Tainted Lilies Read Online Free Page B

preparing to follow him. Laffite felt a certain pride that these well-trained buccaneers needed no direct orders from him to know what to do.
    The mulatto woman in his arms began coming around. She coughed several times before her eyes fluttered open, wide and staring. Taking him for one of the pirates who had attacked the Fleur de Lis and unceremoniously dumped her overboard, laughing at her protests, she now flailed her arms, frantically trying to escape.
    Her elbow hit him a glancing blow to the temple and Laffite gripped her tighter, saying, “God in heaven, woman! You’ll drown us both! Be still. I’m trying to help you, dammit!”
    “Never mind me,” she whimpered. “You got to save my mistress and Madame Gabrielle. They still on that ship. And those terrible men, they say they going to… they say they mean to…” but her words broke off in coughing sobs.
    “How many passengers are onboard?” Laffite asked the servant as he and the oarsman settled her in the bottom of the longboat.
    “Only my Nicolette and her Tante Gabi, m’sieu. The ship belong to my master, M’sieu Vernet of N’Orleans. Captain D’Orsay brought us from France. A safe passage. But now… Mon Dieu !” Another sob cracked her voice. “You got to save them, please!” Sukey begged.
    He stared down for a moment at the hysterical woman, remembering her only vaguely. He hadn’t paid much attention to the servant that night. His eyes had been for the girl alone. So the desolate little refugee who had been shipped off to Paris was home again. She’d been a sweet thing, if he recalled correctly, and so lovely she made his heart ache. Made more than that ache! he thought, reliving her innocent, but urgent, kisses in his mind.
    A woman’s scream from above told him Nicolette Vernet was still alive. Browne and his men—Gambi’s men, he corrected in his mind—were notorious womanizers. Without help, the girl’s fate was as certain as the next tide.
    Jean Laffite, his long, dark hair plastered back by the sea, his bare chest glistening in the hard glare of the sun, and his britches clinging to every muscled bulge of his thighs, looked like the terror he was called. His mustachioed lip curled back from his teeth in an angry snarl as he grabbed up a rapier in one hand, a cutlass in the other.
    When they neared the ship, he leaped to catch hold of the rope ladder. His men waited above, gripping the outer sides of the ship’s railing, ready to spring at his command.
    “Ready, lads?” Laffite whispered with the gruff voice of a man not used to speaking softly. “Mind you, leave Browne to me. We have a score to settle.”
    Laffite hurled himself over the rail without further conversation, springing with the ease of a hunting panther and a snarl to match. The yells and whoops of his six men filled the air, freezing Browne’s half-dozen pirates where they stood, but only momentarily. Sabers and cutlasses flashed like fire, sending sparks over the smoldering deck.
    Laffite spied Browne, taunting the bound girl, and made a dash for him. The other woman—her aunt-was nowhere in sight.
    Another scream tore itself from Nicolette’s throat.
    “Your time’s up, Browne!” Laffite growled through clenched teeth, brandishing the cutlass dangerously close to the pirate’s midsection. “Throw down your weapon and tell your men to do the same.”
    Browne backed away, circling the dark-haired girl tied to the mast. He smiled through gaping teeth, but made no move to toss his saber aside.
    “Have a heart, mate,” Browne wheedled. “I’ll split the booty with you. Even this bit of fluff I’ve taken prisoner.” He jerked his head toward Nicolette Vernet. “Ain’t been a bad morning’s work!”
    “Your last morning’s work, Browne!” Laffite replied, closing in. “My orders were that no American ships were to be molested.”
    “Ah, there, you see, boy, that’s where our problem lies. I take me orders from Vincent Gambi and none other. Had