“Order refused.”
“Oh, Maeve. You hurt my feelings, truly you do.”
“And you annoy mine,” she said, trying not to look at him, for he was far too handsome, too dangerously handsome . A man of contrasts, he was dark hair and swarthy skin against snowy smallclothes and a blindingly white grin; he was all that represented good in the resplendent uniform and all that represented wickedness in the gleam of his eye and the piratical earring.
Damn him! Was this another calculated attempt to win her over?
Gray saw her indecision and pressed his advantage. “I confess that I’ve been interrogating your crew. I managed to learn what your favorite dish is. Really, Maeve, my poor cook went to such pains to prepare it for you.”
She set her jaw.
“Surely, you cannot keep up this pretense of anger forever, can you? My hull is tough
enough to handle your wrath, but my poor cook . . . think of his feelings, Maeve.”
She shut her eyes. “Why do you do this to me?”
“Because I love you.”
He saw her throat moving, a muscle tensing in her jaw. “But I am . . . unlovable.”
“I love you,” he repeated, firmly.
Her fingers tightened around the stem of the rose. She bent her head and clutched the
blossom to her breast, as though it was the only thing she dared to trust.
Sir Graham reached out and gently, lovingly, tipped her chin back up. Her eyes were
miserable, her face wretched with pain. A bit of hair had come loose from her braid; he cleared it off her cheek, and tenderly smoothed the soft skin with his thumb. “Will you dine with me, Maeve?” He smiled gently. “It would make me very happy.”
Her nod was barely perceptible, a mere jerk of her head before she turned her face away,
unwilling to let him see how much his kindness was affecting her. He scooped her up. And then, her bare feet dangling, her hot, weak body wrapped safely in his arms, the Gallant Knight carried her belowdecks and into his cabin.
Chapter 22
Sir Graham strode aft toward the spacious, grand cabins that were his floating headquarters, nodded to the rigid-backed sentry posted just outside—who still managed to keep his eyes
straight ahead—kicked the door shut behind him, and carried the Pirate Queen aft into his day cabin.
“My lady,” he said, and belatedly Maeve realized her arms had been locked in a death grip around his neck. Embarrassed and angry with herself for this small victory she’d allowed him, she let go, and, with a charming grin, he gently, carefully, lowered her into a chair.
It was then that she saw the table, all set and ready for a meal.
The tablecloth was blue. The napkins were blue. The lovely porcelain plate in front of her was an Oriental design of white and blue. The flowers that made up the centerpiece were blue, the vase they reposed in—blue.
Sir Graham grinned at her, and she saw a devilish, wicked gleam in his—also blue—eyes
before his long lashes swept down to hide it. “You are pleased, Majesty?”
“What the hell is all this . . . blue? ”
“The Irish sisters told me it is your favorite color before I sent them back to Kestrel, which, as you’ll see if you glance out those windows yonder, is keeping station just off to windward.”
She bit her lip, trying not to respond to the earnest look in his eye, the eagerness in his teasing grin. Don’t let him know that he’s gotten inside your defenses, she thought, and looked down at her hands, clenched tightly in her lap, so that he wouldn’t see the fleeting smile she was helpless to prevent. “You . . . try too hard,” she said finally.
“Am I succeeding?” He picked her up, chair and all, and set her closer to the table.
Maeve grabbed the table’s edge to steady herself. Then she looked away as he strode around the table to take his own seat. Her eyes hopeless, she stared out the huge, sweeping windows at the broad expanse of the sea.
It was blue.
“Am I, dearest? Pray, tell me that I am and I shall be the happiest man alive.”
Color swept over her face, ripe, frustrated, hot. She looked down, wishing he would stop this relentless pursuit, yet praying that he would not, wishing she could only dare to open up, to believe in him, to trust him. It was getting too blasted hard to fight him, to fight herself.
“Maybe . . . maybe just a little,” she allowed, her tone defensive, angry.
“Ah, splendid! I daresay, there is hope for me yet! Shall we eat, then?”
She shrugged, glanced at him for the briefest of instances, and then back out the window.
She could just see Kestrel, driving along with a stiff breeze filling her fore and main, her lee rail buried in washy foam.
The admiral seated himself across from her and, as though by magic, two servants hustled
in, carrying steaming platters and covered dishes. The service was finest silver, the wine goblets of crystal, and it occurred to her that he must be a terribly wealthy man—or, in debt up to his epaulets. She glanced up at him. He was watching her, as fixedly as a wolf that has cornered its prey and waited for the kill.
“Comfortable, dearest?”
“Quite,” she muttered, and looked away.
He lifted the cover from a dish and said smoothly, “I am holding a conference with my
officers and frigate captains here in my cabin tonight. You are, of course, invited to join us.”
“Why ? ” she asked, guardedly.
He looked up, smiling patiently. “Because I consider you to be one of my captains, too.
Especially as I have commandeered your little Kestrel and employed her in scout duty.”
“I am not in your navy,” she declared, rising.
“No matter. Your ship is, at the moment. Sit down.”
“Does everything you say have to be an order?”
“No. Consider it an invitation, if you wish.”
She set her jaw, suddenly regretting her offer to let him use Kestrel. So much for her own ploy to keep her crew out of trouble and her ship close by.
The servants set the last platter down on the table and quickly left. An uncomfortable silence ensued. Maeve glanced out the window at Kestrel; she glanced at the bulkhead beyond Sir Graham, and found herself looking into the savagely grinning countenance of Sir Henry Morgan, Pirate King; she looked down at her plate, back up, and her gaze collided with the admiral’s.
His eyes gleaming, he lifted the cover from a dish. “Some chicken, my dear?”
Without waiting for an answer, he reached across the table, picked up her plate, and piled several tender slabs of choice white meat on her plate.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you prefer white meat or dark?”
“White.”
He nodded in self-satisfaction and plucked the cover off another dish. “Some potatoes?” He spooned some onto her plate, then uncovered another dish. “Turnips? Ah, what have we here . . .
carrots. Will you have some, dearest?”
“Please.”
“And what is this—ah, cornbread!”
Maeve’s head jerked up. “Cornbread?”
“New England fare, is it not?” Again, that swift, disarming grin, that wicked sparkle of
challenge and amusement in his eyes. “I thought you’d find it . . . agreeable.”
She stared down at her plate as he set it before her. Steam wafted up, tickling her nose and moistening her cheeks. The food, so carefully arranged on her plate by Sir Graham himself, blurred, wavered, rippled behind sudden tears.
Cornbread.
Like home. . .
She picked up her fork, felt pressure on her wrist, and looked down to see his tanned fingers resting lightly atop her hand.
“Maeve?” he said, tenderly.
She jerked her hand away. “You did this on purpose!” she accused, hotly.
“Did what?”
“Had this meal made up so it would remind me of
home. You . . . you knew.”
“I would be a liar to claim otherwise,” he said softly, and reached across the table to take her hand once more. This time she did not jerk away. He tried to draw her hand to his lips, but the distance between them was too great; and so he stood, tall, resplendent and handsome, and leaning over her hand, bestowed a single, loving kiss atop her knuckles.
Maeve shuddered, and bit her lip to keep it from trembling. And then the admiral slowly
released her hand, regained his seat, and sat gazing at her from across the table, across the steaming plates, across the tray of yellow cornbread.
She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. Assessing her. Gauging his success, looking for a chink in her armor. He gazed at her for a long time and she stared back at him, her own eyes challenging, angry.
And then he made a fierce face at her, took up his knife as though it was a pirate’s dagger, and baring his teeth in a manner meant to be threatening, growled, “Aaaaargh! Eat yer dinner, matey, before I carve out yer liver and feed it to the sharks.”
She stared at him, her jaw falling open.
He stared back, the corners of his mouth twitching, his face deceptively little-boy innocent.
“What?”
“You’re . . . deranged,” she murmured.
“No, merely hungry. For you. Hurry up and get better so we can make savage, uninhibited
love.”
Maeve couldn’t help it. She laughed, a coarse, full, hooting guffaw that she quelled with a palm slammed quickly across her mouth.
The admiral laughed with her.
She looked up and their gazes met. Swift color flooded her cheeks. His eyes warmed. And
then the servant was back, handing a bottle to the admiral, and something was gurgling in her mug, something fizzing and dark, and brown. Ale. She watched it foaming up to the rim, her gaze traveling up the admiral’s fine hand as he poured, past his decorated sleeve, up his arm to his shoulder, his stand-up collar, his earring— His face.
He was looking at her. Grinning.
The beer foamed over the top of the mug and with a start, he jerked back.
“Dear me, look what I’ve done! Maeve, I swear, you have me consistently backing my
topsails.”
She laughed again, for he really did look quite ridiculous, all a-splendor in that magnificent uniform with the red sash of knighthood across his shoulder, the table laid as though for a nobleman’s dinner, everything perfect and splendid— —and ale moving across the tablecloth in a rapidly spreading stain.
She plucked her napkin from her lap and began to sop it up.
“Oh, no, allow me.”
“I can do it.”
“Yes, but I spilled it.”
“No, really—”
His hand closed over hers, warm and strong. “Maeve.”
He left it there for a moment longer than necessary, then let her go. She grabbed her fork and began nervously to push her food around on her plate.
The admiral didn’t move. “You’re very beautiful, you know.”
She pushed the food faster.
“I’ve always loved red hair. It indicates a woman of fire and spirit. I wonder if you might allow me to brush it out for you, later?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want you to.”
“That’s not a very good reason.” He buttered a piece of cornbread. “Give me a better one.”
“It’s good enough for me.”
“But not for me, and I’m admiral here.”
“I don’t give a damn if you’re an admiral or King George, you’re not touching my hair again.”
He smiled at her, took a bite of his cornbread, chewed, swallowed, and dabbed with
gentlemanly grace at his lips. Then he carefully folded his napkin, put it beside his plate, rested both elbows on the table, and leaned toward her, looming, powerful, threatening, heart-devastatingly handsome. “Maeve.”
She drew back, away from him.
“I will not hurt you—ever again. I will never give you reason to distrust me, ever again. I never wanted to hurt you or give you reason to distrust me in the first place, and I regret that you do, but I wish you could find it in your heart to understand why I had to do what I did. Please forgive me, Maeve.” His voice softened, became almost desperate. “What must I do to win you back to me? What must I do to regain that magic we so briefly shared, to win your hand in marriage?”
She flung her fork down and leapt to her feet, jerking her hand out of his grasp. “There is nothing you can do. Nothing! My heart is my own, has been my own for seven years, and shall be my own for the rest of my life. You don’t understand that, do you? And as for marriage—bah!
You fantasize about making love to a pirate queen but did you every stop to consider the
consequences of marrying one? That’s just what your king needs, to have the wife of one of his admirals sailing the Spanish Main as a modern-day Anne Bonney! Never stopped to think about how that would look, did you?” Her voice turned bitter. “Just as I never stopped to think about how utterly whimsical my fantasy was of marrying an officer. ”
“As my wife you would no longer need to be a pirate.”
“I will never give up the sea, Gray! Don’t think it for a damned minute! I worked too
damned hard for all that I am, to give it up for you or any man. And I’ve learned my lesson, the hard way, about trust! ”
He put down his fork. “But Maeve, I am different—”
“You, different?! You, the worst of the lot. The notorious Admiral Falconer! Ha, you think you can have any woman you want but I tell you, you shall not have me, not now, not tomorrow, not ever again! You ask me to trust you! Why the bloody hell should I? Do you think I was born yesterday? Do you think I haven’t heard the stories about you, and your string of paramours stretching from Jamaica to Tobago? Your doings are a shame to your navy! How poor Nelson must blush for you!”
She expected anger, fury, a reaction. What she got was just one of his wicked, dimpled
smiles and a thoughtful tugging at his chin.
“Well . . .” he murmured, on an expulsion of breath.
“Well? ”
“Is that all you have to say?”
“What would you wish me to say? To deny my reputation would make me a liar. I will not
lie to you. I have . . . sampled the charms of many women. But!”—he raised his hand, staying her angry words— “that only makes me all the more sure I have found the one I want to marry. I never realized what it meant to love a woman until I met you. Yes, there have been many women in my life, but none of them were the woman of my dreams.”
“And neither am I.” Maeve rose to her feet. “I’m merely your fantasy, nothing more!”
“Oh, you’re more than that, Maeve,” he countered smoothly.
She stood frozen, her hands gripping the back of her chair, her eyes blazing with anger and defiance. But he merely picked up his fork and knife again and began to eat. “To begin with, you’re a piratess. In case you haven’t noticed, I have a certain fondness for pirates.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed,” she said acidly.
“Secondly”—he speared a small mound of carrots with his fork—“I happen to admire you.
For your spirit, your courage, your seafaring ability, and . . . your tenderness. For the reputation you’ve managed to carve out here in the West Indies, which, I’m delighted to discover, has no bearing in truth at all.”
“My reputation?”
“Aye.” He lifted the fork to his mouth, chewed, wiped his lips. “Do you think I would’ve
waited so long to find you had I known you were anything but the sour-toothed, wretched old hag of questionable sexual preferences that legend had it you were?”
“What?!”
“So you see,” he said, mildly, and raised his glass to her, “one cannot always place stock in a reputat
ion. ”
Stunned, she sat back down in her chair, her fingers clutching her napkin. Sour-toothed hag?
Questionable sexual preferences?! “What about your reputation, then? Are you saying that yours is false, too?”
“On the contrary.” He looked up and gave her his wicked, charming grin. “I’m every bit the blackhearted rake you’ve heard that I am. I eat ladies’ hearts for supper and spit them out in the morning. More cornbread, my dear?”
“No!”
“Very well, then. Where was I? Ah yes, your attributes. Number one, you’re a pirate queen.
Number two, you’re fiery and spirited and a true seafarer. Number three, you’re dangerous and beautiful, in a savage, exciting sort of way. Number four, you are leading me as merry a chase as Villeneuve is Nelson. Number five, and most importantly, I find myself in love with you. My most demanding task, at the moment, is making you see and believe the truth of that.”
“I see and believe nothing but clever manipulations enacted by a master manipulator!”
Very softly, he asked, “Do you love me, Maeve?”
His unexpected and sudden switch from blithe insouciance to studied focus caught her off
guard. She sat there, her mouth slack, the napkin growing warm in her hands and now, twisted into a ball in her lap. “I—”
He smiled, gently. “Do you?”
She raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye. “There is a difference, Sir Graham, between love and trust. ”
“Do you love me then, Maeve?” he repeated, softly.
“I . . . I don’t know what I feel for you.” She picked up her napkin and put it down on the table, rising to her feet at the same time and thinking only of escape before she could admit something she’d later regret. “But what does it matter? I don’t trust you and never will. You deceived me, Gray, you made me look foolish in front of my crew, you made me the laughingstock of your navy and God knows who else, you made me feel like an idiot for falling for your stupid story about being a traitor, and now you expect me to trust you?”
“Do you love me, Maeve?”
She turned away, clenching her fists at her sides.
“Do you?”
Whirling, she yelled, “Yes, damn you!”
“There now. That wasn’t so hard to admit. Now that we have that cleared up, please sit down and finish your dinner.”
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