Page 41 of The Sea Witch
With his hands and ankles manacled, any kind of escape attempt was rather impressive. Somehow, he’d gotten out of her cabin...
Hell.She hadn’t locked the windows. Damned remarkable of him to climb out that way, and wind up on the upper deck. The physical strength and determination needed was beyond human.
She pictured him falling, sinking through the blue water, being pinned to the seafloor as the last of his air bubbled up from his lips, and then the bubbles stopping.
“Fuckingstupid,” she snapped with more heat than she’d intended. “If you were hoping to swim to the island,thatwouldn’t have been possible, and even if you did make it, you’d be boundandmarooned. Not a winning formula for survival.”
“I wasn’t trying to get to the island.”
She barked out a laugh. “Jacob would ransom you back to the Royal Navy, and deliver you to Port Royal with your throat cut. Difficult as it may be for you to believe, you’re safer on my ship than you are on his.”
“Escaping to Van der Meer wasn’t part of my plan, either.”
“Then what in the name of Christ’s arsehole did you think you were doing?”
“Learning the truth,” he answered
“What truth? We have everything there is to understand about the fail-safe, and there isn’t a single buccaneer, pirate, privateer, or sea dog who knows any better.”
Ben shot to his feet and lunged for the bars. She watched a magical shock course the length of his body.
Alys barely managed to keep from stepping back in alarm. He’d never lost command of his self-control.
Ben’s angular face was hard with fury, his blue eyes fiery and sharp as blades fresh from the forge. And his anger resonated within her in hot waves.
“Him,” he said through gritted teeth. “Whomurderedhim?”
Her lips opened yet no sound came out.Him.The older naval officer from Ben’s dream.
“Your father,” she whispered.
Ben’s jaw clenched and his hands flexed into fists at his sides.
“Leave us, Inés,” Alys said over her shoulder.
“Aye, Cap’n.” The crew woman slipped out of the brig, and Alys was alone with Ben, who shook and shuddered. Frustration and rage and sorrow all drummed through her. She sailed through this storm every day, but the tempest she felt now was his.
Slowly, Alys approached the stockade. Behind the glowing bars, Ben appeared a specimen in an enchanted zoo: Vengeful Male.
“You served on your father’s ship,” she murmured, attempting to calm a feral beast. “And you didn’t accompany him on one mission.”
“I should have been there.” His words were heavy with self-recrimination. “He gave me orders that morning: stay behind. Some useless task that only I could accomplish. Well, you saw,” he added bitterly. “Compiling logbooks, as though that was a chore anyone asked for. No one cared. But no, he gave the order, and I had to obey. From the window, I watched theValiantsail away. Off on a mission to patrol the waters off the north coast of Jamaica.”
She kept silent.
“I wasn’t necessary,” he muttered. “I never had been. Not to him. And I wasn’t there when the pirates attacked and killed him. But maybe... maybe...” He swallowed hard. “I could’ve helped. Defended the ship. Kept him alive.”
“Master’s mates aren’t trained to fight.”
“I wasn’t then. I have more skill now.”
“I—” Words formed and dissolved before she could speak them because, truly, what was there to say? Condolences were such puny and laughable things in the face of violent death. Even the few offered to her after Ellen’s execution were worse than silence, devastating and pitiful and so unbearably useless.
“Admiral Strickland and theJupiterfound him and his ship.” His tone flattened. “There were survivors, men too terrified to give much of an accounting of what had happened when they were brought back to Port Royal. I was never given permission to read the official record, scant as it was. I’ve collected rumors. Who was sighted off the north coast of Jamaica.”
“Including Van der Meer and his ship.”
Ben dragged his hands through his tangled hair and the chains between his wrists rattled like bones.
