“Anne—”
She held up her hand. “I don’t want to discuss this with you.”
His shoulders tensed, his hands balled into fists. “We need to talk.”
“Why? What concern is it of yours?”
His brows rose. “Do you have to ask that question? For one, he’s the brother of an earl. Two, he’s in the employ of a marquess. Three, he’s a captain for Blackwell Shipping. Four, the crown will be searching for us when it becomes known he is our captive—when, Anne, not if. Five—”
“Enough, Phin. I am fully aware of the danger.”
“Five.” He spoke over her. “You have no experience with …” He ran a hand through his hair, discomfort replacing the anger, but only for a moment. “With men. Six—”
She spun away and marched across the deck to the starboard side, not wanting to hear six or seven or eight. Phin could go on and on. There were hundreds of reasons she shouldn’t get involved with Nicholas Addison. She knew all of them.
“Five is a lie.”
Phin’s lips thinned and his eyes narrowed.
“I have experience, if you remember.”
“I remember.”
She sighed and lifted her hands in the air, only to let them fall. “What is this about, Phin? Is this about us and what we had together?”
“No.” But his eyes flickered away, proving him a liar.
“We both agreed it would never work between us. We’re both captains, and a relationship needs a captain and a quartermaster.”
“He’ll hurt you in the end, Anne. He can’t stay here and be a pirate with you, and you certainly can’t be his lady wife.”
“Who ever said anything about me being his wife?”
He quirked a brow, and it was Emmaline’s turn to look away.
“I never said I wanted to marry him,” she said.
“You didn’t have to.”
She made a disgusted sound and waved her hand in dismissal. “You’re reading too much into things you know nothing about. I certainly want nothing to do with marriage. You know that.” Her own parent’s marriage had been a disaster.
“Six.” Phin stepped up beside her and she closed her eyes. If she tossed him overboard he would bob along the waves and continue counting. The man was that stubborn.
And right.
“Stop, Phin. Just stop.”
“Six. I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he said softly.
“Thank you. I appreciate your concern, truly I do.”
Phin crossed his arms and glared at her. She’d seen the look numerous times, usually directed at one errant sailor or another.
“What?” she snapped. “I believe you made your point. Six of them, to be exact.”
“You’re not listening to what I’m saying. He’s your captive, Anne. He’ll do anything to escape.”
She reeled back. Pain cramped her belly and her throat dried up. How had she not seen it? Her, a pirate who used every advantage given to her to get what she wanted. If she were held captive she’d certainly use her … wiles … to reach for freedom. Why should Nicholas be any different?
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said. “But someone has to point out the truth.”
“No. You’re right. I should have seen it myself.” Only a fool wouldn’t have, and Lady Anne was not a fool. Not anymore.
Nicholas made his way toward Shamus’s cabin. Not even a fortnight ago, he’d been struggling down the same corridor, sloshing through ankle-deep water and wondering if he was going to die in the storm a prisoner.
He didn’t die, but he was still a prisoner, and his captor had run away to one of her other ships two days ago and had yet to return.
What did that mean for him?
Why had she run? It was a question that circled his mind constantly. He told himself to be happy she was gone, for she was a distraction he could ill afford. But what his mind said and what other parts of him said conflicted.
Each morning he found himself waking with the hope that overnight she had returned to the Delilah, and every morning he ate breakfast disappointed. Was she avoiding him? Why? They’d shared a kiss before, and she hadn’t avoided him then.
Soft voices came from Shamus’s cabin, and Nicholas slowed his steps, straining to hear, curious because Shamus spoke so rarely. Nicholas peered into the cabin and his heart thudded.
Emmaline sat in the chair beside the bunk, her bare feet tucked beneath her. Wet hair hung down her back, leaving patches of her shirt nearly transparent. Her head was bent to a book as she read aloud to a sleeping Shamus.
Nicholas slipped into the room and leaned against the wall, content to study her and listen to the melodious rise and fall of her voice, reciting the words of the popular book Robinson Crusoe.
Something must have alerted her that he was there, because her head jerked up and their gazes met. Dark semicircles smudged her eyes, and her shoulders drooped with weariness. Had she not slept either? Had she tossed and turned on her bunk thinking of him, as he tossed and turned and thought of her?
He wished. More than likely she’d worked hard to repair her damaged ships, and hadn’t given her prisoner a single thought.
“Defoe has quite the imagination, does he not?” He nodded toward the book in her hand.
She closed it, keeping her finger between the pages. “Quite.”
“Do you think Crusoe will learn anything all alone on that island?”
“Doubtful. Men are hardheaded creatures.”
“True.”
What happened, to put the clipped tone in her voice? Where was the woman who sat on his lap and cried on his shoulder? Who had kissed him with such wild abandon?
I missed you. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he held them in check, shocked he thought them at all. But if he were honest with himself, he had missed her. Terribly. He was pleased Shamus was on the mend, but sad there would be no more quiet hours spent with her in this cabin.
“Henry said Shamus is doing well,” she said.
“Aye. He awakens periodically and we’ve been able to get some food into him.”
“Good.” She looked at the book in her lap.
“Emmaline—”
“Land ahead!” The call from the upper decks had Emmaline jumping out of her chair and Nicholas pushing away from the wall. They’d spotted land? Dare he believe it?
They hurried down the corridor, Emmaline leading the way, to the quarterdeck, where most of the crew was standing at the port side rail, cheering.
Nicholas drank in the view of a small hump a long distance away. ’Twas merely an island, but it was the first land he’d seen in weeks, and his heart lurched at the thought of possible escape. Surely he’d find an English ship willing to take him back to London.
Surely …
Feeling the back of his neck prickle, he turned to find Emmaline, not looking at the island as everyone else was, but staring at him. He turned away, disconcerted by the uneasiness inside him, at the guilt he felt for what his heart was telling him were treasonous thoughts.
Phin swept through the sailors, urging them to return to their duties, reminding them of all that needed to be done before they dropped anchor. With a lightness to their step and laughter in their voices, they went back to their work with the knowledge that the reward would come soon.
“I can’t let you go.” Without him realizing it, Emmaline had stepped up beside him.
“You could. I wouldn’t tell anyone about you.”
“Come now, Captain Addison, don’t insult me with lies.”
He meant it. Or at least he meant it for now. Somehow, somewhere along the Atlantic, his ideals had shifted. He’d seen this woman in all her variations, yet it was only in the cabin while they struggled to save Shamus that he had seen the real Emmaline. Dedicated, hardworking, strong in both spirit and body, pigheaded, opinionated and yet beneath it all, fragile.
He reached out to touch her, needing the contact they’d had in Shamus’s
cabin, but she stepped away, lowering her lids, hiding her true thoughts from him.
“We both know you want to escape,” she said, finally looking at him with a small smile. “And you’ll do anything to flee.”
She emphasized the word anything, which made him pause. There was meaning behind that, meaning he couldn’t quite grasp.
“What are you saying, Emmaline?”
She swallowed and looked away. Night was falling, dragging the vision of the beautiful spit of land into obscurity.
“I’m saying that if I were in your place, I’d do what it took to escape. I don’t blame you.”
His brows came down. “What did I do?”
She laughed, but the sound was forced, almost desperate. “You tried to seduce me into freeing you.”
Is that what she thought? That their kiss was merely an escape attempt? For three torturous nights he lay in his bunk, on fire with the memories of her pressed against him, his imagination running wild at what they would have done if Phin hadn’t interrupted them, and she thought it was an escape attempt?
“If that was an escape attempt, it was a poor one.” He stepped closer, trapping her hand in his, and held tight when she tried to disengage. There were newly healed blisters on her palm, evidence of how hard she worked on the other ships. “Instead of escaping, the opposite happened. I was ensnared.”
Her eyes widened. He stepped closer.
“I didn’t kiss you with thoughts of escape on my mind. I kissed you with thoughts of lovemaking on my mind.”
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“No, Emmaline. That’s not how it works. If you are to accuse me of something, I have the right to refute the accusation, whether you want to hear it or not. You want to believe I had an ulterior motive, but I didn’t, other than offering you my lap to sit on and my shoulder to cry on.”
She shook her head. Tears sparkled in her eyes, but she blinked them away. Never one to cry, his Emmaline.
“We both know nothing can come of this,” she said.
A dagger to the stomach wouldn’t have hurt less, because, damn it, he wanted something to come of it. “I know.”
“I’m a pirate.”
“I’m well aware.”
“You hate pirates.”
“Very true.”
“So you hate me.”
“I will admit I hated you when I first discovered you were Lady Anne.”
“I’m still Lady Anne.”
He dipped his head in agreement. “But to me you are Emmaline Sutherland.”
She broke away and spun around. “No, I’m not.”
Lost without her touch, he stood there, his hand outstretched, reaching for her. “Pardon?”
“I’m not Emmaline Sutherland.”
“Then who are you?” As if cold water had been poured into his veins, an iciness started at his feet and worked its way up.
She turned back to him and straightened her shoulders. “I was born Emmaline Blackwell.”
Chapter Eleven
“What did you say?”
Emotions crowded Nicholas’s expression. Denial, swiftly followed by outrage, until his features settled on stunned disbelief.
Emmaline lifted her chin. “I am Emmaline Blackwell, daughter of Daniel Blackwell.”
He shook his head as if the action would make what she said untrue. But it was true, and she was no more able to deny her heritage than he would be able to deny his.
“How?” His voice sounded strangled, as if he couldn’t get the word out.
“I assure you, the way any other person on this earth came to be.”
“But …”
At one time, she would have found delight in finally silencing Captain Addison’s acerbic tongue, but not this time. Not when humiliation burned through her. Only Phin knew her entire story. And now Nicholas.
She shouldn’t have told him. He now possessed the power to bring her world down.
“I don’t understand,” Nicholas said. “Daniel Blackwell is from the colonies and you are from England.”
“He hasn’t always been from the colonies.”
She turned away and looked out over the ocean. Night had fallen. The island they’d glimpsed earlier was nothing but a memory. Tomorrow they would have passed it, on their way to another island. Her home.
Nicholas stepped up beside her and the silence stretched between them, as it had in Shamus’s cabin. Except, in Shamus’s cabin it had been a comforting silence, now it was an expectant silence.
“My father was married before he left for the colonies. He left my mother and me behind, because I was too young to travel. Or so he said. I don’t think he had any intention of sending for us.” A pain settled in the area around her heart. A pain she’d carried with her for so long she forgot about it most times. Or ignored it.
“My grandfather was the Baron of Donmoyer. Both my mother and Aunt Dorothy were expected to make good matches. Dorothy married the Marquess of Simington.”
“That is quite a good match,” Nicholas said, obviously impressed by Dorothy’s rise.
“Grandfather and Grandmother were pleased.” She shrugged and drew in a trembling breath, bracing herself for the rest of the story. “My mother made the mistake of falling in love with the captain of one of my grandfather’s ships. Knowing my grandfather would not approve the match, Mother and Father eloped to Scotland.”
Emmaline thought herself long over the bitterness, but it came rushing back. She knew her father’s actions weren’t her actions. But sometimes the knowledge didn’t help.
She and Nicholas strolled the deck, the evening breeze cool, Nicholas’s presence strangely comforting. She’d thought to drive him away with her heritage. Maybe even to disgust him, as she’d been disgusted many times before. Instead he stayed to listen, not passing judgment. At least not out loud.
“So your parents were a love match,” he said.
She snorted, an indelicate sound, but she didn’t care. She was far from delicate. “Maybe in the beginning. Maybe for my mother, but I highly doubt it in regards to my father.”
There was that bitterness again, something she couldn’t seem to overcome. Or maybe she didn’t want to overcome it. Without her bitterness, without her hatred, what did she have? What was her life about?
“I think my father had plans to rise in the world, and assumed my grandfather would give him control of the shipping business when he married my mother. Grandfather was most enraged when they returned from Scotland. He refused to give them her dowry, and tossed them out of the house with only the clothes on their backs.”
Deep breath, Emmaline. Let it go for now. But only for now.
“They were quite penniless, I’ve been told, but mother was optimistic. After all, they had their love for each other and a baby on the way.”
Nicholas kept pace beside her, hands clasped loosely behind his back, head bent. He didn’t seem at all shocked or disgusted that she’d been conceived out of wedlock, but then that was the least of her story.
The night watchman walked by on the upper deck and she nodded to him.
The night was quiet, the waves gentle, the wind brisk but warm. If only they could stay like this, sailing forever, without making land. Leaving all their troubles behind. But then she wouldn’t get the revenge that fed her anger, and she would never be able to put the past behind her.
“They lived in a small cottage while Father worked for a different, less prosperous company. I came along, and everything wasn’t all roses and sunshine, as my mother hoped it would be.”
“No marriage is made entirely of roses and sunshine,” Nicholas said.
“True. But after it became clear my grandfather was serious about cutting my parents out of his life, my father became bitter and angry. He blamed my mother for their misfortune.” She swallowed the hurt, angry she was feeling hurt at all. Ridiculous feeling. Especially when it came to her father. “Eventually Father decided that if he wanted to rise in the world, the colonies were w
here he needed to be.” She drew in a shaky breath and forced out what she needed to say next. “He set off, promising to send for Mother and me when he settled.”
“I gather he never did,” Nicholas said.
“No. The money he left us quickly ran out, probably before he even landed in the colonies. Mother and I moved in with Aunt Dorothy. Her husband died a most tragic, sudden death the year before, and Dorothy was still beside herself with grief. Mother moved in to console her. At least that’s the story they told. In reality, Mother and I were penniless, and had been tossed out on the street by the landlord when we couldn’t pay the rent any longer. Dorothy was more than happy to have us. Grandfather was fit to be tied, but Dorothy didn’t need Grandfather’s approval, or his money. She was quite well off on her own.”
This was where the story became difficult, almost too difficult to tell. As if the beginning weren’t heartbreaking enough.
“The man is a heartless bastard to do such a thing to his wife and daughter. I can understand why you feel you need revenge.”
She chuckled. “Oh, that’s not why I want revenge, Captain Addison, though it would be reason enough.”
Nicholas took her elbow and guided her to the railing and the shadows. Here the wind was a little more brisk, a little more chilled. He shrugged out of his coat and gently placed it around her shoulders. His scent rose around her, of soap and man and the essence of Nicholas. She inhaled, discretely, she hoped, and pictured the scent wrapping around her.
“You don’t need to tell me the rest, if it’s too difficult,” Nicholas said.
She pushed away the anxiety and anger, the bitterness and hurt. They were her constant companions, riding the waves beside her, fighting with her when she captured yet another Blackwell ship. Without them, she would be a penniless, helpless female, living off the generosity of her aunt. With them, she’d become the most talked about woman of the day, and the most feared pirate on these seas.
If she had the opportunity to change her past, she wouldn’t. She liked who she was and what she’d become. She wasn’t her mother, weak and spineless, pining for a man who left her. And she never would be.
“It’s not difficult, Captain Addison. But it is necessary. You need to understand what you are up against, and why I can’t allow you to go back to Kenmar.”
The Notorious Lady Anne: A Loveswept Historical Romance Page 12
