Free The Diamond King by PATRICIA POTTER Page B

complained.
    “You object?” the captain said softly, even gently.
    Despite the tone of his voice, Jenna wished the man had not challenged their captor. Even she knew it wasn’t wise.
    “Yes,” said Geoffrey Carrefour, obviously emboldened by living through the first encounter and oblivious to a sudden tension among the nearby crew members.
    The captain turned to a sailor beside him, a man that looked as much the brigand as his captain. “Burke, you can show Mr. Carrefour to the brig with the crewmen.”
    The planter’s face paled. “Surely you would not—”
    “Surely I would,” the captain said. “Anyone else wish to complain about their accommodations?”
    Any objections—or requests—Jenna might have had died at that moment. She certainly didn’t look forward to sharing a cabin with Blanche Carrefour, who had avoided her since the beginning of the voyage, making it clear that she thought Scots, even Scots loyal to the English king, were beneath her. Now her life depended on the whims of a Scottish renegade.
    “Our possessions?” the plantation owner continued, plowing, it seemed to Jenna, a path to his own destruction.
    The pirate looked at him curiously, as if he were a particularly obnoxious insect. Jenna expected an outburst. Instead, he spoke rather mildly. “They will be delivered to you in due course.”
    “But—”
    The rough-looking sailor named Burke put his hand on the planter. “Come with me.”
    The planter resisted until the seaman fingered his knife. Then his face fell and he nodded, casting a forlorn look at his wife.
    Their belongings had piled up on the deck. Jenna looked longingly at hers, but she was not going to challenge the captain now, not after what had happened to Mr. Carrefour.
    No one said anything. Not even Captain Talbot, who looked as if he had lost a beloved friend as his gaze continually went back to his ship. The torn sails were being taken down and other sails hoisted on the existing masts.
    Unfortunately, the pirate turned his attention back to her. His gaze pinned her like an insect to a board. “And you, Lady Jeanette, do you have a complaint?”
    “I have many of them,” she said, “but not about the accommodations. More about piracy.”
    A strange glint came into his eyes. But the perpetual smile caused by the scar made her unable to read his expression. That made him truly frightening.
    Yet when he turned the scarred cheek away, he was uncommonly handsome. He also walked with a limp. She wondered whether it was a recent wound. But any sympathy she might have had had long seeped from her. He had probably been trying to kill whoever had injured him.
    Instead, she tried to look directly into his eyes without flinching. They were dark blue, as cold and enigmatic as the North Atlantic they had left behind.
    He turned to one of his men, an officer. “Take them to their quarters. Search the men for weapons. Check through their belongings to see whether there’s anything valuable. I’m going to check on Meg.”
    “
Oui
,” the officer said. Unlike the man called Burke, he looked every inch a disciplined seaman. He was a large man, neatly dressed, despite his hefty build.
    Still, she noted a silent exchange between the two, just as there had been between the captain and the sailors left on the
Ami
. It contrasted with the disciplined crew on the
Charlotte
. Although Captain Talbot was not a martinet, he had expected formality from his crew. Perhaps there was a different kind of bond between pirates.
    She absorbed everything. She wanted to remember everything. There would be a trial someday. In the meantime, she intended to keep herself and Celia alive—and untouched.
    There had been no physical threat yet, but that didn’t mean there would continue to be none. The fact that the women were being put together could bode well or ill. They would be alone without male protection.
    At the last minute before they were captured, she had taken a knife from a plate of