“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Ask no questions. Besides, you cannot expect a straight answer from these worthless asps. If anyone sees him, send a runner—”

“I beg your pardon,” said a child holding out a missive. “Would ye be Captain Cameron?”

“I am.”

Without another word, Kennan swiped the letter from the lad’s fingertips and hastened to open it.

What he read made the fires of hell swell throughout his chest. I have your woman. And I will continue to take everything you hold dear as long as you pursue me. —Vane.

Dear God, the bastard already knew Divana was a lass.

* * *

The enormous scoundrel pulled Divana down from the donkey and threw her to the sand. She thrust out her bound hands to break her fall, her gaze homing onto two pairs of square-toed shoes with silver buckles. As she scrambled away, her gaze trailed from the shoes all the way up to the faces of the men who wore them, and she immediately recognized the Frenchman from Mistress Evans’s house. He was podgy and vile—how could she have thought him anything but despicable?

Shifting her gaze, all horrid thoughts of Claude Dubois escalated into a new form of dread. The brigand beside the Frenchman posed the most fearsome picture—a man whose face struck terror in her heart. Cloaked in black, he wore a tricorne low over his brow. Thick, black whiskers hid his expression—but she knew it was menacing. The whites of his eyes glared, piercing through the shadowy light.

Divana’s mouth grew dry as she realized she was staring into the eyes of Vane himself.

The big guard stopped her retreat with a boot to the middle of her spine. “That’s far enough.”

Dubois lunged in, reached around her head, and untied the leather thong from her club. Scowling, he yanked it away, making her hair fall about her shoulders in waves. “See? I knew she was Cameron’s woman as soon as I saw her in Nassau.”

She eyed him. “Ye sailed here on the Silver Mermaid?”

“Shut your mouth,” said the lout from behind.

Flinching, she dodged his vicious boot.

A low, wicked laugh pealed from the depths of Vane’s throat. “Mayhap you’re smarter than your lover.” Oddly, the rogue spoke with a highborn English accent.

Her face burned as she clutched her hands to her stomach. “Why are ye doing this?”

“I own these waters. If anyone is foolish enough to threaten me, he will pay dearly with his life and the lives of all for whom he cares.”

Divana clutched the slingshot wrapped around her waist. They’d captured her to provoke Kennan? She mustn’t let them think her disappearance would hurt him. “But Captain Cameron doesn’t give a fig about me.”

“Liar!” Dubois slapped her across the face. “My informant confirmed it. She’s Cameron’s woman.”

Vane smirked. “No longer.”

As Divana drew a hand over her burning cheek, her mind raced. An informant? Who?

Ethan.

The Frenchman bent downward, thrusting his face an inch from hers. “Your beau stole something from me I intend to reclaim in blood.”