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The clear sky had gone dark. The breeze had gone chill and brisk, whispering with the coming rain. The clouds overhead billowed and rushed.
A storm was coming, and coming hard.
A perfect shield…
For a surprise attack.
A man stood leaning against one of the supports that held the bar upright, his head on his chest as if he had fallen asleep in a drunken stupor. “Which way?” Logan demanded.
The fellow didn’t move.
Logan shook him, and he opened one bleary eye. But Logan didn’t believe he was so far gone.
He shook the man harder.
“Which way?” he asked again.
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me, or I’ll slit you from the groin up,” Logan said evenly.
“The alley.”
“Which alley?” Logan demanded.
“The alley to the left. Cap’n Robert went that way not five minutes past. The…others came out a bit after.”
“How many?” Logan demanded.
The man shrugged.
“How many?” Logan repeated, his tone still low, but filled with a menacing promise.
“Eight…ten…”
Brendan was already running into the shadows.
Logan released his hold on the drunk and followed.
And the storm broke.
CHAPTER FOUR
RED KNEW SHE was being followed, and she listened carefully.
It was exactly what she had expected. No, hoped for.
But as she pretended to saunter along, weaving a bit, as if she had drunk heavily, she listened hard and damned the weather. The rain had started. The sky had threatened that it would come down in buckets, but as yet, it was just an annoying and continual fall, darkening the world and making it hard for her to listen. She couldn’t tell how many were following. She had assumed it would be just one man. Maybe two. But there were more than that behind her, she knew.
Blair Colm did not know who she was. He knew only that the pirate Red Robert had a reputation for horrible ferocity.
And that Red Robert was looking for him.
And she knew that despite his cruelty, Blair Colm had always been a coward.
When she left Teach, she had seen Sonya taking a coin from a man. She’d tested it, but Sonya was a businesswoman—she knew real gold when she saw it. Red didn’t even hate Sonya for the betrayal. The woman’s life was hard. She hated most men. She’d crawled her way to the top of the heap by lifting her skirts for sex in dark corners, turning her face from the putrid breath of unwashed men. Red couldn’t hate her.
Maybe she had grown too complacent in her own skills, Red thought now. A sad miscalculation, since she had lost to Logan Haggerty. But he had been different. There was—or usually was—little to fear from other pirates. They passed at sea and saluted one another. They shared dens of iniquity, like the one she had just left. They brawled and wenched and drank, but they seldom picked battles with one another. They shared one bond, the ever-present image of the hangman’s noose. No need to battle one another.
But Red had wanted to be followed, for there could have been only one reason for it. And now she knew. Blair Colm had spent a great deal of money to send men out to murder Captain Red Robert.
But now she began to count the footsteps and lament her own reckless determination to see Blair Colm dead. There were at least six men behind her. They would have to be the most drunken, poorest swordsmen in the world to fall victim to her alone. She damned her own stupidity and confidence—her belief that she could best her pursuers in any duel and demand to know from them where Colm was headed now, where he might be found.
She hadn’t asked Brendan or any of the men to go with her, for a coward who had taken money to kill would not have followed her if she had been accompanied.
She simply hadn’t believed there would be so many.
Ahead, a white sheet billowed as the alley widened, and she hurried beyond it, knowing she had to pick a place to make her stand.
And so she did, checking the line that held the laundry as she held her position, barely daring to breathe, and waited.
She heard the footsteps, coming closer now, moving faster.
“Where’s he gone?” came a whisper, just audible in the night.
A flash of lightning illuminated the sky for a split second.
From her vantage point atop a step just beyond the line, Red saw the men. Eight. Two were leaning upon one another, and one of those two carried a bottle of rum. They weren’t there to fight; they were just waiting for the kill.
None of them was well-armed. They were debris, she determined. Refuse that had found its way to the island. There was only one—a tall, muscular man, wearing a brace of pistols, his cutlass at the ready—who appeared to offer any real danger. He was bald beneath his sweeping hat, and one of his eyes was made of glass. Though the alley was dark, she could see that; slivers of moonlight caught on it, casting a glint of reflection. That was good. She would attack from the left.
Full darkness seemed to fall when the lightning dimmed. It was time.
With a violent thrust, she set the line of sheets flying. Several of the fellows were toppled immediately. She leapt from the step, her cutlass waving as she strode through the confusion. Easiest first to wind the men into the sheet. More of them fell. But then she discovered a man at her back, ready to skewer her, and when she turned to parry his attack, she saw the bald fellow moving toward her, as well.
From a window above, there was the sound of life at last.
“Glory, what be happening down there?” a woman called out shrilly.
“Battle in the alley! Close the shutters, woman,” came a masculine reply.
Lights flickered from above, and were quickly doused. She could hear the slamming of shutters on both sides of the alley now. Apparently none of the residents of this sorry place meant to become embroiled.
She would not be receiving any assistance from them.
She leapt over the tangle of men seeking to free themselves from the sheets just as a third man came at her, followed by a fourth.
She slashed her blade at him, then caught hold of what remained of the laundry line and used it to swing to the far side of the alley to face the remaining three.
She sheathed her cutlass, drew her pistols and fired both simultaneously. She caught one man in the leg and winged the other in the shoulder. But as they fell, two others at last dislodged themselves from the sheets and joined the fray.
Without time to reload, she went for her cutlass again and crouched, finding the knife lodged in the sheath of her left boot. Her aim was swift and sure, and one attacker went down with the blade caught in his shoulder.
Still another fought free of the sheets. It was the sot who had been holding the rum bottle, and he looked sober now. And lethal.
She was dead, she decided, overcome with bitterness and regret. She had expected so little from life. Even so, she had not thought it would end in a filthy alley on a dead man’s isle.
“Take the flanks!” the bald man called to his companions.
They planned to back her against the wall, she realized, then come at her from three sides.
She would do as much damage as she could before going down, she resolved.
Would God forgive her for the life she had led? she wondered vaguely.
Was God even there? Where had He been when her family was slain?
But as the bald man walked toward her, taking his time, grinning, she was stunned to hear the loud volley of a gun.
And suddenly the overconfident bald attacker was no longer walking toward her. His one good eye was wide, and then blood burst from his chest, like red tears, for the rain was growing harder, and it mingled with the blood.
The two coming at her from the side froze as the night came alive with shouting and the thunder of footfalls. Brendan was there, Hagar, Peg-leg—and their prisoner.
Her other attackers finally fought free from the sheets, and the wounded men staggered up, desperate to survive. She was left alone at the wall as her attackers and her crew went to battle, deadly and swift. One man tried to run, but Peg-leg was not a man who was prone to mercy. He went after the coward, and the swordplay that ensued was swift. In moments her would-be murderer fell dead in the rush of blood that spewed from his throat.
And then her crew was standing still in the dark alley, looking around, seeking new combatants.
But there were none. They were all on the ground, unmoving.
“Red!” Brendan cried and rushed forward. She saw the terrible inner battle he fought, trying not to reach for her, longing to draw her against him in relief.
“I’m well, good fellows, and I give you my deepest thanks,” she said, as Peg-leg clapped her on the shoulder.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, realizing how much force he had used. “Aye, but, Cap’n, you were holding your own so fine.”
“So fine,” Logan Haggerty repeated. She looked at him and could see the contempt in his eyes. She would have died if they hadn’t come, no matter how fine she might have been doing. And he…He was a prisoner. But he had come with the others, and had fought well and…loyally?
“Captain Red, what the bloody hell…?” Hagar asked, shaking his head and breaking into her thoughts.
“Let’s hope someone is alive to tell the tale,” she said, and realized she was shaking. How strange. She hadn’t feared death—she really hadn’t—though she had hated the fact that she would die before accomplishing her goal. But now…
Now she suddenly knew how badly she wanted to live. Not for vengeance. She wanted to see the sun again, taste the rain, know the feel of the waves beneath her, plunge into a warm sea, read more books…
Feel a human touch that was gentle and tender…
Change that look of contempt upon Logan Haggerty’s face.
She gritted her teeth and willed the shaking to stop. She had not come so far to be diminished by the look of a man who had unjustly condemned her as a fool.
“Find someone living in this scramble,” she commanded sharply.
As her men moved about the alley, checking the downed men for signs of life, the shutters above them began to open. Lamplight flickered again, making the mist in the air shimmer mysteriously.
“Dead,” Hagar announced, rolling over a body.
“This one, too,” Peg-leg said.
“Not this one,” Logan announced, dragging a man to his feet.
The survivor was skinny, and wore only a shirt, breeches, worn boots and a sword belt that barely clung around his narrow hips. His sword was still sheathed. There wasn’t a mark on him.
“Please,” he whimpered. “I caused no injury to any of you. I was…I was caught. I was tangled in the sheets.”
“You played dead, you mean,” Logan said bluntly.
“I…I…”
“Who sent you?” Red demanded.
“I, um…that fellow. The bald man over there. He paid us all. He found us back at Ha’penny Hattie’s, and he paid us to follow him down the alley. That’s all.” He slipped to his knees, looking up beseechingly, his hands folded in desperate prayer. “I was just drinking me rotgut there, I swear it, and the money…as you can see, I’m not a prosperous man.”
Red was about to turn away in disgust.
“But you are a lying one,” Logan said, catching the fellow by his shirt collar and dragging him relentlessly to his feet. “Who paid the bald man?”
“I don’t know!” the skinny man screeched.
“You do,” Logan said flatly.
“He’ll kill me!” their captive implored.
“He’s dead,” Brendan pointed out.
“No, no, not the bald man…”
“It’s all right,” Red said. “I know who sent him.”
Their captive’s eyes were all but bulged out of their skeletal sockets. “I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell you!”
“He may kill you. I definitely will,” Logan threatened softly.
Red shook her head. “Don’t bother. It was Blair Colm.”
Logan stared at her sharply, and she had no idea what was going on in his mind as he watched her. It seemed for a moment as if time had stopped.
“Oh, God!” the skinny man screamed, going limp.
“Is he here? Is he somewhere near here?” Red demanded.
