by Nina Bruhns
She moaned softly. Balanced on the brink. But his tongue swept into her mouth, bringing with it the taste of sweet macaroons and male desire. An irresistible combination. She wrapped her arms around his neck and returned the kiss. And for a short, blissful minute forgot about everything but the exquisite sensation of falling for—
Oh, no! She jerked back, suddenly coming to her senses.
“I am avoiding you,” she said contritely, sliding from his embrace. “I keep telling you, there’s—”
“Here it is!” Mrs. Yates sang out cheerily. She walked into the kitchen carrying a large black folio, which looked like the ones artists used to carry their loose drawings or paintings.
Sully looked irritated for a second, but he quickly masked it and accepted the portfolio from Mrs. Yates. “What’s in here?”
“Captain James’s notes on Wesley Peel and the fires, I believe. A few other odds and ends. A drawing he recovered from your old town house. Oh, and the key.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Key?”
“To your old place. Unfortunately you can’t live there. It’s slated for demolition. The captain was able to stall the Magnolia Cove planning commission, but he’s unsure how long they’ll put off tearing it down. The building became unsafe during the last hurricane.”
Elizabeth got the distinct feeling he wanted to ask more, but he just nodded, tucked the folio under his arm, thanked Mrs. Yates for it and her hospitality and herded Elizabeth out the front door to his car.
“Back to the Pirate’s Rest?” she asked nervously, getting behind the wheel. Still thinking about their kiss.
But his face held a strange, faraway expression. “Non. I want to go by my old town house.”
It seemed there was something else on his mind. Relief mingled with an irrational spike of disappointment. “Is it here on the island? The town house.”
He nodded. “In the village, just a few blocks from where the fire was.”
“Where you were injured, you mean?”
“I’d like to see that, too.”
“Are you sure?”
His eyes met hers and he smiled, but he seemed preoccupied. “You needn’t worry, I’ll be fine. Simply curious.”
She shouldn’t be surprised he’d so quickly dismissed their kiss. She knew his reputation. It would take far more than a mere kiss to be memorable to a lady’s man like him.
Which was a good thing, she reminded herself. Because she wasn’t here for kisses.
The village of Magnolia Cove was only a mile or two down the main road, a quaint, sleepy place that looked like it was stuck in a time warp. Which was the main appeal. Tourists came here looking for antiques, centuries-old architecture and charming old restaurants and pubs. And the Pirate Museum and Pirate Festival, of course. The place was certifiably pirate crazy.
Thank goodness she’d missed the festival, held in August, and she had no intention of visiting the museum. She’d never had the slightest interest in pirates.
Well. Until very recently.
And now only as the subject of oblique irritation and unease.
She followed his directions once they got to the village, and pulled up in front of a truly ancient block of row houses.
“When were these built?” she asked, amazed the narrow two-story timbered town houses were still standing. Part of the roof had blown off one end, and all four attached houses were leaning observably to the left. No wonder the city council had condemned them. A large yellow sign was attached to each of its four doors, warning no admittance by order of the Fire Department.
He winked. “That would be me,” he said. With a flourish he produced the key he’d fished out of the portfolio earlier and approached the first door on the right. “Now, I understand if you don’t want to come in with me. I’m just going to take a quick look.”
She debated for a second, then followed him inside. If they’d stood for this long, they’d probably last another ten minutes.
She trailed behind as he meandered through the dark rooms of the ground floor, dank with disuse and dusty with neglect. It wasn’t a large place, but it had once been beautiful. The wood appointments were elegant, the cracked plaster relief work on the ceiling had once been intricate and graceful. There were a few tall windows, caked with grime.
“Can’t see much,” she ventured, staying close behind him. She could imagine that all sorts of creatures had taken up residence in place of the humans. “When did you live here?”
He paused in front of the staircase and glanced up it. “A long time ago,” he murmured. “Want to go upstairs?”
She was just opening her mouth to say no way in hell when he grabbed the banister and started up the staircase leaning heavily on his cane as he ascended.
“Okay, sure,” she said, suddenly not wanting to be left behind. For some reason, the place was starting to give her the creeps. Almost like it was…watching her.
“Where are you going?” she asked, hurrying after.
“Bedroom,” he said, heading toward a door at the end of the short hallway. “There’s something I need to get.”
“Get?” She grasped the door frame and peered inside the room, adjusting her eyes to the even dimmer light.
“I left something here. I want to retrieve it.”
With a frown, he opened another door, to what looked like a closet. “This is new,” he mused.
“Sully, you can’t just come in here and take things. The building belongs to—”
“Tyree. That is, James Tyler. He mentioned it while I was in the hospital.” He disappeared into the closet.
Nervously she went into the room and walked over to it. “Sully?”
She could hear him muttering and fumbling around, but it was totally dark inside so she couldn’t see a thing. Suddenly she heard a crash and wood splintering. Along with a string of French-sounding words she was glad she didn’t know what meant.
“Sully!”
“Damned paneling. I—Ah, here it is.” A moment later there was another string of French words. “It’s empty.” He sounded grim.
“What is?”
“My hidey-hole. I was hoping…” He appeared at the door, shaking his head. “Never mind. There’s one other place I need to check.”
He went from that bedroom to another, which was situated at the short end of the building and therefore had more windows and was a little brighter. Striding directly to the brick fireplace on the outer wall, he ran his fingertips gingerly along the underside of the mantel. Setting aside his cane, he knelt down awkwardly, grasped a section of the brick flanking the fireplace and with a grunt slid it aside, revealing a cavity of about a foot square. Inside the opening lay several dark brown bags.
He turned to look up at her, his expression triumphant. “He didn’t know about these.”
“Who?”
“Tyree.”
“James Tyler? You believe he took whatever was in the other hidey-hole?”
“Almost certainly. He might have said, but much of what he told me early on in the hospital is a blur…Anyway, he’ll be surprised to see these.”
She watched as he pulled one of the bags out, wondering at the nature of Sully and James Tyler’s relationship. Sully claimed they were best friends, but there seemed to be some kind of tension there. As evidenced by this little secret.
“Here, help me put them up on the mantel,” he directed as he handed her the first bag, and began pulling the others from their hiding place.
“Oh, my God,” she exclaimed when the weight of it nearly dragged her hands to the floor as she accepted it. She barely managed to hoist the bag up onto the mantelpiece. “What the hell do you have in here, anyway? Gold bricks?”
She braced herself for the second bag.
“Mais, non,” he said with a chuckle. “Not bricks, chère. They would never fit in these small bags. It’s coins,” he said, handing it up to her. “Gold coins.”
Chapter 4
S ully was ready to grab the leat
her bag as it fell from Elizabeth’s hand.
“Gold c-coins?” she sputtered.
He’d had a feeling that would be her reaction. Women were so easily impressed. He handed the bag back and indicated the mantel. He dare not leave them hidden here lest they be destroyed along with the building, and he needed help carrying them. But how to explain…?
“Spanish doubloons, I believe. From…Sullivan Fouquet’s last voyage.”
“And how did you come by them?” she asked, wide-eyed.
She was not going to like the explanation that they were his secret stash from a previous lifetime.
He cleared his throat and passed her the third heavy bag. “Honestly, I assure you.”
Alors, as honestly as capturing an enemy merchantman could be considered. It had been an incredible boarding. Not a shot had been fired, but the prize had been fat. The Spanish ship was heavy with cargo just taken onboard in Hispaniola, gathered from the far reaches of South America and the Caribbean. Rum, emeralds, cotton, sugar, silver and a strong box filled with gold coins collected as taxes from the wealthy colonial plantation owners. What a catch!
He glanced up and realized Elizabeth was staring at him. “What?”
“You’re grinning like a pirate.” Her dry tone held a slight note of accusation.
He laughed and held out the last bag for her. “Remembering good times,” he said, and rose to his feet, shaking out the stiffness in his knee.
On impulse, he reached out and grasped her behind the neck, pulling her to him for a quick kiss. He couldn’t get enough of her mouth, which was somehow softer, more pliable than it had been two centuries ago. He wanted to spend the entire day kissing her, getting to know her lovely mouth again.
Except, there was still a slight hesitation in her acceptance of his lips on hers.
He hadn’t quite won her over yet. He would have to work on that.
“Can you carry one of the bags down the stairs?” he asked, letting her go before she could pull away herself. She nodded, and he gathered the three remaining leather bags to his chest, grabbed his cane and followed.
When they were seated in the car, the gold safely tucked on the floor by his boots, she turned in her seat and gazed at him for several moments.
“Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?” she asked.
He frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You claim to have amnesia, yet just now you said you were remembering good times. You claim there is no treasure map in those journals, that the arsonist Wesley Peel is after some crazy voudou thing, and yet, lo and behold, you just happen to be in possession of a priceless pirate treasure.”
Ah. So not the kisses. “Elizabeth…”
“Care to explain all that?”
He closed his eyes and let the battle play out in his mind. He hated deception more than anything. He had a volatile enough nature without throwing lies into the mix. Though, admittedly, because of his past profession he’d occasionally been forced to speak false.
But in this case the truth of his knowledge was so fantastical, she would sooner believe a fiction. And yet it rankled.
He did not want to be Andre Sullivan.
“Perhaps,” he finally said, “it’s best you do not ask.”
Her pretty mouth, still pink from his kisses, thinned. “Very well.”
She drove in silence to the Pirate’s Rest Inn and wordlessly made two trips up the stairs to his room when his leg couldn’t manage the steps and the heavy burden of three bags at one time.
“Elizabeth,” he said when she turned to go, desperate to make her understand. Somehow. He reached for her. “Please believe me. It’s not what you are thinking.”
Her back bristled and she stepped back. “How could you possibly know what I’m thinking?” she quietly demanded.
“Because I know what I’d be thinking,” he returned.
His guarded distrust had saved his life on many an occasion. But it had also been troublesome at times. Hadn’t he even begun to suspect that Elizabeth Hayden was secretly seeing someone else those last months they were together? Hadn’t he been dead certain it was Tyree? A foolish notion his friend had set to rights immediately upon Sully’s waking in the hospital. Seeing Tyree with his Clara was proof enough of the matter. Those stars in his eyes had not been there when he’d looked upon any woman in the past, certainly not Elizabeth Hayden.
He didn’t want this new Elizabeth to distrust him. Not for anything.
“I’ll get your folio,” she said shortly, and whisked out of his room.
He wanted to stop her, to compel her to stay with him and let him explain. But he thought better of it. He would like to see the notes Tyree had left for him in the folio, and knew he’d never make it down and up three flights again without resting his leg first.
He cursed his infirmity, and hated the discord that had sprung up between him and Elizabeth. How could he make it right again without lies? And without tying her to his bed and convincing her with his body…
When she returned and handed him the folio, he took it with one hand and grasped her fingers with the other.
“Will you stay and help me with the laptop?” he asked.
She bit her lip. “I don’t think—”
“Please?”
After a slight hesitation, she said, “All right. But after dinner,” she said. “I need to talk with you about something anyway.”
“About what?”
She shook her head, as she checked her wristwatch. “Later. I promised to call my mother before dinner.” With that, she pulled her hand free and hurried out the door, closing it softly behind her.
Alors. At least she was still speaking to him.
He needed a distraction, so he wouldn’t go after her. Crawl down the damn stairs if he had to.
With a sigh he removed his boots and hoisted himself onto the high, four-poster bed, leaning against the solid walnut headboard while stretching his legs out on the fancy lace coverlet. Reaching for the portfolio, he untied the strings holding the top together and emptied the contents onto the bed.
A sheaf of handwritten papers fluttered down onto a much larger piece of cardboard. He flipped through the papers, immediately recognizing Tyree’s slanted scrawl.
As promised, there were notes on each of the fires set by Wesley Peel, along with a couple of pages dealing with Peel himself—his background, family history and the sawmill business he’d recently lost. There was also a page in a different hand, listing what appeared to be various theories on Peel’s motivation for his crimes. Several of them had been crossed out. Curiosity compelled him to read those which remained.
2) voudou curse (explains diaries but not paintings)
4) obsession with Sullivan Fouquet/pirates
5) believes there’s more treasure
8) something we don’t know about
9) he’s just crazy and there’s no connection to anything
He chuckled at the last one, imagining Clara’s exasperated face as she wrote it.
Setting the papers aside, he picked up the thick piece of cardboard. It measured about three feet wide by two feet tall. Upon closer examination he realized it was really two pieces tied together with string, sandwiching something between. He snapped the string and the top layer of cardboard fell away, revealing—
The breath caught in his lungs as he immediately recognized what lay under.
Evidence of treachery!
He’d forgotten about Thom Bowden’s unfinished canvas. Sully had discovered it hidden among Elizabeth Hayden’s things on the day before he died, but never had the opportunity to ask her about the drawing—which illustrated the secret location where he and Tyree had buried the lion’s share of their privateering profits.
Back then, Sully had immediately suspected Elizabeth and Tyree had become sexually involved and were plotting against him. It was one reason he’d been so quick to the sword the night of their duel. But recent conversations in the hospital h
ad proven to Sully without a shadow of a doubt that Tyree had not betrayed him with Elizabeth.
Sully studied Thom’s faded pencil drawings on the brittle canvas. He would recognize the configuration of the small islands anywhere.
So how had the drawing ended up concealed amongst the folded bits of her clothing? One thing was certain, she could not have plotted alone. Elizabeth was many things, but overly clever was not one of them. If not with Tyree, then whom?
Had she conspired with Thom Bowden, the artist? Had she followed Tyree and Sully to the hidden cache, then brought Thom Bowden back to paint the location? Tyree’s notes said Thom died years later in his perpetual state of finances—poor as a ship’s rat. The treasure island had certainly been drawn by him, but he must not have had any idea of the riches that lay hidden on its shores while doing so.
Tyree’s notes also claimed there was a passage in one of the journals where Davey Scraggs told of a sailor called John Peel who got drunk and bragged that he’d covertly followed the captains one night, and soon he’d be a rich man. If that was true, it was probably John Peel who’d commissioned the drawing from Thom Bowden, taking him out to paint the island, lest he forget its location.
But then how had Elizabeth come by it? John Peel was an older man with a passel of kids, a homely man who loved his wife and enjoyed his family life. Sully couldn’t see Elizabeth Hayden becoming involved with a man like that. Not even for a chest full of gold and jewels.
And yet, according to Tyree’s notes, John Peel did indeed find the treasure. But he only took one single chest of the many hidden there, and not until five whole years after Sully and Tyree’s fatal duel. Why had Peel not returned for the treasure sooner? Especially since Sully and Tyree were conveniently dead and wouldn’t be around to object?
Sully did not care for the most likely reason—that the person who had possession of the map to the treasure had died around the same time they did.
Because there really was only one person who fit that description on both counts. Their betrayer surely was none other than his dear fiancée, Elizabeth.
