And then, the very next morning, her brothers arrived.
It was unfortunate that this particular morning, Drake—perhaps because he was still exhausted from the activities of the night before—did not wake early. He was sleeping very soundly, Payton snug in his arms, when a thunderous bellow woke them both.
Payton, for her part, mistook the bellow for the blare of a conch shell, and she tried to block the sound out by throwing an arm up over her head—only her arm was caught beneath Drake. But how could that be, if he was the one blowing the conch shell?
And then the bellow turned to words, and she opened her eyes, and saw her brother Ross standing there, his face purple with rage.
“What in the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” he screamed. “We spend weeks—weeks, do you hear?—combing the seas for you, fearing the two of you are dead—dead!—and what do we come to find? That you ain’t dead at all, but quite obviously alive. Alive and fornicatin’!”
Payton would have run for her life had not her arm been pinned down by Drake’s body. He, a quick glance showed her, didn’t look the least bit alarmed. In fact, he was studying Ross with interest from the depths of the hammock, one arm
thrown across her, more to cover her nakedness, she supposed, than because he thought Ross might strike her.
But it was rather too late for that. Ross had already noticed her nakedness. And Drake’s, too, for that matter.
“Don’t just lie there, you black-hearted devil!” Ross shouted. “Get out of that hammock and put some clothes on! And get your hands off my sister!”
Payton, her mouth dry as sand, nevertheless summoned up the courage to say, “Ross, you are making far too much of this. Drake and I only—”
“Shhh.” Drake tightened his arm around her. “Better let me do the talking, love.”
“Love?” bellowed Ross furiously. “Get out of that hammock. Do you hear me, Drake? Get out of that hammock before I drag you out of it!”
“I say, Ross.” Raleigh appeared from another part of the beach. “I think we’ve come to the right spot. There’s a longboat hidden in the bushes over—Oh, there they are! Hullo, Drake, hullo, Pay. Good to see you. We thought you were dead.”
“Don’t,” Ross commanded his brother, “come any closer. Just stay where you are.”
Raleigh looked alarmed. “Why? Is there a snake?”
“Yes. Of a sort.” Ross took off his coat—a heavy black affair, lined with white satin; they had evidently been in mourning for a sister they thought lost to the high seas—and flung it over Payton. She pushed it from her head and glared up at her brother.
“Drake didn’t do anything wrong,” she informed him. “I don’t see what you’re being so nasty about. Raleigh’s happy to see me.”
“Damned right I am,” Raleigh asserted. “You don’t know what it’s been like back home. Georgiana weepin’ all the time, Papa gone right off his musket balls, Hudson always in a temper. You know he’s given up liquor since you disappeared? Hasn’t touched a drop. I say.” He suddenly looked taken aback. “You two are a bit snug in there, aren’t you?”
“Snug?” Ross spun upon his younger brother. “I’ll tell you how snug they are! They neither of ’em have a stitch on!”
Raleigh’s jaw dropped. “Oh, Drake,” he said with a groan. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Why is everybody blaming Drake?” Payton wanted to know. “It was all my—”
“Shhh,” Drake said again, laying a finger over her lips. He adjusted Ross’s coat so that it covered her completely, then said, in a low voice, “Your brother Hudson is probably around here somewhere. Why don’t you go and try to find him?”
“Don’t be an ass, Drake,” Payton advised him. “They’re going to kill you.”
“Nonsense.” He smiled down at her reassuringly. “We’re old friends. Would old friends try to kill one another?”
She scissored a glance in Ross’s direction. “Under the circumstances—”
“Go on,” Drake said cheerfully. Really, but he was in extraordinarily high spirits. He must, she supposed, a little dejectedly, be pleased that they’d finally been rescued. Funny, she hadn’t thought he found her company so very tiresome.
“Go find Hudson, sweetheart,” he said to her. “And leave the men to talk.”
She glared at him. Leave the men to talk. Wasn’t that just like a man? As if anything her brothers had to say was going to be the slightest bit worthwhile. Didn’t he remember how angry he’d been at them, just the other day? Or at least, she supposed it had been the other day. She had lost track of time, a little. Still. He didn’t have to send her off, as if she were a child.
Payton decided, right then, that she’d go and find Hudson, all right—but not because Drake had asked her to. She was only doing it because she had a feeling Drake was going to need reinforcements. From the looks of Ross and Raleigh, fists were due to fly at any moment. Really, how stupid men were sometimes.
Graceful as a cat, she swung from the hammock, clutching Ross’s coat closed in front of her. Before she left, she turned
and leveled both her brothers with an evil stare.
“If you harm so much as one hair on his head,” she hissed, “I’ll make you sorry for it until the day you die.”
Then she tossed her head and walked away.
She found him at once, of course. He was crouched in the sand, as if he thought he was Natty Bumppo or someone, closely examining a set of her footprints, left the evening before.
“Hi,” he was shouting. “I think I’ve got something over here!”
“Hudson,” she said, and he straightened, and stared at her as if she were an apparition.
“Pay?” he said. He looked quite terrible. Dressed all in black, he hadn’t had his hair cut in a while. He wore it pulled back in a black ribbon, but some of it wouldn’t stay, and it floated round his head in a halo. He looked a bit like a mad Quaker, if there was such a thing. “Is that really you, Pay?”
“Yes, of course it is, you bleeding sod. Who were expecting? The Virgin Mary?”
“Pay! It really is you!”
If Raleigh hadn’t already informed her that Hudson had given up drink, she might have accused her middle brother of being drunk. He certainly staggered toward her unsteadily enough. And then, to make matters worse, after he’d wrapped her in a smothering hug, she suspected he might be crying—even though she knew perfectly well Hudson would never do something as maudlin as shed tears of joy at the sight of her.
“Are you all right?” he asked, when she’d finally fought her way out of his affectionate, if restrictive, embrace. “Everyone said you were dead. I never believed it, not for a moment, but it did look bad for a bit.”
“I’m fine,” Payton said. “Hudson, you’ve got to come at once. Ross and Raleigh are going to kill Drake.”
“Drake?” An expression of even more heartfelt delight broke over Hudson’s face. “Drake’s alive, too? Why, they were quite emphatic about the fact that he was dead. What a happy day! The two of you, alive and well!”
“Drake won’t be alive for much longer,” Payton said, “unless you come at once. Ross has gone right out of his head.” She took his hand, and tugged at it. “He thinks Drake’s compromised me, or something, and he looks as if he might do something dreadful.”
“Nonsense.” Hudson followed along after her, obligingly enough. “Everyone knows Drake would never do any such thing.”
Payton glanced at him over her shoulder. “Well,” she said. “Exactly. I’m glad one of you still has some sense. You all seemed to have gone positively barmy since I went away. Do hurry, Hud. It’s two against one, and that’s hardly fair.”
“You know,” Hudson said happily, “I’m going to have to join the church now. I made a bargain with the Lord. I said I’d enter the priesthood, so long as nothing had happened to you. I’m going to look a bit silly in a white collar, don’t you think?”
“Don’t be an ass, Hudson. No church would take you.”
“You think so?” He sounded eminently relieved. “Oh, good. I was a little worried about that vow of celibacy. The rest of it wouldn’t be so bad, but that one …”
They’d reached the beach by then, and Payton dropped his hand. Drake, she could see, had gotten out of the hammock, as Ross had ordered him to. They had even, she saw, allowed him to put on his trousers. But there was no indication that any of the talking Drake had promised had gone on after that. A good deal of hitting, it looked like, but no talking whatsoever.
And all of the hitting seemed to have been directed at one individual only.
Drake.
Payton let out a shriek and darted forward. Drake’s chest rose and fell: that was the only indication she had that he was not dead. Blood streamed from a gash in his eyebrow, and his mouth looked lopsided, but not because he was holding it that way, as he often did when he was trying to look as if he disapproved of something she was doing. He wasn’t dead—not yet, anyway—but he was as close to it as she ever cared to see him.
Ross, seeing her approach, straightened up and shouted, “For God’s sake, Hudson, don’t let ‘er near ’im. That’s all we need. Feminine hysterics, on top of everything else.”
Hudson obediently put out an arm and caught his sister by the waist before she could reach Drake’s side, then slung her neatly over one hip and held her there, seemingly oblivious of her flying fists and feet.
“Put me down, you bastard!” Payton screamed. “I’ll kill you for this, I swear it. All of you! I’ll kill you all!”
“Oh, stop that screaming, you stupid girl,” Ross said disgustedly. “It’s not as if we’ve killed him, or anything like that. Just taught him a little lesson, is all.”
Hudson, glancing blandly at the slumped-over form in the sand, observed that Drake must have really gone off his form, if he’d let a fat ass like Ross drop him like that.
Ross, offended, declared his ass not fat, and thanked Hudson not to disparage his skills as a pugilist again, as they were considerable.
Raleigh snorted derisively at this. “Oh, come off it, Ross,” he sneered. “Drake let you hit him. He never even tried to lift a finger against you in his own defense.”
Hudson commented that it wasn’t a bit like Drake to allow any man to hit him, let alone a fat ass like Ross.
“Stop calling me that!” Ross thundered. “And it’s a jolly good thing for Drake he didn’t try to defend himself. I’d have thrashed him within an inch of his life.”
Looking down at the unconscious man, Hudson remarked, “Well, it looks as if you did that anyway.”
“And why shouldn’t I? He admitted everything, easy as you please. Didn’t look a bit sorry for any of it, either. You’d have done the same thing, Hud, if you’d been here.”
“I wouldn’t,” Hudson declared truculently. “I’ve always liked Drake. I don’t care what he’s done.”
Ross eyed him, his hazel eyes glittering dangerously. “Oh, you don’t, do you? All right, then if you like Drake so bloody
much, I suppose if I told you he’d had Payton, you wouldn’t blink an eye.”
Hudson looked dismayed. “Drake did? Bloody hell. Here, Raleigh, you take Payton for a minute. I’m going to get a few kicks in—”
“Don’t you dare!” Payton shouted. “Hudson, if you do, I’ll never tie your cravats again!”
“And that’s not all,” Ross went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Did y’ know they’ve been running about here, naked as savages, for nearly two months?”
Payton shrieked, “That’s a lie! It has not been that long—”
“Five miles from New Providence. Five bloody miles,” Ross went on. “He could have put an end to all our worrying weeks ago—”
“He couldn’t,” Payton cried. “The Frenchman was looking for us. Marcus Tyler was trying to kill us both! We had no way of knowing whether or not they were still out there—”
“Marcus Tyler?” Ross interrupted testily. “Marcus Tyler? Marcus Tyler is not trying to kill you. Both he and that nasty piece of baggage who claims to be Drake’s wife are now sitting in a Nassau jailhouse, awaiting trial for your murder.”
Payton gasped. “What? But how—”
Ross looked smug. “Oh, yes. It was nothing, really. You see, once we got the Virago’s mainsail replaced, it was only a matter of—”
“What about the Frenchman? Did you catch him, too?”
Her brother glowered at her. “If you would allow me to finish, I was just getting to that.” He cleared his throat. “Captain La Fond, unfortunately, got away. We did, however—”
“You let him get away?” Payton’s voice rose to screaming pitch once more. “He killed Drake’s brother!”
“We did not let anyone get away, you ungrateful chit. The Frenchman put up quite a struggle. We lost a dozen good men to his cannons before we got close enough to storm his ship. Am I to be blamed if he, cowardly dog that he is, leapt overboard, and took his chances with the sharks, rather than face trial like a man? Not that I’m particularly surprised by his
behavior, mind you. What I am surprised by is the fact that we intercepted the Frenchman’s vessel seven weeks ago. That’s two months, Payton. Since you were not on board the Rebecca at the time, I can only assume that you and Drake have been—whatever you care to call it—right here on San Rafael ever since!”
Two months? Was it possible? Was it possible that that much time had passed since the night she’d dragged Drake’s unconscious body from the Rebecca’s longboat, and dropped him in the white sand? No. It couldn’t possibly be true. A few weeks, certainly. It had taken her that long just to make the hammock. And the shelter Drake had built, to keep them dry during the rains … that had taken a while to construct. Maybe a month, at most.
But two? Two months? It wasn’t possible.
“We—we had no way of knowing,” Payton stammered. “We had no way of knowing you’d already caught Sir Marcus and … and … and what I’d like to know is, if you thought we were dead, what are you doing here?”
“Some big black fellow—I don’t remember his name; he was the ship cook aboard the Rebecca—told the magistrates you weren’t neither of you dead at all, that you’d both escaped. Was quite insistent on it, as a matter of fact. So we thought, what the hell? Better take a look …”
Clarence! Clarence had come forward! Lovely, sweet Clarence.
What was she thinking? Horrid, nasty Clarence, to have told all, and gotten her into this current mess.
“But I’ll tell you something, Payton,” Ross went on. “I would to God Tyler had murdered the two of you! I’d infinitely prefer a dead best friend to this lecher”—Ross nudged Drake’s limp body with a booted toe—“and a dead sister to the sluttish one it turns out I’ve got instead.”
Payton glared at him. “Oh, well, thank you very much, Ross. I assure you that can be arranged. Hudson, give me your pistol. I’d rather blow my head off than have to listen to another word of this drivel—”
“All right,” Raleigh said, holding out both his palms. “That is quite enough. No more theatrics, from either of you. Hudson, take Payton back to the boat. Ross and I will be along in a while with the, er, lecher.”
“I hate and despise you all,” Payton hurled at them, as Hudson tossed her over his shoulder. “I hope you all burn in hell!”
Ross waved at her dismissively. “Don’t take on so, Payton. He’ll be right enough in a week or so. In time for the wedding, anyway.”
“Wedding?” Payton echoed. “What wedding?” When she received no answer, she began to scream again. “What wedding ?”
“Stop that screamin’,” Hudson grumbled, as he waded out into the surf, toward the longboat that waited there. “You’re breakin’ my eardrums.”
“What wedding?”
“Yours, I’d guess. To the lecher.” He grunted, and took a firmer hold of her hips. “You didn’t think Ross’d be satisfied with beatin’ ’im to a pulp, did you? He’s got to marry you, too, Pay. It’s the only way.”