At her inquisitive look, Rory spoke. “We want Cranville to think we went with the Witch. Look around you. There’s the customs officer watching us, the guard the governor set on us, and half the people who were at our wedding are down here somewhere, all of them waiting to see what we will do.”
Holding his arm, Alyson gazed casually about. She recognized several of the faces from the wedding, and she lifted her hand in greeting, smiling vaguely in their direction. Rory ignored them all, seemingly intent on making his ship before it sailed. She could see the men up in the rigging already. How did he intend to do this?
She wasn’t long in finding out. Safe in the privacy of the captain’s cabin, she gave Rory a look of disgust when he handed her an old pair of William’s breeches. “If I did not know you better, I would say you are determined to keep me in rags to save money.” She took the worn breeches from his hands with two fingers.
“I would prefer no clothes at all if money were the object.”
Startled by the warm tone of his voice, Alyson glanced at him suspiciously, but Rory had already returned to the trunk for his own change of clothing.
As he slid off his coat and pulled at his jabot, Alyson realized he meant for them to change here, together. Her hand closed around her neckerchief. The action was pure defensive instinct. The sight of Rory with his shirt unfastened and open to the waist brought back dangerous memories. She remembered how the bronzed ridges of his chest felt against her palms, the warmth of his skin beneath the sun, the slippery softness in the water. All the traitorous pleasures he had given her had been for the sole purpose of seducing her out of her money, despite his grand display of heroically resisting. He would have done better had he simply asked for it. She would have respected him more.
She swung around to present him with her back. Rory merely unlaced her bodice.
Alyson attempted to jerk away, but one strong hand clamped her shoulder as the other finished its task.
“Unless you wish me to finish undressing you, you had best change quickly. I’ll turn my back if that will help.”
Choking on humiliation, Alyson gave the door to the cabin a wishful look, but she had learned a lesson about running away. The problems didn’t go away just because she did. Her cousin was still out there, and she still had no means of protecting herself against him. Reluctantly she began to undress.
As she pulled on her overlarge shirt, she heard Rory moving about, and she swung to see what he was up to now. He had donned common seaman’s garb, the baggy trousers long and tattered from ill use, his shirt gray with age and tied in front for lack of buttons to hold it closed, exposing a rather overwhelming expanse of very masculine chest. Around his distinctive auburn hair he had wrapped a red scarf, enhancing the costume’s piratical flavor.
Alyson glanced down at her own disguise and wrinkled her nose in distaste. There was no means by which Rory could disguise her as a boy The overlarge shirt fell to her knees, hiding some of the curves of her waist and hips, but she had no means of flattening her bosom. She glanced up to catch an expression on Rory’s face that indicated he had reached the same conclusion.
Tucking the last of his valuables into a sack at his waist, he gazed helplessly at her curls and womanly curves. “Nothing you wear would ever disguise your gender, lass. Slaying dragons would be easier than hiding ye. I’ve a better idea. Wait here.” Rory strode out without further explanation.
He returned carrying a length of bold cotton print. When he held it out, however, Alyson could see it was a skirt of an amazing array of colored stripes. Red and orange and pink mixed with violets and blues in a rainbow of hues she had never seen in one piece before.
“I will not tell you where it came from. It’s clean. Just put it on.”
Alyson hastily complied. The skirt stopped short of her ankles, and the sailor’s breeches could be seen beneath. She struggled out of them as Rory obligingly turned his back. That left the skimpy cotton to cling indecently to her hips and thighs. Combined with the low neckline of the seaman’s shirt she wore, she looked the part of whore or worse.
“I need petticoats,” she whispered in dismay. Her own would trail out from beneath the indecent length of this skirt.
Rory turned and caught his breath. In silks and satins, Alyson was an unattainable goddess meant to be worshiped. In peasant’s cotton, she was a more earthy deity. “No, it’s perfect just the way it is. We’ll need to braid your hair. There isn’t time to find you a bonnet.”
Surely he could not mean for her to appear in public like this! Her shirt sleeves had been cut off so she could at least find her hands, but they left her lower arms bare. She had only her silk chemise beneath the outer garments, and it served as a reminder of how bare she actually was. Every movement betrayed her body. Her nipples pressed against the thin material, and Alyson had all she could do to maintain her composure under Rory’s knowing gaze. Lifting her arms to unpin her hair would be certain destruction.
Rory abruptly swung her around and began braiding. His rough fingers burrowed into her curls, searching out elusive combs until they fell in cascades over his hands and over Alyson’s shoulders. Rory jerked the heavy strands into a single braid.
Once he had the braid tied off with a scrap of red rag, he opened the cabin door and gestured for her to precede him.
Sensing his tension, Alyson scurried out the door. She did not wish to be the one to push Rory over the brink of that dangerous precipice he lived upon.
They left the ship surrounded by dockworkers done with their loading. Dougall stood on the quarterdeck ignoring their departure. William leaned over the side of the ship waving his battered hat, unlike some of the crew, who had taken to whistling and catcalling from their places in the rigging. Rory’s jaw set angrily, but mimicking the actions of some of the women on the wharf, Alyson threw back her head and grinned upward, jauntily waving in farewell. The cheers multiplied, but the sails were already unfurling. With a wrenching feeling of final farewell, Alyson followed Rory’s tug into the crowd.
No one paid heed to the sight of a sailor and his whore taking a room at a waterfront inn. At this hour, they had the place almost entirely to themselves. The innkeeper offered them a narrow room with only a pallet for a bed.
Alyson nervously clasped her arms as soon as the door closed and Rory released his hold. The room’s one wooden chair looked too rickety to support the weight of a child. Before she could drift to the window, Rory usurped the spot, staring over the harbor as the Sea Witch sailed without incident.
He had left the ship before, taking on the more dangerous expeditions himself rather than risk his men. But he had always been alone and responsible only for himself on those occasions. He now had the responsibility of one too innocent to protect herself. He scowled at the dancing waters. It should never have come to this. He had no experience at gallantly defending ladies.
“You are wishing me to hell right now, aren’t you?”
Far from being accusing, her voice was sweetly melodic. Knowing his need for her too well, Rory shoved his hands in his pockets and morosely continued staring over the harbor. “Not hell. Half a world away would suffice.”
“I know the feeling. So what do we do now?”
“We wait for His Majesty’s finest to appear. I rather suspect that is them approaching on the horizon.”
Because of the prevailing east winds and currents, most vessels found it necessary to approach the harbor from the east end of the island, sailing in from the south coast and departing from the west. The Witch had scarcely been lost from view in one direction when the massive frigate appeared from the other.
“If the captain of the frigate knows what he’s doing, he’ll head for the Mona Passage as soon as he’s heard we’ve sailed,” Rory told her. “He’ll think he can cut us off near the strait. We’re cutting the hurricane season too close to linger in the Caribbean, and it’s the fastest route back to England.”
“And what will Dougall do?” Alyson came
up behind him and watched as the massive sails of the navy ship billowed into full view.
“I left it up to him. He knows the winds and the currents as well as I. Normally the Florida channel is safest, but that’s a long distance to take. The Windward Passage is between the other two, but it’s by far the most dangerous. He would have not only the sea and wind to combat but also most likely privateers and the French. The Caribbean is something of a trap for the unwary. ’Tis a pity Cranville found someone as familiar with it as the navy.”
Without thought to what he did, Rory wrapped his arms around Alyson’s waist. She stiffened at first, but when he merely pulled her in front of him where she could see, she relaxed. He held her like that, feeling her soft curves pressed intimately against the length of him, and his need for her swelled to aching proportions.
Rory let his fingers stray up and down her unfettered curves, but her attention remained on the activity outside. Unconsciously she leaned into him as the navy frigate anchored.
Rory tensed as a gangplank was lowered to the wharf and several dignified figures stalked down. In their braided regalia, they appeared more like play soldiers than real people, but the one civilian among them made him hold Alyson tighter.
Taller and broader than his companions, Cranville was a fearsome presence. Alyson shrank back into his arms. Rory caressed her reassuringly.
A small crowd of officials gathered to greet the newcomers. The months at sea had darkened the earl’s fashionably pale coloring. His languid grace had hardened into more dangerous tension.
Alyson gasped as her cousin’s hard gaze searched the windows of the buildings along the street. Rory pulled her safely back into the darkness of the room.
She buried her face in his shoulder as he continued to watch the confrontation. The angry gesticulations below indicated the earl’s opinion of the governor’s allowing the Witch to sail unimpeded.
The heat coming to a boil in Rory’s loins was fair warning of another kind of confrontation. The heated words outside paralleled the argument inside himself as Alyson’s breasts rubbed against his chest. Action of some sort was needed.
Rory watched the earl and the navy officers stalk away in anger and head back for the ship. His eyes closed in silent thanksgiving as his theory proved correct. They would chase after the Sea Witch now. He and Alyson were safe.
That left only the bundle of fragrance and softness in his arms, and Rory bent his head to plant a gentle kiss on the top of her head. Unexpectedly, her face turned up to his, and her lips sought and clung to his for long, frenzied minutes.
***
Alyson needed Rory too desperately to heed mental warnings. His kiss was as hungry as hers, and she greedily accepted the passion offered. He held her so tightly that she was lifted from the floor in the strength of his embrace. She wrapped her arms about his neck and surrendered to the heady demands of his tongue and lips. As their breaths mingled, Rory groaned, and his hand came between them to find the fastenings of her shirt.
The heat in the tiny room had already reached tropical heights, and intensified once Rory’s hand forced her bare breast from the untied chemise. Alyson cried out as he returned her feet to the floor and bent his head to sample the swelling beneath his fingers. The tug of his teeth and lips burned erotic trails inside her, and she wished only to be rid of the cloth hampering his access to the rest of her.
All pride had flown with the need to be a part of him again.
Rory’s competent hands shoved shirt and chemise from her shoulders and halfway down her arms, then returned to fill his palms with her breasts while his mouth sought her approval. She returned his kiss with eagerness, and with this permission, he took full possession of his claim.
Rory lifted Alyson to the mattress. It was only by chance that he spied the large insect scuttling across the filthy pallet, but that chance returned him to his senses. His depraved existence was about to reduce the lovely innocence of Lady Alyson Hampton to the status of seaman’s whore, with legs spread upon any filthy surface that he laid her.
Loathing and disgust for himself diverted his raging need. Returning Alyson to the floor, Rory squashed the insect with his foot. Alyson’s innocent features expressed all the expected emotions of dismay and despair before she had time to hide them.
Curtly he pulled her clothing back in place and refastened it before he weakened again. “We need to find you some clothes before we sail,” he reminded her.
21
Financial transactions completed, Rory returned to help Alyson carry her assortment of bundles into the darkened street. The wind had picked up during the day and now whipped about them. Rory struggled to hold her packages and his hat, while Alyson clung to her new skirts. Neither of them spoke as they walked toward the wharf.
The crew of the other ship evidently expected them. As they climbed on board, Alyson gazed around. It was too dark to discern much other than that this ship seemed larger than Rory’s and carried more canvas. She felt uneasy as they stepped into the great cabin, but whatever warning she was meant to receive was lost in the effusive welcome of the captain and his officers.
In the lantern light, Alyson could see that the cabin was not so neatly scrubbed and highly polished as Rory’s had been. Rory had been adamant that his crew keep all surfaces scrubbed, calked, repaired, sewn, or polished, depending on whether it was wood, trim, or sail.
Captain Margoulis stood half a head shorter and several stone heavier than Rory. He sported a full beard, but the top of his head was nearly bald. He grinned and bowed over Alyson’s hand as the introductions were made.
“Lady Alyson, it is a pleasure. I’ve heard so much about you. I am honored that Maclean trusts me with your safety.”
“I don’t trust you any farther than my sword can reach, Margoulis,” Rory interrupted dryly. “But you’re a damn good sailor and we need a swift ship. I’ll trust you with my business.”
“It is true, the weather grows foul. We should be out of here by now. I am thinking of sailing this night, before the winds increase.”
Rory frowned, listening to the wind creaking through the spars, flapping at loose canvas. “Aye, if the hurricane season has arrived early, I’d rather be out of the Caribbean ahead of it.”
“Good, then we sail tonight. There is only one problem. We are shorthanded. If you would not mind . . . ?” Margoulis posed the question tentatively.
Alyson knew they were paying passengers and to ask Rory to take on a sailor’s place bordered on insult, but in his haste to be gone, Rory nodded curtly.
“Let me see Alyson to our bunk, and I will join you.”
Alyson looked dubiously on the cramped closet they’d been assigned, with its one hard bunk and a hammock swung over it for a second bed. She certainly need not worry about Rory forcing her to share his bed under these conditions. The only question was what she would do with herself for days on end staring at these narrow partitions.
There was scarcely room for Rory to close the door behind them. A small trunk of necessary toilet articles had been sent ahead and rested against one wall. Other than that and the bunk, there was no other furniture.
“It is not much, lass, but with this wind, we should not be long about our journey. Margoulis will let you use his cabin for washing. I’ll come for you when the water is drawn in the morning. It looks as if there might be a bit of a gale tonight.”
They stood so close they were practically in each other’s arms. Remembering the rashness of her passion earlier, Alyson didn’t look him in the face. If she could not see the smoldering desire in Rory’s eyes, she could pretend it was not there. It was a little more difficult to pretend away square shoulders and narrow hips when they practically pressed against her. She could feel her skirt brushing his leg, and her hand trembled with the struggle to keep it at her side.
“I shall be fine. Do not concern yourself about me.”
He hesitated, as if to say something, then simply nodded. “Fasten the latch behin
d me and do not lift it until you hear my voice. None of this crew is to be trusted, including Margoulis.”
Alyson heard his grating of anger and did not know how to reply to it. Her cousin was the reason he wasn’t sailing away with his own ship. She watched him leave without farewell.
Not liking the feel of guilt, Alyson undressed and lay in her chemise upon the rough bunk, listening to the wind and the shouts of the men above. Perhaps it would be better to be a man and express all this pent-up emotion in the form of action instead of keeping it inside, where it festered and grew. She could not define what she felt for Rory. It had seemed so calm and good and strong, at first. Now it was all chaos, and she didn’t have anyone to help her understand.
***
Up on deck, Rory had little time to diagnose the cold anguish wrenched out of him by Alyson’s averted face. Her voice had been cold and distant, not the melodic softness that so enraptured his ear. He had hurt her more than once, and probably would again. They must be the mismatch of the century.
Margoulis had understated the situation by calling himself shorthanded. It appeared that one-third of his crew had decided to ride out the hurricane season in port. It was pure madness to attempt to stay ahead of the storm with only one overworked crew to man the sails.
He threw aside shirt and sword and bent his back to the arduous task of keeping the ship afloat and sailing without capsizing in one of the sudden rough gusts of wind. As the night wore on, Rory judged they were making good time, if he could only be certain they weren’t being blown farther out to sea in recompense.
By the time the raw dawn broke, the immensity of the clouds chasing them became visible, and Rory knew they fought a losing battle. Jagged streaks of lightning illuminated the distant sky, shooting eerie flashes of yellow across the tired, dirty faces of the crew. They would have to seek port.
He knotted off a hawser and strode aft to locate the captain. Margoulis gave him a black frown as he checked their course, and the reason was ample.
Moon Dreams Page 22
