Page 44 of The Black Lion
Arabella drifted awake for the second time to find herself still lying on the bed, though Will had removed the ropes binding her. Her face was hot to the touch and swollen. The metallic taste of blood still lingered on her tongue, which was dry and thick in her mouth. With a low groan, she turned onto her side, her entire body aching as if she’d been pummeled from head to toe.
“Good morning.”
She cracked one eye to find Will standing at a commode in the corner, upon which a basin of water rested. On the wall hung an old, tarnished mirror in which Will could barely see his reflection as he scraped the days’ worth of beard off his face. He had stripped to the waist, giving her a glimpse of the state of his back after the brutal lashing he’d received at Drew’s hand. Unlike Drew’s scars, these stoked no sympathy in her. She was aware of every indignity Drew had been forced to suffer because of Will’s deceit and had meant what she’d said about it being no more than he deserved. The skin didn’t even look as if it belonged on a living being—warped and leathery and notched with thick, spidery lines. The seawater he’d been drenched in had likely saved him from infection. It had also been the thing that kept him alive long enough to be marooned, though the island was supposed to have been uninhabited. How had he escaped it?
“Your breakfast is on the desk,” he muttered without looking at her. “Get up. Eat.”
It would have pleased her to defy him, but the gnawing hunger was back, reminding Arabella that she couldn’t only think of herself or her own pride. Walking to the desk proved slightly easier today, though her head was still pounding. She wasn’t certain how long she’d slept, but the sun shined through the porthole, allowing her a glimpse of blue sky.
The meager rations weren’t well cooked; the porridge was runny, the bacon burned black, and the hardtack apparently teeming with weevils. Setting the hard bit of bread aside with a sneer, she downed the tasteless porridge and singed bacon until her stomach began to rebel. There was fresh water, and she drank greedily from her cup, relieved at its cool trickle down her throat.
By the time she finished, Will was turning away from the commode, wiping his face clean of stray soap and water. He’d caught her staring at his back and sneered.
“Admiring Drew’s handiwork? I suppose it would gratify you to hear of how miserable the healing process was—my shirt clinging to the wounds and tearing them open when I took it off, the persistent itching and burning.”
She raised an eyebrow but offered no further response.
“Those first days on the island with your weak sop of a father were some of the most hellish I’d ever endured. Like you and Drew, I doubted we would survive it. Well … Archibald’s survival lasted as long as it took for him to become a leech, a persistent weight bearing me down. I like to think he was grateful to have me put him out of his misery.”
Arabella’s belly clenched as his casual mention of her father’s death hit her like a fist to the middle. Pressing a hand to her mouth, she began to feel as if her breakfast might make a reappearance.
“What’s this?” Will taunted. “Tears for your old man? They are wasted, you know. He spent as much time cursing you as he did damning Drew to hell. It surprised him to be betrayed by you, left in the hands of those godless pirates.”
She came to her feet, bracing a hand on the back of her chair. “The two of you conspired to have Drew killed. You might not have dealt the blows yourself, but you attempted to cause his death. Where was Father’s loyalty to me when he decided to do away with the only man I’ve ever loved? Which of us was truly betrayed by the actions of the other?”
Arabella was surprised to realize she was weeping, tears sluicing down her face and neck. Grief made her heart heavy, and she could hardly make sense of it. She was so angry over the way Archibald had deceived her, but he had still been her father and part of her felt that loss acutely. It felt like being torn in two, her emotions so at odds with each other that they strung her taut between them.
“How did you kill him?” she asked, uncertain why it was so important. Perhaps she wanted to know he hadn’t suffered.
“The pirates left us with a handy pistol, though it only had one shot. I had a choice between murdering myself or getting rid of the pain in my arse so I could focus my efforts on survival. I think we can both agree we made the right choice.”
He said all this while pulling on a shirt and his frock coat, as nonchalantly as if they discussed the weather.
“How did you get off the island?”
Her curiosity was getting the best of her yet again. Though, it was probably a good idea to keep him talking. If he was answering her questions, he wasn’t beating her, or tying her to the bed. The bulge at the front of his breeches remained a persistent threat, and she couldn’t be sure how long he would wait before trying to take advantage of her vulnerability. She was utterly at his mercy, and they both knew it.
He strode to a small armoire bolted to the floor, opening it to retrieve a gunbelt holding a pair of mismatched flintlocks. Will held her gaze while strapping it on.
“Fate, dear Bella. It does seem to intervene at the most opportune moments. I’d been foraging to survive for weeks before I was found. I discovered fresh water, and slept on makeshift palettes made of tree limbs and piles of leaves. You would have Drew to thank for showing me how to make a fire years ago, it came quite in handy. I had nearly starved when I spotted sails on the horizon. The trees I set ablaze drew them to me. I offered them a great reward if they would carry me toÎle Saint Marie. It was awfully foolish of Drew’s men to speak of it in my presence. While I hung from that mainmast after he’d stripped the flesh from my back, I heard snatches of conversation and knew it was where you would turn up.”
Arabella frowned, watching as he sheathed an ornamental sword at his side. The weapons were as ill-fitting as his clothes, the borrowed possessions of a sailor.
“What reward did you offer them?”
Will grinned, looking very much like a cat who’d just cornered a mouse. “Why, the most coveted prize in the high seas, my dear. The Black Lion himself.” He chuckled at her stupefied stare, spreading his arms wide as if to encompass the vessel they sailed in. “Did you think I had taken to consorting with bloodypirates? No, darling, this is a ship of the line, one of five currently drawing Drew out into the open sea.”
“No,” she whispered, dropping her head into her hands.
Drew would most certainly launchThe Sea Lionto come after her, and he would be sailing into a trap. Even a captain with his skill and expertise wouldn’t be able to hold his own against five ships of the line.
Will’s hand closed around her wrists, forcing her hands down so he stared into her tear-filled eyes. “Yes. I’d wager that by the end of the day, your beloved Drew will be in the clutches of the Royal Navy and on his way to the hangman.”
Drew’s fingersclenched spasmodically around the hilt of his cutlass as he watched the white sails in the distance draw closer.The Sea Lionhad set out from the island within hours of Arabella’s reported abduction. He’d become a madman, pushing his crew with a new sort of ferocity, desperate to pursue whoever had taken his Bella.
He knew only what his men had reported when they’d come running to the inlet where he worked alongside his crew to careen the hull of his ship. They hadn’t taken their eyes off her for a moment, they claimed. A wagon had pulled down the lane between them, and when they looked up Arabella was gone, seemingly vanished into thin air. One of her shoes had been found on the outskirts of the village market, and from there the trail had gone cold.
More news of sails in the distance had reached him shortly after, and he had known. Whoever took Arabella had spirited her away on a ship. They pursued through the night, during which Drew had remained awake and alert, standing at the bow ofThe Sea Lionand staring unseeingly at the horizon. When the news of her disappearance had first been related to him, he’d flown into a fury. Both men responsible for protecting her had limped away from him with bloodied noses and cracked ribs. He’d roared and thundered until his crew got him out to sea, unable to stand still for all the turmoil turning his blood to fire.
