The Pirate's Jewel Read Online Free Page B

both compliment and inspiration. What would her father do if he were
in her predicament? He would force Nolan to see reason. Over the years, she had
prepared herself to be a useful member of her father’s crew. Growing up in a
tavern had hardened her in ways that would make other women her age swoon.
Nolan would not win their battle of wills. And if she discovered Nolan had done
anything to harm her father, Jewel would show him she had indeed inherited more
than her father’s eyes.

Chapter Two
     
     
    Nolan paused at Charles Town’s seediest tavern, identified
by a door painted the color of blood. Located in a small alley east of Bay
Street, the Maiden’s Head didn’t even have an address. A small version of a
ship’s figurehead sprang from a windowless brick building marking the entrance.
Two street lamps at the turnoff had been shattered, leaving the carved image of
a woman muted by shadow. Nolan stared at the woman’s bare breasts and the black
hair that fell to her waist.
    He glanced away, disturbed that he’d been momentarily
intrigued by the sight of the poorly carved statue. Five years had passed since
he had set foot in a place like the Maiden’s Head. He straightened his jacket,
secure in the knowledge that he’d become a different man. This establishment
would not change that.
    The moment he pushed open the heavy door, several patrons
paused in throwing back their tankards to stare. Nolan met the wall of
hostility with a fierce gaze, swept off his stiff tricorn hat and entered the
thieves’ den.
    He searched the room for John Wayland. Exposed beams
crisscrossed one wall and lined the ceiling. Smoke from the fire at the far end
of the tavern strained the plaster between those beams. Brick made up the other
two walls, and there was a long bar at the back. After stepping in from the
crisp spring night, heat from the sweating sailors and the flames hit Nolan
like a fist.
    He reached for his handkerchief, intent on wiping his brow,
but realized he had left it with Jewel. He wished he could discard her memory
as easily. She had not been at all what he expected. He remembered her as a wide-eyed
little girl who had made him long for home. Barely out of his teens, he’d
already become bored with the women he met in the drinking dens and alleys of
the Caribbean. Though she’d worked at the Quail and Queen even then, Jewel had
reminded him of the boy he might have been if he hadn’t run away from home at fourteen.
A strange combination of adolescent lust and a man’s protectiveness had
overcome him and urged him to challenge an opponent he couldn’t beat. His
reward had been a dagger in the shoulder.
    Had he been expecting gratitude five years later? Perhaps
he had. Perhaps he’d thought she would come to realize her father was a liar
and had only used her. The man had even used her to ensure Nolan’s obedience. Bellamy
had promised to spread word of the map’s location if Nolan tried to leave his
crew again. By that time, it had become clear to both Bellamy and Nolan that Captain
Kent’s map couldn’t be read by just anyone, themselves included. Kent’s cryptic
directions held secrets to which his grandson wasn’t privy. Fear of what would
become of Jewel had kept Nolan in line for a short while. But it also had
necessitated the impetuous Bellamy’s own downfall.
    Nolan searched the crowd again, looking the fiercest men
straight in the eye. Strangely, he felt more comfortable with these armed
pirates than Bellamy’s offspring. He now gladly sought the worst his former profession
had to offer, if only to prove how much he had changed.
    Unfortunately, the identifying scar running from the corner
of Wayland’s eye to the tip of his nose did not render him distinguishable in
this lot. Missing eyes and noses were common among the weathered faces. Piracy had
a tendency to wear down a man as traffic did the cobblestones on Bay Street.
Bellamy was the exception. He still loomed larger than life every time