Willing Love

by Mary Jean Adams

  “They were sh…sh…shooting at me,” Prudence said.

  Evan sensed Peter’s wide eyes on Prudence. He was an Ashcroft employee, but one so new he had probably never met his employer.

  “Peter, have the cook heat some water and fill the tub in my quarters.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Evan turned back to his wife, taking in the drenched tunic and breeches clinging to her shapely form. At least she hadn’t taken her midnight swim in a nearly transparent shift this time. Evan’s blood heated as memories of having that body beneath him little more than twenty-four hours ago flooded his mind. He banished the thought by reminding himself how many sailors died of illness after a swim in the cold sea. He had to get Prudence warmed, now. And he had to get answers.

  “Who was shooting at you?”

  “S…S…Simon,” Prudence said, matter-of-factly despite her obvious difficulty getting her lips and tongue to form words.

  “Simon was shooting at you?” Evan found it hard to believe, despite the man’s obvious animosity toward Prudence.

  “Well, I d...d…don’t actually n…n…know that it was Simon doing the shooting. It m…m…might have been the other m…man.”

  Evan accepted a woolen blanket from one of his men and draped it around Prudence’s shoulders. He tried to wring the seawater from her hair with a second blanket.

  “Thank you, Thomas, that will be all for now.” Evan tried not to sound irritable when he realized the man stood rooted to the deck not a half step behind him.

  “Yes, sir,” Thomas said, ogling Prudence over his shoulder as he returned to his duties.

  Evan turned back to his wife. “What other man? Did you recognize him?”

  Prudence considered. “No, but he looked familiar. I’m fairly certain he doesn’t work for Ashcroft, but he could be a townsman.”

  “Perhaps his presence is mere coincidence—” Evan turned his eyes on his wife “—but yours is surely not. Mind telling me what you are doing here?”

  “You don’t seem happy to see me,” Prudence said, her voice artificially light.

  At least her shivering had stopped.

  “I’m not sure I am,” Evan said. “I thought I had left you at home, where you would be safe.”

  “Evan, I needed to warn you.” Prudence laid a hand, fingernails an alarming shade of blue, against his chest. “I think Simon may be planning to use you to get to me.”

  Warn him? At the risk of her own life? Leave it to Prudence to give no thought to her own safety.

  “You could have been caught in a current and swept out to sea.” He forced the words past the knot in his throat. He could have lost her so easily.

  “Nonsense.” Prudence pulled the blanket tighter about her shoulders. “It’s thanks to the currents that I was able to make it to your ship.”

  Jenkins, Evan’s sailing master and a man of indiscriminate years but consummate skill approached, cutting through Evan’s thoughts.

  “Evening, ma’am.” Jenkins nodded to Prudence.

  “Good evening, ah, Mr. Jenkins, isn’t it?” Prudence said as though she were in a drawing room in Newport having tea and not dripping seawater onto his deck.

  Nevertheless, Evan couldn’t help but be impressed. Prudence hadn’t been back at Ashcroft long, yet she had clearly endeavored to learn the names of her employees. His lips twitched when he considered how long it had taken her to learn his true name.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jenkins said, then turned to Evan. “Sir, shall we complete the run tonight or head back to port?”

  At least there was one man among his crew who wasn’t so bemused by his wife that he couldn’t keep his mind on the job. He mentally added Jenkins to his list of permanent crew.

  Evan turned his thoughts toward the situation at hand. There was no sign of Manley, but he couldn’t take the chance that the little man would be waiting for him. By the time he sailed the Cythraul in, Simon would have had time to gather reinforcements. While Evan wasn’t carrying anything incriminating, he didn’t care to answer why he would be running his new ship into a deserted cove, one with an infamous history, in the middle of the night. The last thing he needed at the start of a new venture was to catch the attention of an overly zealous customs official, especially one who coveted his wife.

  “Prudence, did you happen to notice whether Simon or the other man had a looking glass?”

  A shiver racked Prudence’s shoulders as she thought. He would have to get her out of those wet clothes and soon, or she would catch her death.

  “No. Or at least I did not see one.”

  “Good. That means they should not be able to see the ship clearly in this light. Jenkins, weigh anchor and head back to port.”

  “Aye, sir.” Jenkins brought a knuckle to his forehead. “Back to port.” He turned to shout orders to the men.

  Evan turned back to Prudence. “Now, we need to get you out of those clothes.”

  “Aye, sir.” Prudence mimicked his sailing master.

  Evan wondered if Prudence had intended the gesture as a subtle reminder that she was his superior, or if she just naturally bristled at being given orders.

  Evan grasped her by the hand. The cold clamminess of her skin sent a wave of alarm through him. His superior or not, he had to get her warm. He led her down the ladder to his cabin below deck.

  “Just finishing up, sir.” Peter stepped aside so another man could bring in a pail of steaming water.

  “Thank you, Peter.”

  As though he had lost the ability to turn his head, Peter’s gaze remained fixed on Prudence. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

  “No, Peter. We are heading back to port. You’ll be back home in time to have breakfast with your mother.”

  “Aye, sir. Thank you, sir.” Peter’s face grew red to the tips of his ears, and he ducked out of Evan’s quarters.

  “That wasn’t very nice, embarrassing the boy like that,” Prudence admonished him once they were alone again.

  Evan took the blanket and his coat from around her shoulders. “That boy is scarcely a year or so younger than you, and you obviously fascinate him. I don’t particularly care to have my crew ogling my wife.”

  He untied the laces at her neck, and in one swift move, pulled the tunic over her head. Prudence wasn’t wearing her shift, and her already puckered nipples shriveled even more. Evan longed to nibble on one of the rosy buds, but the goose bumps across her pale chest reminded him it was a reaction to the cold, not any particular desire she might be feeling.

  Prudence crossed her arms in front of her chest.

  “Cold?”

  “Yes.” Her green eyes darkened.

  “Well, we have to get you out of those clothes, then you can take a hot bath to warm up.”

  “I don’t suppose you have a roaring fire aboard ship somewhere,” Prudence said, her teeth chattering anew.

  “Fires are something we tend to avoid on wooden ships.” He reached for the buttons on her breaches.

  Where did she get these clothes anyway? Had she stolen them from Richard at some point during their misspent youth? He could just imagine a lanky, youthful Richard arising, naked and shivering, from the local duck pond only to find his clothes had gone missing. Being best friends with Prudence could not have been easy.

  Prudence slapped his hands away. “I can do that.”

  “Suit yourself.” Evan turned and strode to a sideboard where he poured two glasses of brandy.

  When he came back to Prudence, glasses cradled in the palms of his hands, she was still fumbling with the buttons. Her hands shook so fiercely she had yet to undo even one.

  “Here.” He handed her a glass. .

  “Damn these things, anyway.” She took a sip of brandy. “You’d think they’d be easier to undo. However do men manage?”

  “Generally, we don’t soak our clothing in seawater and chill our fingers to the bone before we undress.”

  Goosebumps sprung out across her belly when Evan’s
knuckles grazed her cold flesh.

  “So that’s it, is it?” Prudence took another sip of brandy and closed her eyes. “Mmmm.”

  Evan grinned. He liked a woman with a sense of humor, even more so when she appreciated his best brandy. However, even the finest brandy money could buy wouldn’t keep her well if she didn’t get warm and dry.

  “The warmth from the brandy is no more than superficial. We need to get you out of these and into the tub.” Evan popped open the second button on her breeches and before she could protest, he pealed the wet fabric past her hips.

  This time, she made no attempt to cover herself but took another sip of her brandy.

  His wife wasn’t the flirtatious type. But nor was she falsely modest, especially when it came to him. Her attempt to cover her breasts earlier had probably been because she was cold.

  He liked that about her. Had she been a man, they could have been friends. Hell, they were friends.

  He took her glass from her and ushered her into the oak tub.

  “Ahhh.” Prudence let out a sigh of satisfaction as she sank into the water.

  Evan handed her glass back to her.

  “This is almost as good as a roaring fire.” Prudence accepted the glass of brandy. “I feel warm inside and out.”

  Evan considered telling her that he had even more pleasant ways to warm her in mind, but he held back. There were things that needed to be discussed.

  “So now, tell me, what you were doing on the beach in the middle of the night, putting yourself in a position for Simon to shoot at you.”

  “I really don’t know why Simon took a shot at me.” Prudence sipped her brandy. “I suppose he thought I overheard something I shouldn’t have.”

  For the moment, Evan decided to ignore her deliberate attempt to misunderstand his question. “Did he know it was you?”

  Prudence shook her head. “I don’t think so. The older man thought I was a boy.”

  “Yes, well they couldn’t see what I can.”

  Prudence’s chest turned a mottled shade of pink when Evan let his gaze slide over the smooth skin shimmering beneath the water. He leaned forward and let his lips brush hers. She tasted of brandy and seawater, an interesting and not unpleasant combination.

  “Now, answer the first part of my question.”

  “Which was?” Prudence gave a slow blink.

  Evan couldn’t tell whether she was being deliberately obtuse or simply couldn’t remember. Perhaps the brandy or the heat from the bathwater had made her sleepy. He liked to think that his kiss had affected her. If only his cunning little wife could be so easily distracted.

  “What were you doing on the beach in the middle of the night?”

  “Waiting for you, of course.” She said it as though it were obvious.

  “But I told you, I had to run a load of goods up to Boston.”

  “Yes, you did.” Prudence sat up in the tub and gave him a smirk with lips that were finally regaining some color. “But clearly we aren’t in Boston, are we? You think I can’t tell when my own husband is lying to me?”

  “You mean your husband, the stable master?”

  Prudence’s face fell, and Evan immediately regretted reminding her that he had done nothing but deceive her since the day they met. He reached for the oak pail sitting beside the tub and filled it with water from the tub.

  “I apologize for being evasive, but my story held a kernel of truth. I am sailing with a new crew. I wanted to see how they handled the shoals in Smuggler’s Cove.”

  Evan tilted her head forward and poured the warm water over her hair.

  When he finished, Prudence regarded him with solemn eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Evan sat back on his heels. “I’m not sure. I think some part of me wanted to protect you. I was afraid you might want to come along, and I didn’t want to put you in danger. With a new crew, the Cythraul could easily have been run aground.”

  Prudence gave a slight nod.

  Her meek acceptance pricked his conscience. He needed to be completely honest with her. She deserved that much.

  “And there was a part of me that didn’t want to let you get close to me.”

  Prudence’s gaze snapped to his face, but she said nothing.

  “I’ve been on my own for a long time, and I never thought I’d meet someone with a will as strong as my own. I think maybe I was afraid to let you in, afraid I’d lose something of myself.”

  “Do you remember the promise I made to you?” Prudence asked in a small voice.

  “You mean the one about being faithful?”

  She gave him a rueful smile and rose from the tub. “No, the one I made in the carriage on the way home from the Waites’ supper party.”

  Evan nodded.

  “If I can manage to trust you, do you think you can find it in yourself to trust me?”

  “I’m sure of it.” Evan offered his hand to help her out of the tub.

  He snatched a towel from the side table and wrapped it around Prudence’s shoulders. She was still warm from her bath, but in the chilled air of his cabin, she would cool quickly. Part of him wished she had stayed home. Another part of him, specifically the part that lay below the buttons on the front of his breeches, was ecstatic to see her.

  “Why didn’t you wait for me at the manor? I told you I would be back on the morrow. What was so urgent that it couldn’t wait a day?”

  She colored, started to say something, then seemed to change her mind.

  Evan tipped her chin toward him. “I am your husband, Prudence. Your secrets, whatever they are, are safe with me.”

  “That’s just it. It’s not a secret. I don’t have any secrets from you.”

  “What do you mean, sweetheart? You’re making no sense.”

  “I am a virgin.” Prudence blurted, then paused. “Or at least I w…w…was.”

  Evan waited to see where she would go after making such a bizarre opening statement.

  “I don’t expect you to believe me. I don’t know why I didn’t bleed. I can’t give you an answer to that. I know it is the way of things, but perhaps it isn’t for me. Or maybe it’s part of the curse. I don’t know. All I can tell you is that I have never been with Richard or any other man.”

  Her words came so fast it seemed to Evan as though he were being buffeted about in a wave.

  “Slow down.” He laid a hand on her cheek. “Now, why again is it that I am supposed to think you weren’t a virgin?”

  “You don’t trust Richard, and he said you think that he and I were lovers.”

  “I might have at one time, but not anymore.”

  “And because I didn’t bleed.”

  “You didn’t?”

  Prudence looked incredulous. “Surely you noticed.”

  For reasons that made no sense to him, Evan felt the need to defend himself. “I know virgins are supposed to bleed, but it never occurred to me to check to see if you had.”

  Although he had never been with one, he also knew that virgins were supposed to feel pain the first time. He had worried about causing Prudence pain and gone slowly. When she hadn’t appeared to be in any discomfort, he let his instincts take over.

  He hadn’t given it another thought until they weighed anchor and he had a moment to indulge in pleasant memories of the night spent with his wife. He assumed her adventurous nature had masked any discomfort. Like everything else she did, Prudence leapt in to making love with both feet and not much thought to the consequences. Not that he minded.

  “Thank you for believing me. I know I haven’t given you any reason to.”

  “Sure you have,” Evan said.

  “I have?”

  “Yes, I believe you when you say you were a virgin because you are the worst liar I’ve ever met.”

  “I am not,” Prudence protested. “I can lie with the best of them.”

  “Yes, and I am your distant Portuguese cousin.” Evan reminded her of her most recent efforts at fabrication. “Eventually,
Mr. Cowper is going to discover I am not Portuguese, and I’ll have to come up with some plausible story as to why you thought I was. He might even expect me to explain why I went along with the misunderstanding.” He leaned back against a table and nestled her between his thighs. “Being married to you won’t be easy, will it?”

  “We could still have the marriage annulled. No one need know it was consummated.” The forlorn look in her eyes made his gut twist.

  Was his wife falling in love with him? While he had no experience with love, from the moment he agreed to her terms, he had wanted something more than the business arrangement she proposed.

  Of course, if Prudence were falling in love, his independent-minded wife would be the last to acknowledge it.

  “Now, why would I want to do that?” Evan asked.

  “Because of the curse.” Evan rolled his eyes and Prudence added, “I know you don’t believe in curses. I normally don’t either, but this one is real. My grandmother was hexed by a woman who had fallen in love with my grandfather. Now, none of her heirs will ever have a male child.”

  “And you believe this?”

  “Well, how else would you explain she only had a daughter and then my mother only had a daughter?”

  “Luck? Coincidence? Fate?” Evan suggested.

  Prudence crossed her arms over her chest, and her towel slipped lower. “I don’t believe in luck, or coincidence, and isn’t fate just another word for being cursed?”

  Evan ran his finger along the edge of the towel. “You don’t believe in luck or coincidences, but you believe in curses?”

  “Yes.” She backed away from his touch.

  Evan caught her with his thighs before she could get very far.

  “I never thought I’d say this, but you think too much. This is one time I’d rather you just follow your instincts. What do they tell you?”

  “That there is a curse on my family.” She looked at him doubtfully. “What do your instincts tell you?”

  “That curses were meant to be broken.” He pulled her into a searing kiss that left little doubt as to his intentions to do just that.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Prudence batted at the butterflies darting about her cheek, her eyes, her lips, her nose.