“I cannot move.”
“Neither can I.”
They lay there, side by side in the morning sun, wishing the chirping birds to perdition and trying hard not to send their sore muscles any painful orders.
“I have to move. Nature is calling me.”
“If you were a man you could just roll over and aim for the fire,” he said with a certain smugness.
“If I were a man, you would not be lying here with your hand inside my trousers. On the other hand, you are a sailor, so I should not be so quick to make assumptions.”
“Very well, you move first, Mrs. Burrell. The bushes are over there,” he said, vaguely twitching toward the sunrise.
“No, you move first. I will just lie here and let the sun bake my muscles.”
“If I move first, I am getting breakfast. And I’m not likely to share.”
“Jack, I am lying a few feet from a fortune. If I were capable of moving I would be coshing you over the head and riding off on gold-laden mules.”
“There is that. I will move. And I will get us breakfast. Just,” he sat up and winced, “do not expect it anytime soon.”
But Sophia found she really could not ignore her body’s signals, and with the stiffness of a ninety-year-old woman, she made it to her feet and hobbled behind the bushes.
Moving, painful as it was, helped her muscles to stretch out again, so she joined in breakfast preparation while he stirred the pot. He still didn’t trust her to do it after an unfortunate incident involving grits.
The corners of her mouth moved up, almost against her will, as she watched him. She knew it was the sight of Lucky Jack Burrell making her smile. She also now knew this ache in her chest when she thought of him was love. It felt odd, like a new pair of shoes that look dazzling, but you know they will take some time before they’re comfortable on your feet. And love, despite what Jack maintained, did complicate life. Loving him was going to make what she had to do that much harder.
After downing enough breakfast to feel human again, Sophia said, “How much do you think the final figure will be on the treasure, Jack?”
“Hard to say. The jewels will need to be appraised, but I think we can stick with our fifty thousand pounds figure and feel comfortable with it.
“Are you happy, Sophia?”
She took her time answering, not because she wasn’t sure if she was happy, but because he had different notions from her of what happiness entailed and she wanted to give him the right answer.
“I think it will turn out to be worth all of our time and effort. So yes, that makes me happy.” Her throat grew a lump. “And I will always treasure this time together with you, Jack. No matter what happens, this will be the most special time of my life.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“We still have to get the treasure to St. Augustine.”
He gave her a steady look. “I believe I have it covered. I don’t expect anything bad to happen on the trip.”
Sophia said nothing to this.
Afterward they bathed in the cool water flowing down from the streams above them and began hoisting their treasure up to the top of the ravine, using the pulleys Jack rigged for this purpose. When there was rope and hauling to be done, it was good to have a sailor around. And mules.
It took the better part of the day, but they worked with a vengeance. At the end, Jack looked down at Lucifer’s Chalice.
“Maybe one day some other fortune hunter will find what remains of Garvey’s Gold, but for now I am content to give the devil his due and leave it behind.”
It was slow going walking alongside the mules pulling a heavily laden cart, but the dry weather held and the streams were low enough to ford. Jack bagged some squirrels, and while she was hesitant to eat anything that looked like a rodent with a bushy tail, the smell of the stew brought her around to the concept of trying new food.
“I could get used to you cooking for me,” Sophia said as she sucked a bit if flesh off of a delicate bone.
“No, when we’re out of here I will let you stick to your plan to hire yourself the finest French chef you can find.”
Sophia pushed her food around on her plate, not looking at Jack. Things were still chancy and much could happen between the pine woods and St. Augustine.
They turned in for the night, sleeping under a palmetto lean-to Jack made. Sophia was curled up against him, her back to him, in what had become a sleep position that was so much a part of her, she wondered how she would ever fall asleep again if she didn’t have him behind her.
They’d both been too sore and exhausted the night before to do more than collapse in front of the fire, but now…and who knew what the morrow would bring?
Sophia rolled over and faced Jack, who was awake, watching her.
“I knew you weren’t asleep,” he said, and reached out a finger to trace her lips in the dark. There was enough moonlight filtering through the palm fronds to see him as he studied her so seriously.
She put her hands alongside his face, cradling it, memorizing him and storing it away to be pulled out and savored on some dark night years hence.
“Jack I…I lo—” She choked and tried again. “Jack—”
“It’s all right, sweetheart. Didn’t I tell you I have enough love for both of us?”
She couldn’t tell him how she felt about him, but she could show him. Sophia leaned forward and put her lips on his, still holding his head, and he rolled over with her atop him as they kissed in the dark, the frogs down at the creek offering a musical accompaniment.
“Jack,” Sophia said, feathering kisses across his brow, his eyes, his cheeks, memorizing each inch of him, absorbing him through her lips, learning his taste, his smell, his feel, the way the pulse in his neck sped up at her touch, the way the cords in his throat stood out.
She unfastened his shirt, sitting up astride him. His hands were busy as well, unfastening her trousers, reaching beneath her shirt to cover her breasts, the heat from his palms flowing into her. He sat up, the top of his head brushing the lean-to, her legs still wrapped around his waist. They shared kisses, and touches, and small words of pleasure as they explored each other in moves both languid and frantic, a tinge of desperation to their touching, and Sophia suspected Jack, too, was wondering if it was the last time they would share this, the last opportunity to show each other how much they cared.
Lucky Jack Burrell filled a place in her life no other man could ever fill. After this, no matter what she did or where she went, he would always be a part of her. And if the words he was murmuring in her ear were true, she would always be a part of him.
He eased her back down and undid the rest of her clothing and she lay there, content to let him show her how much he treasured her. He told her she was more precious to him than jewels, more wonderful than all the gold in Captain Garvey’s ships. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, trickling down into her hair as she lay against the bedroll, Jack’s smile in the dark illuminating the night like nothing else could.
“Do not cry, sweetheart, it will all work out,” he whispered, and then his lips were back on her neck, moving down across her chest, his tongue circling her nipples as she clutched at his hair, but he never veered from his course, moving down her body until she felt his breath on her thighs.
“Open for me, little cat,” he whispered, and he put his mouth on her and lapped at her softness, his bearded chin rasping against her sensitive flesh, heightening each touch, each feather brush of his tongue across her and she heard herself whimpering and asking him for more.
He gave her all she asked for, and when she thought should could stand it no longer, that she would surely combust from the sensations building in her, he worked his fingers inside her and she was afire, each nerve ending in her body flaring with a heat like nothing else she had ever experienced, and nothing she would ever forget.
While she was still gasping for breath Jack moved up over her, and entered her in one fluid motion. He stayed still, and she could feel him a part of her, inside her, completing her, and what she’d held back for so long burst from her like a dove set free.
“I…I love you, Jack!”
“I know,” he whispered, and then began moving, his skin slick with sweat in the warm night air, his hair falling across his face, but she could see his eyes, locked with hers as he watched her face, his own grim and taut with desire and something else, a touch of darkness as he moved over her, dominating her, impressing himself into her core.
She moved with him, captured by his intensity, his desire to make her his beyond question. His calloused hands explored her like a cave one learned by touch and feel, a danger drawing you in, ensnaring you in a tangle of emotions and sensations punctuated by her moans and his rasping breath as he worked himself over her.
Sophia felt herself tightening and wrapped herself around him as he drove himself deeper, harder into her, whispering to her that she belonged to him and she would always belong to him.
The tide of their passion, and now their love, washed over her like a waterfall and she cried out an instant before he did, clutching him to her, in her arms, inside her body, holding him like there was no tomorrow waiting for them.
They wasn’t much to be said the next morning as they hitched the mules and set out for the ferry at Fort Pupo. Jack snared a rabbit at dawn and dealt with it while Sophia finished packing their gear aboard the carts. She wore a dress again, her boy’s clothing packed away. A straw hat shaded her face, and a shawl was pulled around her shoulders despite what promised to be another warm day.
“Ready?”
Sophia took a deep breath.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s get to it.”
* * *
The trip east toward the rising sun was quiet, unbroken by chatter or conversation. There was the steady plod of the mules, the creaking of the cart’s wheels turning as they churned up dust on the sandy track, and the scrub jays calling to one another as they went about their routine.
It could have been them alone in East Florida, only the road giving evidence humans had passed by this spot, until a few miles from the landing they rounded a corner and discovered they were not alone after all.
“I have been expecting you,” Lord Whitfield said, standing at his ease in the middle of the road. He had another man with him, a hulking brute at his back with a musket, who said nothing, but watched them like a tethered bear, his eyes alive with animal cunning.
“You were expecting us? How did you know we would be here?”
Whitfield nodded toward Sophia, and Jack turned and looked at her, a stunned expression on his face.
“I am sorry it turned out this way. I was hoping I would not have to do this, but…” She shrugged. “This is how it has to be.”
“You cannot mean it,” Jack said steadily, watching her. “I do not believe you, Sophia, not after all that has happened between us.”
“You always were naïve when it came to a pretty face, Sir Highwayman,” Sophia, said, pulling out her pistol from where she had it hidden beneath her shawl. “And I warned you, I was an uncommon thief. Lord Whitfield has made me an offer better than yours, Jack.”
“Better than love?” Jack said, his voice harsh. “You would reject what we had for him?”
“It is my nature,” she said sadly.
The shot was like a thunderclap beneath the clear sky, and when the smoke cleared, Sophia was clutching her pistol in both hands while Jack clutched himself, red spreading out in a stain across his chest.
“But…but, I love you!” he cried, staring at her in horror.
“I know.”
He looked at her a moment longer, then crumpled to the ground. She started to turn to Whitfield, who stood frozen, clearly not expecting this development.
A second shot rang out.
Sophia staggered from the blow, then crumpled to her knees before falling over to sprawl on the sand as red seeped through her dress.
“Bitch,” Jack said, dropping his own pistol and closing his eyes for the last time.
The silence in the road was absolute.
“They are dead! Both of them!” Shock strained Whitfield’s voice to a high pitch.
The ruffian beside him grunted. “Good thing, too. She was going to do for you with that little two-shot pistol of hers. But you still owe me, mister, ’cause you hired me for protection from these two, and I’d say you was real protected now!”
He guffawed at his own joke, but Whitfield stood there, staring at the couple on the ground. Sophia’d fallen on her front, her hand outstretched toward her dead husband, her face in the dirt.
“Ah, Sophia, this is a shame,” Whitfield said. “I will have to console myself with a different bride, purchased with the treasure you so conveniently brought. And for less than you would have cost me.”
“That’s a lot of gold for you to be haulin’ back to England, mister,” his guard said. “Y’shoulda hired more guards, rather than saved a shilling. But it’s more for me then.”
He brought up his musket and Whitfield fumbled for his own pistol when a voice called out in Spanish, “Halt, in the name of the King!”
Spanish troops poured out of the woods, led by a young lieutenant who barked out an order to Whitfield’s guard to lower his weapon.
The man put his musket on the ground and raised his hands over his head.
“I didn’t do nothin’, it was all his plan!”
“Silence!” the lieutenant said in English. He walked over to the bodies on the ground, put his fingers on their necks, then stood and glared at his two prisoners.
“You!” he said, pointing to the guard. “I know who you are. You can answer my captain’s questions at the fort.”
When he turned to Whitfield, his manner was more deferential, but still firm.
“I am sorry, señor, but you will have to accompany us as well. I expect there will be questions for you about today’s affair and you must be prepared to give a full accounting.”
“But what about the treasure!” Whitfield blurted out, then looked like he wished he’d never learn how to speak.
“Treasure? What treasure?” The young man’s glance fell on the heavily loaded mule cart. “If there is treasure on that wagon then it belongs to El Rey. In all likelihood it is treasure from Spain’s brave colonies, stolen by wretched English pirates!”
There really wasn’t much Whitfield could say to refute this, so he closed his mouth.
“I am afraid, señor, this affair has taken on unexpected complications. You will have to give a deposition about everything, especially since there is murder involved, and this would be best handled at the ministry offices in Havana. I regret to inform you that since we are now in the summer season, it could be months before the proper officials return from Madrid to speak with you.”
“Months? In Havana? I cannot do that! Do you know who I am?”
“An Englishman,” the officer said, gesturing to his men to take charge of the guard and the treasure.
“I am Lord Whitfield, and I will not be dealt with this way, Lieutenant!”
“So you are a titled Englishman. Perhaps we can reach some accommodation.”
It took Whitfield a moment to figure out exactly what kind of “accommodation” the lieutenant meant, and his face turned florid in the morning sun as he realized not only was he going to lose the treasure, but the day would be costlier yet.
He snarled as he reached into his coat for his purse, and shoved it into the younger man’s hand.
The lieutenant hefted the purse and raised a brow at Whitfield.
“It is possible you are correct, señor. We should do what we can to keep this from becoming an international incident. I will have my men escort you to the fort, where you can board the packet to Fernandina and catch a ship for England.”
He called out an order in Spanish to one of his men, who came over and after listening to the instructions said, “This way, señor. We have horses to take you quickly to the river.”
The soldier hustled Whitfield away, but not before the baron cast a final, longing look at the treasure, paying no attention to the carnage on the ground.
The lieutenant waited until the dust from the departing baron and his escort settled, then walked over to the scene of the crime.
“So sad.” The officer sighed, looking down at the bodies on the sand. “A tragedy of lovers, much like Romeo and Juliet.”
“If you’re going to compare us to classic lovers,” said a voice near his foot, “could you do better than that juvenile pair of ninnies?”
“Heloise and Abelard?”
Jack shot him a look as he climbed to his feet. “I’d rather keep all my parts, thank you very much.”
“I was thinking more of the Macbeths,” Sophia said, rolling over and lacing her fingers over her ensanguined belly, looking up at the branches above. “Now there was a woman who knew how to go after what she wanted!”
The lieutenant shuddered at the stains marring Sophia’s front.
“That is very realistic blood, Mrs. Burrell.”
“It should be. It came from a very real rabbit.”
“Poor bunny! Sacrificed on an alter of gold!”
Sophia allowed him to pull her to her feet.
“Do not feel too bad about the rabbit, he gave his life for breakfast as well,” she said. “I do not believe we have been introduced.”
He bowed over her hand, giving it a soft kiss, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Gabriel Lopez, mate of the privateer Zephyr, currently masquerading as a Spanish officer.”
Jack strolled over and put his arm around Sophia, easing her away from the handsome Spaniard. Before he could say anything, Whitfield’s hulking guard strolled over, a huge smile splitting his face.
“Didn’t I agree with you in St. Augustine this was a brilliant idea, Lucky Jack? We’ve rid you of that annoying lordling and rescued Garvey’s Gold,” Morgan Roberts said.
Sophia looked up at the bloody man cradling her against his side.
“I am also pleased your plan worked, Jack.”
“Pleased but surprised? Since the alternative was for you to shoot me and live in luxury as Lady Whitfield, I thought it was worth the effort. And Lord Whitfield should thank me.” He cocked a brow at her. “What are the odds that after marrying you the good baron would have suffered some fatal mishap on the voyage home to England?”
Sophia just smiled her cat smile and said nothing to this, but then her attention was caught by the activity near the trees. The men from the Zephyr were removing a sizable chest from the mule cart and heading off into the woods in the direction of the river.
“Jack! That pirate is taking our money!”
All the guns carried by the Zephyr’s crew swiveled in their direction.
Morgan Roberts smiled down at her in a fashion reminding her of the shark’s teeth in the ravine.
“Now, you don’t want to argue this, do you, Mrs. Burrell? Considering how we helped you out of a tight spot today?”
Sophia glared up at him and then whirled around and glared at the other male in her life who caused her problems.
“Jack, stop him! You are the most lackadaisical privateer in the world! Where is my pistol? You can’t just let him leave with our mo—Mmmph!”
She wasn’t able to say another word because Jack grabbed her and kissed her within an inch of her life. She was stiff in his arms initially, but then relaxed, her body flowing into his, bloody dress plastered to bloody shirt, but neither of them paid attention, not even when Roberts cleared his throat rather loudly and said, “Well, lads, it looks like our work here is done.”
So saying, he gathered up his men, and a portion of Garvey’s Gold, and headed back to the river.
By the time Jack let Sophia come up for air they were gone, only the pair of voyeuristic mules watching them.
“Those bloody pirates took our money!” she said again.
“I was hoping I’d distracted you, though I’m pleased you said our money. We had no choice, Sophia, it was Roberts’s fee for helping rid us of Whitfield.”
Sophia put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “I am sure if we had given it more thought we would have come up with a better solution!”
“Your solution was to shoot the baron and hide his body in the woods. This way he won’t bother us again and we don’t have to worry about the authorities coming after us. It may have been costlier, but in the long run it’s better than murdering people.”
“So you say,” she muttered.
Jack put his hand under her chin and tipped her scowling face up. “That’s not important now. What I need to know is, do you love me?”
“Of course. If I did not love you, I would have loaded that pistol.”
“Then tell me true, Sophia. You said you would walk through hell, barefoot, for fifty thousand pounds. Would you stay married to Lucky Jack Burrell for less? We didn’t get all the treasure, or the deed to your house in England, but we got enough.”
She sighed. “I am sorry about the house, but it is only a house, and it would be awkward reappearing from the grave to claim it. And as for the gold…” She looked up at him with shining eyes. “Who cares about the gold, Jack, when we have love!”
“Do you mean that?”
“No, of course not, but I wanted to say it anyway. It is a charming sentiment, I suppose, but it is better to have gold and love, and I have all of that and you, too!”
“I don’t need to worry that you will shoot me in my sleep and keep all the gold for yourself?”
“Jack, you know me well enough by now to realize I would only shoot you while looking you in the eye.”
“Sweetheart, that may be the most romantic thing you have ever said to me.”
Then he kissed her again.
And if they didn’t live happily ever after for every single day of the rest of their lives, it must be acknowledged that at least she never shot him while he was sleeping.