The Wayward One

by Danelle Harmon

  An image of him walking away after rescuing the sailor yesterday rose in her mind, of how his wet, dripping clothes had emphasized the hard lines and muscles of his back, his thighs. Of how he had looked up as though he knew just what she was thinking, and winked at her.

  She blushed. Best not to think about Captain O’ Devir, either….

  Instead, she gazed off across the dark blue water, ruffled by foam and whitecaps like the lace on a lady’s gown and saw, far off in the distance, a coastline that looked almost purple in the haze. France, she imagined. Soon enough, a Royal Navy vessel would fill the horizon and blast Ruaidri O’ Devir and his ship of misguided Yankees to Kingdom Come. Soon enough, she would be returned to her family, and Lucien would hastily marry her off to not only save her reputation from the damage this shocking event will have caused but because, in his mind, enough would be enough.

  Lucien.

  Marriage.

  And to someone of his choosing, not hers. Someone who could never be Perry. Someone to whom she would dutifully provide an heir to preserve a bloodline as old or noble as her own, someone to share—if she was fortunate, as most aristocratic matches were ones of lonely separateness once the heir was produced—a life of constant parties, fashion, ton gossip, and cultured domesticity. She was a female. Her dowry would be huge, and though she knew Lucien would never saddle her to someone completely objectionable, he would be all the more determined to see her married after the shocking scandal of her abduction.

  The predictable hopelessness of her future suddenly crystallized into a hard, bitter seed that took root in her consciousness, and she felt an unexpected tear in her eye. Back to her sheltered life, she was destined to go. Back to being protected, being pampered, being treated as the china doll that could not be dropped or broken or taken out of its beautiful presentation box.

  She turned her face to the wet, salty breeze, catching a bit of foam on her cheek as she did and filling her lungs with the headiest and most delicious air they had ever known.

  The china doll that could not be allowed to truly live.

  In that moment, Lady Nerissa de Montforte found herself more depressed than she’d been since Perry, whose indecision and waffling had set Lucien to the meddling that had made everything go wrong, had broken their betrothal.

  Movement, at her shoulder. She turned and looked up and there was Captain O’ Devir, clad in a clean dry shirt and white breeches. He had enough height that he blocked out the sun behind him, and it occurred to her that he probably chose to stand where he did, just to shield her from its bright and burning rays.

  Maybe he was just a little bit of a gentleman, after all.

  “Well,” she said, almost to herself. “At least there is nothing indecisive about you, Captain O’ Devir.”

  “Beggin’ yer pardon?”

  “I’m just musing.”

  “Indecision on the part of a ship’s captain will get him and his men killed. No room for it at sea. Here.” He brought one hand out from behind his back, and she saw then that he was holding a large straw hat adorned with a bright blue ribbon. He presented it with a bow and a flourish, as though she were a queen and he was laying the world at her feet.

  “You’ll have to forgive Midshipman Cranton,” he said amiably. “I saw him headed topside with this and knew he intended it for you. Couldn’t let him one-up me, y’know.”

  “Wasn’t it his to give?”

  “He has duties to be about, and being a lady’s maid is beneath his training.”

  She smiled and took the hat. “But not beneath yours, I see.”

  He laughed, and something in his intense, long-lashed violet eyes struck and warmed a part of her soul, threw sunlight on that hard, bitter seed that was her life, her future, and caused it to open. In that moment, she realized she was actually glad—well, a little bit glad, anyhow—to see him. That the depression she’d felt a few moments earlier had lifted with his arrival. Well, fancy that. This rough and virile Irishman had, with no obvious intent, made her react to him as a woman does to a man, which was both foolish and impossible, of course—he was far beneath her in class, totally unsuitable, and besides, he’d abducted her and was her enemy.

  Wasn’t he?

  No. Don’t even think it, Nerissa. Don’t.

  But she was thinking it. Thinking that his mouth was sculpted and sensual, firm and commanding and not always hard, and she wondered what it would be like to be kissed by that mouth even if it was beneath hers in class, totally unsuitable, and yes, possessed by her enemy.

  Nerissa Louise de Montforte, what in the name of the living God is wrong with you?

  It must be the sea air. Hunger. The stress of being abducted. Or maybe that fall down the stairs had addled her brain.

  When she made no move to put the hat on, he stepped closer and gently did it himself. His fingers, rough, scarred and calloused, brushed against her skin as he tied it beneath her chin and it was only after he spoke that she realized, much to her humiliation, that she’d been holding her breath.

  “You can breathe now, Lady Nerissa,” he said softly. “I’m really not about t’ ravish ye.”

  Your eyes say otherwise, she wanted to say. And I don’t believe I’d detest it as much as I think I might.

  She had to get away from him. Her brain was out of control, her heart fluttering and tripping all over itself, her skin hot and flushed. She felt vulnerable. Exposed. Afraid that he could very well read her mind. She did not trust her thoughts. Did not want to hear them.

  “Nerissa,” he murmured, his head cocked slightly to one side as though seeing her for the first time. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Nerissa, who’s not seasick despite never bein’ aboard a ship, Nerissa who loves the taste of the sea on her lips and tongue, Nerissa whose eyes sparkle as she looks over the rollin’ swells, whose spirit is comin’ alive beneath me eyes because she’s in her element, she is. Nerissa. I should have known.”

  “That’s Lady Nerissa, to you,” she snapped. “And known what?”

  “Your name. Don’t ye know? It means ‘sea nymph.’”

  “It’s taken from a character in a Shakespeare play,” she shot back, uncomfortably. “The Merchant Of Venice.”

  “A sea sprite. Uh-huh. Explains everythin’, it does.”

  She stood up. Her knees were weak and she gripped her hands together to keep them from shaking. “Thank you for the hat, Captain O’ Devir. And now, if you don’t mind, I would like to go back to the cabin to…to rest.”

  “Stay up here and enjoy the fresh air. ’Tis good for the soul, it is.”

  “You won’t bother me?”

  “Am I botherin’ ye?”

  Yes, in ways you can’t even begin to imagine. She saw the twinkle in his eye. Or maybe you can.

  She looked away. “No,” she said, unable to meet his gaze. “You are not.”

  She sat back down. She really didn’t want to go back to the cabin and be cooped up there when out here, her spirit soared and her blood sang and she felt wonderfully, gloriously, alive.

  “Were ye comfortable last night?”

  “Comfortable enough.”

  “I’ll have someone bring ye somethin’ to eat, if ye’re up to it. Ye must be hungry.”

  “Thank you.” She watched a young boy go forward to ring the ship’s bell, presumably to signal the end of a watch. “And how is the poor man who fell from the rigging yesterday?”

  He looked at her, his eyes warming in appreciation that she even cared. “Well now, thank ye for askin’, lass. He’s doin’ well. Couple of cracked ribs, but he’ll live to do it again another day, I wager.”

  You were very brave to jump in after him, she wanted to say. You could have drowned, yourself. And I wish I could get the memory of you out of my mind. Your body hard and soaking wet beneath your clothes, your muscled arms and shoulders outlined beneath the dripping fabric. That knowing wink.

  He was looking at her in a way that made her very, very aware of him a
s a man.

  And very, very aware of her unwarranted response to him.

  “Maybe I’d better go back to the cabin,” she said. If only for my own good.

  He looked at her thoughtfully. She had a feeling he knew exactly why she wanted to put distance between them. But he said nothing, only nodded, and offering his arm, escorted her aft.

  Chapter 8

  Ruaidri had found plenty of ways to keep himself occupied and away from his hostage for the rest of the afternoon. He’d discussed their mission with Lieutenant Morgan and his officers over coffee in the wardroom. He’d gone down to check on the hapless McGuire, who was nursing two busted ribs and a blow to his pride. He’d have liked to have set the hands to gun drill until he was satisfied that these American tars under his command were every bit as sharp as the British ones with whom he’d once bitterly served, but out here in the English Channel where the Royal Navy was thicker than fleas on a cat, he had no desire to call attention to their presence as he awaited their Saturday rendezvous. Instead he ordered sail drill, pushing the men hard and rewarding them with extra grog. He watched Lieutenant Morgan give young Midshipman Cranton his evening instruction in navigation. He ate his own now-cold supper standing up, watching the sun sink beneath the horizon and choking down the over-boiled eggs and toast as black as a Jamaican’s backside. Night closed in. The stars came out. Restless, he made his way to the quarterdeck rail.

  Nerissa.

  Sea nymph.

  As captain the quarterdeck was his domain, forbidden ground to all but the highest of command. Ruaidri wanted to be alone. He needed to think, because he hated the English, had to keep a clear head, and the young Englishwoman who even now slept innocently in his cabin was getting under his skin in ways that rattled him.

  Nerissa.

  Sea nymph.

  Oh, for the love of Christ. There were times when his Irish soul ran to the poetic, the fanciful, the stuff of spirit. Useless shite in a sea warrior. He had no time or use for such sentimental rubbish. What was he thinking, that just because she’d been given a name that would forever tie her to the sea, that she was his destiny?

  It was just a name.

  Coincidence.

  He sent his mind in the other direction, toward his loathing of the English in an attempt to focus on what was important. It had been years—seventeen of them, actually—since he’d been a young lad back in Connemara. He’d followed his late father into the fishing trade, he, Deirdre and their mam forcing a meager living off land owned by a distant Englishman. Lord This or That, he did not remember, did not want to remember. But the memories of that awful day were still with him. He, young and strong and proud, rebellious even, and thinking himself invincible. But nobody was invincible when it came to England’s insatiable thirst for men to sail and fight its warships, men who were expendable, men who weren’t given a choice in the matter, simply a cudgel in exchange for any resistance.

  He had, of course, resisted. But he and the other lads with whom he’d hidden that day when the British man o’ war had come into the bay had been betrayed by one of their own and he had, through the ringing in his ears, the pounding in his head after he and the cudgel had made each other’s acquaintance, been dragged off with the others to the waiting warship, the desperate cries of his little sister, only nine years old, fading off behind him.

  He’d been called “Roddy” then, a childhood name that the lads had given him as an acronym for his initials. Or so they said. In reality, it was because such an English-sounding nickname was guaranteed to stoke both his Irish temper and his fists, and they liked a good fight as much as he did. He couldn’t fight his way out of the nickname though, and eventually the name had stuck.

  And stuck for far too long.

  It was an arse of a nickname, and not at all suitable for the direction his life had taken in the years since he’d ended his days as the Irish Pirate. He was a commissioned naval officer now. He’d needed a name that called for more dignity, one that shed any ties to Englishness, one that left his painful past behind. One that begged for a return to his roots. Ruaidri, his da and mam had named him some thirty-two years ago. A good, strong, Irish name, after the ancient kings of Connacht.

  His own.

  Aye, he might have forgiven Christian for leading that press gang all those years ago because he was only doing his duty, but he had never forgiven the English in general or the Royal Navy in particular for the years of hell spent aboard one warship after another, where he’d learned about the tail end of the cat, the bos’n’s free hand with punishment, sadistic young shites that were the midshipmen, lieutenants who aspired to be captains and captains who fancied themselves one step down from God himself.

  He hated the English.

  God, he hated—

  “Captain O’ Devir?”

  Her voice startled him from his reverie. He turned and saw Lady Nerissa de Montforte, she of sunshine and sea nymphs, standing a few feet behind him in the darkness. He scowled.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Captain. Are you quite well?”

  “Aye, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “You looked so sad, standing there.”

  “I’m fine,” he said a bit more curtly than he intended. “What can I do for ye?”

  She cleared a silky hank of long blonde hair from her eyes. “My pride has lost the battle with my appetite, I’m afraid. I come to you in defeat.”

  “Ye’re hungry?”

  She sighed. “Famished.”

  “I sent down supper. Did ye not eat it?”

  She looked down, unable to meet his eyes, and he suddenly understood. No doubt she couldn’t stomach whatever his cook, who was as useless as tits on a bull, had sent her. Spoiled aristocrat. He bet she’d never had to live on the broth of potatoes, fish and onions just to quell the screaming of a hungry belly. He bet she’d never had to….

  The thought died in his head. She was a lady. A feckin’ lady, for Christ’s sake. L-A-D-Y lady. She couldn’t help the circumstances of her birth any more than he could help his own. It was not her fault she’d had more of absolutely everything in one day of being the daughter of an English duke than he’d had in fourteen years of being the son of a poor Irish fisherman.

  He sighed, feeling like a sack of shite.

  “Dirty spoon again?” he asked, trying to strike a note of humor.

  She shrugged and joined him at the rail, not too close, but near enough that they could converse. He found his gaze resting on her small hands. On the fancy white lace that fell from her elbow, fluttering over her wrists and emphasizing her fine bones and innate elegance.

  “Slimy gruel?”

  She would not meet his gaze and he sensed that she herself was aware of her own ridiculous demands and was ashamed.

  “Maggots,” she whispered, looking down. “They were in the bread.”

  Of course they were, he wanted to say. Hard tack is full of them. You pick ’em out and dunk it in your lobscouse, shove it into your gob and wash it all down with your grog so ye don’t remember how bloody awful it is. What the divil’s the damned problem?

  Lady. L-A-D-Y lady.

  That was the damned problem.

  “I’m beginnin’ to regret taking you and not yer brother,” he said in exasperation. “Ye’re a pain in the arse.”

  She stiffened. “Well, I didn’t ask to be here.”

  “Aye, and the sooner ye’re gone the better.”

  “I could not agree more. But in the meantime, you could at least ensure that I don’t starve to death.”

  “Nobody’s starvin’ ye. Ye’re just damned picky.”

  “And you are callous and rude.”

  “No argument there.” He glared at her. “Will ye eat an egg or two?”

  She glared back. “Boiled?”

  “God almighty—”

  “Because I’m certainly not expecting them to be coddled and served in a china egg-cup.”

  “Well, then, ’tis glad I am to hear i
t, because high expectations will only lead to disappointment and the divil only knows we’ve failed yer high and mighty ladyship in everything else.”

  “Not everything,” she said beneath her breath.

  “Oh?”

  “Your objectionable language aside, you have been a gentleman,” she allowed with pointed reluctance.

  He made a sound of hopeless frustration and gazed out at the horizon, thinking he’d heave the ship to in the morning so Cranton could catch her a fish for breakfast. No worms in that. Nothing to complain about and the damn thing would be fresher than anything she’d find on her plate back in that fancy townhouse she must inhabit in London.

  “I’ve been a gentleman, but saints alive, woman, ye push the limits of my patience, ye do.”

  “Well, you push the limits of mine. You have abducted me. Held me against my will. You have ruined me, ruined my life, and ruined any chances I might’ve had to marry a man of my own choosing.”

  “Oh, the drama,” he said. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”

  “It is as bad as all that. But what would you know? You don’t move in my world. You have no idea what you have done to me in bringing me here, what it will cost me. I am ruined.”

  He risked a glance over at her. Her face was in profile, beautiful in the starlight. He wished he were not the gentleman he was trying to be, because his instinct was to slide an arm around her back and pull her close, to cajole away her anger, to kiss her senseless beneath Lucy and Susan and the grand union flag at the masthead and the canopy of stars that stretched across the zenith above.

  “Do ye like fish, lass?”

  “What?”

  “We’ll catch ye one for breakfast tomorrow. A big one. Nice and fresh, best ye’ll ever have.”

  “A fish?” She raised a brow. “Will you prepare it yourself?”

  “I might, if it’ll make ye happy.” He looked down at her. “Of course, ye don’t know if I’m any better a cook than that useless looby who’s charged with feedin’ us all now, do ye? On the other hand, ’twould be hard to bollocks up a fish.”