The Tiger's Bride

They made their escape, but not without cost.

The master of the junk knew his trade. Working his ship with a skill Jamie could only admire, the pirate strove to catch his quarry. In a daring move, he spread his sails so far to the wind that the ship’s rail cut water and his crew dangled from the sheets like monkeys. The added burst of speed gained him enough on his prey to fire his heaviest cannon.

The ball tore through the schooner’s rigging and slammed into the deck, throwing up a shower of splinters. Undaunted, the crew of the Phoenix hooted in derision and shouted obscenities at their pursuers. Jamie ran a quick eye over the damaged rigging and knew it would hold. Shouting at the crew to stand ’ware, he brought the ship hard over. Pulleys creaked and lines slackened as the massive, swinging booms began to cross the deck.

From the corner of one eye, he saw his first mate stagger. A foot-long wooden splinter protruded from his shoulder.

“Liam! Down, man!”

Jamie’s warning came a second too late. The huge aft boom caught Burke a glancing blow to the head. He crumpled soundlessly.

“Get him below!” Jamie shouted.

His gut knotting, he brought the Phoenix around. The wind caught the specially rigged topsails, then bellied the mainsails. The schooner lifted almost out of the water and skimmed the waves like a gull.

Within the space of a few minutes, the crew had cleared the tangled wreckage from the decks. Within not many more, the junk had dropped so far astern that Jamie could give the wheel back to the helmsman and go below decks.

Worry over Burke clawed at his stomach. The brawny Irishman was more than his second-in-command. He was the only man Jamie counted as friend.

A onetime blacksmith, Liam Burke had been shanghaied from a pub in Dublin. He’d left behind a wife and three children. After five years of involuntary servitude in the Royal Navy, he’d returned to learn that his family had died in the potato famine. Broken, he’d been drowning in sorrow and his own vomit when Jamie, newly stripped of his rank and his career, had found him face-down in a ditch. With nothing left to lose, Burke had joined ranks with the former lieutenant. Eight years and uncounted adventures later, he still mourned his family, but no longer tried to drown himself in drink.

Sliding down mahogany handrails worn smooth as glass, Jamie hit the companionway deck. A quick glance at the end of the narrow hall showed his cabin door shut tight.

At least the blasted female had the sense to stay where he’d left her. No doubt she was quaking in fright, wondering what in God’s name was going on above decks. Good! Maybe a healthy dose of terror would teach Miss Abernathy to keep to her skirts and her Mission House.

His boots sloshing in the inch or so of water that had come in with the storm, he headed for the officer’s mess. The stench of singed flesh emanating from the saloon told him that the ship’s cook had cauterized Liam’s shoulder wound. He only hoped that the blow to the head hadn’t shattered the first mate’s skull. Jamie’s dog-eared copy of The Ship Captain’s Medical Guide offered little useful advice for head injuries.

Two long strides took him to the mess. He stopped on the threshold, stunned by the sight of an unmistakably feminine form in blue cotton trousers bent over the figure on the table.

“What the devil!”

Sarah paid no heed to his exclamation.

“I warned you what would happen if you left your cabin,” Jamie began, advancing into the saloon.

She twisted around, impatience stamped across her face. Only then did he see the bright red blood that colored the front of her robe.

“Yes, yes, I know,” she snapped. “You’ll strip me naked, lash me to the mast, and lay a strap across my shoulders. But I do wish you would wait until I finish stitching up your man’s head!”

Chapter Five

Sarah turned her back on the captain and resumed her task. Gripping the bone needle in fingers slick with blood, she dug it into ragged flesh. She pushed, then pulled, and tried not to wince when the thick black string threaded in the needle’s eye stubbornly refused to follow through the hole. Gritting her teeth, she tugged harder.

The man stretched out on the table stiffened. “Are you…soon done, lass?”

“Soon, Mr. Burke.”

He nodded and took another swill from the brown glass bottle clutched in his good hand.

The stink of rum and sweat and burned skin clogged Sarah’s nostrils. Taking a shallow breath, she pinched together another inch of the gaping temple wound.

“A few more stitches,” she promised softly, then dug the needle in again.

Straithe stood close by her elbow, too close, watching her as a keen-eyed kestrel watches its prey. Sarah tried to push him from her mind, but his nearness ate at her concentration.

Drat the man! She’d not soon forgive him for his threats…nor for the way he’d left her to stew and dither and fear about what was happening above decks!

Her mouth thinning, Sarah recalled her startled shriek when a cannon had boomed across the water. She’d heard the shot strike, heard as well the crew’s shouts and the clatter of rigging hitting the deck. Like the veriest coward, she’d huddled in the cabin, unsure what to do except pray. Most fervently.

An agonized groan in the companionway had cut her off in mid-psalm. Fighting the fear that clawed at her throat, she’d listened intently. Another moan spurred her to action. Even with the captain’s threat hanging over her, she couldn’t stay in the cabin. She’d nursed her mother through too many childbirths, tended her family through all their ills, and assisted her father in his ministries too many times to sit idly when someone was in pain. Pulling on her still-damp clothes, she’d gathered her courage and gone to offer aid.

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