Margaret McPhee - The Lost Gentleman

The breath caught in Kate’s throat. She felt her heart kick, then gallop fast. Her stomach dropped right down to the deck beneath her feet. Not a merchant captain, after all. She knew who he was. She should have known the minute she set eyes on him.

‘He is the one they call North.’ Her throat was so dry that her voice sounded husky. Because she knew in full the implication of the man standing before them with his sword ready to slit John Rishley’s throat—for her crew, and for herself.

‘Lord help us!’ Sunny Jim whispered on her left-hand side.

She could hear the murmur that spread through her crew, could see the widening of their eyes, could hear someone beginning to pray.

Lord help them indeed.

Those dark eyes turned their attention to Kate. Now that she knew who he was she could have retreated from that gaze, but her pride would not let her.

‘At your service, madam,’ he said, and gave her a tiny bow of his head before returning his gaze to Tobias. ‘Let the woman go.’

Tobias laughed. ‘You can have her...if you leave my ship.’

‘I will leave your ship.’ North smiled and it was a smile that was colder and more cutting than other men’s glares. ‘You are the pirate La Voile?’

‘I’m La Voile, all right.’

‘Good,’ said North. ‘I would not want to take the wrong man.’

‘Like hell am I coming with you!’

North pressed the blade harder against John Rishley’s neck. ‘You want me to slit his throat while you watch? Or will you yield to spare him?’

Kate had to press a hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out. Her heart was racing. She felt sick with fear and horror and rage. As her hand tightened against the handle of the long knife hidden beneath her skirts, she felt Sunny Jim’s grip around her wrist.

‘Don’t!’ he whispered fiercely. ‘Let him think you abducted. There’s too much at stake, Katie.’ The old man’s slip of the tongue, to use her girlhood name, showed just how serious the situation was. His crinkled pale blue eyes stared meaningfully into hers, reminding her of exactly how much was at stake both here and back at home in Tallaholm.

‘Go ahead. Slit it.’ Tobias grinned and shook his head, an excited expression on his face. He glanced down at the long blade of his cutlass, as if watching the way the sun glinted on the sharpness of the steel. Then suddenly with a great swing of his cutlass he ran at North, yelling, ‘But I’ll never yield to you, you English dog!’

‘No!’ Kate screamed, knowing Tobias’s foolhardy action would cost John Rishley his life.

It happened so fast that she could not have told how. One minute John Rishley was North’s shield, the next he had been thrown, alive and well, into another British grasp and a single slash of North’s blade had felled Tobias. She could see the dark stain spreading rapidly across Tobias’s chest, see the blood growing in a glistening pool on the scrubbed wooden deck beneath him.

Shock stole her breath.

The silence that followed was deafening. The seconds seemed to stretch.

Nobody moved.

Nobody spoke.

Kate stared. Tobias’s eyes were still wide open, dead and unseeing, staring with the same shock that she felt freezing like ice through her blood.

The priest, who seemed to be North’s second-in-command, walked over to where the body lay. Crouching down, he touched his fingers against Tobias’s neck.

‘Dead as a doorpost, I’m afraid,’ he pronounced softly, and gently swept the man’s eyes shut before murmuring the words of a final prayer 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.