Page 3 of The Heart of an Earl

A schooner. So close, so fast there could only be one purpose for it.

Pirates.

Hooks swung out, latching onto the railings of thePrimrose, pulling it closer. Closer. Ropes dangling. Men swinging across. Planks lowering into place.

The crew of the pirate ship advanced across the gap of water, cutlasses swinging, daggers flashing, pistols firing.

Grabbing what little was still sturdy of the wooden railing, Des yanked himself to his feet, looking to the main deck.

Hell.

Men were going down all over the deck. Sailors. Captain Youngling.

Des’s hands ran across his waist.

Nothing. No steel.

He’d put down his blades and walked away from them the moment they landed in Bridgetown. He’d thought he’d been done. Done for good.

And now he had nothing on his person to defend himself, the ship. Nothing.

His vision came into focus. There were plenty of blood-splattered blades scattered across the decks with owners no longer alive to carry them.

It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered. Corentine was dead.

He moved down the ladder onto the main deck, thick with smoke and the last clanks of resistant steel from thePrimrose’smen.

Screaming. Women’s high-pitched squeals as the passengers from below were dragged out onto the main deck.

The blackguards were rounding them into a line on the far railing, going through their pockets.

Through the thick of the pirates and smoke, Des’s look dipped to the boards of the deck and he counted the skirts and the impossibly shiny boots, lined in a row. Twelve women. Four men.

On the opposite side of the deck, Des slipped alongside the main mast and the bodies strewn about.

More screams as the air cleared. Crying. The pirates huddled in a wide arc around the remaining passengers as a man—tall and filled with pomp—walked along the row of passengers, looking them over one by one. The pirate captain, Des could only assume.

Des leaned forward, his hand outstretched to a cutlass wedged into the wood of the mast. He couldn’t take all of the pirates out. But he could take at least four. Maybe five if he was quick and lucky.

Four or five might give the remaining men on board a chance. Maybe.

“What move do ye think to make, ye fine nob?” A black-toothed snake of a sailor appeared to his left, his long dagger full on Des’s throat.

Damn his new coat. Damn that he’d stopped to buy proper clothes before stepping onto the ship. Damn that he’d wanted to be presentable for Corentine.

Where a moment ago he’d been ready to have a blade run him through, self-preservation appeared in full force and Des’s palms whipped up as he leaned away from the dagger at his neck. He eyed the snake sailor.

He could take him. A spin to the right and a swinging heel to the man’s knee and the brute would go down. Des knew he was that quick. But the line of pirates standing along the deck—swords at the ready—behind this brute made Des reconsider.

The pirates had dispatched the defenses of thePrimrosein short order. Too short, for the rabid looks in some of the men’s eyes. They were looking for more sport and one more death would mean nothing to them.

“Into the line with the rest, ye coward.”

The dagger at his neck prodding him along, Des moved to the railing, stepping into line with the rest of the passengers.

Des glanced over his shoulder at the sea lapping along the side of the ship.

Steal the rest of the valuables and then toss them over one by one?

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