The Prize. Brenda Joyce
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Finally he took a sip of wine and saluted her with his glass. “Fine contraband, indeed.”
Virginia did not reply. A terrible inkling was dawning upon her. He intended to ransom her and he couldn’t care less about her inheritance.
He had known her name from the moment they had met.
He must know of her uncle, the earl.
She sat down hard on the chair he had left pulled out from the table. That action caused him to glance up, although he never ceased eating.
But now she was safe enough, was she not? The man was in the navy, even if about to be discharged, or worse—and she hoped he hanged from the nearest gallows. He was no common outlaw. He wanted a ransom, one that would surely be paid, and considering all circumstances, she doubted he would return her to her uncle blemished in any way.
Virginia wondered what the ransom would be and if her uncle was wealthy enough to pay her ransom and her father’s debts. Her dismay was infinite.
“You seem distraught,” he remarked, leaning back in his chair, apparently having finished his meal.
“You have no morals, sir,” she said tightly. “That much is clear.”
“I have never said I did.” He eyed her. “Morals are for fools, Miss Hughes.”
She stared. Impulsively, she leaned forward. “How can I make you change your mind?” She could hardly believe herself now. “There cannot be a ransom from my uncle, Captain O’Neill. I am eighteen, not fourteen.” His face never changed expression. “I will do whatever I must to be freed.”
He stared for an interminable moment. “Is that the offer that I think it is?”
She felt ill…breathless…ashamed…resigned. “Yes, it is,” she croaked.
He stood. “The storm is upon us. I am afraid I must go. Do not leave this cabin. A chit such as yourself would be blown overboard instantly.” He tossed his napkin aside and strode across the now-rolling floor of the cabin as if it were still and flat.
That was his reply? She was incredulous.
At the door, he paused. “And my answer is no.” He walked out.
She collapsed on the table in tears, all of which now flowed purely from desperation. She already knew her uncle didn’t give a damn about her. He would never pay both a ransom and her father’s debts.
Because of the damned Irishman, she would lose Sweet Briar.
Anger exploded and she leapt up, racing across the cabin. As soon as she had swung the door open, a huge gale wind sent her forward helplessly across the entire deck. She had never felt such a force in her life; Virginia saw the raging, frothing sea beyond the railing and it seemed to be racing toward her. She couldn’t even cry out and then she was slammed hard, midsection first, into wood and rope.
Pain blinded her. The sea sprayed her, while the wind wanted to push her overboard. Panic consumed her—she did not want to die!
“You damnable stubborn woman,” O’Neill hissed, his strong arms wrapping around her. And she was cocooned against his entire hard, powerful body, the sea and the wind now relentlessly battering them both.
She inhaled, unable to look up, her face pressed against his chest. His grip tightened, and then he was dragging her with him as he confronted the wind, walking fiercely, determinedly into it, a single man against the elements.
He shoved her into the cabin, and for one moment stood braced in the doorway, pounded by the wind. “Stay inside!” he shouted to make himself heard.
“You have to let me go!” she shouted back. Oddly, she wanted to thank him for saving her life.
He shook his head, lashed her with a furious look and began running across the deck, finally leaping up to the quarterdeck. It had begun to rain, pounding and fierce.
Virginia stayed safely within the cabin, out of the reach of the storm, but she made no move to close the door, which had become nailed open by the wind. Now she realized how serious the storm was. The ship was riding huge tidal waves the way the tiny dinghy had earlier, cresting to each huge tip, only to plummet sickeningly down again. She glanced around and saw sailors everywhere, straining against ropes, crawling in the masts. They were hanging there, too.
Then she looked back up and cried out in horror, because a man was hanging from a middle yardarm, and she knew he had fallen and was about to careen to his death.
She had to do something, yet there seemed to be nothing that she could do.
She glanced toward the quarterdeck. She was too small to even cross the space between O’Neill’s cabin and where he stood, to tell him what was happening. She looked back up—and the hanging man was gone.
Vanished…drowned.
Her insides lurched terribly. He was gone, and she hadn’t even been able to hear him scream.
As the ship bucked violently, Virginia saw that all of the sails were tied down save one. She quickly realized that the sailor who had fallen had been sent up the first mast to reef a single sail that remained taut and unfurled.
And the huge ship instantly began to turn over on its side.
Virginia was thrown against the floor and carried all the way across it, downward, until she slammed into the opposite wall, her shoulder taking the blow, and then her head. For a moment, as the ship lay on its side—or nearly so—she remained there, incapable of moving, stunned.
She then realized that the ship was going to capsize if it didn’t become righted again. She looked at the doorway, which remained wide open, and now was oddly above her, like the ridge of a hill, the angle severe, perhaps forty-five degrees or more. The black sky shimmered in the open hatch.
They were all going to die, she thought wildly.
Virginia began to climb the floor, using the bolted table legs to help her, then the leg of the bed. Once there, she managed to stretch flat and reach high up to grab the ridge of the floor where it adjoined the door. Her arms screamed in protest, her shoulder joints felt racked. Virginia slowly pulled herself to the doorway, and once there, her back pressed into one wall, her feet into another, gazed wildly around.
The sailors on deck were also fighting the terrible angle of the ship, and its lowered side, while still not submerged, was being pounded with whitecaps. Virginia looked up at the masts and froze.
There was no mistaking Devlin O’Neill, a dagger in his teeth, climbing up the first mast, another man behind him. Above him, the huge foresail billowed, begging the storm to capsize them.
He was going to die, she thought, mesmerized, just the way that other man had. For as he climbed, using sheer strength and will to fight the pitch of the ship, the huge winds and the rain, the frigate rolled precariously even further to its side.
Virginia watched in horror. Even if he didn’t die, they were surely doomed, as no man could defeat the wind and the bucking ship in order to cut the sail free.
She watched as O’Neill paused, as if exhausted, the man beneath him also stopping. Virginia could not remove her gaze. She prayed as both men took a brief respite, clinging to the swaying mast.
He started back up. He’d reached the yardarm from which the sailor had fallen and he began to slash at the rigging. The other man joined him. Virginia watched them avidly. A few brief moments passed into an eternity when suddenly the huge canvas broke free of its rigging, sailing wildly away into the night.
The huge ship groaned and sank back evenly into the water.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, watching him begin a precarious but nimble descent. It was obvious he had just saved his ship and crew, and it was also obvious he had dared to do what few others would even contemplate.
She began to shake. The man knew no fear.
She