Lord of Devil Isle Read Free

panniers as soon as she hit the water.
    “Penny, do you need help with yours?”
    The question jolted Penelope out of her rigor. “No,” she said, hooking an arm across the hatch. “I’ll make do.”
    Grim-faced, Penny worked at her lacings until the system of hoops loosened and she wiggled free of them.
    “Did anyone see Lieutenant Rathbun?” Sally asked.
    “No, and I don’t think we need concern ourselves with anyone else’s welfare at present.” Eve swiped her eyes, trying to clear the stinging brine. “Our plate of troubles seems quite full enough, thank you.”
    A wave surged by, high enough to obscure the wreck of the Molly Harper behind a wall of water. When the ship reappeared on the dark horizon, Eve saw that the current had dragged them surprisingly far from their vessel. Her belly roiled.
    The women had been forced onto the open deck when the Molly Harper ran aground on the hidden reef and water began pouring into the tiny cabin they shared. Sally panicked at the sight of flames on the poop deck and had run heedless through a broken spot on the gunwale, dropping into the black waves below.
    Penelope jumped in after her, knowing her friend couldn’t swim. Eve watched from above for a helpless few heartbeats while Sally, stupid with terror, thrashed the water and tried to scale her would-be rescuer. Another minute and she’d have drowned them both.
    The deck was alive with sailors running, hauling at the ropes and swearing the air blue. Every hand was busy trying to keep the Molly Harper from total ruin, with no thought to spare for three women, who everyone claimed were unlucky on a ship in any case. So Eve had grabbed up the loose hatch cover and followed the other two into the waves.
    In retrospect, it was probably not the cleverest thingshe’d ever done. If her time in Newgate Prison had taught her anything, it was that the wise woman looks to herself. But the confinement of a small shared cabin had wrought a sense of kinship among the three of them. Eve couldn’t let flighty, impulsive Sally or the steady, quiet Penelope come to grief if she could help it.
    So now despite her best efforts, they were all in a pickle.
    Sally squealed again. “Look! Another ship!” She waved a pale arm at the hull surging toward the wreck. “Why don’t they stop?”
    Another wave washed over them and Sally came up sputtering.
    “They probably can’t see us,” Eve said. “On the count of three, we must all scream as loud as ever we can.”
    “You won’t slap me?” Sally asked reproachfully.
    “Not this time, ninny,” Eve promised with a wry smile. “Ready? One, two, three.”
    Even Penelope shrieked for all she was worth.
    For a heart-stopping moment, it seemed nothing was happening, that no one had heard them. Then suddenly sailors on the approaching vessel scrambled to spill wind from the sails to slow the ship and a boat was lowered over the side. A big fellow with what looked like a permanent scowl engraved on his face stood at the tiller as his men plied the oars.
    “We’re saved!” Sally shouted and waved her free arm.
    Eve started to believe it herself, but a sudden movement caught the corner of her eye, something different from the rhythmic roll of the waves. When she turned her head, a long gray body stippled with dark patches passed by them no more than ten feet away. A sharp dorsal fin rose and then disappeared beneath the waves.
    She swallowed hard.
    Sharks had dogged the Molly Harper across the Atlantic, hoping for more scraps after that piglet fell in just off the Azores. Once, one of the sailors speared a big gray fellow, but before the men could haul the shark from the water, the other fish turned on the wounded one in a bloody frenzy. They boiled the water red devouring one of their own.
    “Sally, dear, you must be quiet,” Eve said, forcing an even tone. She prayed the other girl wouldn’t catch a glimpse of the predator before the jolly boat arrived. “A lady is always calm and