The Tiger's Bride

“But—”

He grasped her chin in a cruel grip and tipped her face to his. “This is one promise you can believe. If you disobey me, I swear I’ll strip you naked, tie you to a rail, and lay a strap across your shoulders.”

The blood drained from her cheeks. “You…you would not!”

“Aye, Miss Abernathy, I would. With great pleasure.”

Jamie slammed the cabin door behind him, as furious as he’d let himself become in many a month. Damn the woman! Had she no sense? No thought for her own safety?

She didn’t trust him, yet she put herself at his mercy! She’d be well served if he showed her how truly a master ruled his ship and all aboard. He could toss her onto the bunk at his whim, tear aside the strips of transparent linen covering her lush curves, and take far more than the lips he’d already sampled. The fact that Jamie wanted very much to do just that only fueled his ire.

He emerged onto a poop deck that glistened with the aftermath of the rain. As he’d expected, the crew had gathered, all agog to know about the female who’d stowed away. Taking a wide-legged stance, Jamie eyed the motley assembly. He’d handpicked every man jack of them, and would trust them with his life. He knew better than to trust them with a woman, however. If she placed any value on her virtue, Sarah Abernathy had damned well better heed his orders and keep herself from their sight.

To a man, they voiced loud and prolonged disappointment when Jamie informed them curtly that the female below decks was not an enterprising boat girl, eager to sell herself to the captain and the crew.

“Who is she, then?” a wizened, one-eyed veteran of the wars with France demanded.

Jamie hesitated. There was a chance, he thought savagely, a slim chance, that Sarah Abernathy could save her reputation if she returned to Macao before word of this idiocy got around. Not sure why he gave a groat for the blasted female’s reputation, Jamie was formulating a careful reply when the one-eyed veteran came up with an explanation of his own.

Hooking his thumbs in his waistband, he grinned. “Never say you convinced the Dutch factor’s sister to steal away with you! The yeller-haired one, who come up you as brazen as any waterfront bawd, when you was atryin’ to cut a deal for that twelve-pounder the Dutchies shipped in.”

“No, Hardesty,” Jamie drawled, “I did not convince the Dutch factor’s sister to steal away with me.”

The seaman’s grin widened at the sardonic response. “Oh, aye! And I suppose you didn’t diddle the admiral’s wife, either.”

The crew’s sullenness vanished in a round of hearty laughter. They basked in their captain’s reputation with the fairer sex almost as much as they relied on his seamanship. Jamie’s mouth curved in a grin as well, although when he thought back to that long-ago episode, he acknowledged silently that it was rather the other way around. He hadn’t diddled the admiral’s wife as much as she’d diddled him.

From the moment he’d joined the crew of HMS Dove, Arabella Cathwright had hounded him. She’d made no secret of the fact that she’d bedded every other officer in her husband’s command. She wouldn’t rest until she’d added the newest lieutenant to her trophy rack.

To be truthful, Jamie hadn’t exactly resisted the skilled assault. Arabella’s midnight hair, milk-white skin, and so-talented mouth had pleasured far nobler men than Lieutenant James Kerrick. None of those men had been discovered in her bed, however. The admiral had been too cowardly to demand satisfaction by challenging his wife’s lover to a duel, but he put an end to the blackguard’s commissioned status quickly enough.

Her brief, sordid affair with Jamie had destroyed what little remained of Arabella Cathwright’s reputation. He wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen to Sarah Abernathy…if he could help it.

“I don’t intend to reveal the lady’s identity,” he told the smirking crew. “I do intend to put her on the first ship we hail making for Macao.”

“Good enough,” one of the seamen muttered. “Women aboard ship is bad joss.”

“Very bad joss,” the ship’s carpenter exclaimed. “Damned if the blasted female ain’t already brought pirates down on us! Look to starboard, Capt’n.”

Jamie spun around. His jaw clamped shut at the sight of a war junk in full sail beating out from shore to intercept them.

With ships from around the world sailing into Canton for the trading season, the pirates that fed on the merchantmen like sharks gathered as well. Almost one European ship in three fell victim to the marauders each year, their cargoes seized and their crews tossed overboard with throats slashed. For that reason, Jamie had added extra cannon to his ship’s armament. The sharp-hulled Phoenix could outrun or outgun almost any junk in these waters.

Jamie didn’t need his brass telescope to see that the huge, seagoing vessel bearing down on them carried considerably more firepower than most. His blood began to pound with the thrill of impending battle. He had enough confidence in his schooner’s maneuverability and his crew’s skill to know he could circle around and blast the predator out of the water. He’d lead him a merry chase in the process, though, and…

His racing thoughts scudded to a stop. He had a passenger on board. An unwanted one, it was true, but not one he could expose to unnecessary risks.

Damn the woman!

His mouth tight, Jamie turned back to his crew. “Crowd on the sails. Let’s show this rice hauler our heels.”

The men’s faces reflected varying degrees of astonishment. Never before had the Phoenix run from a fight, especially one with the mangy scum that preyed on other ships. Any seaman worth his spit would rather sink a murdering pirate than piss. Only the first mate dared question Jamie’s order, however.

“Are we not agoin’ for him, Captain?”

“No, we’re not.”

When the brawny Irishman frowned, Jamie jerked his head toward the hatch leading to the officers’ quarters. Liam Burke grasped the situation immediately. Turning, he thundered orders to the crew.

“You heard the captain. Smith, get the steam up in the donkey boiler! Hardesty, ready your men to raise all sails.”

Since the first mate had been known to lay about with his beefy fists when the crew didn’t move fast enough to suit him, they scrambled to obey.

Cursing the absent missionary and his eldest daughter with equal approbation, Jamie conferred with the Chinese pilot. Second Harvest looked disappointed at being told to lay a course that would take the Phoenix clear of its pursuer, but obeyed without question.

They made their escape, but not without cost.

The master of the junk knew his trade. Working his ship with a skill Jamie could only admire, the pirate strove to catch his quarry. In a daring move, he spread his sails so far to the wind that the ship’s rail cut water and his crew dangled from the sheets like monkeys. The added burst of speed gained him enough on his prey to fire his heaviest cannon.

The ball tore through the schooner’s rigging and slammed into the deck, throwing up a shower of splinters. Undaunted, the crew of the Phoenix hooted in derision and shouted obscenities at their pursuers. Jamie ran a quick eye over the damaged rigging and knew it would hold. Shouting at the crew to stand ’ware, he brought the ship hard over. Pulleys creaked and lines slackened as the massive, swinging booms began to cross the deck.

From the corner of one eye, he saw his first mate stagger. A foot-long wooden splinter protruded from his shoulder.

“Liam! Down, man!”

Jamie’s warning came a second too late. The huge aft boom caught Burke a glancing blow to the head. He crumpled soundlessly.

“Get him below!” Jamie shouted.

His gut knotting, he brought the Phoenix around. The wind caught the specially rigged topsails, then bellied the mainsails. The schooner lifted almost out of the water and skimmed the waves like a gull.

Within the space of a few minutes, the crew had cleared the tangled wreckage from the decks. Within not many more, the junk had dropped so far astern that Jamie could give the wheel back to the helmsman and go below decks.

Worry over Burke clawed at his stomach. The brawny Irishman was more than his second-in-command. He was the only man Jamie counted as friend.

A onetime blacksmith, Liam Burke had been shanghaied from a pub in Dublin. He’d left behind a wife and three children. After five years of involuntary servitude in the Royal Navy, he’d returned to learn that his family had died in the potato famine. Broken, he’d been drowning in sorrow and his own vomit when Jamie, newly stripped of his rank and his career, had found him face-down in a ditch. With nothing left to lose, Burke had joined ranks with the former lieutenant. Eight years and uncounted adventures later, he still mourned his family, but no longer tried to drown himself in drink.

Sliding down mahogany handrails worn smooth as glass, Jamie hit the companionway deck. A quick glance at the end of the narrow hall showed his cabin door shut tight.

At least the blasted female had the sense to stay where he’d left her. No doubt she was quaking in fright, wondering what in God’s name was going on above decks. Good! Maybe a healthy dose of terror would teach Miss Abernathy to keep to her skirts and her Mission House.

His boots sloshing in the inch or so of water that had come in with the storm, he headed for the officer’s mess. The stench of singed flesh emanating from the saloon told him that the ship’s cook had cauterized Liam’s shoulder wound. He only hoped that the blow to the head hadn’t shattered the first mate’s skull. Jamie’s dog-eared copy of The Ship Captain’s Medical Guide offered little useful advice for head injuries.

Two long strides took him to the mess. He stopped on the threshold, stunned by the sight of an unmistakably feminine form in blue cotton trousers bent over the figure on the table.

“What the devil!”

Sarah paid no heed to his exclamation.