“But you told Mr. Hallock to give the money—”
“I thought dividing it among the villagers would ease your distress in the wake of your brief career as a thief.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “And neither your father’s crew nor mine cares if there is a stone over their heads.”
Abigail opened her mouth to reply, but a sob erupted from her. She buried her face against his waistcoat. The tears she had not cried in the cemetery raced down her face.
“Chérie, do not weep,” he whispered against her bonnet.
“How can I not?” she answered as softly. “Cookie saved my life, and now he is dead.”
“He did not die because of you, but because of his loyalty to a man who did not deserve it.”
She raised her head. “What do you know of my father or of Cookie or of anything? Cookie was a gentle, amusing man who was my friend. He was no adventurer, seeking great wealth on the sea.” Her voice broke. “He went to sea as a youngster, but this was supposed to be his last voyage before he retired and married his sweetheart whom he always called Widow White.”
“You cared for him more than you do for your father, didn’t you?”
“I came to know Cookie much better. Father was always busy with sailing the ship.” She stared at a button in the middle of Dominic’s waistcoat. “Cookie took time to listen to my concerns, no matter how trivial. I shall miss him for as long as I live.”
“As I shall my men. They were good men. Loyal as your Cookie was. Brave and unwilling to back down even when death faced them.” His finger tipped her chin back. “Like you, chérie.”
“Like you, Dominic.”
“Who would have guessed that we could find something in common when we have so much that is at odds?”
She was amazed when she could smile. “That is not the only thing we have in common.”
“No, it isn’t.” He circled her face with his hands, tilting her head back so her bonnet slipped off her hair.
He drew her to him as his mouth claimed hers. She gripped his arms, yearning for them around her as she softened against him. When he lifted his lips from hers, she murmured a protest.
He needed no further invitation, and she tasted sweet, desperate passion on his mouth. Her pulse throbbed with the yearning to be a part of him, to melt to him like a wax candle in the midday sun. His mouth touched her hair, her cheeks, her mouth, bringing each to life with the magic of his touch. She lost herself in the powerful heat of his embrace. Combing her fingers up through his hair, she ceded herself to her longing to be in his arms.
Splaying her hands across his back, she whispered, “By week’s end, we shall be in London. Then we can leave England.”
“It may not be quite that quick.” He chuckled. “I have to get word to La Chanson and work out a place to meet.”
“And then we will leave.”
“We?”
Abigail slid out of his arms as a sudden icy flood surged through her. “Nothing has changed, has it? You are still Dominic St. Clair, pirate and freebooter who cares only for his ship. You can barely wait to return to your life of killing my countrymen.”
“I have told you that my life is my ship.”
“How simple it is to complicate your life only with something that will never have a chance to ask more of you than you wish to give.”
He clasped her shoulders and scowled. “You know that is not true, chérie. You have complicated my life in so many ways.” His tongue traced her lips before he whispered against her ear, “I might have halted your father’s crew from committing suicide if I had paid more attention to the battle and less to my anxiety about what would happen to you if we were defeated.”
“I am sorry to be so intrusive in your heinous life on the sea.” She wrenched herself away from him. Settling her bonnet back on her mussed hair, she folded her hands primly in her lap.
“Chérie.”
When she did not answer, his finger gently turned her face back toward him. She knew he could see the tears filling her eyes anew because he shook his head before saying, “Mayhap it would be better if we concentrated on what we do not have in common rather than what we do.”
“Yes,” she answered, although she feared he would not hear her answer over the crystalline shattering of her heart.
“Enemies who must work together to escape a mutual enemy,” he said, his gaze not releasing hers.
“Yes.”
“Enemies and comrades.”
“Yes.”
He turned to look out the other window, and she clenched her hands until her fingers ached. Everything he had said made sense. Everything he said she knew was the right thing to do. Nothing had changed, so why had her mind amended his words to enemies and lovers?
Chapter Eleven
The sound would have woken Dominic even if he had been sleeping. He had been lying in his dark room, staring at the underside of the wooden canopy of his bed, and trying to sleep when the thunderstorm first rumbled up out of the west.
Then he heard the scream.
He leaped from the bed, paying no attention to the twinge in his ankle on his first step and how it grew into a serrated knife by the time he reached the connecting door between his room and Abigail’s. He threw it open.
From out of the darkness, something flung itself at him. He recoiled, then realized the slender arms were Abigail’s. He reached for her, but she slid to the floor, her arms about his waist, her face pressed to his bare abdomen. The heat of her tears washed along his skin, but he could only think of the soft warmth of her ragged breath and how she pressed so enticingly against him. Above the modest neckline of her linen nightgown, the curve of her breasts brushed his legs. Each of his muscles grew taut as she turned her face against his stomach, her moist mouth and cheeks sending liquid flame to every inch of his body.
He struggled not to press her back onto the rug and lose himself deep within her softness. His fingers trembled as he stroked her hair that had fallen free to drape across her shoulders.
“Abigail?” he whispered.
“The darkness!” she moaned. “It is smothering me. Help me escape the darkness.”
When he turned to light a lamp, her arms tightened on him.
“Do not leave me,” she begged.
As he looked down at Abigail, who still clung to him, he wondered if he would ever be able to breathe again. In the thin light pouring through the windows, her hair flowed in a river along her back, pooling on the pristine white of her unadorned nightgown. Intriguing shadows of her slim legs drew his gaze toward her bare toes. Knowing what he risked, he stroked her silken hair again.
She tilted her face back, and he was mesmerized by the raw desire in her eyes. Her fingers glided along him in an eager invitation to share that passion. He struggled to bridle his reaction to her bewitching touch. To take advantage of this situation when she was so obviously distressed …
He captured her face in his hands and brushed his mouth over hers. The luscious pulse of her uneven breath swirled into him. A low moan floated from her when he took her earlobe between his teeth before the tip of his tongue traced each whorl. Fire flared within him, an uncontrollable blaze. As he found her mouth once more, the flame cascaded along him, scorching away every thought but of her bewitching touch.
He gasped when she came to her feet and her lips swept across his cheek, his nose, his chin, the swift throb in his throat, leaving scintillating sparks. When her tongue teased the shockingly sensitive skin of his eyelids, he twisted his fingers through her hair. He sizzled with a craving to taste her soft skin.
With a groan, he brought her mouth back to bis. This time, he threw aside gentleness as he gave himself to the craving to sample each pleasure waiting for him. His tongue sought to explore every shadowed secret of her mouth. Its slick warmth seared him to his very soul.
Lightning flashed, and thunder resonated through the room.
Through Abigail’s head, sweeping away every bit of rapture with the power of the sto
rm’s winds, came a memory from her childhood. “Aunt Velma!” she had screamed with every ounce of her terror. Then her aunt had come to comfort her. Where was that comfort now?
Another peal of thunder rang through the night’s black blanket. It threatened to consume her in inescapable fear. Hands caught her shoulders. Lightning burned into her eyes, blinding her.
“Abigail?”
In her panic, she did not recognize the voice. She did not care who held her. She only wanted someone between her and the savage storm. “Help me,” she whispered, clinging to the strong body that was her only bastion against the storm’s wrath.
“Come here, chérie.”
“Dominic!” She pulled back. “What are you doing here? You should—”
Thunder cracked like a branch being snapped over a knee. Abigail closed her eyes. A shiver coursed through her, and she pressed her hands to her face.
“Abigail?”
She opened her eyes and stared up into Dominic’s face. Even in the faint light of the single lamp he had lit, she could see concern and bafflement rutting his forehead. “Dominic?” she whispered.
“Are you all right?”
“I am fine. I—” She gasped as he lifted her to sit on her bed. Pulling away from him, she groped for her wrapper and struggled to push her arms through the sleeves. “What are you doing here?”
“I came when you screamed.”
She faltered, no longer certain of anything. “I screamed?”
“Yes. I came in here, and you cried out something about the dark smothering you.”
She shivered. “Yes. It is dark in here. Mayhap if we lit a few more lamps.”
“That is simple enough. If you are frightened of the dark, you should leave on more than just one turned low.” He lit the other lamps in the room.
“Afraid of the dark? I am not afraid of the dark. It is the storm …” Lightning flashed, making the trees ebony against the white sky.
When Abigail sobbed and buried her face against his chest, Dominic enfolded her to him. “I recalled you saying how frightened you are of storms. I guessed you would be upset by this one.” He sat on the edge of the bed, and she nestled against him.
The sky glowed with more lightning, and she moaned.
“It is all right,” he murmured. “Hush, it is all right.”
“Don’t leave me, Dominic. Please don’t leave me.” She hated her own weakness, but she could not help her fear as thunder crashed overhead.
He tipped her face back. When her hands slowly rose to his shoulders, he captured her lips. The storm’s power flowed through her as his kisses became more demanding. She forgot the tempest overhead as she was swept away by the thunderous pulse of his desire. When his lips brushed a ticklish spot along her neck, she began to laugh.
He drew away. “What is so funny? I must say, this is the first time a woman has laughed when I kissed her.”
“Oh, Dominic,” she said through her chuckles, “forgive me. It is just … just …”
“Just what?”
“’Tis just that I could begin to love storms if you spent them with me like this.” Her laughter eased as she stroked his cheek. Her voice thickened with desire. “You make me feel so safe.”
With a scowl, he pressed her back against the rumpled covers. “I do not want you to be safe with me, chérie. I want you to fear that your mind will be stripped away by the madness of ecstasy.”
Just as his lips touched hers, thunder cracked overhead. She cringed and hid her face on his shoulder. “I am trying not to be scared,” she whispered.
“Do not be ashamed. We all fear something.” He smoothed her hair back from her face.
“What are you afraid of, Dominic?”
He smiled. “Of being away from the sea. Of being unable to delight in the wind on my face and feel my ship dancing with the rhythms of the water.”
“I had no idea.”
“How could you?” He tweaked her nose. “After all, have we ever spoken of the fears deep in our hearts? Usually we spit at each other.”
“I am sorry that you are so far from your La Chanson.”
“Give me no sympathy, chérie, for soon I shall be sailing La Chanson again.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I must.”
Lightning flashed. Despite her efforts, Abigail quailed from the thunder that ached through her head. She was glad to have Dominic’s arms around her.
When he gathered the pillows against the headboard, she smiled as he leaned against them. She rested her cheek against his chest. Rain struck the window, and she sighed with relief. The arrival of rain usually signaled the end of the lightning and thunder.
Amusement tinged Dominic’s voice. “Have you always been so afraid of storms?”
“Always. Aunt Velma tried to cure my fear with stories she invented about the thunderstones where lightning was born.”
“Thunderstones?”
At his shocked gasp, she looked up. She could see his eyes’ shadowed depths, but could not guess what hid there. “You know about thunderstones?”
“Yes, but I have never heard anyone use that term in English.”
“’Tis an old word my aunt learned from her grandmother. She told me tales of magic elves who brought the sun’s power to the thunderstones, which crashed to earth in the midst of a storm.” She sat and leaned her chin on her knees. “Even that did not help ease my terror.”
He stroked her hair. “I was scared of storms when I was a child, too.” He wrapped his arms around her. “My maman held me like this and sang French lullabies.”
“I cannot imagine you frightened of anything.” She laughed softly. “How your mother must worry about her son the pirate.”
“The privateer.” When she laughed again, he squeezed her shoulders. “Maman long ago learned that her son was born to a life of adventure. In that way, she says I am much like my father. Apparently, he found it as hard as I do to compromise his ideals. She is pleased that I serve my country this way. The other choice would be to find myself in the infantry marching across Europe.”
Her laugh disappeared as another boom of thunder invaded the room. “Isn’t that storm ever going to leave?”
“Hush, chérie.” Putting his finger under her chin, he brought her lips to his. Her arms encircled his shoulders as he lowered her back to the pillows and leaned over her. “Don’t think of the storm, chérie. That is not part of our lives anymore. We are apart from the rest of the world, for how else could a lovely American lady be kissed by the captain of a French privateer and not be filled with hatred?”
“Mayhap this night is a magic one.”
“Aye, and you are the sorceress who drives me crazy with her spells.”
As the thunder vanished into the distance, Abigail did not hear the last rumbles. His kisses rained against her skin as fiercely as the storm threw itself at the windows. His fingers stroked her eagerly, as did his lips. Through her rose a heated wave which threatened to drown her in desire. She touched him, learning the shapes of his body which were so different from her own.
When his fingers moved along the upsweep of her breast, she gasped against his mouth. Trembling with the need as compelling as the man who invoked it, she tangled her hands in his hair. Her ragged breath was loud in her own ears when his lips explored the skin above her nightgown’s neckline. Deep in her, an aching emptiness beseeched her to press closer to him.
Suddenly something moved along Abigail’s leg. She cried out in horror.
Dominic pulled away and put his hand over his ear. “What in hell are you screeching about now?”
“I thought … But ’tis just rain. It is blowing through the window. I must not have closed it completely.”
“Then close it now, chérie, and come back to my arms.”
“No,” she whispered. “Give me time, Dominic.”
Holding her face between his hands, he murmured, “I do not know how much time we have.”
“No one seems
to suspect the truth.”
“But the truth has a way of becoming known.” He ran a finger along her arm and whispered, “But it is not just that. I want you, Abigail. I want to touch you without anything between us. I long to taste every inch of your slender beauty. When I pulse within you, you will understand how you seduced me to heed the longing on your lips instead of the words you speak.”
Unsure how to answer, she whispered a good night. He stood and gazed down at her. All she needed to do was reach out to him and he would stay. She could not—not when she recalled the words spoken in the carriage. Her fingers rose to touch his face.
He caught her wrist in a tight grip. His voice was as taut. “Chérie, be certain of your choice.”
A knock sounded on the door.
Abigail slowly drew her hand out of his. Going to the door, she opened it to see a maid.
“Lady Sudley wished to ascertain that nothing is amiss,” the maid said with a quick curtsy.
“You may inform her that everything is as it should be.” As she closed the door, Abigail turned to see Dominic by the door to his room. “That is the biggest lie I have ever spoken.”
“Mayhap it is just as well, for it is clear that our hostess is being most attentive.” A whisper of a smile tilted one side of his mouth. “She would be quite shocked if you were no longer my oblivious wife who sleeps here alone, but my lover who expresses our pleasure with her not-so-soft sighs.”
She was not sure how his words managed to crawl beneath her skin to quiver there like a bolt of lightning. They stirred through her, whetting her longing until it became an ache she could not ignore. She gripped the latch on the door to keep her feet from carrying her into his arms.
He must have mistaken her silence for anger, because he said, “Good night, chérie. If another storm sweeps down on us, you need only to come to me.”
And if a storm does not arrive, I still can go to you. She could not silence that thought, but replied, “Good night, Dominic. Thank you.”
He was gone, the door clicking closed behind him, before she could be stupid and say what she really wished to. She climbed into her bed, which seemed so empty. She loved how he made her feel when his gaze roved along her. Then she forgot the eye-scorching color of her hair and the freckles that dotted her nose. When his finger traced the planes of her face in the seconds before his lips touched hers, she believed she was as lovely in his eyes as he whispered against her ear.
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