Tainted Lilies Read Online Free PDF Page A

Gambi passed them words on to me, this here ship would be sailing smooth as you please on her way to New Orleans. But Gambi, he says, ‘Loot’s for the taking, lads. A pirate shows no allegiance.’ I go by Gambi’s word alone.”
    “Then you’ll pay the penalty for your crimes,” Laffite answered, positioning himself to lunge.
    Silas Browne moved quickly for a man of his age and weight. Before Laffite’s blade could contact flesh, he leaped for the girl, putting her and the mast between himself and Jean Laffite.
    “Please,” Nicolette whimpered. “No more.”
    Laffite backed off, taking in her torn gown, bruised mouth, and the glaze of torment in her blue eyes.
    “You’ve sunk low enough to hide behind a woman’s skirts, Browne?” Laffite taunted. “I might have guessed as much from one of your kind.”
    “My kind, is it?” Browne sneered. “And what might you mean by that?”
    “One who would take orders from the likes of Vincent Gambi, then whine over his punishment. What’s he getting out of this raid? Half? Or is he talking all the cargo and the women?”
    Browne squinched up his colorless eyes and stared hard at Jean Laffite. “Women?” he said. “There ain’t but this one. If you mean the nigger wench, Hernandez throwed her to the sharks.”
    “Never mind!” Laffite snapped. “You know Gambi won’t divide equally. You’ll come away with your tail between your legs and your wounds to lick… if you come away at all!”
    “In a pig’s eye!” Browne spat, his face distorting with rage, showing Laffite that his words hit near the mark. “I’ll take the captain’s share and the woman, if I want her. Puny thing, though. I like my chippies with more ass and tits to ’em!” As he said this, Browne slipped his big hands around to cup Nicolette’s breasts.
    She cried out, her eyes wide with fright.
    Laffite recognized both his advantage of the moment and the further terror his action would cause Nicolette, but there was no help for it.
    “Don’t be afraid, Nikki,” he said, but saw that his words had little effect as he lunged his rapier point-blank for her breast.
    Sure of his aim and timing, Jean Laffite thrust his arm and body forward, stabbing Browne through the back of his sword hand.
    The pirate howled in pain, letting go of Nicolette’s torso in a convulsive jerk. He unleashed a stream of gutter words as he spun away, crouching his body over his wounded hand.
    Nicolette’s still form hung heavily against the ropes binding her to the mast, mercifully released from her terror for the time by a sudden faint.
    She was spared the sight of the bloody battle being waged around her. She didn’t have to view Browne’s death or the hoisting of his body to be tied by the ankles from the jib boom of the Sea Raven. This universal form of punishment served as a warning to other would-be offenders of the harshness and swiftness of Laffite’s Law of the Gulf.

Chapter Two
    Nicolette, though dead weight in his arms, felt light as a feather to Jean Laffite. He lowered her gently to the deck, all the while wondering what the past hours had been for her. Would she survive Browne’s harsh treatment and return to her old self? Or would she awake a dead-eyed shell of the woman she had been?
    He had seen that sort of reaction once before in Bianca, the mere child he’d rescued and married to restore some semblance of her honor after these same pirates had taken her by force.
    “Poor Bianca. I never knew her as a whole and vital woman. She died, in spirit, long before that stray bullet pierced her tiny breast.”
    Laffite realized suddenly that he’d spoken aloud. He cleared his throat self-consciously and glanced about the ship’s deck. No one was close enough to have heard. Only Nikki, and she remained still… silent… pale as death. He quickly erased that thought from his mind.
    “Hey, Boss! Look here!” Reyne Beluche, Laffite’s uncle, called out in a jubilant voice.
    Reyne, the first of