and getting to his feet.
‘More is the pity. But we’ll take him dead just the same.’ North gave a nod.
With incredulous horror Kate watched as four of the British crew lifted Tobias’s body between them and carried it across the boarding plank to the bigger schooner.
North’s eyes shifted to where Sunny Jim’s hand still held Kate’s wrist. ‘Release her to us.’
‘And if we don’t?’ Sunny Jim demanded. His grip was gentle for all the ferocity of the part he was playing before North.
North’s gaze flicked coldly to Tobias’s lifeless form before returning to Jim’s. ‘We’ll kill every last man amongst you.’
She did not doubt North’s assertion, neither did anyone else. Every pirate and privateer who sailed these oceans had heard the stories of North the Pirate Hunter.
Sunny Jim’s eyes slid momentarily to Kate’s in veiled question. He would fight for her to the death, they all would, but she could not allow that, not all these men who had served her so loyally.
‘I am not worth one man’s life, let alone thirty,’ she answered. ‘Surely you see that?’ Words that could be those of a prisoner held against her will.
But Sunny Jim’s expression was stubborn. He had known both her grandfather and father and he was not a man to cut and run.
‘Give us the woman and the rest of you may go free,’ said North.
‘You think we would believe a story like that?’ Sunny Jim sneered at North.
‘You should—it is the truth. I have no interest in bringing in Coyote and her crew as a prize. My commission is purely for La Voile.’
She felt the hope that North’s words sent rippling through her crew. They did not fully believe him, but they wanted to. She knew it with a certainty, because she felt the same way, too. North could not be trusted, but, if he wanted, he could kill them all anyway and take her just the same.
Sunny Jim knew it, too. But still he wavered.
‘You must yield me to them,’ she said, as if pleading with her captor, when in truth it was the command he needed to hear.
He gave a nod, his gentle old eyes meeting hers in understanding and salutation. ‘If you want her so much, take her. And let us pray you do not lie, Captain North.’ In the role he was playing Sunny Jim threw her hard towards North.
The force of it made her stumble and almost fall, but North caught her and in one movement swept her behind him.
‘Oh, I do not lie, Mr Pirate. You need have no fear of that.’ She could hear the ironic curve on his mouth as he uttered the cool words.
But he was not smiling when he glanced at the priest. ‘Escort the lady to safety, Reverend Dr Gunner.’
The priest gave a nod and when he gestured ahead, she had no choice but to follow him, leaving behind Coyote and safety, and step with feigned willingness across the breach that divided her world from his.
* * *
On the British ship Kate stood by the bulwark, her grip so tight upon the rail that her fingers ached, watching them, watching North, watching what would come next.
Those crew who had been captured upon North’s ship were returned across the plank to Coyote. All of her men were lined up there, on their knees, most still bound and gagged. There was nausea in her stomach, an icy dread in her blood.
‘Will he kill them?’ she asked the priest, her eyes lingering on the scene on Coyote’s deck.
‘North does not lie. He will not take their lives, ma’am.’
But priest or not, Kate could not trust the words.
North moved.
Her heart missed a beat.
But he did not spray the deck red with blood as she feared. Instead, true to his words, he sheathed his cutlass and walked away, leaving them there as he returned to his own ship. In less than a minute all physical connections between the two ships had been severed, the boarding plank and pricey grappling hooks sent plummeting into the waves without a second glance.
As North’s ship manoeuvred carefully away from Coyote, Kate’s gaze held to Sunny Jim’s, but neither of them dared show one single sign. Behind her she could hear the creaking of the rigging and the crack of unfurling canvas and the movement of men busy at work. And before her, the distance of the ocean expanding between them as North took sail.
She was aware that North and the priest were somewhere behind her, but Kate did not look round. She just stood there and watched while the wind seemed to speed beneath North’s sails to leave Coyote further and further behind.
Until, at last, the dark shadow fell across her and she knew that North had come to stand at the rail by her side.
One second. A deep breath.
Two seconds. She swallowed and hid all that she felt.
And only then did she turn to face the man who was the infamous pirate hunter North.
* * *
Those dark eyes were looking directly into hers with a calm scrutiny that made her nervous.
‘North, Captain Kit North,’ he offered the unnecessary introduction. ‘Under commission from the British Admiralty to bring in the pirate La Voile.’
The hesitation before she spoke was small enough not to be noticed. ‘Mrs Kate Medhurst,’ she said, using her real name because it would mean nothing to him and because successful deception was best attained by sticking close to the truth.
He took her hand and just the feel of his fingers against hers made her shiver.
‘You are cold, Mrs Medhurst, now that our speed increases.’
She hated that he had seen it, that tiny sign of weakness, of fear. ‘A little,’ she agreed by way of excuse.
Before she could stop him he slipped off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders.
She could feel the warmth of him still upon it, smell the scent of him too much in her nose—leather and soap, sunshine and masculinity. It surrounded her. It enveloped her. Bringing him close to her, making it feel like a gesture of intimacy that she did not want to share with any man, least of all him. She itched to tear his coat from her, to dash it at his feet, this hard-eyed handsome Englishman who was her enemy in more ways than he could imagine. But Kate knew she could not afford to yield to such impulses of emotion and controlled herself as carefully as ever she did.
‘Thank you,’ she said, but she did not smile.
‘You are safe with us.’
Safe? The irony of the word would have made her laugh had the situation not been so dire. ‘Even if I am an American? And there is—’ she hesitated in order to choose the word carefully ‘—disharmony between
