She saw an emotion pass over his eyes that she couldn’t quite decipher. He nibbled on her ear.
“Tell me if you experience discomfort. I know other ways to enjoy each other.”
She’d learned that quickly enough. She supposed there was a comparable way to pleasure him, but then his mouth was again ravishing hers and she wasn’t supposing anything at all.
Chapter 13
“Just because we’re in dock doesn’t mean we have to leave the ship.”
Deciding her hat was as straight as it could get, Anne turned away from her reflection in the mirror to the man leaning against the door. He wore black trousers that hugged his thighs, boots, and the familiar loose white shirt with its rebellious buttons. Only an hour before, he’d been sprawled in glorious nudity over the bed. She suspected in spite of all the time it had taken for her to dress with his assistance that he could have her naked and beneath him before she took her next breath if she but encouraged him.
“My family is no doubt desperate for word from me. If I don’t leave now, we would only be delaying the inevitable.”
“If it can be delayed, perhaps it’s not inevitable. Pen them a missive. Tell them you’ve decided to see the world. I can have us back at sea by dawn.”
Oh, she wasn’t half tempted. “I have responsibilities here.” A Season to endure, a husband to find, a father to please.
She crossed over to him, placed her hand on his chest, right where his heart beat out a steady rhythm. “We’re from different worlds, you and I. As lovely as it’s been, I can’t stay in your world. Not for the long haul.”
“Then for a short haul. A year. Eighteen months.”
“I would return a ruined woman with no hope for marriage prospects or children.” She shook her head. She wanted him to say that he’d marry her, but if he offered it would be foolish to say yes. She couldn’t go gallivanting around the world. What sort of life would that be for their children? Nor could she stand the thought of months on end, waiting at home for his return. But she also suspected that he wasn’t a man willing to take a wife. He’d lived his entire life unencumbered. “You know that we can’t be.”
In answer, whether acknowledgment or denial, he captured her mouth with his, shoved the fingers of one hand into her hair, and used the other to press her flat against him. She thought she would never tire of his kisses, the heat and passion of them, the way they encompassed all of her. Rising up on her toes, she wound her arms around his neck.
This would be their last kiss. She would be strong; she would walk away once his mouth was finished ravishing hers. But she was so tempted to stay, even knowing the disaster it would beget. She had known all along that their association would come to an end. Between them was unbridled passion, but no love. She wouldn’t even contemplate that she could possibly love him, because how would any man ever measure up to her courageous, strong, and unyielding captain?
She would have to forget him, cast memories of him to the locked corners of her heart, only to be visited on the very rarest of occasions.
His tongue swirled with hers, a familiar waltz now, and yet desperation clung to her as she swept hers through his mouth, searching for anything she’d not yet explored. She didn’t want to look back and wish that she taken one more swipe, nibbled a little longer, tasted more deeply. With him, she wanted no regrets. He’d given her a night that would sustain her for the remainder of her life. But it was time now to say good-bye.
Drawing back, he pressed his forehead to hers. “You should know that I’ll never forget you.”
She squeezed her eyes shut because she couldn’t give him the same promise, even if it was true. It wouldn’t be fair to the man she would eventually marry. She must forget him. She must condemn him to a faint wisp of memory.
Reaching behind him, he opened the door. She walked into the passageway and felt the heat suffuse her face at the sight of Martha standing there with Mr. Peterson. She wondered if they had heard her moans, sighs, and cries through the night. Then she decided what they might have heard was of no consequence, and it was far too late to worry over.
The captain led her up to the deck. She’d known it was night, of course, but somehow it seemed the right time for her parting. Although she was so tempted to stay with him until dawn. But her family had waited for her return long enough.
She heard him issue orders for someone to get her trunk. Then he escorted her down the gangway and along the docks. His arm remained inappropriately around her, nestling her against his side. She couldn’t bring herself to step away.
When they reached the area where hackneys waited, he hired two and she watched as her trunk was loaded into one.
“I should go with you,” he said.
“No. I want to say good-bye here, to remember you here.” Turning into him, to face him fully, she touched her gloved hand to his jaw. “May the winds always deliver you safely to your destination.”
“Anne—”
Rising up, she brushed a quick kiss over his lips before scrambling into the hackney. Martha settled in beside her and the wheels were soon clattering, carrying them away.
“We will never speak of this, Martha,” she said tersely, shoring up her resolve not to weep.
“Yes, m’lady.”
“We must move forward. See to our duties.”
“Yes, miss.”
No matter how much it pained them to do so.
Tristan watched the hackney roll away into the night, the emptiness engulfing him similar to one he’d experienced fourteen years earlier on the Yorkshire docks. It didn’t bear thinking about.
“What now, Cap’n?” Peterson asked.
“I intend to get bloody well drunk. Care to join me?”
“What in God’s name were you thinking?”
Anne stood within her father’s study. Knowing that she would be brought to task for her actions did not make the actual bringing any easier. Her father and brothers had not yet left for their clubs when she arrived home. It was the one night of the week that her father insisted they enjoy a meal together. She’d arrived too late to partake in dinner, but early enough to receive a scolding.
Her brothers had taken up various positions around the room, arms crossed, stances erect, obviously fully in support of the tongue-lashing she was on the cusp of enduring.
“As I discussed with you previously and reiterated in my letter, I needed to say good-bye to Walter so that I could move on with my life, fully embrace the upcoming Season, present an engaging front, and entice a lord into finding me worthy of becoming his wife. That is my duty, is it not?”
“Your duty is to obey your father and I had forbidden you to go.”
“Yes, well, I’m home now so it seems rather pointless to harp on what I’ve done. I achieved my goal and am ready to reenter Society.”
She’d never seen her father appear so flummoxed. He blinked, opened his mouth, shut it.
“Upon what ship did you book passage?” Jameson asked. As her father grew older, so her brother was beginning to assert himself, to prepare for the day when he would step seamlessly into their father’s shoes. “I made inquiries but had little success in determining—”
“I hired a ship.”
“What do you mean you hired a ship?”
“Honestly, Jameson, did you lose your comprehension of the English language while I was away?”
“You’ll answer your brother,” her father snapped, obviously regaining his faculties.
“I hired a captain willing to sail on my schedule.”
“Who is the captain? What ship?” Jameson barked.
“I don’t see that it’s relevant. The matter is done.”
“Do you have any idea what could have happened?”
“He came highly recommended.”
“By whom?”
“These pointless questions are becoming quite tedious.”
“Your reputation—”
“Did you tell people what I’d done?” she snapped.<
br />
“Absolutely not. We said you had determined you were not yet ready to step out of mourning, required additional seclusion, and returned to the country.”
“Then my reputation remains untarnished. And I’m quite weary from my travels so if you’ll excuse me, I wish to retire.”
She turned to go.
“I’m not finished with you yet,” her father shouted.
She sank into a chair, folded her hands on her lap, and met his gaze. “By all means, then, proceed.”
“I don’t believe you fully comprehend the seriousness of what you did.”
“And I’m not certain you fully comprehend that the matter is done. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever have another need to leave England’s shores. Hopefully it shall be many years before I lose someone else whom I love. And even then, he shall in all likelihood die here. I shall have no further adventures.”
More’s the pity, a little corner of her mind squeaked.
“It is only that we love you and were worried,” her father reiterated.
“I know.” She gave him a warm smile. “I believe your clubs await.”
“Indeed they do.”
Grateful that the matter was being put to rest, she rose.
“The Greystone ball is next week,” Jameson informed her. “I assume you will attend.”
“Most assuredly. And I shall put my best foot forward.”
She strolled from the room, thinking how odd it was that the house didn’t pitch at all. It seemed she’d finally gotten her sea legs when it was a bit too late.
In her bedchamber she found Martha putting away the last items from the trunk. Her maid looked up as though guilty. “Did all go well?”
“As well as it could.” She began tugging off her gloves.
“I found something in the trunk. I’m not sure what it is. I put it on your vanity.”
Anne walked to the vanity and discovered a small paper-wrapped parcel. The paper was more suited to serving as stationery but it had been crumpled and folded, secured with string around an object. Slowly she untied the string and pulled back the paper to reveal a starfish.
On the paper was written: For making a wish when there are no stars to be seen.
Tears stung her eyes. So many things to wish for, but only one mattered: Be safe, Captain. Please always be safe on your travels.
Carefully she flattened the paper, then folded it and placed it, along with the starfish, in her jewelry box.
“I’m tired, Martha. Help me prepare for bed.”
When she was dressed and Martha had left, Anne sat in a chair by the window and gazed out as the fog rolled in. The gaslights offered a meager attempt to hold it at bay, but they lit a path to the residence. She wished now that she hadn’t left the ship so soon. Perhaps Tristan wished the same. He could climb the tree. He could come to her. She wouldn’t turn him away. Just one more night.
But morning found her asleep in the chair, alone.
Chapter 14
“I’m so glad you’re finally back in London. I’ve missed you dreadfully.”
Reaching across the small round table in the garden, Anne smiled and squeezed the hand of her dearest friend, Lady Sarah Weston. “I’ve missed you as well.”
“I can serve as your chaperone this Season.”
Anne laughed lightly. It had been three years since Sarah had married the Earl of Fayrehaven. Anne had attended her at the wedding, served as her maid of honor. She had always planned for Sarah to assist her when the time came to exchange vows with Walter. They had decided to toss aside the societal rules that said a married lady could not stand beside a bride. They were going to allow it to happen. It was silly now to wonder if the possibility of flaunting convention had been responsible for fate’s nasty turn.
“You will find someone else, you know,” Sarah continued.
Anne wanted to confess that she had found someone else. But that had been a temporary holding. She’d been home all of three days now and she’d almost gone to the docks during each one of them to see if the Revenge was still in port. But going to the docks was not something that ladies did—although it had not stopped her before.
She wondered if he spent his evenings in the same tavern where she’d first seen him. Did he wait for other ladies to approach him? Would he compare them to her? Would he find them lacking? God help her, she wanted him to find them lacking.
“I have heard …” Sarah began, leaning forward as though the blooming flowers had the ability to gossip, “that Chetwyn has set his cap for you.”
“He has said nothing to me.”
“Well, you’ve hardly been in London long enough, have you? I called on you a month ago, when I first arrived in town and was told that you weren’t in residence. I was so disappointed. I’m remarkably glad you sent a note round letting me know that you were indeed in the city. Did you need a bit more time in the country?”
Anne nibbled on her lip. “No, actually. If I tell you, you must hold it a secret.”
“Of course.”
Now Anne was lowering her voice, which was ridiculous because no one was about. “I went to Scutari, to say good-bye to Walter. It was a remarkable trip, liberating.”
Sarah furrowed her brow. “Did your brothers take you?”
“No, I went by myself. Well, with my maid. I wore trousers. I climbed a mast. I stood in a crow’s nest and looked out on the world. I felt small, yet significant. It was a strange dichotomy.”
She realized she was throwing out everything in a nonsensical manner, but she’d been unable to share it with anyone and it was just there, bubbling to the surface.
“Not to mention scandalous,” Sarah said with a measure of disapproval that Anne fought to ignore.
“Yes, I know. Which is why you mustn’t tell anyone. I haven’t told my father or my brothers everything that I did. Only that I went to Scutari. They wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m not quite certain that I do either.”
“Do you ever consider that we behave a certain way because it’s expected of us, but no one ever truly explains why we must behave as we do?”
“We behave as we do because it’s the way one behaves.”
She had once thought the same, but now she questioned the staidness of her life. But how could Sarah understand when she’d never ventured from it?
Anne heard a servant approaching and glanced up to see one of the younger maids carrying a tray. Earlier she had brought them tea. Now she set on the table some scones and a bowl of orange segments. Anne couldn’t help but think of that first morning on the ship when she had bitten into one. “Those look tempting.”
“They’re very good, m’lady,” the girl said. “Cook had us taste them to make sure there was nothing amiss. A crate of them just showed up on the steps.”
“From the shops? Cook purchased them?”
“No, miss. We don’t know who sent them.”
Tristan. She was as certain of that as she was of her name. She wondered if it had been a final good-bye gift, knowing that she would never again eat an orange and not think of him. She wondered if he would think of her when he tasted one. She’d not anticipated that so many things would remind her of him.
“Are you in love?” Sarah asked.
Anne snapped her gaze over to her friend. “Pardon?”
“You’re staring at the bowl rather oddly, as though you care deeply about oranges. If you want one, simply take it.”
Anne did. It was as succulent and sweet as she expected.
“So continue with your story,” Sarah commanded. “What was it like to wear trousers? And why would you? Were you a stowaway or something equally atrocious?”
Anne smiled. “I paid for my passage, but after going to Scutari I became melancholy. The captain thought it would brighten my outlook to gaze out on the world. But I couldn’t very well shimmy up a pole in skirts.”
“You actually climbed a mast?”
She released a short burst of laughter. “Yes.” And
I climbed a ship captain. But that memory was for her and her alone.
“Better keep it to yourself. Gentlemen prefer their ladies less adventuresome.”
“Oh, I fully intend to tell no one. But I wanted to share it with you, although I realize now that I haven’t the words to paint a true portrait of the experience.” She popped another orange segment into her mouth. “Sarah, are you happy being the wife of a lord?”
“Absolutely. Fayrehaven treats me very nicely. I’m fortunate in that regard. I daresay that by the end of the Season you’ll be on your way to becoming a wife as well.”
“Perhaps.”
“You can’t dally, Anne. Your prospects next year will be fewer than they are now. A new batch of eligible ladies will be stepping onto the marriage block.”
“You make it all sound so frightfully appealing.”
“It’s marvelous. Truly. With a husband comes children.” Sarah had given birth to a son fifteen months after her wedding. “It’s a tragedy that you’ve been denied so much for so long, which is the reason that I’m ecstatic to have you in London this Season. We shall find you a husband with all due haste. If not Chetwyn then someone else who appeals.”
An image of Tristan flittered briefly across her mind. She was giving herself leave to think of him until she attended her first ball. Then she would have to pack up the remembrances, store them in a corner of her heart, and never visit them again. Except perhaps when she was old and withered and looking back on the life she’d led. She would write her memoirs, and include the scandalous journey and the dashing sea captain with whom she’d felt the first stirrings of happiness after being dead inside for so long.
“Have you ever known any lady who didn’t marry into the nobility?” she asked Sarah.
“The former Duchess of Lovingdon. She married that Dodger fellow, but then he’s obscenely wealthy so sins are easily forgiven.”
She was fairly certain that Tristan was wealthy, yet she couldn’t imagine him remaining patient with Society’s rules. He’d always be chomping at the bit to return to the sea.
“What if Walter hadn’t asked for your hand in marriage?” Sarah asked. “Who would you have wanted to marry then?”
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