“Scraping rubbish and muck off the hull of a ship?” His laughter made her cringe, even as it made her heart beat harder.
She didn’t look at him, because she didn’t want to see if there was laughter in those blue eyes as well.
“Not many of us like this arduous task,” he said.
“As if you’ve ever breamed a ship before.”
Another silence, this one filled with condemnation, but she refused to regret her words.
They needed to be reminded of what they were. And what they were not.
“I don’t mind physical labor, Emmaline.”
She moved to the next section. “You’re an aristocrat.”
“So I should lounge around all day, and let you do all the work?”
“Many would.”
“I’m not one of those many.” By the sound of his voice, she knew he’d moved closer, but still she refused to look at him.
“But that’s not what you asked, was it?” he said.
She scraped harder. Her tool slipped, and nearly sliced her thumb open. Sweat dripped down her temples and into her eyes. She lifted a shoulder and swiped at it, blinking the sting away.
“You want to know what I think about your plan to ruin Blackwell Shipping.”
It wasn’t a question, but she shook her head anyway. “I care less what you think.”
“Ah. That’s why you asked then?”
She swung around to face him, staggering back when their noses nearly collided. He was far closer than she thought. So close that the heat from his body made her hot, and she was able to see the black rings around his blue eyes. “Whether you approve of my plans to ruin Blackwell Shipping or not is none of my concern.”
“And yet you still asked.”
Her fingers tightened on her scraping tool, and for a wild moment she thought about smacking him with it, but the violent moment quickly passed. She’d killed men before, but every death on her shriveled soul had been for a purpose. She would never thoughtlessly take a life, because each man she condemned to a watery grave dogged her every step and haunted her deepest sleep. She didn’t need one more.
Her anger dissipated and she loosened her hold on the tool, perturbed that Nicholas had pushed her to this point. That she cared enough to allow him to push her to this point.
As if sensing her emotions, he stepped back. She took a deep breath of humid air that wasn’t filled with the masculine scent of Nicholas Addison.
“You’re correct,” he said. “It’s not my place to say whether I like your plan or not. I don’t understand it, because I’ve never disliked someone as much as you dislike Daniel Blackwell.”
Emmaline let out a very unladylike snort and turned back to the ship. Her feelings went way beyond dislike, but she wouldn’t go into that again. Nicholas knew her story. There wasn’t much else to say about it.
He grabbed her wrist in a gentle hold, stopping her from scraping. Surprised, she looked up into his intense glare, and the anger that tightened his mouth and pinched the skin around his eyes.
“I don’t like what you’re doing because it might get you hurt. I think you should give up your idea of revenge, and live your life another way. A happy way. Because I don’t think revenge makes you happy.”
Her anger wasn’t as dormant as she’d hoped. It rose in a great wave, swamping any other emotion she might have been feeling for the very proper, very aristocratic Nicholas Addison.
“Pray tell. What is your idea of happy, Captain Addison? Attending balls and parties? Sitting on charity committees? Drinking tea with the other ladies? Or maybe it’s riding through Hyde Park at the fashionable hour?”
His eyes snapped blue fire, but her words hit their mark. Did he honestly believe she’d be happy leading such a superficial life?
She laughed harshly. “I’d rather run a dagger through my eye, thank you very much.”
Far off in the distance, her men laughed and joked with one another, but they might as well have been on a different island, as far as Emmaline was concerned. She saw nothing but Nicholas’s intense stare, felt nothing but his fingers circling her wrist. Experienced nothing but the anger vibrating between them.
“This is the life I chose,” she said softly. “The only life available to me.”
“Not true. Give up piracy, settle down. Dorothy is willing to provide a dowry.”
He was grasping at straws. Living a fairy tale.
She ripped her wrist from his hold, and held her arms out to her side. She was wearing breeches and a worn shirt. Sweat caked her face, and she was positive she smelled as bad as the dead sea life they were scraping from the hull.
“What man would have me? What man would want a wife who can careen a ship? Who can steal everything he owns and run a cutlass through him at the same time? What man would want a wife who can cuss like a sailor because she is a sailor?”
She shook her head, blinking away the tears pressing against the backs of her eyes. Blast him for making her think of another life. Another way. That particular ship sailed long ago, and she wasn’t even on the passenger list.
“I chose the course of my life. A husband and children are not part of it.” She looked him in the eye, willing him to accept her words for the truth. “After all the things I’ve done, I don’t deserve that.”
He glared at her, arms crossed, legs planted wide, looking more like a pirate than she felt at that moment. “Is that what you think? You don’t deserve to be loved?”
The intense anger pulsating from him had her taking a step back. He matched her with a step forward. She didn’t realize she’d taken another step until she came up against the hull of the ship. She pressed herself to it, flattening her palms to the rough wood. Nicholas was suddenly so close that she felt the heat radiating off his body. She stared at his lips, inches from hers, remembering the feel of them. He planted his hands on the hull, one on either side of her head, trapping her.
She was a hellion with a cutlass, a master marksman with a pistol, but this … this was out of her element. She didn’t know how to react. What to say. What to do. She wanted him to step away, to give her room to breathe, to think. She wanted him closer, wrapped around her.
“Well, do you think you’re unworthy of love?”
She lifted her eyes from his lips, and met his heated gaze. “I’m a pirate. A pirate who kidnapped you. How can you speak of love to me?”
“You don’t see it, do you?”
“See what?”
He shook his head and stepped away. Immediately she missed his presence, the heat of his body, even though the heat on the beach was already stifling. She wanted to draw him back to her, but that was madness. Insanity.
“Your father was a fool, but don’t make the mistake of painting all men with the same brush.” He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving her to stare after him.
Furious, she wanted to chase him, to give him a piece of her mind, to tell him he was wrong, that she didn’t paint all men with a tainted brush. Instead she picked up her scraping tool and turned back to the hull.
What did it matter what he believed? He was here for one purpose, to help her bring down her father. Anything else was a waste of her time.
Chapter Fourteen
The next morning, Nicholas’s leg ached like the very devil. Hot pokers shoved beneath his kneecap wouldn’t have been less painful. Even though he defied his doctors’ predictions about never walking again, they’d been right in one aspect—he would forever be plagued with the aches and pains of his injury.
He probably should stop this fevered pacing and prop his leg up, douse the pain with a few gulps of brandy, but even he understood there was more to his unease than the pain in his leg. Not to mention, drinking at dawn was not the best idea.
What he wanted was Emmaline’s trust, and she was holding tight to it. Her father treated her horribly, of that there was no doubt. Nicholas didn’t blame her for her anger or her skittishness, but she had to understand that not all men w
ere the same as Daniel Blackwell.
More specifically, she had to understand Nicholas Addison wasn’t the same as Daniel Blackwell.
He stopped his pacing before the window in the sitting room, and stared blindly outside. Defeat pushed at him, an angry presence urging him to give up. He could walk away. No one watched his movements or marked his presence. He could leave Emmaline’s house and make his way to the docks, board a ship and return to London in a matter of weeks.
Someone would allow him on board if he told them his name and promised payment at the end of the voyage.
He would return to London, report to Kenmar and put all of this behind him.
However, by honoring his promise, by finishing what he started, he would put Emmaline in jeopardy. More than that, he might possibly condemn her to death.
On the other hand, by not divulging the identity of the pirate attacking Blackwell’s ships, Nicholas would fail in his duty. There would be no promotion. No ship to command. No career. And he would lose his sense of honor.
Before meeting Emmaline, Nicholas believed in right and wrong. Pirating was wrong. Fighting against pirates was right.
Now?
He pictured Emmaline as he first saw her, in her white gown, with all that ebony hair, the sun-darkened skin and the twinkle in her eye drawing him irrevocably toward her. She was simply, beautifully, irresistible. But beneath all the finery lay the heart of another woman. A pirate.
No. He still believed pirating was wrong. What Emmaline was doing was wrong. Certainly her father had betrayed her and hurt her in ways he couldn’t imagine, but there were other means of revenge.
He pressed a fist against the cool windowpane, his mind in turmoil, his thoughts a roiling mess of contradictions.
Save his reputation, retain his sense of honor, and earn a captaincy at the expense of Emmaline’s life.
Or …
Throw his lot in with Emmaline, and hope his family name would save his sorry ass.
He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against his fist. The second option was not an option at all. He must do what was right and just. He must inform Kenmar that Emmaline was Lady Anne. After all, good men, decent men, honorable men lost hard-earned money on the ships she’d attacked, and that was wrong.
Simply put, it was his duty to right a wrong.
Knowing he’d made the correct decision, yet also sickened by what he had to do, he lifted his head and spied movement in the tree line. A swish of an emerald skirt, a flip of an ebony curl off a creamy shoulder, and she was gone, but he had no doubt of what he saw.
Emmaline dressed in a gown and heading toward town.
What in God’s name was she up to now?
Emmaline walked with purpose. The day was still new enough that the intense heat of the Caribbean hadn’t rolled in yet, but the air hinted at it.
She mentally reviewed all she needed to accomplish before the sun set. She would be hours behind schedule, because this trip into town hadn’t been on her list of things to do.
Fear drove her forward, leading her feet closer to the docks. That was ridiculous. Lady Anne didn’t feel fear. She identified the threat and eliminated it. And wasn’t that what she was doing now?
Eliminating a threat.
Ridding herself of Captain Nicholas Addison.
Her stomach cramped, but she marched onward, sweat collecting in the small of her back because she wore two stones’ worth of material in this ridiculous skirt.
However, her comfort, and more important, her feelings, had nothing to do with her purpose this morning. This was business. After her conversation with Nicholas the day before, she knew in her heart she needed to rid herself of him. Send him back to England. Send him anywhere, but get him away from her.
More than likely, he would tell Kenmar her identity. It was a chance she was willing to take. Besides, by the time Nicholas reached England, she would have finished her last mission, and it wouldn’t matter that Kenmar and his cronies knew who destroyed Blackwell’s ships.
Her mission would be complete.
A scream had her reaching for the stiletto strapped to the inside of her wrist before her mind even processed the sound. She turned, only to find two boys on the opposite side of the street fighting with wooden swords. Their laughter was almost contagious. She smiled, stopping to watch their play.
They looked to be brothers, both with toffee-colored hair and mischievous, gap-toothed smiles. One was a bit taller than the other, but a mere year older, she guessed.
“Take that,” the older one yelled, lunging forward with a thrust of his sword.
The youngest staggered back, but fought on, the dull thud of wood on wood echoing off the surrounding buildings, as pedestrians stepped into the street to bypass them. Emmaline’s smile widened. How carefree they were. Had she ever been that young? Had she once held the innocence of youth in her hand, the way these boys did? Watching them, she felt as old as the ocean floor, as sluggish as the rain-filled clouds easing their way west, and as jaded as the worst dockyard doxy.
The younger one’s foot snaked out and hooked around the other’s ankle. The older one teetered, a look of astonishment in his rounded eyes. Emmaline covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
The older boy fell on his backside, his sword clattering a few feet away. The younger one pretended to run him through the heart, then danced around him whooping and hollering.
“I killed the filthy pirate! I killed the filthy pirate!”
A few spectators clapped.
Emmaline’s smile slipped away. That wooden dagger of his seemed to penetrate and twist what was left of her soul.
Filthy pirate. The boy’s words resounded in her head until they became one word. Filtypirate, filthypirate, filthypirate.
She was no more and no less than what the boy labeled his brother. Her thoughts flew to Nicholas, and their conversation the day before. He thought there was a better life for her than this, and for a wild moment, she’d entertained the idea. But watching these children drove home how utterly foolish Nicholas was, thinking she could be more, that another life was waiting for her over the horizon. ’Twas merely a desperate reach for an impossible reality.
She was Lady Anne. A filthy pirate. She wasn’t some fresh-faced debutante from the “right” bloodline, who excelled at embroidery and the pianoforte.
She turned away from the bickering boys and continued toward the docks, her heart so heavy it seemed she was dragging it behind her. Although she was dressed in one of her best gowns, she felt soiled with the accumulation of a lifetime of grime ground into her very essence.
“Why, Mrs. Sutherland. What a pleasure.”
Emmaline stopped and closed her eyes. Hell and damnation. Could this day get any worse? Wasn’t it enough the two boys stripped the wool from her eyes and allowed her to see herself as she truly was? Did she have to contend with this now? Slowly she turned, stretching her lips into what she hoped was more smile than grimace.
“Mr. Lansing.” She dipped her head in acknowledgment of the man standing in front of her.
Was it better to be a filthy pirate, or a rat-faced rodent of a man who used his position as the son of the governor of Barbados to shoulder his way through life?
Cook was the first to note that Peter Lansing looked a little too much like a rat. The resemblance was alarming and amusing. Lansing’s face was a tad too long, his eyes slightly too close together and on the smallish side, his nose a bit too pointed. Sometimes she swore that nose twitched.
She didn’t know why he’d taken a fancy to her. She wished he’d point those beady eyes in another woman’s direction. Hoped every single damn time she encountered him that his feelings would have waned, but they never did.
“I called on you the other day. Did your … butler … not inform you?”
She narrowed her eyes at the derogatory intonation of the word butler.
“He did.” Lie. Clarence never said a word, but it wasn’t surprising. No o
ne in her household liked or trusted Peter Lansing, and Clarence made it his duty to protect her from the man.
Lansing sniffed, as if affronted. The fool never got the hint that she had no feelings other than dislike for him. At first, she’d been kind, unwilling to hurt him. That had been a mistake, for her kindness merely fanned the flames of his infatuation. Soft rebukes didn’t help. Neither did outright rudeness. He simply refused to be deterred.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, stepping around him. “I have errands to accomplish, and I’m behind schedule today.”
Lansing fell into step beside her. “Where are you heading? I will accompany you. I too have business in town.”
Lord above, what will it take to get rid of this man?
“Thank you, but my business is of a personal nature.” She’d heard her aunt Dorothy use such an expression. Aunt Dorothy said that would scare any man away.
But apparently not Peter Lansing.
He frowned. “Unchaperoned?”
She barely bit back her snort of derision. Unchaperoned, indeed. Since when did Widow Sutherland ever go anywhere chaperoned?
She walked quickly for a woman lugging around so much fabric, but Lansing kept step. For the first time, she wished she’d brought someone with her, but whom? Certainly not Cook or Clarence. Phin was entirely out of the question, because she didn’t want him knowing what she was about. And the others were busy careening the ships.
And Nicholas … Well, Nicholas was the reason for this excursion.
Lansing cleared his throat. His walking stick tap-tapped along the cobbled street, and she had to grit her teeth against the sound of it. Strange custom, using a walking stick, when you had two perfectly good legs to carry you around.
“Mrs. Sutherland, the reason I came calling the other day was to ask if I could escort you to the Governor’s Ball.”
Oh, Lord, this was worse than she thought. “Is it that time of year already?”
The Notorious Lady Anne: A Loveswept Historical Romance Page 15
