“He died a long time ago,” Estelle said. She had to establish if this was a ruse, or could possibly be the truth as he saw it.
He hadn’t broken their locked gazes. Instead the steely black depths glinted and burned. His mouth flattened to a harsh line and he drew in a large, steadying breath. “He is not dead. You never gave me a chance to explain about what happened that night. You blame me for his death because I went with him and I came back and he didn’t, but I swear to you there was foulness about the situation I still haven’t been able to make sense of in all this time.”
“Explain.” Her voice was low and flat.
“There were just the two of us on that mission. Your father knew something was amiss, but couldn’t put his finger on it. We were meant to intercept a letter from one of the Crown’s couriers at midnight. It was top secret correspondence about news from abroad. Elias made me hide in the shadows of an alley, when I should have been at his side. I was young then, it was a decade ago, and didn’t have the experience I have now to know any better. Maybe if I had been at his side nothing would have happened. But he was insistent and I was under orders. I saw two men approaching him. They were hidden in shadows, dressed in black. It was dark that night. There was no moon and the sky was hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds. There was something wrong. It took me a moment to pull my revolver and set the trigger. I heard him cry out and then there was silence. I ran from the alley, but there was no one there. I looked for him, looked for some evidence that he had ever been there, a trail of blood, anything, but there was not a trace. No sound. No footsteps running away. No voices. Your father was a large man, and even though there were two of them he would have been heavy to drag if he had been attacked. There was simply no trace that they had ever been there at all. It was as if they melted into the night.”
“It can’t be possible,” Estelle said.
“I am here, nearly drowned, dripping wet in some cave off a coast I’ve not seen before in the middle of the night, when not an hour ago I was in direct sunlight. I believe anything can be possible.”
“My father can’t have vanished without a trace. There must have been some evidence you missed,” Estelle said.
Gregory shook his head. “There was nothing. Not even a scrape on the ground. I returned to headquarters and explained what had happened. A few questions were asked, but all enquiries led to nothing and people in charge lost interest. No leads were followed, no conclusions were made. It seemed as though no one wanted to know the answer to the question of what had happened that night.”
She had found the same when she had questioned the authorities about her father. “But my father was influential. He had status in the military. He was next in line to become a General. How could his death be passed over like it was?” Estelle asked.
“He never died. If there is anything I am certain about, it is that. His disappearance was swept under the rug on purpose.”
“Then why didn’t you go back, track him down, help him come back to me. He was all that I had and when he went, I had nothing. Not even a roof over my head.”
“I made enquiries. I discovered a few things, but none that made any sense. Days went by and became months then years. I came back to you the first chance I had. But when I got to your house, you were gone.”
“I was thrown out,” Estelle said.
“They told me you went to live with a cousin.”
“I have no family. They threw me out on the streets with nothing more than the clothes on my back.”
Gregory shifted uncomfortably against the rock wall of the cave. His chin notched in a tick and his shoulders strained in a tight, straight line. “I give you my word that is what happened.”
She rested her head back against the rocky cave wall. “I don’t know that you came for me. There is no proof of that, and your word means nothing to me.”
“I give you my word as a captain of the Royal Navy.”
Estelle scoffed. “Now your word means less than before.”
“I have always planned to find your father. Over the past years, I have made personal enquiries — secret enquiries. I have never let the matter of your father drop, and now recently I have made some inroads into your father’s disappearance.”
Estelle squared him with a sharp gaze. “Go on.”
“I have researched an unknown land. A land where people who have disappeared without a trace, thought long dead, are jailed. I believe that your father is one of those poor souls. He has been imprisoned for all these years.”
“How can you believe that is even true? I have never heard of such a place and why would it even exist?”
“It has taken me all this time, all these years. Estelle, I was close to your father. Had I known my own, I would like to believe that he would be like Elias. Finding out what happened to him has been my personal mission all these years. I can prove to you that your father is still alive by finding that land.”
Estelle shook her head. “Even if he was alive, even if that was possible, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack.”
Gregory leaned forward, pinning her with a hard stare. His eyes burned with a glowing fire. Even through the billowing material of his shirt, she saw his arms tense, the muscles bunching into tight knots as he sat forward. “I have coordinates. I know the location. In fact, I am so sure where he is, I was about to take my ship and my crew there next week to find him. I had it all plotted onto a map secreted in my cabin. But now I have been kidnapped by his long lost daughter. I have no map, no ship, no crew, and no hope. You alone are the one who has stopped your father’s only chance of rescue.”
Chapter Six
The interplay of flickering light and shadow played across the hard planes of his face. Tension rode towards her on palpable waves. He sat rigidly, regarding her beneath sleek slanted brows.
It would be tempting to believe him, take him at his word. His voice was laced with sincerity, but that meant nothing. He was a tactician, a captain in the navy, no mean feat. He knew how to speak to people. Knew what to say, how to say it and had kept his winning argument for last, timed perfectly for when she might falter against the lure of his words.
Men of many walks of life had woven words that touched her and in the end they left her as empty as those words. At the moment she clung to self-preservation and prior knowledge. As tempting as Gregory was, he was just a man, tarnished with the same untrustworthy brush as them all. And in his position, kidnapped, cuffed and facing a court for final judgment, he would say anything to be released.
His voice was a soft growl. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
She would like to believe the alluring promise that her father could be alive and that only Gregory could find him, but she didn’t trust him. His details were sketchy. She could commit to nothing until she was given solid proof. His words were not enough.
She had the immediate pressing issue of her missing ship, crew and friends. More terrifying than that was that she had no idea where she was or what truly happened.
“We’ll discuss this further in the morning,” she said in short, clipped tones.
“Estelle, you have to believe me,” his voice was low, intimate. Tinged with a hint of desperation.
“Call me Captain,” she said curtly.
“What is your plan now, Captain?”
“At this moment in time there is no need to discuss anything with you. I cannot accept at face value what you told me is true. You have no proof, nothing except your words and they mean little to me.”
“Damn it, Estelle. For the sake of your father, open your mind.”
Anger bit a swift hot path through her veins. “I do not accept cursing from my prisoners either. You have no right to refer to me by my name. It is Captain. You will be the worse off if you do not remember to use it.”
“C
aptain,” Gregory held his breath and slid the words from between clenched teeth. “Need I remind you I am a captain of The Royal Navy? Would it not be better to work together and find a way out of this place, aid me in finding your father, rather than you lead me to God knows where?”
“I do not have to share my reasons with you. You are my prisoner and I owe you no explanation.”
“It might be easier on the both of us if we worked together.”
“That will never happen,” Estelle said.
“Of all the bullheaded … I am willing to work with you for the sake of us both. This is not a normal situation. We do not know where we are, or what has happened to us. It is only reasonable that you free my hands and we work together to get us to safety.”
“And then what, Mister Marshall? Will you still come quietly to Paradise and bravely face your future? Not so long ago you promised me a lifetime in jail at best if I did the honest thing and set you free.”
“Of all the mulish women in this world, I have to be kidnapped by the queen.”
“It is a harsh life and if I am a little ‘mulish’ as you say then I have had to be,” Estelle said.
“If you were treated well, you would not think life to be harsh at all.”
“What would you know about treating women? I have a trail of evidence and hundreds of women to call you, and all the men in this world, wrong,” Estelle said.
“I have never mistreated a woman and I think that men who do to be the most lowly. If I treated you well, you would have clothes, food, comfort, … love.”
The weight of his words opened a little dark cavern long tucked away in her heart. In the life she had chosen she would never have love. The kind that shares, grows, takes away the pain and the loneliness of the world. Living as she did, she could only watch that type of love from a distance, treat it as something that could never be hers. So she had put it from her mind to save her the agony of ever trying to find it.
“How do you know what a woman wants,” Estelle said, hating the way her voice sounded so hoarse.
She watched his features soften as he studied her. “A woman should be cared for, protected, respected. She is the heart and soul of a man’s life, the pinnacle of her children’s life. A woman … ”
“You have no idea about what women want,” Estelle cut him short.
“A woman like you couldn’t understand what it is like to be any of the things I stated.”
“Let me tell you about women like me. Through your misplaced view on how women should be and what they should want out of life, you, who through total ignorant inaction allow women like me to be thrown out of our homes and onto the streets with only the clothes on our back. No protection. No money. An outcast.”
“I … had no idea,” Gregory said.
She didn’t want to hear anymore. Perhaps it was because of the sympathy she heard in his quietly spoken voice, the way it laced through her mind and made her throat close up with a hot lump. She didn’t want his pity. She didn’t want to feel sorry for herself. She had picked herself up from that dark night years ago and had scratched a life for herself, created her own family of other lost women, carved an entire island into her own safe haven.
“It created me. I am the sum of my experiences. I could still be that quiet girl, silent at my father’s side, or I could be the master of my own destiny. I made my choice. I am happy with it. And I have had enough of this conversation. You need to sleep,” Estelle said.
“I am not tired and I will not be sleeping until you free me.”
Estelle locked his gaze and begun her song. The notes started deep in her throat, the melody slow and enthralling. It was the whisper of an angel that would build to a choir. The melody, calming and soothing filled the small cave in harmony with the crackling fire.
His eyelids drooped. Estelle sensed him fight to stay conscious. The melody flowed strongly. She became intensely aware of him, was drawn to his fight to keep his eyes open. A connection began between them, the first tremulous threads that brought her close to him. Her consciousness flowed along the sound of her voice so that his awareness surrounded her.
She was aware of the multitude of questions that filled his mind. Her curiosity stirred. He fought, taking her with him into her own consciousness. His will slipped past her defenses, probing, finding, comprehending. Panic fluttered through her veins. This had never happened before and it took a moment before the panic subsided enough for her to react. Her mind was her private sanctuary and there was no room in it for him. She concentrated, imagined him from her mind, pushed him away and withdrew him from her mind.
She had never experienced any sort of connection when she had used her song. He fought against the intoxicating threads of her voice in a way that had never happened before. She intensified her song, increasing their connection, overrunning his resolve. She used the sultry notes to weave a path into his mind. She reached out, felt his will pull her to him then she plummeted into the innate power within him.
She was intensely aware of the power of his will, his intelligence and sheer determination of his spirit. She stopped struggling, fascinated by the feelings that stirred to life within herself. She dwelled there, absorbing his energy, learning about him, touching his mind and tasting his thoughts. She allowed herself to filter gently into every corner of his consciousness, bombarding his fortitude with her own tenacity.
Her song was working, dampening his alertness. Even as his awareness blended with the realm of sleep, he fought for release, fighting the somnolent layers as they pounded him into the shadowy depths of unconsciousness.
Estelle felt him slip beneath the last layer through to the world of dreams and inner thoughts. She felt the urge to stay where she was and watch his thoughts as they would eventually tumble through his mind. She could learn a lot about a man like him, but she knew to stay meant that she was still connected to him. It was a connection she needed to break.
Estelle severed the link between them, her heart pounding in her ears. She raised a shaking hand and rubbed her eyes, clearing her vision. It had never been that way, there had never been a connection between herself and the person she used her voice on. He had fought her, used her gift to enter her mind before she recovered enough to push him out.
Their connection was strong. He had suddenly become more of a threat than she’d first imagined. At least now she could watch him without the fear of him knowing. Although his face was relaxed in sleep, his brows slashed a thick dark horizontal line over his closed eyes. Small lines were etched into the corners, fanning outwards. His nose was straight, strong, the nostrils slightly flattened over the somewhat severe line of his mouth. His lips were full but remained harshly masculine. She decided he had a handsome well-formed male face. It was a face she could get used to looking at.
She snorted rather indelicately, settled comfortably against the rock wall and continued her lazy perusal. His chest rose and fell with each breath. The flickering fire sent a delicate sublime light over him that made his skin even more golden because of his deep tan. His square shoulders were relaxed, coated with an array of interlacing muscles. The flickering light drew sharp contrasts between the undulating planes of his physique, his well-defined pectoral muscles. Her eyes dwelled on the rigid line that ran from his breast bone to his navel. Even in sleep his stomach muscles contracted, hardening the line the defined his midsection.
Her eyes grew greedy and they traveled lower, over his toned long legs that were stretched before him, his knees bent a little, his feet tipped outwards. The material of his pants were stretched tight over well-defined thighs and fit snugly over his lean hips. Her primal flicker of interest sparked a physical response deep within her. He would be a man she might have chosen for a few hours of play, if the situation was not as it was.
But he was a sleek, lethal animal, a dark predator, powerful, intelligent,
strong in mind and body with a dark ruthless edge and if she had half a wit about her she should not forget it.
She had more pressing issues to think about. Her missing friends; her crew; her ship. A forlorn dread seeped deep into her bones and she rubbed her hands on her arms in a sudden grip of cold. Too many questions filled her mind.
Too much horror.
She hoped wherever they were, they were safe. She had to believe that Dalia’s gift had worked somehow, and that she had been able to save them from Cutlass’s attack. She had to believe they were saved, and that maybe only she and Gregory found themselves in this position.
If she didn’t believe that they were alive, then she didn’t know if she could go on. Hope was a tenuous thing. It gave purpose, a reason to keep going in insurmountable odds and that was what she drew on. Hope that somehow her dearest friends were still alive and well and that they had survived the attack and were on their way back to Paradise. If something happened to her and she never made it back, she knew her friends would keep the island alive and that the lives of all those that lived there would continue. She could trust them with that.
And what of her father?
She was shaken to the core with Gregory’s revelations. To think that her father might still be alive was more than she could ever wish. In Gregory’s position, she would say anything. He was a man in a dire situation. Trusting what he said would take more than mere words. There had to be some solid evidence, or she had to logically conclude that they were just hollow, desperate words.
The thought grounded her, pushed the heavy sludge of fear, threatening to overpower the hope that she desperately clung to, drove home the dire circumstances in which she found herself. The only course of action would be to discover where in the world they were and find her way home. With Captain Gregory Marshall as her prisoner. A steely reserve kicked down the heady tide of desperation.
Paradise Island Page 6
