It was time, he knew. He’d had her stateroom scrubbed clean almost a fortnight ago, right after he’d found her on the floor. Yet he had made her stay in his room for at least two days past when she needed to. Another day and she just might think him a madman holding her captive.
Maybe he had turned to madman, for the difficult time he was having letting her leave his room. For somewhere within the past two weeks, she had become his. His responsibility. His to care for. His to keep safe, warm, fed. To keep smiling, laughing, her spirits bolstered.
It was the oddest thing—something he could not name, could not figure—but he had brought her back from utter darkness and it was his world that had found an uncanny ray of light.
Cass hadn’t asked for any of it from him, and after she had truly awoken from her illness, she had tried to remove herself time and again from the burden she was positive she was. He wouldn’t have it. Not until he was sure she would be fine on her own. Even if on her own meant four steps down the hallway.
If anything, she had accepted the last five days with cautious humor at his protectiveness. Her inherent wariness of him had lessened, but not disappeared. She didn’t fully trust him. Didn’t trust his intentions.
Not that she should—he wasn’t even positive what his actual intentions were when it came to her.
Cass picked up a chunk of brown bread, looking to him. “This Vandestile land you need, Rorrick, why is it so important to you?” She popped the bread into her mouth.
He looked to her face, his eyebrow lifting as he leaned back in his chair, pulling his right ankle up to rest on his left knee. Studying her for a moment, he tried to decipher her sudden curiosity, as she hadn’t asked him anything of the land before that moment. “I want to right the estate if I can.”
“So, greed?”
Greed? Was she attempting to bait him? He reached to his own plate on the table, his fingernail digging into the chunk of cheese to free a morsel. “I would say that particular word leaps far past my intentions.”
“You wouldn’t call it that?”
“No, I wouldn’t call it that.” He ate a bite of the cheese, considering her. He wasn’t about to tell her this was just another one of his brother’s messes he needed to clean up. She couldn’t be privy to anything about that matter.
She slipped another piece of bread into her mouth, watching him as she chewed. “Then why is this tract of land so important?”
“There is ore under it. Both copper and tin. Money made from that ore can be used for actual viable investments, used to build a factory that has a life span beyond what can be dug from the ground.”
“That sounds enterprising, especially when the estate can run on its own, as long as one is frugal with the expenses.”
“With farming? With the land and livestock?” He shook his head. “Not for much longer, and not for a sustainable period of time.”
“Why not?”
“It will take far more than bushels of wheat to support the estate in the near future, much less pull it out of debt.” He shifted his bent right leg, his boot clomping to the floor as he leaned to the table and pulled a bite of bread from his loaf. “Mining the land now is the key—a bridge as it is—it will produce the funds needed to create the next line of income.”
Her lower jaw moved in a slow chew as she considered him. “You do think differently, don’t you, Rorrick?”
He shrugged. “I think like an American, yes, if that is what you are referring to.”
“No, it is not just that—I imagine many Americans are lazy and willing to do nothing just the same as everywhere.” Grabbing her plate, she scooted forward slightly on the edge of the bed. “No, it is about you—you have energy for growth, for wanting to make something out of nothing.”
“Many men have the tenacity for growth—even in English society.”
“But none that I have seen that is so open about his intentions.” She rolled the last bite of her bread in her fingers. “It is so interesting to watch. I have not known a man like you.”
She popped the last piece of bread into her mouth. Balancing the plate on her lap, she leaned toward the table to grab the chessboard designed specifically for life at sea and then juggled it onto the bed. She set her empty plate onto the table and then grabbed her cup from the round notch in the wood and sipped. Good. That was the first full meal she’d eaten. It was time for him to cease the hawk eyes he had on her. For his own sanity, if nothing else.
Her look went to the chessboard on the bed and she picked up a rook, rolling it between her fingers. “I don’t like it that you can almost beat me now.”
Rorrick gave her a wry smile. When he had found the board with the carved pieces weathered to the point where they were almost indistinct, he had thought it would give them a few minutes of entertainment. He had only rudimentary knowledge of the game, but as it turned out, Cass was well versed in the strategies of the chessboard and had spent hour after hour delightfully tromping him.
He swallowed the last of his cheese. “One last game before we settle you back into your stateroom?”
A brilliant smile lit up her face. “Yes. And do let me win. I want to leave your room a victor, my head held high.”
“When I someday actually manage to set myself in the position to win, Cass, there is no circumstance where I would let you out of my clutches. No pity when it comes to the board. Isn’t that what you said during our second game?”
She chuckled. “That will come back to haunt me, won’t it?”
“If I have anything to say on the matter, it will.” He stacked his plate on top of hers, the metal clanging on the table, and then stood to move to the foot of the bed.
She scooted to the head of the bed, settling her back against the wall and arranging her legs modestly under her skirt. Each chess piece had a thin hole carved into the bottom, and she set the rook back into place, wiggling it onto the peg that protruded up from the board to hold it steady against the rollicking of the waves.
He sat opposite her on the bed, relaxing his shoulders onto the wall by the foot of it. She set the board in between them, twisting each piece on its peg so it faced in the appropriate direction—or at least the pieces that still held some semblance of a front and back side.
Her golden eyes focused on the board and he stole the moment to study her.
He didn’t need this complication.
Go to England, right the Vandestile estate, get back to America.
That was his mission. And the woman sitting opposite him on the bed had unwittingly become a major complication to that goal.
For she wasn’t just his responsibility. He wanted her.
But not like he had ever wanted a woman before.
She felt different. Hell, she was different. How he wanted her was different. Different in an intangible way he could not discern.
He wanted her, yes. But it was more.
She was beautiful, but he had desired and seduced many beautiful women. It was something he could not name. Something that went past the burning in his groin when he let his look stay on her too long.
It was unsettling how much he wanted to spend time with her. How much he dreaded her walking out his doorway.
She looked up at him, the amber streaks in her eyes glowing. “Your move.”
Damn complications.
~~~
“Green you say?” Cass stretched her fingers upward and Rorrick’s warm hand enveloped hers. In the next instant he yanked her upward from the steep ladder leading from the quarterdeck to the poop deck. Her toes dangled in midair for a moment before her feet landed on the boards of the deck.
Cass looked about. The upper deck at the rear of the ship was empty except for the seaman half asleep at the ship’s wheel. The day had been clear and mostly windless, so there were no deckhands scurrying about. And, apparently, three weeks of searching for green flashes at sunset had lost its allure for the rest of the stateroom passengers that hadn’t fallen ill.
But this was new to Cass. Three weeks on the ship and she was just beginning to feel right again with her body. Her strength had mostly returned, she was once again sleeping a normal amount, and her legs had grown accustomed to the sway of the ship.
“Green—a dot, a flash, just atop the last sliver of the setting sun.” Rorrick dropped her hand once she was steady and he nodded to the side of the ship at the back corner that faced west.
They walked to the railing and Cass set her hands on the top rung of smooth wood, gripping it as she leaned back, inhaling the fresh air. She was beginning to consider rolling out a blanket onto the quarterdeck for sleeping, for the stench that had been brewing on the levels below was starting to seep into her stateroom.
Rorrick pointed at the bright sun just starting to dip beyond the horizon. “Some call it Neptune’s Wink, the green flash, and one has to watch closely to see it.”
She looked up at his profile. “You said there was lore around it?”
“A few versions.” He looked down to her. “It depends on how you prefer your lore.”
“Give me the options.”
“Well, if you’re a sailor, the green flash can either mean a clear day of sailing on the ‘morrow, or it is a sign that a soul has escaped back into this world from the dead. If you’re a romantic, witnessing the green burst means that you will make wise decisions on the matter of love, for only those that truly know his or her own heart can see it.”
Cass wrinkled her nose. “Well, if I am able to see it, it is a sure indicator that the sailor lore is the sounder choice.”
The right side of his lips lifted in a half smile. “Not a romantic?”
“I would be if I weren’t such a failure with matters of the heart.”
“Cass—”
She waved her fingers in the air, stopping his next words. “Look, the sun is almost down.”
His eyes left her to look across the unending ocean to the sunset. Without a word, he set his forearms atop the railing and leaned forward, his focus on the sky. For the next minutes, they stood in silence next to each other, his forearm brushing her hand with each gentle tilt of the ship.
She appreciated this about Rorrick—his ability for silence. He didn’t need to clutter the space between them with words that were only spoken to fill the air. He let her drift off, wordless, without forcing her back into conversation. It made it particularly easy to be around him, as she wasn’t always on edge, searching for words, for witty remarks to entertain.
The sun disappeared halfway behind the horizon and she stole a sideways glance at him. His light brown hair had been bleached by the sun in the past week, several blond streaks appearing. While they had oftentimes sat in the salon below deck with the other stateroom passengers, they had more often than not spent their time above deck in the fresh air and sunlight. It had been cool at first, but now that they were in southern waters the air had grown warmer.
Her look drifted to the strong lines of his profile and the dark beard he had only once shaven off during the journey. He was handsome, even though she liked to ignore that fact most of the time. Mostly because she had discovered the most surprising thing about him was that she actually liked him.
And not just because he had saved her from death’s door.
Rorrick was funny and gracious and kind and genuinely interested in her. He had made inquiries into the Revelry’s Tempest—how she ran the business, how she had managed to keep the gaming hall so popular amongst the ton’s fickle taste for so many years—and those conversations had spiraled into a thousand questions of how commerce was generally carried out in England. Rorrick readily admitted that the whole of how society and business and parliament worked in England had him baffled, and he listened intently to everything Cass had to say that would help him navigate it. They chatted on news of the world, his plans for the Vandestile estate, and his business in America.
He was the opposite of his older brother in almost every way. Except for their blue eyes.
Their blue eyes were identical, and it had taken her a long time to not involuntarily tense when she met his look. She had always needed to be wary around Rorrick’s older brother, for one never knew what his next action or statement would be. Johnny had been erratic in the extreme—happy in one moment—raging in the next. And she had spent an inordinate amount of time over the years making sure he didn’t upset the other patrons of the Revelry’s Tempest.
She looked back to the quickly dipping sun, searching the sky for green.
Nothing.
The golden orb of light vanished beyond the horizon, and the last rays of purple and pink and orange and yellow waned, drifting into grey.
The first stars started to appear overhead before Rorrick sighed. “Someday.”
“You have been looking for the flash of green for a long time?”
“My whole life. Every time I am on a ship. On a mountain. Someday—someday I’ll be rewarded.” He shrugged and then turned, leaning on his left arm still draped along the railing as his look centered on her. “What are we looking for in Charleston, Cass?”
She froze.
Rorrick had not once asked about her plans. Not once about what she needed of him once they landed in America. Her fingers tightened, clenching the railing as her gaze stayed solidly on the horizon.
She cleared her throat, attempting to regain some semblance of easy composure. “I told you. A woman and her child.”
“Yes. I know that. But why? Who are they and how did they get lost from you?”
Cass drew in a deep breath, her chest lifting high. For as much as she didn’t want to broach this subject, for as much as she wanted to keep the air light and easy between them, she couldn’t hold this from him forever.
It was time to tell him.
She had initially believed she could keep the story private, that Rorrick would be able to find Ashita without Cass sharing the details that she was loath to speak of. But Rorrick was the key to finding her. He needed to know—know all of it.
Even if it meant the ease between them would disappear and a harsh look of judgement would seep into his eyes.
She would lose him here and now as an ally—as a friend—and her heart started to sink.
But there was nothing for it.
She had to tell him if she had any chance of finding Ashita. Rorrick would loathe her, but she knew he would stand by his promise to help her. The land and his integrity were too important to him.
Keeping her right hand tight on the railing for support, she pulled her shoulders back as she turned fully to Rorrick. Darkness had set in, tempered by the full moon overhead. She met his stare. “You do need to know who you are looking for—her name is Ashita.”
“Ashita? She is from India?”
“Yes. Her family was quite prominent I was told, though they disowned her.”
Rorrick nodded, his gaze travelling out to the sea and then back to her. “What is your connection to her?”
Her reply was instant, her eyes not veering from him. “She was my husband’s lover.”
Rorrick’s mouth dropped open. “Hell, Cass.” His head shaking, he looked to the water, the line of his jaw tensing, throbbing with each passing breath.
His gaze lifted to her, a storm brewing in his blue eyes. “So I’m going to be helping you find someone to exact vengeance upon? I didn’t sign on for that, Cass. Vandestile land or not, I’m not about to deliver you to revenge.”
{ Chapter 7 }
She shuffled a step backward, the bristling air swirling about him sending a shiver down her spine. “No. Not revenge, Rorrick.” She forced her feet to stop moving and took a deep breath to fortify herself against his ire. “You need to know the full story.”
“It sounds like I already do.” His words cut into the air, not softened in the slightest by her claim.
“My husband.” The blurted words left her mouth and she had to stop, closing her eyes and swallowing hard. “We were engaged to be married when Percival was seven
and I was five. He was in line for the earldom and I had a large sum settled on me. It was perfect, as our families had alliances that had gone back hundreds of years. My whole life, it was only him—only Percival for me and I loved him for forever.” She opened her eyes, her look straying to the low swells of the ocean alongside the ship. “Or at least I thought I loved him—when I look at my friends Violet and Adalia…”
“Yes?”
Her eyes lifted to his face. “Love—true, soul-burning love—looks very different from what I thought it was in childhood.”
“So you loved him or you didn’t—what did it matter?”
“I loved him because he was the future, I loved him because he was stability—that is what matters.” Her look dipped downward. The knuckles of her right hand were a bright white under the full moon.
Turning back to the railing, she loosened her fingers and then set both of her palms atop the curved wood. Slowly tapping the rail, she opened the long-buried chest of memories from those years when she was so very young. “Percival was not unkind to me—he had standards for me, yes—how I looked, how I acted. But it was always known what would become of us in life—we would marry, he would assume the title, I would produce heirs.”
“And?”
Her head stayed bowed, her eyes studying the pink returning to her knuckles. “I was happy with that arrangement. He was not.” She paused, her chest tightening at the memory that ravaged her mind without warning. “He left the morning after the marriage was consummated.”
Rorrick coughed. “The morning after?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t look up at him, the shame of ten years ago washing over her anew, her face heating with a flush.
“I don’t know why you’re embarrassed by it, Cass.”
“No?” She turned to him and met his gaze. Could he truly be that dense? “It is humiliating. To be left by one’s husband after…”
Rorrick shook his head, the earlier storm in his eyes lifting as deep-seated curiosity crept into his look. “From what I’ve seen of you, Foxfire, your husband was a fool and didn’t know what to do with you naked.”
Of Risk & Redemption: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Page 6
