Alice already missed her terribly, but Annalise had been wrong. The farther the Olivia Grace separated Alice from England’s shores, the lighter the burden of her past became. Perhaps it would be easy to erase the events that continued to hang about her neck like a noose.
A spray of chilled sea mist dampened her cheeks. A baptism of sorts. Her rebirth. She licked the salt from her lips and sighed. With each mile, a new Alice Tupper immerged from the tangled mess of the old.
* * * *
More than a week into their journey, the day burned warm and bright. Alice closed her book when the call came from the crow’s nest, “Ship off the starboard.”
She joined Captain Frederick as he raised his spyglass toward the approaching craft.
“It’s an English Brigandine. Mayhap they be in distress. By the size of her, she could be one of those slave haulers.”
Soon the ship closed the distance between the two and came alongside. Only half a dozen men stood on the wide deck. A voice called out across the water, “Ahoy, we be the Delmar. Permission to board?”
Fredericks called back. “Are ye in some kind of need?” He cursed under his breath. Something in his voice caused a cold shiver to run down Alice’s spine.
Boarding ladders slammed across the span between the two ships. The six men from the Delmar crossed over. Fredericks approached the boarding party and to everyone’s horror, the lead man pulled a pistol and shot the good captain dead on the spot.
Alice stumbled backward as the scene before her exploded. Women screamed and men scrambled, shouting as the assailants from the Delmar fired their pistols at whomever they saw. Her heart hammered. Blood rushed in her ears as she witnessed a tidal wave of brutal, vicious pirates flood over from the Delmar. They swarmed the deck like locusts, killing any who dared challenge them.
Time moved in a slow, heinous haze. The crew of the Olivia Grace was slaughtered before they could pull their weapons. Milly rushed past and fell as she tried to escape the vicious attack. Alice dropped to her hands and knees searching frantically for a place to hide. Her skirts made crawling near impossible. After tucking into a niche behind a stack of barrels, she prayed to survive.
The tang of blood and gunpowder filled her senses. Acrid smells returned her to the last time she wielded a weapon. The fog of sulfured smoke brought the horrific scene back to her mind. The same fear spurred her on. Tears threatened to blind her.
A high-pitched scream spun Alice around. Two pirates had Milly. Alice rushed them, shouting for them to release her only to be knocked to one side. A brutal blow to the girl’s head with the butt end of a pistol knocked her unconscious. The savage pirate tossed Milly over his shoulder like a sack of wheat and headed back to the Delmar.
In a surge of ice-cold anger, Alice fought to pull a cutlass from a dead man’s chest. She yanked at the weapon until it released. Slipping on the blood-soaked decking, she fell upon another body. The clouded eyes of dear Captain Fredericks stared back at her. Bile rose in her throat at the sight of the cavernous hole torn in the man’s neck.
She stifled a scream and scrambled away from the gruesome scene into the grasping hands of another attacker. The pirate gripped her throat with one vise-like hand and twisted her arm brutally with the other, wrenching the cutlass from her grasp. It clattered to the deck along with any hope of escape. He sneered down at her. Rotted teeth filled his mouth. He spun her about and hauled her back against his chest. Putrid breath fanned her cheek.
She shuddered and gagged at the smell of sweat and filth permeating from him. Shoving against him only made his hold upon her tighten.
“Ain’t ye a purdy one?”
He groped at her as he slammed her forward against the rails. His fingers raked against her breasts as he pinned her to the side of the ship. Kicking her legs astride, he tore her skirts.
Alice kicked back and twisted her upper body. Her elbow connected with the man’s face with a loud crack. He swore and spit at her as blood coursed from his nose.
Lunging at her, he knocked them both to the bloody deck. Alice thrashed beneath him. Punching at him, clawing at his eyes, but he grabbed her hands and pinned them over her head. He crushed her wrists with one hand while the other nearly broke her fingers as he ripped her ring from her.
“No.” Alice’s scream tore from her throat.
“Jones!” A shout stopped him short. Alice used that moment to shove him off her. The man who’d murdered Captain Fredericks stood behind her attacker pointing a pistol at the man’s greasy head.
“Get yer sorry arse off the woman. Move whatever we ken use from the hold. Now.”
Jones wiped the blood from his face with the back of his sleeve. Moving away, he glared back at Alice.
Alice scrambled to her feet and headed toward him. “Stop. He stole my ring.”
The other man only laughed and blocked her with his pistol. “Yer lucky it’s all he took.” He leveled the gun at her chest. “I be takin’ this one,” he shouted to the crew as they moved through the scatter of bodies, pillaging things from the dead.
“You, two,” he motioned for men. “Show me guest to her new quarters. Mind ye, touch her an’ I’ll cut off yer fingers.”
They flanked Alice, and dragged her over the boarding ladders to the Delmar. She was hauled below and thrown into a vile, rank, cave-like cabin. They tied her hands and feet and tossed her onto a filthy, soiled cot, then left. Alice struggled against her restraints in vain. The rancid smell of the bedding beneath her made her skin crawl. Another reeking odor seemed to come from the very boards of the ship.
Blinded from the brightness of the deck, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark room. She grimaced with disgust at what she saw. The cabin was cramped and cluttered. Food scraps and rotting debris littered a long table. The room had one small window at the back, but between the grime upon it and the myriad of things blocking it the window did little to bring in any light.
Alice’s arms ached as she worked her wrists raw trying to release her bonds. She was not going to suffer at the hands of another madman. Panic crested and she screamed until her throat became raw. Collapsing into the soiled bedding, Alice grit her teeth and vowed. She was not going to die here.
The door flew open and the man who had claimed her as his own strode in. Arms full, he dumped his bounty amongst the other piles of clutter littering the cabin. He took off the wide-brimmed hat he wore and threw it atop the heap. After fishing a jug from the rubble of chaos on his desk, he lifted it to his mouth. Rivulets of red wine ran down his beard adding new stains to his coat.
He narrowed his eyes at Alice as he wiped his face with the back of his hand. “Aye, a fine bit of skirt. Git along right nice, we will.” He drained the jug and tossed it to one side. “I be Capt’n Rasher. Long time since I ’ad the like of ye in me bed.”
“I…I’m carrying a child,” she lied.
He scratched at the tangled nest of his beard before doing the same to his crotch. “I don’t care if ye be carryin’ some bastard.” He moved closer with a sneer. “We ain’t gonna be acquainted fer long.”
“Please,” she whimpered, “don’t hurt us.”
He stroked her hair. “Be accommodatin’ and ye got nuthin’ to fret ’bout. Fight me, and I promise ye, yer babe will be yer last concern.” He pushed his jacket open and began unbuttoning his breeches. “Now, be a good lass. Keep yer yap closed and yer legs open.”
Alice began gagging. The smells and fetid surroundings made it easy for her to lose the contents of her stomach all over the randy Captain Rasher.
“Ah!