I don’t want you.

Something inside her splintered and cracked. Sophia wrapped her arms tightly across her chest, as if she could hold the pieces together. Gray turned back to his brother. “Fall back as soon as we’re aboard, you hear? We’ll signal when all’s clear.”

He hoisted his body’s weight on the rope, the powerful brawn of his arms and back straining against the seams of his wet shirt. “The Aphrodite’s yours, Joss. Take care of her for me.”

“Aye, I will.” A knowing look passed between them. “I’ll look after the ship, too.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Gray’s boots hit the Kestrel’s deck with a hollow thud. Once the other three dropped over the rail, he began giving orders. The howling wind forced him to shout.

“O’Shea, take the wheel. Keep her steady, pointed into the gale. Otherwise, she’ll be on her beam ends before we even get a whiff of smoke.” The Irishman nodded and raced to the helm.

Gray looked to Levi. “Find some axes and start chopping down the mainmast. I’ll join you.”

His men dispatched, Gray peered up, squinting at the darkened sky rent by a line of bright flame. The fire was halfway down the mast now. With this unholy wind fanning the flames, they had only a matter of minutes before the fire reached the deck. No time to waste.

“I’ll chop with Levi.” Davy stood at his elbow. “I’m strong.”

“No.” Gray looked around. Where were the damn axes, anyhow? “I need you to search the ship. See if there are blazes in the hold. Look for injured, or anyone trapped. If you come across anything flammable—spirits, powder, medicines—you’re to heave it overboard immediately, do you understand?”

The boy nodded, his face pale but determined. “Aye, captain.” Davy’s voice cracked, and Gray felt a twinge of guilt. He should have insisted the boy stay aboard the Aphrodite.

“I’m not your captain,” Gray called after him.

“On this ship, you are.” With a shrug, Davy hurried toward the hatch. Gray strode toward the mainmast, looking for Levi. His boots crunched over something metallic. He stared down at the deck. Nails. Bent, fused together, some gnarled as tree roots. Good Lord, he’d heard of lightning strikes like this—jolts strong enough to rip nails right out of the mast and send them clattering to the deck—but he’d never seen such a thing, in all his years at sea. He hoped he’d never see it again.

A misshapen hunk of metal rolled to a stop at his feet, still smoking. Gray  kicked the roundish lump. “What the devil is that?”

“I think it used to be the bell.”

Gray’s head snapped up, and he found two bedraggled sailors standing before him.

“What can we do?” the shorter of the two asked, rubbing his shoulder as though it ached.

“Are you unharmed?” Gray eyed the men from head to toe. Tattered clothing hung from their gaunt frames, and their hands were black with tar and soot. The acrid odor of singed hair assaulted his nostrils. The sailors nodded. “Just rattled, is all,” the taller one said. “Others weren

’t so lucky.” He tilted his head toward a lifeless heap of rags on the opposite side of the deck. Mercifully, the dead sailor’s face was hidden from view, but a charred hand still clutched the rigging. Gray swallowed hard, tasting bile. “Where’s your captain?” He brushed past the sailors. “And where the devil are your axes?”

“Don’t know where the captain’s at,” one sailor answered. “Probably rummin’ in his cabin. I’d like to think the bastard’s dead, but we wouldn’t be that lucky.”

“As for the axes …” The taller seaman nodded toward the rail, and Gray followed his gaze. A row of wooden hatchet handles stood at attention. Their hatchet blades, however, lay on the deck. Jolted from their handles, still smoking, half-melted … and completely, utterly useless. Gray swore. Levi came bounding out from the galley, some sort of meat cleaver in one hand and a carving knife in the other. It was all Gray could do not to laugh till he cried. They were going to take down the mast with a meat cleaver?

Without a word, Levi handed him the knife and began attacking the mainmast with the cleaver. Well, apparently they were going to try. Gray ran to the standing rigging, using the knife to saw through the ropes that connected mast and ship. If by some miracle Levi managed to cut through the mainmast, it couldn’t fall clear with the rigging intact. The two sailors drew knives from their belts and began to assist. Despite the spray and wind, Gray’s body quickly heated with the exertion. Sweat trickled down his brow, and he dabbed at it with his sleeve between blows. Eventually, he gave up the sawing motion in favor of full-armed swipes of the knife.

“How many crewmen?” he yelled at the sailors, hacking away at another rope. “Dead.” Thwack. “Alive.”

“There’s eleven of us. Five were in the forecastle. Don’t know how they fared. Two dead here on deck. A few others got blasted, but they’re still alive. So far.”

“What’s in the hold?” His blow landed awkwardly, glancing the rail. Pain erupted in his elbow.

“Rum!” Davy scrambled toward them, juggling a small powder keg. Gray stopped mid-swing and stared at the boy. Terror was etched on his young face. “It’s rum, Gray. The hold’s full to bursting with it, and the—”

Davy tripped on a coil of rope, dropping the keg. Gray watched it roll back down the quarterdeck, trailing a thin line of powder as it went. Perfect. Just bloody wonderful.

Gray swung the knife again, fear cramping his side. “Is there fire below?”

“Not that I saw. But there are wounded men down there. One of them …”

Davy’s chest convulsed with a sudden heave, as if he would vomit. “One of them’s burnt bad.”

“Boats?” Gray looked to the sailors.

“Just one.”

A wave of heat swamped them as the topsail caught fire, going up in flames like a dry leaf. Gray examined the shallow groove in the mainmast. Despite Levi’s strength, he’d barely managed to score the trunk of pine. It would take far too long to fell it. By that time, the flames would be too low. The fire would reach the deck, ignite the powder, spread to the hold full of rum, and the entire ship would explode like a Bonapartist’s grenade. Bloody hell.

Levi kept swinging the tiny cleaver, while the rest of the men merely stared at Gray. Davy swallowed and shifted his weight, clearly awaiting direction. “Captain?”

The instant that word fell from Davy’s lips, Gray knew several things. He knew he was now the de facto captain of this godforsaken ship. He’d boarded it and taken command, and now he had to stay with it until the end. He knew he could save some of the men, but not all. At this rate, they’d be lucky to get the boat lowered before the rum exploded, let alone bring the injured up from the hold. And he knew he couldn’t leave the wounded behind and live with himself afterward. Which meant he wouldn’t live. He’d never get back to the Aphrodite. Not to his business, not to his family. Not to her.

He was going to die. Today.

Christ.

He ran both hands through his hair, pushing it off his brow, then took the cleaver from Levi. “Put in the boat. Raise the call to abandon ship.” A hunk of charred yardarm dropped to the deck at his feet, forcing him to step back. “And be quick about it.”

The men hurried to lower the jolly boat from the ship’s stern, leaving Gray to stare up at the burning mainmast. The mast danced with flame like a giant candlewick. He made a fist and punched the stubborn column of wood, earning nothing but scraped knuckles and searing pain for his trouble.

“Fall, damn you.” He leaned his shoulder against the mast and pushed, though he knew it a futile effort. Teeth gritted and heels dug into the grooves of the deck, he shoved again. “Fall.”

Nothing.

An unfamiliar seaman’s voice rasped through the gale. “Abandon ship! All hands, abandon ship! To the boat!”

A handful of sailors struggled up through the forecastle hatch, lurching their way toward the stern. If the men noticed a bearded madman attempting to topple the mainmast with his bare hands, they did not pause to spare him a second glance.

“Stop that bloody shouting!”

The surly, languid curse drew Gray’s attention toward the stern. He watched as a lanky man in a black, brass-buttoned coat staggered out from the captain’s cabin, rubbing his bleary face. Slack-jawed and blinking, he wore an expression that was one part bewilderment, two parts liquor. The captain looked up at the encroaching flames and scowled. “What the devil—?”

Gray shook his head. Had the man slept through the whole damned ordeal? He’d lost at least two crewmen and his ship was poised to become an inferno, and this excuse for a commander had the idiocy to curse the alarm that roused him from his stupor?

The deck lurched, and the drunken captain grabbed a pin for support. With the next roll of the ship, he vomited wildly on his own boots. Gray took two strides toward the helm and cupped his hands around his mouth. “O’Shea!”

The Irishman caught his gaze across the ship’s wheel.

Gray indicated the retching officer. “Get him to the boat. And stay there yourself. Tell Levi to start pulling away. Now.”

“What about you, Gray?”

“I’ll swim out to you. Now go!”

“Aye, aye.” O’Shea yanked on the captain’s coat sleeve, practically carrying him toward the boat. They both disappeared over the ship’s rail, and Gray watched the ropes securing the jolly boat reel out and then go slack.

They were away.

Gray sagged against the mainmast, feeling the flames above him singe his hair. He was going to die here, alone, leaving nothing to mark his time on this earth but a string of dashed expectations and broken promises. His legacy would fade faster than the wake of a porpoise.

Something popped overhead, and sparks showered down around him. Ducking, Gray buried his face against his arm. Perhaps, he thought, he could swim for it. There were injured men in the hold—how many? Four?

Five? No way to save them now. But he could save himself. He could swim back to her. He’d swim miles to her, if that’s what it took. But could he live with himself afterward, knowing he’d abandoned five men to an agonizing death while he swam to safety?

An image of her loveliness bloomed behind his eyelids.

Gray decided maybe he could.

Sliding his back down the mast, he sank to the deck and wrestled to remove his boots.

The flames had reached the standing rigging now. Above him, the tar sizzled and popped on the surfaces of the ropes, dripping to the deck like a black, sulfurous rain. His first taste of hell? The heat of the flames washed over him.

And then a familiar voice froze the very blood in his veins.

“What now, Captain?”

It couldn’t be. Gray’s head snapped up, and a curse tainted his rough exhalation. It was. Davy. “What the hell are you still doing here? You were supposed to leave with the boat!”

The boy shrugged. “I didn’t. Thought you needed me.”

Gray squeezed his eyes shut and let his booted foot fall to the deck.

“Davy, I don’t suppose you can swim?”

“No, Captain.”

Gray swore again. He kicked the mast. Punched it. Stepped back, lowered his shoulder and rammed it with all his strength, all the while releasing a vicious stream of profanity.

Davy tilted his head and scratched his neck. “Don’t think that’s working.”

“You’re bloody right, it’s not working,” Gray shouted at him. “We’re going to die, do you realize that?”

“Is there no other way to take a mast down?”

“I’ve taken dozens of masts down. But from my own damn ship, with the…” As Gray’s voice trailed off, hope sparked in his chest. The idea was pure madness. But better mad than dead. He wheeled to face the bow, a prayer caught in his throat as his eyes swept the deck. Finally, his gaze locked on the object he sought.