The Captain of All Pleasures (Sutherland Brothers #1)(38)
Author: Kresley Cole

In his gruff voice, he said, “Lash yerself down, lass. We’re in for a hell o’ a ride.”

Without argument, she did as he told her. When satisfied with her knots, he charged off to go over each detail, securing rigging, making sure the crew understood exactly what they were about to face.

Nicole strained against her ropes to see once again if she could make out the Southern Cross, but just as she thought she could, the clouds reached them and erupted. For what could have been hours, the rain pelted the deck and pounded in the remaining sails. It became impossible to see more than a few feet away. Until the lightning hovered directly over them.

The muscles in her neck bunched as she hunched down, away from the flashes streaming out in the leaded skies, firing closer and closer to them.

Nicole watched in horrified disbelief as a branch of lightning struck their midmast, hitting it halfway up. She wanted to shrink inside herself as the scorching intensity of heat bathed her face. A sound like sizzling grease accompanied the scoring bolt. Pain melted in her eyes from the shock of light. The immediate thunder shook not just herself and the ship but the whole black world around them.

She blinked repeatedly until she could focus on the mast. The lightning had left it smoking and splintered, held only by the rigging attached to it.

She hissed in wet air. If those ropes give way

Then it happened. The middle of the mast kicked out to smash down near the helm, exploding all the way through the upper deck, the spars acting like claws to drag down every sail and line. She stared, stunned, as the impact shot Dennis against the wheelhouse.

For the space of two hitching breaths, she waited for him to get up. He lay motionless. With shaking hands, she dug into her knots. Just as she freed herself, Chancey reached the man and began securing his limp body to the wheelhouse. She jerked her head from Chancey to the madly spinning wheel and pressed her legs down to cross the deck to it.

With each uplifting and crash of the ship, she skidded back and forth over the timbers lying on the deck, making little progress. Finally finally she reached the helm and fought to get a grip on the twirling wheel, but the pegs kept cracking against her hands. After all but tackling it, she stopped the spinning by pushing with all her might on one side of the wheel and lunging her whole body into her grip.

When she ventured a look over her shoulder, she could see Chancey’s scowl as he tottered back to the helm.

“Let go! I’ve got to take the helm,” he shouted. Without warning, a rope whining past them slashed at his face like a whip.

With a growl, he looked from her to the rope. “Tie up then, damn it. Strong knots!” He turned to find the source of the rope and scuttled off again.

She tied herself to the wheel, fighting to keep it steady as the ship continued to buck. When she’d achieved a measure of success, she looked up and scanned the ship. She bit back a scream. Chancey’s great bulk crashed across the deck as another merciless wave broke over the bow and tossed him as if he were a rag doll.

Her heart thundered in her chest while she waited for him to rise. Chancey, get up, damn you. Get up!

As though wrestling his lumbering body, he managed to stand and trudge back to the whipping line he’d been securing. She held her panic at bay while she could see him. But masses of foam were heaving up in all directions as the wind began keening even more violently. When she finally lost sight of him altogether, the harshest, most biting terror gripped her. She choked back the screams bubbling up.

She prayed for him as she willed his return. Then she prayed for her crew’s lives—for the men struggling all across the ship, yelling into the wind, laboring to prevent the destruction awaiting them. She prayed that her father would eventually remarry and get on with his life without his daughter and crew.

In the midst of the fury unleashed around them, she also prayed for Sutherland .

All on board knew their lives were in the hand of an arbitrary sea, and the certainty of death drummed in every mind. Nicole knew they were lost. And she knew she had failed.

Although it had arrived like an explosion, the fierce storm lingered in indecision for hours. During that time, Derek couldn’t locate the Bella Nicola . He’d told his men they would take Lassiter’s ship and all the necessary supplies and impress the crew. Then he’d simply anchored in the middle of the channel and waited, because the Irisher would have no choice but to sail dangerously close. He’d signal them, and if they came to, so be it. If they did not, he would cannon a warning shot over their bow and force them to stop. A simple, effective plan.

He had not factored in a storm that had burgeoned into one of the worst he’d ever seen. The rain soon began battering them not from above but from the side as it seemed to rise up from the ocean. He’d had no choice but to weigh anchor and get the ship to safer waters.

With a little luck, Nicole could slip right past him in the dark of the storm. His fury grew, but he also caught himself feeling something he hadn’t in a long time.

Fear.

He wanted to dismiss it at first. Yet his chest tightened every time he thought about Nicole on a ship that could easily be ripped apart on the rocks surrounding them. He wanted to convince himself that the only thing he felt for her was loathing.

But even if she was an evil, lying witch, he didn’t want her to die. If they hadn’t gotten clear when this storm reached them, it would be an all-too-likely possibility. He fought not to imagine how frightened she must be, trapped down in a sloshing, freezing cabin, hearing the timbers groaning under the water’s pressure.

Impatient as he hadn’t been since he was a boy, he waited until shafts of sunlight finally stabbed through the dense black clouds. His own skeleton crew thankfully had weathered the storm without major damage to the ship, and when he’d gauged it safe enough, they were able to make all haste to find the Bella Nicola. But for hours, the only sign of the ship they found was part of a splintered mast.

Seeing that sure sign of destruction had filled him with a maddening feeling of impotence. It was as if someone relentlessly kicked him in the gut during the hours when there was no other sign of the little ship. He nearly swore he wouldn’t punish her for her treachery, if he could only find her alive.

“Cap’n, the crew has started grumbling,” Jeb said from behind him. “They want to cut their losses and get to the Cape.”

Derek turned. “We’ll search until sunset.”

The salt began hesitantly, “We’ve covered a big patch of sea today. Do you think they’d be blowed out this far?”

“I don’t know,” Derek admitted, wondering how this weary tone had replaced his own. “With a mast gone, they’ve got to be sitting somewhere.”

“Unless—”