Lady Reluctant Read online

  “Now then,” she mused. “Shall I have yer worthless life—or just yer private parts?”

  Mole’s wide agitated gaze followed the blade up to her smile, then onward to her dark glittering eyes. A frightened swallow moved his throat against the unyielding blade, causing a drop of blood to well beneath the tip.

  “I was jest ‘aving a bit o’ fun, Miz Blu. No ‘arm intended. No sirree.”

  “Flam,” she said softly.

  “I wouldn’t lie to ye, Miz Blu!”

  He would have raped her if he could and would have boasted about it later. He would have soured her forever. Blu didn’t fancy the thought of that.

  Still smiling, she slowly drew the tip of her sword down across his chest, opening a faint line of crimson. She brought the blade tip to rest between his legs and examined the terror rising in his eyes.

  “Jesu! Don’t do it, Miz Blu! I’m sorry! I won’t never bother you no more. No more, never! Don’t cut me there, Miz Blu. Jesu, God, not there!”

  She considered. It was what he deserved.

  “I’ll leave the Mound. God is my witness, I’ll ship on the next vessel!” He was choking, his voice almost a sob. “Yer don’t want me balls, Miz Blu, not me balls.”

  She thought she did.

  From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of movement, then saw a tall shadow rise from one of the spruce-dotted dunes. Sunlight gleamed across a bald head, flashed from a gold earring. Mouton didn’t move toward her, he simply stood, watching. She pressed the sword tip firmly against Mole’s groin and returned Mouton’s steady gaze. He folded his arms across a massive chest and silently shook his head.

  “Dammit, Mouton. He would have raped me.” She ignored Mole’s spit-foamed babble.

  Mouton’s black face remained impassive. He stood like an oak risen from the sand. His gold earring swung as he shook his head, indicating she should step away.

  Blu sighed heavily, reluctance giving weight to the sound. “You keep your prize,” she muttered to Mole, already regretting the decision. “But I’ll have a trophy, that I will.” Her sword flashed upward in a silvery blur and the tip of Mole’s left ear dropped onto the sand. He howled, but she recognized relief as well as pain in his shriek. “I want you off this island by morning.”

  Mole stared up at her, his voice a whimper. “What if they’s no ship?”

  “Then swim.”

  “That I will,” he babbled, hauling to his knees, then to his feet. “Swim. Aye, Miz Blu, that I will,” He slid a look toward Mouton, then scuttled sideways like a crab, clamping a hand over his bloody ear. When he was beyond reach of Blu’s sword, he turned and, holding onto his breeches, ran over the dunes toward camp.

  “Why did you spare him?” Blu glared at Mouton as he crossed the sand to inspect the wound on her shoulder.

  Speaking in gestures, Mouton explained she would have killed Mole too quickly. The men of Morgan’s Mound would learn of Mole’s affront and they would devise a more suitable, and slower punishment. Besides, Mouton finished, ladies didn’t slice off a man’s balls.

  Blu stared into his dark face. “Not you too. I thought I could count on you to be on my side.” Frowning, she watched his hands move. “But I don’t want to be a lady! I don’t care what you or Monsieur or Beau Billy think. Doesn’t anyone care what I want?”

  Ignoring the question, Mouton pushed back the torn silk on her shoulder and examined her carefully. He made a sign of unconcern with his palm, but pulled her to the water’s edge and doused the wound with salt water.

  Blu gritted her teeth but made no sound when the salt bit into her wound. “If I was this grand lady you’re all so eager to make of me, I would now be lying raped and bleeding on the sand. Is that what all of you want?”

  Mouton snorted and laughed silently. His black eyes sparkled down at her. Even laughing, he was menacingly ugly. Scars carved his naked chest, an ancient rope burn circled his throat. His nose was flat, his lips prominent. It seemed that God had fashioned Mouton from a pile of scraps too large or misshapen to be of use elsewhere. The result was a man of massive proportions with a face that haunted the nightmares of those who passed through Morgan’s Mound.

  Blu watched his hands as he spoke, then waved her own in frustration. “I know you would have stopped it, that isn’t my point. And what if you hadn’t been there? You can’t be with me every moment!”

  But of course he was. For as long as she could remember, Mouton had been there, silent and protective, her friend and her guardian. “So stop laughing and show me how I could have avoided this.” She pointed to her wound.

  Reluctance mixed with the amusement in his dark gaze.

  Shielding her eyes from the sun glinting off his oiled head, Blu drew a breath. “I’m not a lady yet,” she said sourly. “Until I am, I need to know how best to protect myself.”

  From earliest memory, Mouton had been her shadow. She had ridden on his huge shoulder as a toddler, had trailed along beside him as she grew. He had taught her to swim and how to dive off her father’s salvage ships, had taught her to use a sword and a knife. Always, he was there. He sat behind her during her lessons with Monsieur and slept outside her door at night. Blu was never out of Mouton’s sight for more than a few minutes. Occasionally she found this annoying; occasionally she was bloody damned grateful.

  She tossed Mole’s sword to Mouton. “Show me.”

  Moving slowly and deliberately so Blu could follow each movement, Mouton re-created Mole’s thrusts. Pausing, he glanced at her from beneath heavy black eyebrows.

  “Aye, this is where I missed the parry.” He nodded, unsmiling, letting Mole’s sword hover above her bleeding shoulder. “I see,” she said, concentrating. Now she duplicated the movement, assuming Mouton’s stance as he assumed hers. She moved her sword toward the muscle bulging his bare shoulder, then lifted a brow and waited until he came in low and hard and sent the sword spinning from her fingers.

  “Aye.” A broad smile curved her lips. “That’s how I should have done. Let’s try it once more.” But the bell clanged atop the tower and they both looked toward camp. “It appears Mole won’t have to swim, “ Blu commented, lowering her blade.

  The bell signaled a ship approaching the cove. They couldn’t see the wharf area from this part of the island, so Blu couldn’t guess who requested harbor. But the arrival of any ship was an event, No matter how old she got, the sound of the tower bell always made her heart beat with excitement and anticipation. There would be bonfires and feasting tonight. Music and dancing. Isabelle and the other whores would have their hands full, she thought, smiling. When they awoke tomorrow, their pallets would be shining with coins.

  But no one would chase Blu Morgan. A sigh lifted her chest.

  Mouton heard the sigh and guessed she was thinking about the men on the ship. If he could have spoken aloud, he would have explained there was no shame in innocence, and he would have told her it was wrong to sacrifice her virginity to punish Lady Katherine.

  Had he been able to speak, he might have told her about Sarit and the joys a man and a woman shared when the heart was engaged. There was more to sex than two animals rutting in a dark hut.

  But he could not speak. Twenty-odd years ago the Vizier’s riders had swept into his village on the outskirts of Tarsus seeking eunuchs for the Sultan’s harem. They had chosen him for his size and his fearsome appearance. Within minutes, the men had cut his vocal cords and had castrated him. This they did before the horrified eyes of his beloved Sarit. When the bleeding stopped and it was determined he would live, he was taken aboard a ship bound for the palace in Constantinople. He would have been there now, serving the Grand Seraglio, had his ship not been set upon by Beau Billy. It was Beau Billy’s sole venture into the Mediterranean and Mouton thanked Allah for it. He had hesitated only a moment when Beau Billy shouted: Who joins me?” Then he had leaped the distance separating the two ships and had himself fired the first flaming arrow into the Turkish Vizier’s sail. Afterward he
had pledged his life and his sword to the man who liberated him. Not once had he regretted his choice.

  Nor had he escaped his fate, though the harem he now guarded consisted of only one. But that one was very precious to him.

  Looking down at Blu as she strode beside him, he smiled softly, as proud of her wild beauty and noble spirit as if he had sired her himself. This being so, he understood Beau Billy’s wishes. He, too, desired Blu to have the best life could offer. For her, that meant something more than Morgan’s Mound. It meant England. They had discussed it endlessly, he and Beau Billy and Monsieur. Because they didn’t want to lose her, they had first considered establishing Blu in St. George, on the far tip of the island chain. Eventually, reluctantly, they agreed to abandon the fancy. St. George was too young and too raw a town to offer the advantages they sought. Moreover, the people there knew her as Beau Billy’s daughter.

  If Blu was to have the advantages they wished for her, she had to be placed in her mother’s tutelage. Lady Katherine would see that Blu had gowns like those in the chests recovered from plundered ships. Blu would live in a stone house with glass windows like those pictured in Monsieur’s books. And Lady Katherine would arrange a marriage with a husband who owned a fat purse and many carriages, one who would treat Blu well and not beat her, even when she deserved it.

  Mouton’s smile vanished as he recalled Lady Katherine. How would she receive Blusette? This daughter whom she had not seen since infancy? Beau Billy’s letter, written by Monsieur, would come as a shock to her. As would the fact she had been given no choice in the matter. As the letter stated, Monsieur would be carrying a document recording a marriage between Beau Billy and Lady Katherine which he would reveal to the London newspapers if Blu were not accepted or treated well. That the document was a forgery did not signify. Publication would result in a ruinous scandal.

  “It’s the William Porter,” Btu said when they had topped the dunes and could see beyond the cove. “I don’t recognize her.”

  Increasing the pace, Blu hurried forward. It was a relief to step into camp and escape the heat pounding her bare head. Silver-tipped cedars spread a canopy of dappled shade over the compound. A wide-trunked rubber tree provided deeper shade across the square in front of the great hall where they ate when the weather was inclement and where they gathered when Beau Billy wished to make a speech.

  Nearly two hundred residents slept in the thatched huts that curved around the great hall. The huts lay out of sight, obscured by thick ferns and vines and explosions of oleander and hibiscus. The kitchen, the cave that served as a buttery, and the tank for collecting rainwater lay between the huts and the great hall.

  But the most important buildings on the island, the only buildings made of limestone and stone roofing, were the warehouses that occupied the top of the beach. When Beau Billy’s divers salvaged valuable pieces from the wrecks dotting the reefs, the treasure went directly into the warehouses. When the men who plundered the seas desired to dispose of their booty quickly and safely, they brought it to Beau Billy and his famous warehouses. Men had died for approaching the limestone walls too closely.

  As Blu watched, two of Beau Billy’s trusted men opened the doors of the warehouse nearest the beachfront. It appeared the William Porter was expected.

  She stepped up on the wharf beside her father. “Can you be that certain the William Porter is bringing goods worth buying?”

  Beau Billy answered without lowering the spyglass from his eye. “Aye. ‘Tis quality goods ye’ll be seeing, Mite. ‘Tis the Duke at the wheel.”

  “The Duke?”

  “‘Tis an honor to have him at Morgan’s Mound. ‘Twill cost me pretty before he sails again.”

  Her father’s voice scarcely contained his relish, and Blu guessed he was already calculating his profits.

  Twice yearly Beau Billy sailed to the Carolinas and offered his merchandise at Cape Hatteras. Bargain hunters appeared from all the colonies to buy her father’s goods and to stare with delicious horror at Beau Billy and his men. First, of course, the warehouses were opened to the good people of St. George who were given first opportunity to purchase the merchandise before it was shipped to the Carolinas. It was for this reason that the town of St. George tolerated a man of Beau Billy’s occupation and reputation. Had the townspeople not been so desperate for quality goods and had England not ignored their pleas for assistance, they would have descended upon Morgan’s Mound and burned it to the sand. Instead, an uneasy truce existed between Morgan’s Mound and the people occupying the other islands in the Bermuda chain. So long as Beau Billy kept to himself and so long as he continued to sell part of his booty to the respectable citizens of St. George, he was allowed to occupy Morgan’s Mound unmolested.

  “Who is the Duke?” Blu asked. She nudged her father in the ribs and extended her hand to borrow his spyglass. After a moment, he relinquished the glass and she focused it on the bow of the approaching ship. A face appeared before her and Blu gasped. She sucked in a deep breath. Never in her life had she seen a face as handsome as this one.

  The man looking toward the glass was clean-shaven except for a luxuriant dark mustache that was well shaped and trimmed. His hair was as black as her own but tied with ribbon instead of hemp. His eyes were gray. Blu studied them with fascination, never having seen gray eyes before. They reminded her of silver doubloons. His nose and jawline were also an astonishment. She could identify no lumps or bumps or broken places, no blemishes or grog blossoms or prominent veins. His nostrils were finely shaped and his jaw was strong and firm. Although his skin was tanned dark by the sun, it looked as smooth as a woman’s. This amazed her as did his naked mouth. She focused the glass tightly on his lips.

  Most of the men Blu knew, except Mouton, wore heavy unkempt beards. Seeing the exposed curve of this particular mouth made her feel suddenly warm and strange inside. The strange warm feeling persisted and increased as she ran the glass across wide shoulders that tapered to a lean waist and led eventually to long shapely legs. She bit her lips and sighed.

  “I want him,” she said softly. Without removing her gaze from the approaching ship, she handed the glass back to her father. “I want that one.”

  2

  “Ye want the Duke?”

  “If that bloke is the Duke, then aye. I want him.” The strange warm feeling quivered in her stomach.

  Beau Billy shrugged and grinned at Mouton, who watched the approaching ship without expression.

  “Well, well, Mite. Ye finally found one to meet yer standards, eh? ‘Tis time, gel. Mayhaps I’ll dress to celebrate yer cracking.”

  He was teasing her. For important events, her father occasionally wore a black eye patch, his sole concession to formality. He had no physical need for a patch; both his dark eyes were whole and unblemished. But he believed the patch imparted dignity and added stature to his reputation. It also helped disguise the fact that he was an extraordinarily handsome man, a condition that had proved something of a handicap during the early days of his career. Then he had worn the patch more frequently than recently. Now he wore it only when strangers came or on those rare occasions when a black coat visited the island to dispense prayers and baptisms. The number of patch-important events could be counted on the toes of one foot.

  Time had finally established Beau Billy Morgan. He no longer had to prove that a man with a face of a Roman statue could command the Jolly Roger. His past and his reputation went before him and now no man sneered or dared call him pretty.

  Otherwise, time seemed almost to have passed him by. There was no gray in the tangled black hair that reached to his shoulders or in the ragged beard touching his chest, no softening of the muscles along his arms and bared chest. He could still fight and best any man jack who looked at him wrong, and the women still came to his bed with eagerness in their eyes.

  In his own view, he had but one weakness, his daughter. The chit could wrap him around her finger at will.

  He leaned to inspect her torn shirt.
The blood had dried in the hot sun and glued the silk to her skin. “Ye been fighting again?”

  “Aye,” she answered absently, watching the William Porter maneuver past the rocks and reefs.

  “Did ye win?”

  “Aye.”

  He nodded proudly, then Beau Billy cast a curious glance toward Mouton and lifted an eyebrow. After Mouton shrugged and made a gesture to indicate they would discuss the matter later, Beau Billy turned toward the beach where men were rolling casks of fresh water toward the wharves in anticipation of a large sale to the William Porter. Morgan’s Mound was the last outpost where a ship could lay in provisions for the long voyage to England. This being the fortuitous case, Beau Billy charged horrendous prices for his rainwater and salt pork. “They’ll be wanting vegetables and meat too,” he shouted.

  Provisioning had proved a fine and profitable business, almost as lucrative as fencing pirated goods. What his people couldn’t grow or breed, Beau Billy purchased from neighboring islands. He paid next to nothing for additional mangos and goats, then charged a king’s ransom at the resale. It was amazing what a man would pay for a chunk of salt pork or a keg of malt when he knew there wouldn’t be more until Dover.

  Stepping off the wharf onto the sand, Beau Billy Morgan inspected his domain, his sharp eyes missing nothing. The women were laying bonfires on the north end of the beach near the huts, assisted by a dozen running, laughing children. The Spaniard was tapping a rum cask, stacking tankards across a wooden plank. Black Bottom had carried his iron pots to the cooking pit and now his men were bringing palm leaves laden with goat and pork cubes which Black Bottom would stew into a gumbo. The warehouse doors were opened and his men stood before them with muskets tucked into arms folded across their chests.

  There were hundreds of islands in the Bermuda chain and Morgan’s Mound was by no means the largest. But it was strategically located and it was his, by God: