He longed to pull the pins from her hair, to release her curls to the ocean’s breeze and bury his fingers in the sun-warmed strands, while he plundered her mouth with his tongue. Emmaline Blackwell was wild and untamed like the water they sailed on, not cultivated and demure, trussed up in the bone-crushing corset she now wore.
She was a mystery to him, and it hurt that she didn’t trust him with the secrets he knew she regretted spilling. But in all honesty, he hadn’t given her reason to trust him.
The past two years had been nothing but pain and heartache for him. There’d been times he didn’t know if he was going to survive. There’d been times he didn’t want to survive.
With no career to fall back on, he’d been lost, set adrift in uncharted waters. His family had been kind and supportive, but that only made him feel worse. He didn’t want to be a burden to anyone.
How his life had changed. He was a prisoner of Daniel Blackwell’s daughter, but the thought didn’t elicit the strong emotions it had even a day ago. He might be a prisoner now, but he would not always be one.
Emmaline dropped the remaining sand and brushed her hands on her skirts, making him smile. Emmaline may be dressed as a lady, but she was still all pirate.
The breeze played with the loose curls framing her face and danced through her dress, causing it to rustle. The waves rushed up on shore, and he took a hurried step forward, so as not to get wet.
She turned to him, beckoned for him to come near. “It’s a short walk to my home. Follow me.”
Like a bee drawn to those exotic flowers, he followed. After several minutes of walking, she stopped suddenly, and Nicholas almost slammed into her, skidding to a sideways halt to keep from bowling her over.
He followed her gaze up to the massive home that reminded him of the plantation houses he’d once seen in the colonies. Verandas on the upper and lower levels ran around the entire house, with windows big enough to allow the ocean breeze to blow through. Sitting high up on the hill, all four sides had an ocean view. Again, he was impressed. The house was beautiful, but also functional. No matter where you were inside, you were able to see someone approach.
“This is where you live?”
“You were expecting a shack?”
He pressed his lips together. While he hadn’t expected a shack, he had expected something far less luxurious.
“I promise there are no dungeons beneath.”
He shot her an irritated glance, while secretly relieved he wouldn’t be rusticating in a dank dungeon.
Emmaline started for the house as the massive front door swung open. A gnome of a man stepped out, a bold smile on his weathered face. Emmaline let out an unladylike whoop and threw her arms around the little man. Nicholas noted the peg leg. Good God, was this a resting home for retired pirates?
For a woman rejected by her father, living off the goodwill of her aunt, with no hope for a good match, she’d done remarkably well for herself. Beyond remarkable, in truth.
They stepped inside. Nicholas had been in plenty of stunning homes in his time, but Emmaline’s house staggered him. Each room was beautifully decorated with hardwood floors and Oriental carpets. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceilings, and billowing, sheer curtains caught the cool ocean breeze. It would be rude to step closer and stare, but he was convinced the large painting hanging on the opposite wall was a Chardin.
Ill-gotten booty, most likely.
Emmaline introduced him to Clarence, the butler, an old, crusty sailor who took his job seriously. Nicholas didn’t miss the ferocious look of protection Clarence shot Emmaline when she introduced them. Nor did Nicholas miss that she gave him no title, and gave no indication he was here as her prisoner.
Cook was another fierce protector of his employer. He was an old sailor who had lost a leg during a battle on the seas, and retired soon after. Apparently this truly was a resting place for retired pirates.
Nicholas stood in the marbled entryway while Emmaline caught up with her staff, although the term staff was used loosely in this case. ’Twas obvious these men adored her. There was no formality among them, as there was with his staff in London. No stiff butler, no obsequious cook. Rather, they were more like friends than employer and retainers. Odd. But then, he shouldn’t be surprised. By now he should expect the unexpected with Emmaline.
Clarence turned his uplifted nose to Nicholas, and Nicholas suppressed a smile. Maybe they weren’t so different after all. Apparently a butler was a butler, regardless of whether he was also a retired pirate.
“And whot am I t’do with ’im,” Clarence said, with a sniff.
Emmaline contemplated Nicholas for a moment, as if she didn’t know what to do with him now that they were here.
“Put him in the blue room.”
Clarence nodded and shuffled off, while Nicholas stared at her. “I’m to stay here?”
“I told you I don’t have a dungeon. Where did you think you would stay?”
Truthfully, he hadn’t thought about it. Well, he had. He’d assumed he would stay somewhere other than her home.
“I can’t stay here.”
Her brows drew together in anger. “Why? Is it not good enough for you, Captain Addison?”
“Of course not. I mean, yes, it’s fine. More than fine. It’s just highly improper for an unattached gentleman to stay with an unattached lady.” He stopped himself from adding with retired pirates as their chaperones.
Her anger dissolved into laughter. “And sailing on my ship as my prisoner isn’t improper? Spending the night together, alone, nursing an injured sailor isn’t improper?”
Of course it was, but for some reason, that was different—an entirely separate existence he could almost mark off as the workings of his imagination, if the memories of the night with Shamus weren’t so clear. And the memory of the kiss he shared with her, ingrained in his mind, that nothing short of death would erase.
“That’s different.” Even he noted how lame the excuse was, yet it was different.
She grinned, apparently enjoying his discomfort. He couldn’t stay here. Not in the same house. Not when she slept nearby. On the ship, he’d been her unwilling prisoner, but here things were different. He wasn’t as unwilling now, and he’d tasted her, touched her. The few kisses they shared were but a sample of what he wanted. And what he wanted was more. Ached for it, would bleed for it, if need be.
Emmaline sleeping so close was a disaster in the making.
“Are you positive you don’t have a dungeon?”
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, exhausted from lack of sleep, Emmaline dragged on her breeches and shirt, braided her hair and headed to the secluded beach where the sloops were careened.
Normally, she slept well on her first night back from sailing, but not last night. Not when she lay on her bed with explicit images of Captain Nicholas Addison dancing behind her eyes every time she closed them. Or of his look of horror when he realized he’d be sleeping under her roof.
At first, she was offended he thought so highly of himself, and so little of her, that staying here was abhorrent to him. Until she realized his horror had nothing to do with rank and privilege. His hot, smoldering look stunned her and called to an answering heat inside her.
Fear leapt like a living thing in her chest, making her want to retreat. And, at the same time, making her want to step forward and explore what his eyes were telling her he wanted to do. Men had looked at her with hunger before. They made it known what they wanted to do to her, with crude words and cruder gestures. None of them made her quake in fear like Nicholas did.
This danger was altogether different than any other she’d faced. This was a danger to her heart, and that she had no defense against.
She was angry he brought fear into her home, but she refused to retreat, so she had Clarence show him to his rooms and she left him there, perfectly comfortable with him sleeping under her roof. After all, many other men slept there. Phin, Clarence, Cook, Henry when he
wanted to, and now Shamus.
Nicholas was but one of many.
Except, she didn’t obsess about the others sleeping down the hall, as she did about Nicholas. She didn’t wonder what the others wore to bed. She didn’t have to kick off the stifling bed-sheets because her thoughts were so tormented her body temperature actually rose. As she did with Nicholas.
During the long, torturous night, the cool ocean breeze brushed across her heated skin, causing goose bumps to rise, and a restlessness to settle over her. She’d tossed and turned, remembering their kiss in Shamus’s cabin, and the rough calluses on hands brushing across her cheeks. The soft lips that took what they wanted, leaving no quarter.
Disgusted with her thoughts, she headed for the ships.
She had too much to do, and too little time to do it in, to be thinking about Nicholas Addison’s hands and lips.
Today they would begin the careening—the arduous task of pulling the ships up on blocks and turning them on their sides to be breamed. Clean bottoms meant faster sailing. And for a pirate, faster sailing meant survival. Emmaline took pride in the swiftness of her ships. ’Twas one of the reasons she’d lasted so long in such a dangerous profession.
The cleaning would take at least a week, but that was merely the beginning of what they needed to accomplish. They still had to repair the damage done by the storm. Her hope was that everything would be finished by the time they set sail for the colonies in a few weeks.
After that? Well, her plans abruptly ended there.
She could sail to the colonies, but she didn’t know where Blackwell’s ship would be sailing from. Curse and damn him.
Before she set sail, she had to know the details of that shipment of gold. All she needed was a well-placed attack and Daniel Blackwell’s business would crumble. Kenmar sending Nicholas to investigate the attacks indicated investors were becoming nervous. It meant Blackwell’s operation teetered toward ruin more than she’d thought.
However, her ships wouldn’t be ready to sail for weeks, and that meant weeks with Nicholas Addison living in her home. Maybe he had the right idea. Maybe she should have housed him somewhere else, because she was finding it more and more difficult to face him after telling him her story.
She was ashamed of herself for being weak, for trusting the first decent man she’d spent any significant time with. She’d hoped that if one good thing came of telling him about her past, Addison would see her cause as just, and help, by giving her what she needed.
Instead, he never mentioned their conversation, and she was too embarrassed to bring it up again. She’d told him. She wasn’t able to take the words back. Moving forward was her only alternative. And how are you going to move forward? Torture him in your nonexistent dungeon? She laughed out loud at the absurdity, startling a few colorful birds from their comfortable perches in the high branches.
She cleared the tree line, and suddenly her ships were before her, already pulled up onto the beach and on their sides, their exposed underbellies rough with barnacles and filth. Her men were hard at work building the fires they would use to light torches to melt the pitch from the hull.
This was her life. Not the life her mother or Aunt Dorothy envisioned, but her life. A life she created for herself, without the help of any man.
She made her way to the beached behemoths, proud of what she’d become. She’d given up what was left of her family, and the possibility of a husband and children, for these ships and these men. She didn’t regret it. She had wealth and a privilege of sorts, but more than that, she had her pride. She was an independent woman who sailed with the wind at her back, the sun on her face and the waves beneath her feet. Who commanded respect and fear.
She was Lady Anne, and she wouldn’t give that up for anything.
Phin broke away from the group of sailors and made his way up the hill toward her. Even though it was early morning, the sun was beating down on them, and Phin had already removed his shirt. His bare chest, roped with muscles, gleamed with sweat, and yet the sight didn’t stir her the way Addison’s bare chest did.
Why was that? Both Phin and Nicholas were good-looking men, albeit in different ways. Phin was a man of the sea, rough around the edges, shrewd, deadly. Addison was elegant, refined, and a man with a good heart. It was Phin who was more like herself. Yet, it was Addison who captured her thoughts and stole her good sense.
“We’ve already pulled the ships onto land, as you can see,” he said. “Let me show you what we found.”
For the next hour, Phin pointed out areas of concern on the ships. Planks that needed to be replaced, other areas of damage from the storm. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t already suspected and already planned for, so she wasn’t all that concerned. Yet, even as she listened with half an ear, she also kept track of her men and their progress, so she was fully aware when Addison emerged from the trees and made his way to the ships.
Phin’s gaze went to Addison, and his eyes narrowed. “What’s he doing here?”
“I’m not sure, but it looks like he’s here to help careen the ships.”
Phin made a derisive noise. “Why would he help us?”
Emmaline wondered that as well, as she watched Addison pick up a scraper and make his way toward the underbelly of a ship.
After completing the hot and demanding task of burning the crud off the bottom of the ship to make for easier scraping, Emmaline looked up to find Nicholas working a few feet away. Unlike the other sailors, he hadn’t shucked his shirt in deference to the heat, but he had rolled up his sleeves, revealing arms darkened by the sun and corded with muscles. Her heart beat a little harder, her hands sweat a little more and her breath came a little faster.
Why did she have to have such a fierce reaction to the one man she couldn’t be attracted to?
As if sensing her gaze on him, he glanced at her, offered a small smile and turned his attention back to his work.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said.
He shrugged, concentrating on the hull. “It’s better than sitting alone in the house.”
She resumed her scraping. Weeks of Nicholas Addison as her prisoner? Her heart skipped a few necessary beats. What was she to do with him? Better yet, what was she to do with him when all of this was finished? Release him? He would forever be a threat to her safety, now that he knew who she was and where she lived. If she let him go, she would always live under the uncertain cloud of not knowing when he would report her to Kenmar, or even the king himself.
And yet, keeping him as a prisoner wasn’t possible. She could never imprison such a vibrant man, never take him away from a loving family. “Your home is beautiful.”
Her gaze flew to his bent head. He concentrated on the dead marine life, but somehow he’d moved closer without her realizing it.
“Thank you.”
“I have a small town house in London, but it’s just a house,” he said. “Home to me is the home I grew up in with my parents and brother and sister.”
She refused to think of Nicholas as a boy, playing with his brother and sister, a loving mother and father proudly standing by. She’d long since accepted her fate as an only child of a father who didn’t want her, and a mother who didn’t have the will to live for her.
“Do you plan to live here forever?” he asked.
She pried off a particularly stubborn barnacle. “Why do you want to know? Information gathering?” The moment the caustic remark left her lips she wished it back, not wanting to ruin the comfortable camaraderie, the easy conversation. The closeness.
Nicholas sighed and turned to her. The heat was stifling, the breeze nonexistent. Sweat dampened his shirt, plastering it to his chest, outlining the chiseled muscles beneath. Muscles she’d laid her hand against for the glorious moments she kissed him.
She returned her gaze to the blasted barnacles, refusing to look or be tempted.
“No, I’m not gathering information. I’m making conversation.” He sounded irritated, but she should
be the irritated one. He wasn’t acting like a prisoner should. What prisoner willingly helped his captor clean her ships? What prisoner asked to be put in a dungeon?
“Emmaline.”
She closed her eyes at her whispered name, willing him away. Maybe she should build a bloody dungeon to put him in.
“Look at me.”
She swallowed and made a halfhearted swipe at a barnacle. With slumped shoulders, she lowered her arm and turned to him.
“I’m not going to turn you in to Kenmar or anyone else.”
“I wish I was able to believe you.”
“What will it take to make you believe?”
“Tell me which of Blackwell’s ships is carrying the gold.”
His eyes flashed. Lines bracketed his mouth. “I can’t do that.”
She pressed her lips together and turned back to her work. “Then we have nothing else to discuss. I don’t have time for conversation. Not when I have three ships to ready for sailing, a ship of gold to find and a father to ruin.”
Nicholas’s gaze was as forceful as the winds that rocked the ships during a hurricane, but still she didn’t look up. Nicholas Addison confused her, confounded her, angered her. If he wasn’t going to give her the information she required, she had no need of him. And certainly no more time for her errant and completely unacceptable feelings for him.
He sighed, and a few moments later began scraping again. The silence was deafening, a living thing pulsing between them. What did it matter? He was nothing to her but a prisoner. No, he was a nuisance. A nuisance she wished she’d left with his crew. Or better yet, with Alphonse. She blew a stray hair out of her eyes. All right, maybe not Alphonse, but certainly with his crew, for Nicholas had been nothing but a sword in her side since she’d kidnapped him. Her intention of gleaning information from him obviously had not worked. He was no more willing to give her the information she needed than she was willing to release him. “You don’t like what I’m doing.” The words were out of her mouth before her mind had time to process them. Mortified, she scraped harder, praying he hadn’t heard. But, of course, he had.
The Notorious Lady Anne: A Loveswept Historical Romance Page 14
