Something about his words seemed to unsettle her, but she recovered quickly. “Too rational? Can one be any such thing?” she asked. “In any case, it is because of love that I insist on returning to Antigua. It is because of love that I refuse to marry.”
“So you love Harper’s Hill,” he scoffed. He had not expected her to revel in that sort of sentimentality.
“I love its people,” she corrected. “And as soon as I am legally able to do so, I intend to prove it in the best way I can. Once the plantation is mine, I will set them free.”
Everything about Tempest Holderin bespoke the rash energy of a reformer, so her intentions did not exactly surprise him. His own antipathy toward the institution of slavery aside, however, he knew very well how unusual such beliefs were, and how such an act would be met by others in the West Indies. He could not help but ask her, “Why?”
Shock widened her blue-green eyes. “If you can ask that question, sir, then I cannot expect any answer I give to be satisfactory. Slavery is a great evil,” she stated in an assured, pompous sort of tone, as if she were some Methodist preacher shouting from the pulpit, “born of greed and a mistaken belief that some people deserve to be ground beneath the heel of others—”
“Ah, of course.” He cut across her, taking some of the wind from her sails. “Liberté, égalité, fraternité, and all that,” he cried in mocking imitation of a revolutionary. “Just don’t forget the sugar for your tea.”
“Surely you believe—”
“I believe nothing, Miss Holderin. I know that men are capable of unspeakable cruelty toward one another, and have been acting on those base impulses since the beginning of time. If you imagine that your grand gesture will change anything—”
“It will change something,” she countered. “For the people of Harper’s Hill, at least.”
“And what will become of them when they are free?” he asked, doubting she had thought her decision through. “Will you send them back to Africa? Surely you must know they will only be captured and sold again.”
“Freedom, Captain Corrvan, means they will decide for themselves, in the end. But I hope they will stay at Harper’s Hill. I intend to offer them fair wages for their work.”
“Your profits will be destroyed,” he pointed out.
She shrugged, in the way only a spoiled heiress could. “I’m given to understand that many large English estates are run profitably on a similar system.”
“Aye,” he acknowledged. “Raising sheep, not sugar. And you have not really answered my question, you know. Why are you so determined to do this mad thing?”
“Because my dear papa wished it,” she said simply. “With his dying breath. And I love my father, too—loved, people seem to expect me to say, as if my feelings were somehow diminished by his death. In his life, he did all he could for my grandfather’s slaves, but the most important thing he could not do. Once Harper’s Hill is mine, I can.”
“Unless you are wed before you inherit.” In which case her husband would control the property, both the plantation and its people. Good God, no wonder Delamere and the others were determined to push her into marriage before she was given the chance to throw all that money away.
“And so, I refuse to marry. Just as I refuse to leave.”
With an air of finality, she folded her arms across her chest, as if she were a barrister who had just made an unassailable argument. Disturbed by the movement, Caliban left his comfortable nest and slunk over to Andrew, nudging against his hand to be petted. The dog’s rough gray fur was warm where it had lain against her thighs.
Andrew understood the deep desire to ensure that a beloved father’s dream had not died with him. Perhaps better than she could imagine. And for that reason, he knew precisely how difficult it would prove to weaken her resolve. “Cary seemed to believe that you would be protected from Delamere if you were in England,” he ventured. He still dreaded the prospect of taking Tempest Holderin on a voyage she did not want to make. Nothing had changed in that regard. But they had come too far to turn back now—in more ways than one.
This time she did not roll her eyes at the suggestion, although it was clear she was tempted. “And did he say why?”
“Not precisely, no,” he admitted, looking back at her. “But I take it that the power Delamere enjoys in Antigua is at least partly a product of the environment, so by removing you from that environment . . .”
She nodded her understanding. “Certainly, he has thrived in a place where the laws may be bent or broken to one’s will, a place where men seem to prove particularly vulnerable to blackmail. Or bribery,” she added with a twitch of her lips. “But don’t you see? That is precisely why I must stay. What damage might he do at Harper’s Hill while I am not there to protect it?”
“Cary remains. Will he not protect your grandfather’s interests?”
“As he has protected mine?”
That was a challenge he could not counter. For the briefest moment, he could not even meet her gaze. “What authority has Delamere to do anything with the plantation?” he at last asked instead.
“My grandfather and Lord Nathaniel are old friends. Did Edward not also mention that? Lord Nathaniel already has a great deal more authority at Harper’s Hill than I would like, I am afraid. On the very day we left, he showed me a letter from my grandfather, intimating that he would soon be granted even more.”
Andrew tried and failed to imagine the grounds for friendship between the dissipated son of a nobleman and an elderly baronet. “What sort of a man is your grandfather?”
“I do not know. I have never met him. Like too many planters, he is an absentee.” Her voice dripped with disdain. “I have always thought it shameful to care so little for something for which one is responsible.”
Andrew forced himself to remember that her words had not been directed at him, though they cut rather near the bone.
“After my parents married, Papa offered to go to Antigua and take over the plantation’s management,” she explained. “My grandfather accepted the arrangement—until his daughter died here. He blamed my father for her death, of course, and after that, he wanted even less to do with the place. That was twenty years ago. I do not see how Edward can feel certain that I would be better off in England, with him. My grandfather’s health is said to be poor, and his communication with Harper’s Hill has always been sporadic at best. How can Edward claim to know anything about the man or his wishes?”
Andrew dropped his gaze to the charts littering the table. He was losing this fight. It was time to change tactics. Rising, he stepped closer to her. “Then perhaps you should consider that every minute Delamere spends at sea is a minute the people of Harper’s Hill are spared.” He waited. Let the words sink in. “If you truly want to help them, then you must do what countless young women have done over the ages. Lead your suitor on a merry dance.” At her baffled expression, he gestured toward the window behind her and the water beyond. “Away from Antigua. Across the Atlantic.”
He did not add that, by sailing toward London with the precious cargo Stratton seemed to seek, Andrew would also be able to lure the Justice into the open water she generally avoided. The advantage at last would be the Colleen’s, and Andrew could—if he chose—seize the opportunity for vengeance with both hands.
In a small voice, Tempest asked, “What if he gets to England first and goes to my grandfather—?”
What if Stratton outsailed him again, as he had before? “I will make sure that does not happen,” Andrew swore, although he had never been one to make promises—to say nothing of keeping them.
Still looking out the window, she whispered, “What if he doesn’t follow?”
“He will.” Delamere had the instincts of a predator. If she ran, he would chase her. Of that, Andrew had no doubt.
“To London.” On her lips, it was the name of a mystical place, found only in storybooks.
Reflected sunlight limned her profile: the gentle curve of her jaw, the trans
lucence of her skin, the sunrise shimmer of her hair. Hers was a pale, radiant beauty, like an eggshell held up to a candle’s flame, or a spider’s web touched with dew at dawn. Fragile.
Without conscious thought, his left hand rose, his fingertips eager to trace the highlighted features of her face. But before he reached her, she turned slightly to face him. Her close-cropped curls made her wide eyes look even larger. As her gaze locked with his, he was reminded that the true beauty of delicate things sometimes lay in their unexpected strength.
Tempest.
He could not be sure which he named—the woman, or the storm-clouded depths of her eyes. In this moment, they were one and the same.
Her throat worked. “I suppose I haven’t much choice, have I?”
“No.”
And with that monosyllable he condemned himself to spending an eternity at sea with her. Forty days, give or take.
And forty nights.
Once, on a schoolboy dare, he had asked the rector what the people on the ark did all day, in such cramped confines, surrounded by all those animals no doubt giving in to their animal natures, what with being so perfectly paired and all. He had been soundly thrashed for his insolence—or had it been sacrilege? In any case, the rector had refused to answer the question.
Nevertheless, Andrew had had a good idea then, and a better one now, how a man and a woman, trapped together for six weeks, might be tempted to pass the time. Which was why he never allowed women aboard his ship.
His hand dropped.
“Do you know, Captain Corrvan, I half-expected you to suggest I might save myself by marrying you,” she said. If she had seen the movement of his arm, she gave no indication.
“I can promise you that such a thought never crossed my mind,” he answered with a small smile and shake of his head. “I am a man ill-suited to such responsibilities.”
Her brows knit together in a slight frown as she glanced around the cabin. He might have expected such a reaction, given the pride with which she wore her own sense of duty. “But you must have a great deal of responsibility as captain of this ship.”
More than he had imagined when he left home. Less than he had avoided by leaving.
“I leave all the hard work to Mr. Bewick.” Twisting his mouth into something he hoped might be mistaken for a wry grin, he turned and walked to the door.
For once, Caliban followed without being called.
Chapter 7
Captain Corrvan did not lock the door behind him, but Tempest took little comfort in the omission. As they were now many miles from land, she obviously no longer posed a flight risk. Even if the cabin door had been standing wide open, she would have been no closer to getting home.
But that did not mean she was going to stop trying.
Oh, she was willing to admit that Captain Corrvan was right about one thing: Her departure had offered the unexpected benefit of drawing Lord Nathaniel away from Antigua. But as far as she was concerned, leaving Harper’s Hill was too steep a price to pay for that small reward—even aside from the exorbitant sum Edward had given the captain.
Oh, Edward. Edward. She had known him all her life, loved him as a brother, trusted him as much as she had ever trusted anyone. And this, she thought, looking around the confines of the cabin, was how he had repaid that trust. How could Captain Corrvan imagine she might marry a man who had betrayed her so spectacularly?
With Lord Nathaniel on one side of her, and the wide expanse of the Atlantic on the other, she was truly caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. In the past, those words had been nothing more than a familiar saying. A way of dramatizing the impossibility of a choice.
Now, however, she was living it.
It was even more disconcerting to wonder whether she would recognize the devil when she saw him. She had grown accustomed to thinking of Lord Nathaniel as the very devil incarnate. But mightn’t the devil as likely be dangerously attractive? It required no great stretch of imagination to think he might also speak with a soft Irish lilt.
How much had Edward truly known about the man he had hired to take her away? What if he had been misled or misinformed? How strange to think that she might be the one aboard a pirate ship, from which Lord Nathaniel was trying to rescue her, dubious though such a “rescue” would prove to be.
No, she didn’t really think it could be that, but something about Stratton and the Justice had made Captain Corrvan nervous, even before he had realized who else was aboard the other ship. Was there some history between the two? Did Captain Corrvan have something to hide?
Her search of the captain’s quarters had uncovered intimate things. Personal things. But nothing that helped her know Andrew Corrvan better. Nothing that helped her choose between thinking of him as her kidnapper and thinking of him as her rescuer.
She wished she could simply not think of him at all. But that was proving nigh on impossible.
If only she had truly become the rational creature her father had wanted her to be, she surely would not have felt anything like attraction to a man she ought to despise. From that moment in Edward’s sitting room, however, when both she and Captain Corrvan had reached for the dog and their hands had met, she had felt there was something between them.
A few moments ago, she had sensed as much as seen that he had been about to touch her, had been about to brush his finger across her cheek or through her curls. She feared he might attempt to do it again.
Worse, she feared she might let him.
It was rather a novel experience to be thinking of a man’s attentions in terms of what she might accept or deny. For four years, she had been saying “no,” and really, had anyone ever listened? Half a dozen men were still determined to marry her, despite her refusals. Lord Nathaniel’s touch had left bruises more than once. Even Edward had behaved with an odd sort of possessiveness now and again—and look where that had gotten her.
Twice since coming aboard his ship, she had found herself in Andrew Corrvan’s arms: once when she had almost fallen, and once when she had been ill. He might have imagined she would be willing enough to end up there again—or he might have been indifferent to her unwillingness. She was, after all, entirely within his power. But he had stretched out a hand with the intention of touching her, and then had stopped himself from doing so. Would a kidnapper, a villain, a rogue have done that?
It was not precisely that she trusted him. She knew better than to trust anyone here.
But it was something to realize she did not fear him, either.
Rising, she brushed her palms down the front of the blue worsted waistcoat, smoothing it over curves it had never been designed to cover. Enough. If the captain was going to allow her to move freely about the ship now, she needed to use that freedom to her advantage, for it might be taken away at any moment. Any one of the members of the Fair Colleen’s crew might prove able, even eager, to provide useful information where Captain Corrvan was concerned.
Just because circumstances had come together—and Edward had conspired—to force her to leave Antigua, that did not mean she had to go quietly to England. Or even go at all. If necessary, could she not use all her considerable charms, or at least her considerable wealth, to persuade some of the sailors to go against their captain and turn back?
Much depended on the crew’s loyalty, and whether their captain was the sort of man to inspire it. It felt as if they were all engaged in some quest. Had these men thrown in their lot with his willingly, or were they, like she, unwitting participants on this risky journey and thus prone to rebel?
To answer that question, she needed to find out what drove Andrew Corrvan.
She decided to begin her inquiries with Mr. Beals. The years the surgeon had spent in Captain Corrvan’s company meant he was likely to have the knowledge she sought. And his talkative nature meant he was even more likely to share it.
As luck would have it, she did not even have to leave the captain’s quarters. Mr. Beals came to her. “How’s my prettiest patient
?” he called as he entered with a knock and a friendly smile.
“Well, thank you,” she answered honestly.
From the doorway, Beals looked her up and down, taking in her unusual dress. Even as she fumbled for an explanation, he nodded in approval. “It shows good sense, I think. Very practical. Now, let’s see those hands.”
When he had pronounced them healed, he next looked at her eyes and asked about her appetite, then declared himself satisfied with her progress. “Why, I shall have to come up with another excuse for calling on you now, Miss Holderin.”
“No excuse needed, Mr. Beals,” she insisted. “It is always pleasant to have someone to talk to.”
The surgeon made a little noise of agreement but nonetheless turned as if planning to depart, prompting Tempest to move quickly between him and the door. “I’ve been thinking about what you told me that first night, Mr. Beals,” she said, glancing about the cabin as if recollecting the occasion fondly. “Eight years aboard this ship. What wonderful stories you must have to tell.”
Pride swelled his chest. “I fancy I do have a few.”
“I hope you’ll share some with me when you have the time,” she said. “I fear it’s going to be rather dull for me, being stuck in this cabin for the next few weeks.”
“Well, now, I suppose I could . . .” he began as she gently coaxed him to a seat at the table. “’Course, more’n a few of ’em aren’t fit for a young lady’s ears,” he cautioned.
From somewhere, she mustered a titter. “What a pity. Perhaps you could arrange to tell those to someone else while I eavesdrop,” she suggested teasingly, and as she had hoped, he laughed, settled into his chair, and had soon launched easily into some escapade involving the boatswain Mr. Fleming, a tar bucket, and a goat.
It was not hard to laugh at such a tale, which was succeeded by another of equal good humor told at the quartermaster Mr. Bewick’s expense. While she was still wiping her eyes, she asked, rather breathlessly, “Haven’t you any about Captain Corrvan?”
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