~ The Captain's Coat ~

by

Lisa L. Taylor-Paetz and Kim Leschak

“I knew it,” René shouted three days later. “He has discovered my nefarious plan to escape him. Damn Musette and her traitorous lips!” Turning to Victoria, who had approached at a run, he shook his head helplessly. “I should have known better than to trust a woman of her talents. She has given me away. Turn back, Capitán. I shall go peacefully.”

“In a pig’s eye,” Victoria muttered. “Go below, René. I won’t let the mad captain get hold of you.”

“No, Victoria, you must not do this!” Frantic, his hands gesturing wildly, rings flashing in the sun, he shook his head until the red curls stood out around his face like flickering flames. “I am not worth the lives of your crew and son!”

“Go below, René. Now.” Glaring at him with all the ferocity she could muster, she watched his face harden into an expression she had never before seen on him.

“I promised Leslie I would look after you, Victoria. That does not mean allowing you to be murdered.”

“Les isn’t here to object.” Turning, she shouted to her first mate. “Geoffrey, escort Monsieur Savant to the brig and lock him in.”

“Victoria!” René shouted as the larger man put a hand on his shoulder. “Do not do this!”

“It’s already done,” she muttered as he was escorted down the hatch. “Look after me? I think you need the looking after.” Turning to the horizon, she raised her own glass to her eye, catching the tops’ls of the clipper in the round view.

It was a beautiful ship, she thought as it pulled over the horizon, the sails belling out in the wind. And it was fast. Victoria didn’t have a lot of time. Spinning, she began shouting orders, raising sail to catch every available nuance of the breeze. It was going to be a race. Smaller and lighter, she had a chance to win, to escape without a fight.

Racing, the triangular sheets set to the wind, Victoria put every ounce of skill she had acquired into outrunning the huge ship. Fighting a larger vessel meant forcing the opposing captain to think he was trying to swat a particularly agile fly. She’d seen Leslie do this before, and he’d always won. Now it was her turn. Never get pinned down and never broadcast what you were going to do in advance.

The clipper, larger and more difficult to maneuver, still managed to keep on her wake, gaining ground as an hour or more wore on. Grinding her teeth, she finally decided to turn and fight. It was better than having him run her wake until nightfall. So, ordering the ship to come about, Victoria approached the clouds of sail above the other vessel, watching it furl the clouds until she could see the crew in the rigging.

There, standing arrogantly in the bow, was the man who had to be the mad Captain Nicholas: René’s enemy. He was tall, broad shoulders encased in a white shirt that reminded her of Leslie, although the material gleamed silkily in the sunlight, the material much too fine to have been Leslie’s. Black hair, as black as a raven’s wing, waved in the breeze as he lowered the spyglass he held and shouted an order.

A warning shot fired over the bow of the schooner. Gritting her teeth, Victoria held course, as if she was going to capitulate. Closer, she drew, close enough to count the buttons on the mad captain’s black trousers.

“Now!” she cried finally, and a volley of cannon shot ripped into the side of the clipper. The mad captain cursed roundly, shaking a fist at her, calling her every name she knew and a few she didn’t. Laughing, she spun the wheel, dancing out of the path of any retaliation as quickly as she could, using her forward momentum to advantage.

“Pick on someone your own size,” Victoria shouted as she drew past him.

“God damned Hellcat captain! I’ll have your hide for this!”

“Good luck,” she muttered as his rail mounted guns fired into the rigging of her ship, shredding the sails like so much cotton candy. He hadn’t even given the order himself, she thought grimly. It had come from the stern of the ship, shouted in a broad Irish brogue. His crew was trained and trained well from the look of it.

Out of range, she spun the wheel and approached again, but from the opposite side, what was left of the sails holding grimly to the wind. If it came down to boarding, she was through. There was no way her small crew could maintain in the face of a band of well-trained cutthroats. Another pass and Victoria gave the order to fire, sliding by the side of the larger vessel close and swift.

The small schooner beneath her feet gave a jerk as a line caught hold, a grapnel tossed from the stern clamping into the wood of the rail. It ripped out, but she knew it was close to the end. Fleeing was out of the question. Her sails were damaged, and the mast looked torn and pitted. No, she was going to have to resort to plain bluffing. Sighing, Victoria turned again and handed the wheel over to her first mate, heading for the rail as they drew close. A string of grapnels flew from the rail above her, and she held her place as the ship jerked to the side, her small dagger gripped in her hand as she stared upward, waiting for sight of the captain.

Just as she’d thought, his dark head appeared at the rail, glaring directly at her. Raising her hand, as if in a salute, she let the dagger fly, catching him in the arm as he tried to move away from the flying menace. A scowl marred his smooth features as his hand moved to the protruding hilt of the dagger. Jerking the blade from the biceps of his right arm, he tucked it into the waistband of his trousers. He then followed his crew down the side of his ship to the waiting deck of her little schooner, drawing a thin bladed rapier as soon as his feet hit the deck.

“I should have practiced more,” Victoria muttered, ordering her crew to stand down as the mad Captain Nicholas approached her with rapier in hand. Staring down the length of a cold blade into a pair of steely black eyes, she swallowed and swiftly resurrected her mask of unconcern from the depths of her soul. Left-handed, she thought in disgust. I should have aimed for his left side.

“René Savant,” the mad captain said in a voice made of black ice. “Produce him. Now.”

“I don’t know any René Savant,” she said, blinking up at him unconcernedly. “There isn’t anything of value for you here.”

“You’ve fought much too hard to have nothing of value.” Still glaring coldly into her face, he frowned. “Jeremy, find the little cockroach and bring him here.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” a pale-eyed man said and moved to the hatchway, followed by four of the mad captain’s crew.

Having turned her head as much as the tip of the rapier against her throat would allow in order to watch the pale-eyed man’s exit, Victoria was snapped to attention as the blade tapped the underside of her chin.

“Rather feminine for a captain,” the owner of the blade said. “Which explains the mule-headed resistance. Did you believe you could actually win against me?”

Shrugging, she stared up into his eyes with her carefully contrived look of unconcern. “Has someone appointed you God recently?” she asked flippantly, inwardly cringing at the ice that formed in his cold eyes. There was nothing else there, no emotion, no passion. He was just a shell following orders left behind by the last tenant of his body and that tenant had abdicated long ago. It was different than her own mask. There was nothing beneath it at all.

“Unhand me, Jeremy, you great Irish lout! I am unused to such rough treatment!” René’s voice echoed up onto the deck as the pale-eyed man who had been sent after him hauled him out.

Not a trace of satisfaction shone in the mad captain’s eyes. Lowering the blade from her throat, he raised a brow and turned to face René. The pale-eyed man, Jeremy, let go of the little Frenchman and stepped back.

Straightening his yellow brocaded waistcoat, René drew himself up to his full height and nodded sharply. “Capitán Nicholas, you have arrived on a fool’s errand. I have not the information you require.”

“Put him in the hold.” Dismissing his victim as soon as he was in custody, the mad captain turned back to Victoria. “And take this--woman--to my cabin.”