Teresa Medeiros Read Free Page A

the main companionway. Obeying without thought, she flew down the narrow passage, thankful for once to be unencumbered by heavy skirts and petticoats. She slammed the door ofher cabin behind her and whirled around in the middle of the floor.
    A fresh salvo of cannonfire shuddered the hold. Lucy dropped to her knees and clapped her hands over her ears, choking back a frantic scream. As a child, she had once scampered into the garden only to plunge through an enormous spiderweb strung across the path. She had beat at the sticky fibers with her small hands, screaming in terror. She felt again that same helpless fear. She couldn’t bear being trapped like an animal with no control over her fate.
    She could still remember the Admiral’s contemptuous words as he had watched her sniffle into Smythe’s crisp waistcoat while the servant patiently plucked the tattered web from her hair.
Silly little chit. Given to hysteria just like her mother. French blood will tell every time
.
    Lucy’s hands curled into fists and fell away from her ears. Her back straightened. She was Lucinda Snow, daughter of Admiral Sir Lucien Snow, and she’d be damned if she’d let some ridiculous ghost pirate frighten her into hysterics.
    Spurred to practical action, she rifled through her tidy valise, searching for anything that might serve as a weapon. An ivory-handled letter opener was her only find. She slipped off her shoes so she could move silently if the need arose and tucked the letter opener into one of her stockings. Then she grabbed the low-burning lantern and crouched down beside her rumpled bunk to wait.
    A masculine bellow of terror and the thunder of running footsteps sounded overhead. Lucy gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering. The wire handle of the lantern bit into her palm. She knew the lantern was useless as a weapon. The dangers of fire aboard ship had been too deeply ingrained in her since childhood.She would die a gruesome death before hurling the lantern at an attacker.
    She feared that noble notion was about to be tested when the door to her cabin crashed inward and a hulking shape appeared in its place. Lucy killed the lantern’s flame and squeezed her eyes shut in the childish hope that if she couldn’t see the intruder, he wouldn’t be able to see her either.
    But all of her hopes, present and future, were smothered by the gag thrust into her mouth and the dank length of burlap tossed over her head.

    “Damn it to blasted hell!”
    The oath rolled from Captain Doom’s lips like the thunder of cannonfire. The deck listed beneath his long, furious strides, but he never stumbled, never faltered, his flawless balance as finely tuned as each of his other senses. Had any of his enemies seen him in that moment, they would have sworn lightning bolts actually could sizzle from his narrowed eyes.
    “I can’t believe you brought a woman on board.” He swung past the dangling rigging with the natural swagger of a born sailor. “You know how superstitious Tarn and Pudge are. They’re liable to jump ship if they find out.”
    The ebony-skinned giant marching in his wake appeared unaffected by his captain’s ire. Only someone who knew him well could have detected the sarcasm in his melodic bass voice. “Shall I fetch the cat-o’-nine-tails, sir, so you can flog me?”
    “Don’t tempt me,” the Captain growled. “I should have left you to hang in Santo Domingo when I had the chance.”
    Doom ducked his head at the precise moment it would have struck the foreboom and folded his lean frame into the hold. His companion dropped afterhim, landing with a cat’s lithe grace on the pads of his bare feet.
    The Captain rubbed his beard in frustration. “Have you been at sea so long you didn’t notice she was a bloody woman?”
    “She squirmed more like a rat. She was soft in spots, but since the Admiral has retired, I thought he might have gone soft himself. Like a rotten peach.”
    “I do believe you’ve gone soft. In