The look on Bart’s face contradicted that as he rushed forward to deal with the thunderous voices.
Cameron stayed back, unsure of what exactly she was getting herself into on this quest to find her brother and return him home for Lettice, and her own personal sanity and safety. Time was running out, quickly, for the lot of them. Paden had left them all in a bad situation, and he had no idea of it.
Nathaniel had taken ill a few weeks back—as had Lettice, yet Lettice’s illness had turned out to be an unexpected pregnancy only she and Cameron knew about. The girl was to have Paden’s baby, and if he didn’t return in the next few months to make an honest woman of her, there would be hell to pay for the whole lot of them. No doubt, Nathaniel would take his anger over his daughter’s unwed pregnancy out on Cameron’s head if he couldn’t locate her brother. There was no telling what the surly man might do to her in retaliation.
Nor did she wish to find out. Nathaniel barely tolerated her presence in his inn and tavern as it was. Only his fear of Paden kept him in check.
If he learned Paden was dead and that her brother had left Lettice in a bad way …
Nathaniel would pull his protection of her, and Cameron would be penniless, homeless, without friend or family. Alone in a world that didn’t look favorably upon anyone without means, references, or prospects.
Those thoughts scattering, Cameron slowed as she neared the ship and saw the extent of the crew’s utter madness. Men, and women who were dressed as men—so much for her being original—were chasing each other around the deck of the ship as they tossed an old amber bottle among themselves to keep it from the hands of a middle-aged seaman who stood an inch or two shorter than Cameron.
With a scruffy dark beard that was liberally laced with gray, he appeared affable enough. Why they sought to torture him, she had no idea.
Bart let out a fiercely loud whistle. “What manner of blatant stupidity be this? Are ye all daft? Or just wanting your enemies to sneak up and cut your throats while you’re all distracted and screaming about like a bunch of weak-kneed trollops?”
Strangely amused and equally terrified of this group, Cameron stayed on the dock and watched as Bart slowly subdued them and collected the poor sailor’s “soul” from a large Maasai warrior before returning it to the distressed man.
“Zumari!” Bart chided the warrior. “I can’t believe you of all the ones on board would partake of such cruelty.”
“I’d have never, had he not started in on me first!” Zumari’s voice was as deep and lyrical as Bane’s. But his mood was much lighter, in spite of the fact that she held no doubt he was every bit as lethal in a fight.
Cameron was just about to head onboard the ship to join them when she became aware of a small group of soldiers nearing her.
Grim-faced and heavily armed, they stalked past her with a determined stride that didn’t bode well for whatever target they had in mind.
It froze her instantly.
A good thing, too, since that target turned out to be Bane’s crew.
Stepping to the side so as not to be in the middle of whatever mal intent they had, she caught the feral grimace on Bart’s and Zumari’s faces the moment they saw them that said they were both a bit put out at the way fate had decided to treat them this night.
With his legs braced wide apart and his arms crossed over his chest, Bart met them at the top of the gangway and refused to allow them access to the deck of the ship. “What can I do for you, gentlemen?” The icy tone of his voice undermined the cordial words. As did the number of crewmen who came to stand behind him as reinforcements.
The soldiers didn’t flinch, especially not their leader, a dark-haired bloke who bore a jagged scar over his left eye that said he was lucky to still have it. Unlike the others, he wasn’t dressed in uniform. Rather, he wore the clothes of a well-dressed port official, or another privateer captain. “It was brought to our attention that you came into port earlier this day without colors or jack. We’re here to inspect your papers and whatever cargo you might be carrying.”
Bart curled his lip. “On whose authority?”
Their leader didn’t flinch or back down. “Are you refusing to show your papers?”
“I don’t bow to a common pirate hunter, if that’s what you be asking, Barnet. You can take your men now and begone from this ship. There are no pirates among us. You’re wasting your time and ours with this useless endeavor.”
“If you know me, then you know I won’t be leaving here until I see that paperwork.”
A slow, insidious smile spread over Bart’s face as Zumari stepped closer to back him. “Wouldn’t be taking that wager, were I you. But I’ll be taking odds on your leaving with disappointment in your heart, any day. Thrice on it today.”
Just as the notorious pirate hunter Jonathan Barnet began to bluster in argument, a deep, resonant voice came out of the shadows. “There a problem? And the correct answer is nay, Devyl, there is not.”
The color faded from Barnet’s face as he turned slowly to see Devyl Bane and William Death parting from the fog on the docks. They walked past Cameron without acknowledging her in the least—which was fine by her since she didn’t want to be under anyone’s scrutiny while they were embroiled in this bit of heated controversy. Best to keep a low profile—that was the first lesson she’d learned as a girl after the death of her parents.
And how Captain Bane’s voice traveled so effortlessly without his raising it, she had no idea. Yet it held that chilling, commanding tone and hung in the air like the voice of some ancient war god.
“Captain Bane,” Barnet greeted with the smallest hint of a quiver in his own throat. “This be your ship?”
“Don’t make a habit of trespassing on other men’s vessels.” The way he said that conveyed an insinuation that he wasn’t talking strictly about boats. “Now get your mud-laden boots off her boards, as your mere presence here offends me to the core of my being, before I seek to teach you the manners your mother should have.” He didn’t pause to even look at Captain Barnet. Rather, he kept walking straight past the entire group as if they were of no consequence or concern whatsoever.
Barnet took a step forward, but Bart and Zumari blocked his path to prevent him from following after their captain. “You have a new crew…,” Barnet said.
