Valeryn leaned against the iron bars of the cell, gazing out at the dim glow of the sconce on the grungy brick wall. He was beside himself in anger and refused to look at Fraco sitting on the bench behind him. ’Twasn’t supposed to happen this way. He was supposed to be the lone wretch sitting in the dank jail. Why couldn’t the upstart leave well enough alone? Why couldn’t he let Valeryn handle this? Did Fraco expect him to figure out a way of escape for them both? Too bad for him. Resentment over the burdensome task prickled his skin. It took a great amount of restraint not to rip the little snip’s head off his damned shoulders.
“How do you do it?” Fraco asked.
Valeryn peered over his shoulder. Fraco rested his elbows upon his knees and stared at him through the curtain of unruly hair hanging in his face. “Do what?”
“How are you able to come up with brilliant plans?”
Christ, the lad was out of his head. “Not brilliant.”
“It’s as if you know what the future will hold based on your decisions.”
“I cannot predict the future.” He turned back to staring at the wall stained from soot.
“If not, then how did you know Nicholls wouldn’t seize the Amalia and execute us all on the beach?”
“’Tis called experience,” he said flatly. He had enough of it. It had been a long shot, but Valeryn was short on favorable results. He’d been lucky Nicholls was an indisputable proper naval captain.
“Or a death wish.”
Valeryn shot him a nettled glare. “You said it yourself,” he growled. “I’m a dead man.” His flesh heated, prickling his neck. “From the fucking beginning.”
He wanted to beat the smirk off Fraco’s face. “You find that amusing, boy?”
Fraco straightened in his seat. “Gives you freedom, doesn’t it? That must be it.”
“What the devil are you blabbering about?”
“You’ve got nothing to lose, no matter what you do.”
In a blink of the eye, Valeryn snatched Fraco’s collar and pushed him back against the wall, trapping him on the bench. “Nothing to lose? Is that what you think? What about my crew? Do you not think they matter? What about Catalina, Nalda? You?” He shoved him before releasing. “My actions are bigger than that. The people on this island are affected even now. Hell, I may yet start a war. Pirates, Spaniards, Brits, the fucking King of France.”
Saying it out loud made his burden weigh as heavy as a crown of thorns. A familiar sentiment. Towney’s image loomed his mind. He shoved the ghost aside. “Aye, by my actions, there is much to lose. But my neck is insignificant.”
Fraco straightened his collar and his smirk disappeared. But what had Valeryn puzzled was the awe in the lad’s expression. Valeryn recognized the sparkle in his eyes, alive and eager.
“Porquería,” Fraco jeered. “Complete drivel.”
This prick was long past unraveling his last thread. Valeryn inhaled deep the stench of urine, earth and must to keep from completely snapping. “Less people are affected this way.”
“So you sacrifice yourself? That is a disappointment. ’Tis as if you’ve given up.”
“You are a damned fool,” Valeryn said. “Striking Nicholls proved that.”
Fraco belted out in laughter. “Ya like that? I thought ’twas a good performance.”
“You meant to get arrested?” Valeryn blew past being baffled, he was downright irate.
“Claro. Of course. You need me.”
He swallowed back the vitriol burning in his throat. “I do not need you. Your cousin needs you.”
“No. She needs you.” Fraco shook his head. “For someone worried by his actions…” The lad’s mouth fell open in an O, as if understanding dawned upon him. “That is why you’ve been prigging Catalina.”
Valeryn narrowed his eyes in wariness. He knew about that?
Fraco waved him off. “The whole ship knows about you two. Mi prima always gets what she wants. And why not?” He smirked in appreciation and mimicked his good hand as if weighing a breast in his palm. “With tetas like that—”
“Watch your tongue.” He jabbed a finger at the upstart.
“So you decided you will hang no matter what, why not renege on your promise to my father and tup her? Dios, I’m surprised you held her at bay as long as you did. I’d have yielded at first go. I admire your will and your change in principle.”
“Of course you would,” Valeryn mumbled.
“Do you think she’ll let you commit suicide?”
“’Tis not suicide. And she has no choice.”
“She does. And she chooses you.”
“She’s infatuated, is all. She will get over me.” She was young. She had time to find a man worthy of her. “What’s more, I doubt she has figured how a pirate would fit into her future plans of being a respected naturalist.” A wry chuckle lodged in the back of his throat. They had no future. “You, on the other hand,” Valeryn turned the tables, “you should help her reach her dreams. Despite what a prick you are to her, she cares for you. Has tried to protect your arse.”
“Perhaps. Catalina is unique. But I still believe a woman’s place is in my bed.”
“Son, you have a lot to learn about women. With that attitude, one will likely slit your worthless throat.”
Fraco shrugged, not concerned in the least. “Seems you have a lot to learn, too.”
Now the bastard was just needling him. And apparently he was undaunted by Valeryn’s warning glare. He gave him his back and, putting his arms through the bars, leaned against the cell door.
“So what is the plan?” Fraco said.
Damn, why did they have to share a cell? “No plan.”
“You are really giving up, then?”
Valeryn said nothing. Maybe if he ignored Fraco long enough, the rogueling would shut the hell up.
A heavy sigh lingered in the small space. “Guess I was wrong about you.”
They all were wrong about him.
“The infamous pirate Barone is a coward.”
Valeryn squeezed his eyes shut. His jaw cramped from sawing his teeth together.
“Taking the easy way out under the guise of a martyr.”
He rocked his weight, breathing deep to control the fury swarming inside.
“Abandoning his ship, crew, and woman.”
He almost snapped, then. Almost. This princock knew nothing. He really was a dead man—whether by Alvaro’s order, or the likelihood of not winning his crew over, or getting the Rissa back. But also for that very reason he would not fit in Catalina’s world.
“If I were capitán, I’d—”
“You’d what?” Valeryn spun around, his vision clouded by rage and memories. “Lead an ill-prepared and outnumbered crew to slaughter? Have them ripped to shreds by gunfire? Hear their screams as they lay dying? All because of your decision?”
Fraco held Valeryn’s stare, his lips curled. “Sí,” he said. “I’d fight, and I’d lead. That is what a capitán does.”
“You’d be a dead captain.”
“Those men out there on Amalia, they respect and admire you as their leader. Do not squander what they have given you. Respect them back. Lead them.”
Valeryn huffed and turned back to the jail door. This lad was too young to understand. Why waste anymore breath on him? He had so few left.
“What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid, Towney!” He ground it out before he could stop himself. Blazes!
Fraco tilted his newly stubbled chin up, judging him. “Who is Towney?”
Son of a bitch! He hadn’t meant to call Fraco by his long dead mate’s name. Goddamnit, but the whelp pushed him to it. And he knew good and well Fraco would not let his slip of the tongue go.
He grumbled an expletive, resigning to letting the past leach to the surface.
“Towney was an old friend.” Valeryn propped his foot on the wall and let his head fall back.
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
“How?”
“Raid gone wrong.”
“What happened?”
Memories flashed through his mind like the flares of gunpowder from a pistol’s muzzle. Valeryn remembered the night as if it were yesterday. Hell, he had nightmares of it enough he’d never forget.
“We were to sack Campeche. Captain Blackthorn had put me in charge of a few of the new recruits. He thought since I was just a year or two older and had quickly earned my…shall we say…keep—”
“You proved yourself a fine pirate,” Fraco interrupted.
If learning to wield a sword and killing a score of men before his eighteenth birthday made him a fine pirate.
“We were to raid the southeast part of the port. ’Twas supposed to be an easy target—just a few shops. Give the wet boys their first taste without serious danger of life or risk to Captain’s overall mission.”
Blackthorn’s mistake was putting Valeryn in charge. He had no discipline.
“Towney was about your age. Young and full of life. And entirely arrogant.” He rolled his head to pin Fraco with a glare. “Like you.”
Fraco grinned. Christ, the lad was so much like Towney.
“We’d become good mates. He followed me everywhere, mimicked my every move. I didn’t mind. I liked showing off.” Valeryn frowned. “He looked up to me.”
“You say that as if that is what killed him.”
“It was what killed him!” Valeryn took a deep, calming breath, and continued. “We crept along the street, waiting for the signal to strike.” He remembered in vivid detail how their obscure bodies shuffled from one angle of shadowed cover to the next. There was hardly a sound but for the wind and the occasional barking dog somewhere in the distance. Brine mingled with the recent rains. Valeryn’s heart had pounded with anticipation, just as it still did before battle.
“We had our orders, our targets. But Towney wasn’t happy with plundering a bakery or a dress shop. He couldn’t see past what we took from common shops were items of necessity. He wanted gold and silver. He wanted to raid where the money was—chandlers, taverns, the governor’s palace.”
“Sounds about right.” Fraco nodded, as if imagining himself draped with Campeche’s treasures.
“We had our orders. The lads would not dare defy them, or me. But Towney made a good argument. And there was a tavern just up the street…”
“They followed you.”
“Aye. Shunning my captain’s directives, blinded by power and riches, I led the boys in the raid.”
He could still feel the vibrations in his arm as he smashed his fist through the glass window. They had poured into the small tavern, destroying the place. “The boys drank from bottles, stuffing them into their trousers. But Towney and I wanted the keep’s earnings. We stormed the back stairs leading up to the keep’s rooms. I kicked in the door, and together, Towney and I robbed the man of all his coin. ’Twas a mighty haul, too.”
The frenzy of excitement and triumph had been addictive. If Valeryn closed his eyes and listened, he could hear the coins jingle in their pockets, the bottles of rum they clinked together as they toasted and swilled heartily, and Towney’s laughter. Towney’s laughter haunted him still. Valeryn distinctly remembered fluffing the boy’s shaggy brown hair as an older brother might, as they left the tavern. The way he had smiled, ’twas infectious.
“We stumbled out into the night, sounds of the true raid on the other side of the port carried on the wind. The lads grew excitable. They split up into little groups, pillaging and rummaging like rats. Me and Towney were drunk on the thrill, pumping our weapons in the air, declaring to the folks cowering in the homes that we were the rulers of the world. That’s when we noticed it—the church down the street.”
Fraco leaned forward, absorbed in his tale. An act Towney would have done. Valeryn didn’t want to go on. The tale ended badly. He didn’t want to admit to another the mistake he kept hidden away from the world. Aye, the word coward rang in his head again.
“Go on.”
He blew out a harsh sigh. “I walked to the church, but Towney lagged behind. Felt it would be sacrilege to commit larceny against a house of God. I called him craven, and that it was mockery for the church to be rich while the parish, we were poor. ’Twas enough to rally him. The two of us busted into the church and piled silver and gold holy vestiges into our arms until we could carry no more.
“We burst through the church doors back into the night and were met with the tavern owner and his musket.”
He remembered how his heart stilled. Not that he had been scared staring down the barrel of a gun. He’d been in a handful of battles. He’d faced death. Mocked it, really. But this night had been different. The air had hung thick, the sounds blunted to his ears. The fear mixed with reckoning in the man’s pale eyes meant he intended to shoot.
“He couldn’t shoot us both, not without reloading. But sure as the rain falls, he was going to shoot one of us. And we just stood there, staring at him, him staring at us. The tension was so tight, time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. Until Towney dropped his loot.”
The metal clanging to the cobblestones pierced the veil. Everything happened at breakneck speed.
“I screamed for Towney to run just as the man fired. I fled, jostling past the keep, causing him to stumble. But he was already shoving powder down the bore. I made it to the corner before I looked back. Towney was on his knees, his hand reaching out to me.”
The nightmare replayed in his head with vivid clarity. The plea in Towney’s tear-filled eyes, the terror on his boyish face wrenched at his soul every time he gave in to a moment thinking of him. He worked hard to suppress visions of Towney, and all the heinous emotions. Damn Fraco for forcing him to face Towney again. Damn him!
Valeryn took a deep breath. He was at it again, blaming someone else for his faults. Would he ever gain the ballocks to admit his guilt?
“Did you go back?”
Coward. Valeryn turned away, fixating on a crack in the wall outside the cell. “No. He fell over dead.”
He grunted his disgust with himself. “Two other boys were killed that night. Only six made it through.”
“What happened when you got back to the ship.”
“Didn’t go back,” he said. “I failed to follow orders of my captain. Thought to lead my own raid. Those boys followed me, looked up to me, believed in me. I failed to protect them. A bloody cross-grained cockerel.”
“If you didn’t go back, how’d you end up here?” Fraco pressed. “The brethren is strong, yet you are a captain.”
“An aberration, to be sure.”
“So…”
“Blackthorn found me.” Drowning in a sea of sorrow and strong arrack. “Hauled my sorry arse back to the ship to face my punishment. Moses’ law.”
He deserved and welcomed every lashing. And he survived. It still baffled him that he was forgiven, even more that Blackthorn continued to favor him.
The silence in the cell went on a beat too long. He threw a glance over his shoulder. Fraco stared at him, mouth agape.
“What’s with you, boy?”
“You survived thirty-nine lashes?”
“The infection didn’t kill me,” he said, bitterness thick on his tongue. He firmly believed he lived to suffer for his sins.
Fraco nodded. “Makes sense.”
Valeryn turned and leaned against the cell bars. Fine, he’d indulge the upstart. “What does?”
“Why you are so reckless. You do not care if you die.”
“Figure that all by yourself, did ya?”
“It is as I said before,” Fraco relaxed back, a smug tilt to his mouth. “You’ve got nothing to lose.”
“Didn’t you hear me before? There is much more to lose than my life.”
“Which you are willing to forfeit. I’d say that makes you formidable. All you need is a plan.”
Valeryn shook his head. Fraco just didn’t get it, and he’d heard enough. But he was right. He needed a plan to help Fraco gain his freedom, though the idiot ought to find his own way out. “We’ll find a way to send word to your father. I’m sure between the alcade and your cousin, they will be able to negotiate your release.”
Fraco snorted. “Not even close, amigo. We will escape here and now.”
It was Valeryn’s turn to snort. “And what, pray tell, will we do once we make this escape.”
“How am I to know? You are capitán.”
A loud explosion shook the cell walls.
“What the hell?”
Another explosion and then another. “In the harbor,” Valeryn said. He rattled off a curse. Someone was attacking. “Diego,” he growled. Was he attacking the port? Nay. He was firing upon a ship. ’Twas what he was here for. Was it the Arcadia, or the Amalia?
Catalina! Where was she? Was she in harm’s way? Who was looking after her? Protecting her?
He was a caged beast. He had to get out of there. See to her safety. Then to the crew, and then possibly the port.
Valeryn fisted the iron bars, giving them a good shake. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“So it will be done.”
Fraco crossed his leg over his knee and unbuckled his shoe, slipping it off.
This was no time to undress. “What in Od’s bones are you doing?”
Fraco twisted and pulled a tiny pin from the buckle. “Getting us out of here,” he said.
He put his shoe back on and moved to the cell’s lock. Easing his mangled hand through the bars, he said, “I was a bit of a handful growing up. They could never keep me out of the locked pantry where the meat pies and tarts were kept.” He wiggled the pin into the lock.
“This is your special skill?” Valeryn forced his jaw to close.
“Never know when you might need to make a break out, or a break in.” The angle of his wrist was perfect for maneuvering the pin inside a lock’s tumbler. “Got me into many a girl’s private chambers, too.” Fraco winked at him.
“Guess this explains why you have so many shoes.” Valeryn couldn’t help be envious of the little wretch. ’Twas a handy art. What he could do with such a dexterity. Fraco’s special talent explained how he had gotten out of the bilge each time Valeryn had him locked away. And he had blamed Catalina for setting him free… What an arse he had been.
“Does Catalina know about this?”
“Of course.”
Why hadn’t she told him from the beginning? He knew the answer. She was far more adept than he gave her credit for. ’Twas a secret she could use to her advantage against him or anyone else on the ship. But, too, she was loyal to family. No matter how horrible Fraco was to her, she’d not betray him. One more damn fine trait to admire about her.
Another rumble shuttered through the cell. Screams and frenzied footfalls outside the jail tore through Valeryn’s need to get out.
“Ah, there we go.” Fraco tugged on the padlock with his good hand, slid it through the bar and swung open the door.
In spite of himself, Valeryn chuckled, patting Fraco on the shoulder. “Well done, mate. Well done.”
Fraco’s tilted grin beamed as he put his pin away. His pride tugged at Valeryn. ’Twas as if Towney peered through the past to haunt him. He had to remind himself Fraco was not Towney. The upstart got himself into this willingly. If he wanted to get out of it, he’d need to keep up. He was not Valeryn’s responsibility. Or was he?
“Stay close,” he ordered. ’Twas half-hearted. ’Twasn’t as if Fraco ever did as he was told. Either way, he had no guarantees he’d make it.
The bastard was right, too. Valeryn had a death wish. But before he went down, he’d save as many as he could, starting with Catalina.
They stole down the short corridor. As they reached the doorway, Valeryn slowed, preparing to surprise any sentry standing outside the door. With the attacks in the harbor, he counted on the guards to be distracted. The moment he pitched the door open, a sentry fell at his feet.
“What the—”
Catalina held Henri’s cane tight in her fists. Brimstone and fire, but she was a gorgeous hellcat, with her mahogany hair fallen askew and her voluptuous chest heaving from the momentum and power behind her swing. ’Twas hard to not stare in the wonderment of her bosom. He looked away to capture the coppery glint in her eyes.
Nalda and Henri stood behind her. Both wearing equal exceedingly determined scowls.
Valeryn’s anger and frustration reared. Now, besides having Fraco yipping at his heels, he had three more to shepherd. Damn it! ’Twas much easier to only worry about himself. “What are you doing here?”
“Helping you escape,” Catalina said with an annoyingly indignant tone.
“Why does everyone feel I need help?” he ground out.
“’Cause ’gardless yer fool head, ya can’t always save yerself,” Henri said, crossing his stubby arms over his barrel chest. “Ya need yer mates, V.”
Valeryn shook his head, but another loud explosion obliterated any response he had.
“Diego and that Capt’n Nicholls,” Henri explained, taking his cane from Catalina.
“All four ships?”
“In the harbor. But Rissa, she ain’t close. She ain’t attackin’.”
“Diego doesn’t want to risk any more damage to her,” Valeryn said. “We’ve got to regain her.”
“How?” Fraco’s eagerness wore on Valeryn like wet trousers.
“By boarding her.” Valeryn edged to the entrance of the jail and cracked open the door, peering outside. “Where’s Sam?”
“Already securin’ us a dory.”
“Excellent.” Valeryn noted the distance between the building and the jungle fringing the town. They’d make their escape that way, hiding in the thick foliage until the time was right. “We use the fishing boat tonight to get out to sea and come around her from behind, close enough to swim to her and board. We’ll take them by surprise.”
“Won’t they see you?” Catalina asked.
Valeryn looked to the sky. The sun was fast on its way to tucking beneath the horizon. Less than a glass and ’twould be dark. “They’ll not be looking for us. Not expecting anyone from behind. Their eyes will be on Amalia and on the Andrew protecting the port.”
“But once you are on…there can’t be that many of you to be able to take over an entire ship and not be heard or caught.”
Valeryn threw a glance over his shoulder. Catalina wrung her hands, her delicate brows bunched. Not so much in worry as in trying to imagine how they would pull off such a scheme.
Henri toddled to stand beside Valeryn, a knowing smile split his bearded face. The little barnacle had expected battle this eve. He was wearing his good green vest, and his red beard ribbons had been tightly tied into bows.
“We are known for our stealth,” Valeryn said.
Though Catalina had not been convinced, Fraco nearly jumped from his skin in excitement. And what the devil was Nalda doing? Snatching away the sentry’s pistol? Valeryn should probably worry. Did she even know how to use it? The termagant might shoot herself. Or worse. Him.
Shouts and footfalls neared. Valeryn and Henri pressed against the wall. Valeryn motioned for the other three to move off from view. Three soldiers rushed past outside the door.
“I will not stay here,” Catalina said. She must have anticipated him, because that was exactly what he expected.
“Nor will I,” Fraco added, coming to stand beside his cousin.
Nalda joined the duo, awkwardly holding the flintlock too large for her to handle. Her pinched faced defying him to object.
“You will be safer here.”
“I respectfully disagree, Capitán Barone.”
Back to formalities, were they? She meant business. So did he.
“Do tell, what should happen if Diego and Ochoa’s men succeed in overrunning this port?” Catalina said. “We saw what happened when I mistakenly misspoke our last visit here.”
Aye, folks were still repairing damages. The burned out shell of one building, with its charred posts reaching toward what was once a roof, sat abandoned. The wet ash from a recent rain hung pungent in the air.
She planted her fists upon her hips. “I doubt the people here would wish to suffer any more from troubles I cause. They’d hand me over in an instant. Then what would become of me? Of Nalda and Fraco?” She crooked her eyebrow and snorted. “Safer, indeed. You are stuck with us, Capitán.”
Fraco grinned like a cat, and Nalda nodded, waving the gun loosely around as if making a point.
Valeryn reached for the pistol, but was unsuccessful as Nalda held it close to her chest. “I cannot execute any plan whilst playing your nursemaid.”
“’Twas your duty from the start, boy,” Henri said.
“You too, Henri?”
He shrugged. “Lass, is right, and ya know it.”
And that burned in his gut. In order to ensure their safety, he’d have to keep them close. Blazes! He pinched the bridge of his nose, wrestling with what to do.
An idea, wispy and just beyond reach, percolated in his mind. He closed his eyes and pinched harder, drowning out Henri’s bellyaching for his rum, Catalina’s insistence to get moving, and the pops of cannon fire. As it formed, one thing was clear. ’Twould be dangerous. He may not even be able to pull it off successfully. But if he did...
“We stick to the original plan. We will board Rissa. All of us.”