the girl. I hadn’t expected you to fall so easily into my hands, but then the weather was helpful, was it not? And then you two were so engaged with your private affairs that you mightn’t have heard the sound of a cannon explosion. Ah, dear lady! But you have done what I never could, you stole the Hawk’s guard away. Thank you, my dear. I do appreciate that, and I will be happy to show you just how much!”
“No…!” Skye started to cry, but then she was stunned when Roc turned around and slapped her hard across the face. His strength was so great that she went crashing down to the sand, the breath knocked from her, her flesh burning.
“Shut up!” he hissed down to her. Then he turned his attention to Logan. “Take her—you want her so badly. Take her, have done with it!”
“How rude, Hawk! Ishalltake her. Your ruse will not work.”
“Over my dead body, only, shall you have her!”
“That will be fine,” Logan chortled.
Roc shook his head. Skye’s mind continued to swim. She wanted to kill him; she abhorred the thought of Logan.
She could not begin to understand the brutality of Roc’s attack.
“She’s just a woman, Logan!” Roc called out. “Mine, because I took her. But she’s no better or worse than any other. Having her will give you little pleasure!”
“I’ll decide on that!” Logan said. “What is this, anyway! I do intend to shoot you and have her. When I tire of her, the others may have her. You will be dead. What will it matter to a corpse?”
“If you kill me, you’ll never have the treasure that One-Eyed Jack took off of the Spaniard.”
Logan hesitated, his eyes going very narrow against his cadaverous features. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play games with me, Logan. Jack pirated the Spaniard,Doña Isabellaout of Cartagena! Everyone knew about it. They talked about it on the islands for months. Why do you think I was so determined to go after theSilver Messenger?To take a single merchant sloop? You’d be daft, man! It was Jack I wanted, Jack that I was after. Oh, Logan, you speak of death! Jack died slowly, I tell you! Hehadtaken theDoña Isabella, and buried all that Spanish gold. Gold that you can’t even begin to imagine, Logan.”
