Read Online April Moon by Susan King, Merline Lovelace, MIRANDA JARRETT - Free Book Online

lips pressed tight. His cheeks reddened. With a churlish nod, he conceded. “You have my parole.”
    “Very well. Let’s join our men topside.”
     
    T HE MOON GLOWED bright and full when Sarah poked her head through the hatch. A brisk breeze tossed the ends of her hair. Holding her skirts up with one hand to keep from tripping over them, she climbed the last few stairs and stepped onto the deck.
    The first thing she saw was the Seahawk. No longer a ghost ship, the American brig blazed from stem to stern with lanterns. Sleek and trim, she bobbed only a few dozen yards off the starboard side of the Linx and rode the waves with the grace of a gull. Her gunports, Sarah noted with a gulp, were all raised.
    Gingerly she stepped over pieces of debris and made for the waist of the Linx, where the frigate’s crew was lined up along the rail. The officers stood to the fore, grim-faced and stiff-shouldered. Having given their parole, many of them had been allowed to retain their weapons.
    That wasn’t the case with the seamen and marines. Evidently their word of honor wasn’t sufficient surety of their conduct. They stood in ranks behind their officers, many still blurry-eyed and groggy from the sleeping draught they’d been administered. Those who’d fully awakened scowled at the Americans standing guard over them.
    Sarah searched the assemblage anxiously. To her relief, she spotted Maude off to one side, still under the protection of Carpenter’s Mate Jenkins. As she and James moved to stand with his officers, she saw that a number of British seamen had joined the ranks of Americans. Far more than the twelve James had reputedly taken off the Seahawk.
    James spotted them, as well. His voice taut with anger, he promised retribution. “I’ll see you men hung for desertion. Every last one of you.”
    One of the turncoats hacked up a gob of spit and launched it through the air. The mess landed on the captain’s boot with a loud plop.
    “I’d rather take me chances with the ’angman than with you,” he said scornfully. “At least ’is rope does its work quick and clean.”
    “We ought to give him a taste of the cat,” the sailor beside him growled. “See how well he wears his stripes.”
    Others fell in with the idea and voiced a chorus of eager suggestions.
    “Soak the whip in seawater first so it burns more, like he ordered done for us.”
    “Grab ’im, boys. Let’s tie ’im to the grate.”
    “I want first cut!”
    Several started for their former captain, only to be stopped in their tracks by a stern command.
    “Hold where you are!”
    Richard strode forward and put himself between the angry deserters and the captain of the Linx.
    “Sir James has given his parole, as have his officers. We honor such pledges in the American navy. If you’re to sail with me, you will honor them, too.”
    Only one of the deserters dared challenge that flat ultimatum. “You don’t know what he done to poor little Billy, the lad what waited on his table last voyage,” the burly seaman protested. “We buried the boy at sea.”
    “I repeat,” Richard said, his voice steely, “the captain has given his parole. If you wish to sail with me, you’ll haul yourself to the rail and climb down into the one of the Seahawk ’s boats. Now!”
    The hulking seaman threw a last, loathing glanceat James before spinning on his heel and marching to the far rail. The rest of the deserters followed.
    Over the painful pounding of her heart, Sarah watched them grasp the ropes and disappear. She heard a series of thumps. A muttered curse or two. The splash of oars as a boat pulled away.
    In the silence that followed, the two captains faced each other. The moon’s bright glow bathed them both, and the brisk breeze tossed the fringe of their gold epaulets. Aside from those visible symbols of their rank, they had little in common. One was thin, elegant, tight-lipped with anger and burning with the desire to avenge this insult to him and to his