Chapter Fifteen

Every muscle in her body was tense, her mind churning a dozen different emotions around and around. She’d kissed him. She’d kissed him to keep him from leaving, to uphold her side of the bargain. She’d had no choice.

He’d understand. Once they reached her father’s fortress, and Morton had offered him the commission he’d promised, then Zach would understand. Then he’d forgive her.

Though she’d taken the path from Black Church Rock to the fortress a hundred, hundred times, this time the journey seemed interminable. Behind her she heard the harsh clank of the manacles as Zach walked, each sound deepening her distress. She’d not expected him to be manacled. Morton had said nothing of that. She supposed they were afraid Zach might run, which she couldn’t deny was likely. So it wasn’t unreasonable that they’d tie his arms. He’d be freed soon enough, once Morton granted his privateer’s licence.

At last the lights of the hall came into sight, and Luc met her at the entrance with obvious relief.

‘All went well?’ he asked, glancing back at Zach and then at her. ‘No one was harmed?’

She shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself in the cool night air. She was shivering. ‘Let’s get this done,’ she said, moving past him, but Luc caught her arm.

‘You made the right choice.’

Angry, she pulled away. ‘I had no choice.’

Inside, her father was waiting anxiously by the fire, Overton no more than a patch of darkness in the shadows. Only the gleam of his eyes, black as his son’s, gave him away. Morton sat in her father’s chair, a sight that gave her pause, with Scrope standing by his side. His dour gaze followed her as she crossed the room.

Amelia spoke only to her father. ‘He is here.’

‘Willingly?’

She couldn’t bring herself to answer, and didn’t need to for at that moment Zach was led into the room. She tried to catch his eye, but he was glaring at Morton. Never had he seemed so dangerous, even though he was barefoot and manacled. There was murder in his eyes.

Morton smiled, his tongue flicking out to wet his fat lips. ‘So, here you are at last. Nowhere left to run, eh, Captain Hazard?’

Zach said nothing.

‘Cat got your tongue? Last time we met, as I recall, the cat had you talking aplenty.’

A muscle twitched in Zach’s jaw and Amelia remembered the scars on his back. Morton had left his mark. Her stomach churned. ‘Why are we talking of the cat?’ She stepped between them. ‘You’ve come here to make Captain Hazard an offer, sir. I suggest you do it and be done.’

Morton spared her a glance, as a man might glance at a servant who had spoken out of turn. ‘Your daughter has a lively tongue, Captain Dauphin.’

‘She speaks the truth.’ Her father was angry; she didn’t need to see his face to know it. ‘Unshackle Captain Hazard, sir, and make your offer.’

‘That sounded rather like an order, Captain,’ Morton said, heaving himself out of the chair. ‘I’m sure you didn’t intend to give orders to a commander in the Queen’s navy.’ He threw her father a cold look. ‘Did you?’

Her father was poised to respond, but Luc jumped in ahead of him.

‘Captain Dauphin meant no offence. We are all eager to strike this bargain.’

‘Not all of us.’ The words were Zach’s, the first he’d spoken in half an hour.

They made Morton smile, an avid parting of his lips. ‘Very well.’ He walked closer and Zach straightened his shoulders, arms still bound behind his back, defiance in every muscle. Slender in his dark shirt and britches, he made a stark contrast to Morton’s scarlet-coated overindulgence. ‘Zachary James Overton, I have in my possession a privateer’s commission which bears your name. Will you accept it, sir, and assist in the final extermination of the piracy that threatens the trade of her Britannic Majesty’s subjects?’

Amy found herself holding her breath, waiting for his reply, as Zach slowly nodded his head and said, ‘I will not.’

Her chest constricted, a tight pain that stopped her breath. At her side, Luc cursed. ‘Don’t be a fool, man. Accept the offer.’

Zach turned to him. ‘You know what I think of men who trade in other men’s lives. I won’t do it.’

‘Not even to save your own life?’

‘Evidently not.’

‘Zach,’ Amy exclaimed. ‘Don’t be stupid!’

His mouth curled into that familiar sardonic smile. ‘What’s the matter? Did you think you were the only one with principles worth dying for?’

‘I—’ Her voice choked. ‘Zach, please.’

But he turned his head away and all she could see was his profile behind a tangle of dark hair.

‘Take him to the Intrepid,’ Morton ordered. ‘And have my longboat ready. I mean to sleep in comfort.’

The soldiers pulled Zach away, towards the door, a man on each arm. ‘Wait!’ Amy cried, grabbing at one of their sleeves, stopping them. ‘Wait, give him more time!’

Morton lifted an eyebrow. ‘Time, my dear, is a commodity I do not possess. And I suggest you move aside unless you wish to join Captain Hazard in the brig.’ He tugged at his coat, straightened his sword belt, and turned to her father. ‘It has been a pleasure doing business, Captain Dauphin. Now, if you’ll excuse me—?’

‘I don’t think so.’ In a flash of steel, his blade was drawn and levelled. ‘Let him go.’

Amy had never been more proud of her father, or more terrified for him.

‘James, don’t!’ Zach struggled against the men pulling him out of the door. ‘Don’t do this.’

Her father didn’t back down and no one else moved. Morton looked along the length of her father’s blade, impassive. Then he took a deep breath and in a bored voice said, ‘Arrest him. If he resists, arrest the girl too.’

Someone grabbed her, pulling her close. It was Luc, face milky. ‘Stop!’ he shouted, hopeless as a drowning man. No one was listening.

Soldiers seized her father, his gaze finding hers across the room. ‘Amelia …’ He dropped the blade, let them shackle his wrists.

‘No!’ She flung herself forward, but Luc was still holding her back. She struggled and fought, but he was too strong.

‘Don’t!’ he hissed in her ear. ‘He’ll hang you too.’

‘Father!’ she screamed, but he was already being shoved towards the door. She caught a glimpse of Zach, fury on his face as he was dragged outside, and then her father was talking, calm over the storm.

‘Amelia,’ he said, pinning her with a weighty look. ‘Save our people.’

‘But Father …’

‘All will be well.’ Then he was gone.

Into the terrible emptiness, Morton said, ‘Well then, I’ll bid you goodnight.’

She wanted to kill him, she wanted to take her blade and pierce his throat. She wanted to watch him die. She wanted—

‘Look around,’ Luc hissed in her ear, his grip biting into her arms. ‘They’re waiting for your cue. This is what Morton wants.’

Breathing heavily, she glanced around and saw the men of Ile Sainte Anne, blades bared against the marines’ muskets. One word and the tinderbox would ignite – the very thing she had been trying so hard to avoid.

Save our people, her father had said. To fight, here and now, would be to die.

‘You don’t yet know what the morning will bring,’ Luc whispered.

Horror and grief clotted in her throat; she could hardly breathe around it, but somehow she found voice enough to say to Morton, ‘We shall speak further in the morning, sir. Goodnight.’

She didn’t leave, though, refused to accept the humiliation of walking away. He must do that, and after a tense pause he did so, Scrope trailing him like a shadow.

It was only when the last redcoat had left that Amelia wheeled on Luc. ‘You brought them here,’ she hissed, stabbing him in the chest with her finger. ‘You betrayed us!’

‘No!’ He held up his hands, backed away a step. ‘Amelia, they were coming anyway. I simply brokered the deal.’

‘And Zach was the price?’

‘You know what he is!’ Luc said, looking around him in appeal. A dozen drawn blades glinted in the firelight. ‘He has made powerful enemies. And they wanted the island, Amelia. I offered them Hazard in its place.’

‘I would never have accepted that bargain,’ she spat. ‘Nor would my father.’

His chin lifted, eyes narrowing. ‘Did you not make the very same choice tonight, when you summoned Hazard here?’

Her jaw clamped shut on her own guilt and anger, but she couldn’t deny the truth of his accusation.

Luc let out a breath, lowered his arms. ‘Morton wants Hazard for— well, let us say he has his own history with the captain of the Gypsy Hawk. It was the only thing that kept Morton from coming here sooner, Amelia, and in force. Without this deal, the island would already be burning.’

‘And now?’ she said, her voice starting to shake. ‘What stops him now?’

‘Me,’ Luc said. ‘The deal is struck, Amelia. Ile Sainte Anne is safe.’

‘And you trust Morton to uphold this “deal”?’

Luc spread his hands, rings glinting in the firelight. ‘I am not such a fool, but I do have some influence. Once we are married, you will be safe. I swear it.’

‘And my father?’

His gaze slipped away from hers. ‘I will speak with Morton,’ he said, rubbing a hand across his mouth. ‘It is a pity your father interfered.’

‘He would not be my father if he had not,’ she said, and with that the first dry sob escaped, raw and bitter in her throat.

She let herself cry for no more than a minute. Luc tried to comfort her with an arm about her shoulders, but she shook him off. ‘No.’ Her voice was harsh in the silent room. ‘No.’ Wiping her face, she stared around at the men watching her, waiting. Did they really expect her to lead them?

She scanned the shadows for Overton, but he was gone. Even now, with his son in the hands of the British, his first thought was of the Articles, of keeping them safe from the enemy. She felt a stab of anger, for Zach and for herself, because with Overton gone there was no one else who could lead, not if Ile Sainte Anne was to remain all that it had been. Putting aside her terror and grief, she said, ‘My father has ordered me to save our people, and so I shall. We must protect Ile Sainte Anne and the Articles at all costs. That is more important than the life of any one man.’ She swallowed thickly. ‘Even if that man is my father.’

Or Zach Hazard.