He paused, staring at her. All of them paused, in surprise. The graybeard slowly smiled, licking his lips. “Well, lookee here, will you now! We’ve found the crème de la crème, eh, boys?” He started to laugh, rising, tossing down Tara’s skirt and adjusting his breeches. “How-de-do, mee-lady. Old Samuel, here, and indeed, mum, I do intend to show you a good time.”
“Shut your mouth and step aside, Samuel. And you!” she said sharply to the blond youth who was nearly upon poor Bess. “I suggest you return your protruding anatomy to your breeches, boy, lest I find myself tempted to lop it off!”
Samuel burst into a loud guffaw. The blond boy did not find the threat so amusing. He quickly stumbled to his feet, drawing the cord on his breeches tight.
“A feisty wench, this one!” Samuel called happily. “Toss me a sword; this bird I shall quickly best, and have.”
“And share!” the boy said.
“Let’s see how the lady does. I think perhaps that the prize might first be mine,” a voice called out, and Skye quickly turned about.
She didn’t need to be told that she had come face-to-face with the man known as One-Eyed Jack. A black patch covered his one eye. He smiled an evil leer and she saw yellowed, rotting teeth beneath the curve of his lip. He was a small, sinewy man with whiskers.
Her stomach heaved. The idea of fighting to the very death gained new appeal for her.
“Captain!” cried Old Samuel. “I killed the captain of this here ship—she’s a prize, and mine! Give me a sword!”
“Take on the fight, Sam, and we will judge the lady,” One-Eyed Jack agreed. He tossed a sword the man’s way. He smiled at Skye, displaying his rotten teeth again. ’Twould be prettier, she thought, to bed a warthog.
She would die first, she vowed to herself.
Which was a growing possibility!
She quickly bemoaned the warning she had given the man—she should have slain him while he attacked Tara unarmed. He was a pirate, an animal, but she had not been able to slay an unarmed man. Now it seemed that she would pay for her morality—and stupidity.
“Sir!” she snapped out, tossing her skirts behind her, finding her position.
And it seemed that Old Samuel was soon as dismayed as she, for the fight went on. Skye knew that he had assumed her threats were idle; he could not know that before her father had shipped her off to Mrs. Poindexter’s School for Refined Ladies, he had sent to France to hire her a world-renowned instructor when she had determined to learn the art of swordplay. Samuel had learned the art upon the sea. He was strong, but he knew no finesse.
She could best Samuel. She knew that she could.
But when that was done, there would still be another twenty to fifty pirates…perhaps more…to fight off.
“Methinks you are no lady!” Samuel called to her. A mean look crossed his face. He was not fighting for a prize anymore; he was fighting for his life, and he knew it. He tried to shatter her strength, slamming down upon her blade. She was too quick. She parried, and feinted, and eluded his anger. She leaped high upon a charred sail beam, and when he slammed downward, she ducked, and flew into a pirouette, and brought her blade slicing through his midsection.
Samuel died, staring at her in rage and disbelief until the fire left his eyes to be replaced by the cold glaze of death.
She swirled around. She realized suddenly that the ship had grown silent. There were no more small skirmishes being fought upon the deck. The officers who’d survived had swords cast against their throats. And they, like the pirates, stared at her.
One-Eyed Jack slowly clapped his hands together, eyeing her with a new respect. “Madame, in the end, it is me that you will meet.”
There was little that she could do; nothing that she could say.
She raised her sword. Her eyes lit upon the lot of them, and she backed against the mast, looking to her left and to her right, awaiting her next opponent.
It was to be the youth. He rose and spat upon the deck. Someone tossed him a sword. He bowed mockingly.
“Milady?”
Then he lunged forward.
He was an easy opponent, too easy. He hadn’t the strength or barbaric skill of the older man. Soon Skye saw sweat beading his brow. They moved across the deck, and men gave way.
“Lady Skye!”
For a second, a mere second, Davey’s anguished cry distracted her. He warned her that a second man had drawn a sword to come up behind her. A balding pirate with a red kerchief about his head popped Davey hard on the head with the butt of his pistol, and the boy sank silently to the deck.
She started instinctively for his side. The blond youth made a swipe toward her, slicing through her skirt. She swung about just in time to save her flesh from the tip of the blade.
