Her Wicked Captain: The River Rogues, Book 1

by Sandra Jones

  Pushing down nausea, she leaned down and gave Pierpont a quick smooch on his shaven cheek. “For good luck.”

  Straightening, she glanced Rory’s way.

  Hellfire. His attention was focused on one of the men at his table instead of her performance, and she felt a stir of emotions. Pierpont was just practice—kissing him wasn’t necessary. She had a sinking feeling she knew why she’d done it, and it had nothing to do with her act. Molly’d done much more by practically licking her man’s neck to show her how best to distract a player. Not that Dell needed any pointers. The same as in fortune telling, the better the performance she gave her patrons, the more they revealed to her without even realizing it. As long as she kept their glasses full, the secrets spilled and spilled.

  Rory didn’t seem to notice or care, as long as she helped him make money.

  Suddenly, a man approached the captain and leaned to his ear. Rory stood, excusing himself. Dell followed his movements as he made a beeline through the room, caught his boss’s ear for a moment, and finally paused at her table to make some small talk to the players there.

  Glancing pointedly at Dell, he rubbed his jaw in another signal. A word in private.

  Molly bumped her player’s chips, sending a cascade across the table. “Oh, balls!” she grumbled and bent over the table. Her breasts poured over the low bodice of her green silk gown, distracting the table while Dell slipped away.

  Outside, Dell walked by the railing until she saw Rory’s tall silhouette gazing at the shadow of a nearby island. Away from the tables, she’d caught glimpses of him without his trademark swagger and charm—at times like this when he thought no one was looking. There was a certain loneliness about him—peculiar for someone with so many admirers.

  He turned, catching the sound of her footsteps, and the pensive look in his eyes gave way to a sly, sexy grin.

  “You’re a natural, angel. As good a seer as your mama, to be sure.”

  Dell leaned against the rail to enjoy the sight of the anchored Argo with its lighted decks. People moved inside its windows mingling as they did on the Queen. She focused on that, ignoring how dashing Rory looked and the way her heart skittered when her mind drifted to kissing him. She squelched the image from her thoughts.

  “Most of these men shouldn’t be gambling, Rory. They may be wealthy, but they have families, businesses and employees. Pierpont, the man I’ve been watching—his cotton was affected by blight this year and he likely won’t have enough money to make it through the winter. He’ll have to sell everything.”

  “I have no sympathy for him. The man’s a slave owner.” Rory’s voice was severe.

  “Yes. But should I be the instrument of his ruin because I know these things about him?”

  She noted Rory wore the painting ring. His hand tightened on the rail. “Some men deserve what they reap. Who’s to say God doesn’t choose people like us to deal his justice?”

  “Possibly. Yet you can take away a man’s money, ruin him if you want—that won’t change anything. His slaves will still be slaves, bought or taken by some other man. You can call it justice, but all you’re doing is lining your own pockets—or Moreaux’s. Your actions do nothing to make things better for anyone else.”

  His body stiffened but he didn’t contradict her. She sensed he had more to say on the subject. Perhaps it was what he’d meant earlier that morning when he’d said he had something to tell her, and now she’d dashed the moment with her censure.

  After a length, he cleared his throat. “I’ve been invited to a private game. Over there.” He gestured at the Argo. “I want you to go with me.”

  “What if I refuse?” She braced for his anger—or worse, more of his brand of persuasion that she found nearly impossible to resist.

  “It’s a rare opportunity for me. We won’t be under Moreaux’s nose there so I can pocket some money he’ll never know about. I’ll pay you fifty percent.”

  She felt his eyes on her, his energy and eagerness for her answer.

  She could use the money. She needed to start saving for when she left for the Cumberland School. Jeremiah could use some cash too. Once he was freed, all he owned would be the clothes on his back.

  With great reluctance, she agreed.

  Rory, Dell and the visiting officer from the Argo disembarked the Queen along the Cape Girardeau riverbank and boarded the nearby vessel. Rory kept his hand on Dell’s elbow, while she played her part as his escort and good-luck charm. He wasn’t sure if he meant for his touch to reassure her of his presence or simply to assert his claim on her in front of the ship’s passengers and crew. Possibly both. She was enchanting in a crimson gown with her hair swept off her neck in a chignon that left her skin exposed to his hungry eyes.

  On board the smaller vessel he’d visited once or twice before with Moreaux, they were taken to the captain’s quarters for the private game.

  An old acquaintance, Captain McElroy greeted Rory with friendly words as he entered and introduced the other three men in the private game of faro. McElroy was house dealer, as usual, then there was a New Orleans banker, his brother-in-law Conway Chandler, and McElroy’s first mate who played casekeeper, operating the abacus for the game already in progress.

  Chandler’s name was familiar. A scandal from the newspapers, maybe. The details escaped him. He gave Dell a subtle squeeze as the man was introduced to her, hoping she would focus her attention on him. Notoriety often meant money.

  The officer pulled up a chair for Rory and then excused himself from the room. As the players resumed the present game, Rory wrapped an arm around Dell, and she leaned down, giving him a kiss for the audience.

  “Good luck,” she whispered into his ear, so low he knew it could only be for his hearing. She assumed an affectionate stance behind his chair, her hands on his shoulders.

  The players finished their present contest, then started anew, allowing Rory into the game. He’d learned she preferred her patrons to be drunk or at least drinking heavily, and these men appeared to be in such a condition. A half-empty bottle on the sideboard and four empty glasses told him the players would be ready for her. In short order, she engaged them in conversation, teasing, flirting.

  Dissecting their thoughts.

  From soda to hock, Rory caught the most bets even down to the end of the round, earning a respectable sum of money. Another round started and ended. This time he didn’t catch as many, hoping to appear straight, earning their trust.

  The other players grew bored of the house game and convinced McElroy to cover the snap board with a tablecloth and open a new deck for poker. McElroy shuffled and dealt. Rory flexed his fingers and felt the weight of the new ring. Anticipation and energy rippled through his muscles, and Dell’s hands squeezed him reassuringly. He had no doubt she’d identified at least one of the players’ tells.

  In her role, she’d struck up a conversation across the table with Chandler, asking if he played often. He said he didn’t, but when the cards came out of the box, his movements were as automatic as Rory’s, perfectly timed with the casekeeper. The two talked about ladies’ and men’s fashions. She offered them each a drink, which she held out to Chandler on his left side as he kept his cards in his right. When his left hand lifted to accept the glass, Rory noted the ugly scar on the inside of his wrist, previously hidden by his sleeve. He’d kept it protected beneath the table. The question was, why?

  “Do you hunt often, Mr. Chandler?” Dell asked, relentless.

  “Not in a few years. I have a rifle back home, but as I said, I travel so often.” Sniff. He threw back the whiskey and returned the hand quickly to his lap. He’d sniffed at least three times during their conversation already. “Donald, here, used to hunt my land when he visited his sister, my late wife.”

  Rory wrapped his hand around Dell’s and squeezed. Yes, he saw the tell. The woman was a marvel!

  “
Really, sir, you shouldn’t feel embarrassed for the accident. It happens to even the best bowhunters.”

  “What do you mean? I said I haven’t been hunting. Not in ages.” He chuckled, glancing nervously around the table.

  Rory’s skin crawled with sudden recognition. He saw the headlines in his mind. Mrs. Lucretia Chandler Missing. Then a couple of weeks later, Mrs. Lucretia Chandler’s Body Found Murdered.

  “The wound on your wrist…where the string broke drawing back. I’ve seen worse.” She shrugged.

  Miller leaned back, regarding Chandler with an expression of disbelief, while his brother-in-law’s face went ashen. His gaze moved from Dell down to Rory and back. He smirked. “I told you, lady, I haven’t been hunting in years. This scratch on my arm? Well, that’s just where I caught it on a nail head.” Sniff sniff.

  McElroy’s eyes widened. The tension between Chandler, his brother-in-law, and Dell snuffed out all other sound in the gaming room. Rory’s muscles tightened and he shifted. “Damnation! Gentlemen, I have to fold. This is the worst hand I’ve had all week.” He placed the cards face down on the table so no would see the three aces and two queens. “Would you mind if the lady and I took some air on the deck for a moment?”

  Without waiting for their answer, Rory led the way. Outside, he hurried her along the narrow deck toward the gangway.

  “What did I do wrong? What did I say?” she whispered.

  Rory reached inside his coat for his gun. Several feet ahead, an officer sat by the ramp in a deck chair, feet propped on the rail, but seeing them and Rory’s pistol, he stood. “Where’re you going so soon?” he called out, likely thinking the worst of them for fleeing the table in a rush. He reached in his own coat, and Dell saw the flash of metal.

  “Hell,” Rory ground out. He froze, cocked the hammer of his pistol, and glanced over Dell’s shoulder in the direction they’d come from.

  An argument broke within the gaming room, and the door opened.

  “Don’t you get the newspaper in Posey Hollow?” Rory asked softly and pushed Dell to stand behind him, away from the approaching gunman. “Chandler’s wife went missing three weeks ago. He was supposedly upriver traveling at the time, so no one accused him. They found her body in a Louisiana swamp two weeks ago with what they thought was an Indian arrow in her trachea. You just identified her murderer, Dell.”

  Chandler was on the deck now, closing in on Dell. She grabbed a deck chair. Folded, it made a good shield. Rory regretted he hadn’t armed her with a pistol, too, before they’d left the Queen Helen. He could shoot one of the men, but probably not both. Running out of options, he aimed at the gunman. If he had to get shot a second time that week, let it be while trying to save the woman’s life.

  He made a silent prayer. He’d broken his vow to protect her. If she got hurt—or worse—it was his fault.

  “Rory, can you still swim?” Dell stared out at the river with intensity in her eyes.

  He grinned. “Like a fish.”

  She hurled the chair at Chandler, catching him in the groin, then hoisted her skirts to climb onto the rail. The officer turned his aim on Dell at the last second. Rory fired at the man as she jumped over the side into the black water. His shot hit the gunman’s hand, causing him to drop his pistol. Behind him, Chandler recovered, headed Rory’s way. He sailed over the rail to follow Dell.

  The drop was short and the impact clean, rocketing him into the deep. The frigid pressure of the Mississippi immediately closed around him. The current pulled him, but it wasn’t impossibly strong. He’d swum in the river when it had been colder once before when Moreaux’s cheating had gotten them into a jam with some ruffians in Minnesota. Now with a few powerful strokes, he broke the surface some yards away from the vessel and gasped for air. His first thought was for Dell, and he located her bobbing ahead of him. She was watching the Argo above, and he followed her gaze. Chandler and the gunmen leaned over the railing, but as Dell and Rory half-swam and half-floated in the current, their enemies seemed to have trouble seeing them in the darkness. Or perhaps they’d decided to let the Mississippi finish the job for them, forever silencing Dell and her “vision.”

  The swim to the Queen Helen wasn’t long, but the weight of Dell’s sodden petticoats appeared to drag her under. Rory swam for her as she fought the pull. She rose and fell. Rose and fell. Rising at fewer and fewer intervals.

  His heart in his throat, Rory dove underwater. He couldn’t see anything, but his hands found her. She pulled at the dress, clearly panicking as she kicked and flailed. He tried to pull her up for more air, but the dress became an iron anvil. Tethered to it, she would soon sink to her death unless he freed her. His fingers went to the buttons and pulled them. One gave way, then another, popping with his practiced tugs, again and again, all the way to her waist. He wrapped an arm around her chest and swam at an angle, pulling her loose from the garment that would kill her. Her small hands fought him, then clung to him, as she seemed to realize his intent. As the dress eventually sank, she became buoyant again, and propelled with him toward the surface as if shot from a sling.

  He kept hold of her as he tread, both coughing as air entered their lungs again. She spat and buckled, cursing like a sailor between gasps. The sound was music to Rory’s ears, and his relief was so great, he couldn’t hold back a chuckle.

  Hearing him, Dell turned in the circle of his arms and fell against him for stability to catch her breath. Her lean legs moved between his in the flow of the water.

  “Rory, t-t-those m-m-men?”

  “They won’t come after us. We’re almost there. Can you swim now?”

  She pulled away and gave a test kick. “Yes.”

  Rory followed her as they swam for the lights of the Queen.

  He half-threw himself onto the gangplank as soon it came within reach. Extending a hand to Dell, he pulled her up. Panting and sore in his bandaged arm, he rolled onto his back, his wet clothing clinging to him like a second skin.

  Hearing nothing from Dell, he lifted his head. Her eyes traveled over him. The water had been icy, and she’d nearly drowned. She could be in shock.

  He reached for her. “Are you all right?”

  Her cheek was as cold as marble, like his hand, but she didn’t shrink from his caress. “I’m fine. Just a little surprised and grateful for your…skills.”

  He smoothed the sodden hair back from her face. “Likewise. You were amazing back there.”

  “Are you sure they won’t follow us?”

  “Not onto Quintus’s boat. McElroy will likely put Chandler off the first chance he gets.”

  “What about the other gunman?”

  “With a hole in his hand? He won’t be shooting at anyone else for a while.”

  Her teeth chattered when she attempted to smile, and he suddenly realized he was doing the same. They needed heat immediately. He felt her breath, and its warmth gave him an idea—a wicked, wonderful idea. She stared at him through half-lidded, sensual eyes as if she’d had the same thought, and he felt the pull of something strong—stronger than the Mississippi—drawing him toward her. It was all the encouragement he needed.

  Banishing thoughts of their present location from his mind, he sank a hand in her wet hair and drew her against him. His lips touched hers, and when she opened to him, his tongue swept inside, seeking her heat. The resulting sensation was instant fire. She kissed him back, sliding her tongue along his. When his hands moved down her chest to the cold damp swell of her breasts, the numbness in his fingers gave way to pleasant, warm prickles. Her small hands framed his face as she kissed him back, pressing her soft curves against the hard wall of his body. Half drowned and frozen, he’d never felt so alive in all his miserable life.

  He longed to burrow into her heat and spread his own warmth inside her. But not here where anyone walking on the promenade might see.

  He broke the kiss, and she
sighed softly, as if disappointed. He smiled inside and out. Nuzzling her ear, he spoke raggedly, “I believe we both have dry clothes in our bedroom. I reckon you’ll need help getting out of that corset too.”

  He stood and helped her up. She glanced down as if noticing for the first time how exposed she was, wearing only a corset and drawers. Given more light, Rory felt certain he’d be able to see her feminine parts just as easily as if she were naked.

  “That won’t be neces-s-sary.”

  Her response was prim as usual, but her slurred speech gave him pause. He needed to get her warm and dry quickly.

  Movement and music inside the windows of the Queen told him the gambling would go on for hours more. The decks seemed to be empty, but he couldn’t be certain. He pulled off his dripping coat and slid it around her shoulders. He offered her his good arm, and they returned to the Queen and his stateroom where he could warm them both to his heart’s content.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Once they were safely inside the cabin, Dell shrugged off Rory’s wet coat while he lit a lantern. Glancing down at her sodden appearance, she was mortified. Beneath the tangle of her hair her breasts glistened like twin moons over the tight corset. The damp cotton of her thin drawers could’ve been gauze, pasted over her skin. But fear, not cold, froze her between the door and the captain’s bed.

  When she’d accepted his challenge the day before, she’d not been in control. She’d been a fool to think she could stop herself from allowing whatever he wanted. If he removed her clothes now, touching her as he’d done before, nothing would prevent her from yielding to her desire. But had she ever wanted to stop?

  The cold made her shudder, but in the dim light, Rory’s emerald eyes cast warmth over her as he admired her body. He yanked off Asa’s ring followed by his drooping cravat, depositing them on the dresser, then made quick work of his shirt buttons. Encased in his shiny wet clothing, he’d never looked more delicious. His black pants clung to his long legs, and she couldn’t help ogling at him again as she had on the gangway.