William chuckled.
“He deserved it,” she defended herself. “He hadn’t a proper bone in his body.”
“Too love sick, I suppose.”
Her muscles stiffened. “Aye, too love sick. I learned his true feelings for me later in life. And at sixteen, I found myself feeling much the same toward him.”
He caressed her back, comforting her. “What happened?”
“He joined a regiment.”
“The soldier? Your ‘youthful indiscretion’?”
“Aye. At nineteen, he ascended to the position of an officer. When his orders took him to Belgium, he asked me to come with him, to elope.”
“You’re a widow?”
“No, we never married. I followed him to Belgium with every intention of becoming his wife, but when he was captured in battle and imprisoned at Verdun, in Eastern France, I—I changed my mind about staying with him. I was permitted to live with him at Verdun, like the wives of other officers, but the lodgings were poor, the company unsociable.” She ended weakly, “I wanted to go home.”
“I understand, Maddie.”
“I abandoned him.”
“At sixteen,” he consoled her. “A child.”
“A stupid child.”
He heard the tears in her voice and tightened his embrace, determined to soothe her.
“Charles was devastated,” she said in a shaky voice. “I was allowed to leave Verdun in a ransom exchange with a group of officers, but Charles remained imprisoned, his rank too low to be worth much money.
“Later, I learned he’d tried to escape. He was shot in the back. He died . . . calling my name. If I had stayed with him—”
“You might be dead, too.”
She hiccupped. “What?”
He thumbed her chin, lifting her watery eyes, and stroked her chafed skin. “If Charles had died in prison from injury or illness or hunger, you would’ve been alone, the guards’ whore, tortured. It’s all right, Maddie, that you returned home. And lived.”
She cupped the back of his hand, holding it against her moist and fevered flesh. “I wasn’t welcomed home, though. It all still seemed for nothing.”
“It wasn’t for nothing.” He bussed her briny tears, drinking in her sorrow. “If you hadn’t lived, I would never have found you.”
She offered him a half smile, then pulled him in for a long, hard kiss, and it took all his energy to separate from her before she blinded his good sense once more.
“Where are you going?” she wondered.
He pulled a shirt over his chest and fastened his trousers. “I have to check on the crew, the ship.” And he still had that letter to write to his sister. Shoving his feet into his boots, he then combed his fingers through his mussed hair.
Madeline hopped off the table, her skirt fluttering around her ankles. “And your headache?”
He headed for the door. “Gone.”
“You’re welcome.”
He hardened. “I beg your pardon?”
“I seem to be the cure for what ails you, Captain.”
A raging fire burned in his belly. “You are a dangerous woman, Maddie.”
“Thank you,” she returned in a hushed tone.
He opened the door, then glanced at her sidelong. “That wasn’t a compliment.”
CHAPTER 10
Over the next fortnight, as the air grew sultry and the waters warmer, Madeline spent each night in the captain’s bed. It was an unspoken arrangement between them, where neither asked, nor invited, nor teased the other in a flirtatious dance.
At ten o’clock every evening, she would enter his room—and his arms.
He waited for her. Always. At times, the cabin was dark, the man in wretched pain. And she held him through the night in silence. Other times, under resplendent lamplight, he took her in his embrace, captured her lips, and made love to her with the voracity of a starving castaway. However the night passed, it was always perfect, their time together a secret paradise.
Madeline worried about his chronic headaches, the cause still a mystery, and whenever she broached the subject of his health, he’d silence her with a hardy kiss. She had learned to let the matter rest—for now. As they approached Caribbean waters, danger lurked behind uncharted islands, through un-navigated currents, and from secluded pirate bays. Soon she would learn the truth about her grandfather.
She held tight the thought of a miracle. She held tight the image of a blessed reunion, of bringing her grandfather home . . . and then a troubling vision always spoiled her joy: a vision of the captain’s lone silhouette, standing on the shore of an island as they sailed for England.
Her heart cramped at the unnatural thought of abandoning him in the Bahamas. She’d made several attempts to persuade him to return with them, but he’d doggedly refused, insisting “it was his private affair.” For what unfathomable reason? she’d cried more than once. But he’d rebuffed her at every turn. He was just determined she keep her part of their bargain and deliver the letter to his sister.
Her soul in turmoil, Madeline rolled across the bed and observed the stubborn, frustrating . . . beautiful man as he studied the sea charts, brow furrowed in complete concentration.
She wasn’t his fiancée, much less his wife. He had made no offer of courtship. But the sore matter remained: what would become of them?
Would he ever return to England? Would she ever see him again? And when?
“Am I your mistress?” she queried, voice tart.
He glanced at her from above the slanted desk. “No.”
She huffed at the straightforward, passionless answer. “Whore?”
“No!”
His second, more emotional response pleased her better. “Who am I, then?”
“A damn siren I can’t get out of my head, my blood, my . . .”
He stopped there. But her heart still surged with delight—and longing. After muttering a few unintelligible words, he returned to the sea charts.
Madeline wasn’t finished with him yet, though. “William?”
“Shit.” He fisted his palms. “What?”
“I don’t want to say goodbye.”
He remained fixated on the sea charts, his breathing shallow, loud. When he finally voiced a remark, it was a tattered whisper, “You have to.”
In startlingly swift strides, he then left the room, slamming the door behind him.
I’m not angry with you, Maddie.
She had learned long ago his foul moods weren’t aimed at her, but something—something potentially devastating—was torturing him.
~ * ~
Madeline fingered the letter in her hand. William had given her the paper earlier in the day, sealed with red wax. She had tucked it inside her carpet bag with every intention of delivering the message to his sister, but she now held the parchment with curiosity and agitation.
The captain’s neat penmanship addressed the document to “Belle,” such an informal greeting, but the letter contained weighty revelations, the same revelations she’d been searching for fruitlessly aboard the Nemesis.
Madeline wandered toward the porthole and lifted the paper into the light, but its thickness was too great and she couldn’t read the note.
Her fingers trembled with mish-mashed emotions, and at last, she reasoned, she had promised to convey the letter to the duchess, however, she had not promised never to read it. She was treading on moral thin ice, she knew, but she was determined to uncover the truth, and since William refused to offer her answers . . .
Before she regained her wits, Madeline pinched the edges of the letter, about to break the wax seal, when William entered her cabin.
He stilled in the doorway, silent, staring at the letter in her hands, then lifted his gaze to her eyes. She waited for him to bellow in outrage, but he remained quiet, unnervingly quiet, and her heart thundered as he stood there, his expression inscrutable.
Madeline clutched the paper, her fingers trembling, her voice trapped in her throat as the moment
seemed to stretch endlessly. At last, he moved out of the door frame, walked across the room—and took hold of the letter.
He tugged at it, but she refused to release the paper. Tears filled her eyes. Tears of shame. But he would not look at her again. He finally gripped her hand and forcibly separated her fingers from the letter before he walked out of the room without a single word. Not one rebuke. Not one reprimand. But his silence was louder than any blasted reproof.
She had lost his trust.
Madeline slumped on the bed, her tears falling too fast to soak up with her sleeve . . . so she just let them fall.
That night, she found William on deck. The crew moved quietly, performing their evening chores. A lookout sat in the nest, spyglass in hand. With the ship secure, the captain had stepped aside and leaned against the rail, stargazing.
She watched him from a distance, almost loathed to break his solitude. She found pleasure in just observing his silhouette. If she shut her eyes, she could trace every contour of his muscular physique, his handsome face with her fingertip.
Quickly she opened her eyes with a heart-squeezing gasp. In truth, she loathed to approach him because she knew their intimacy had been broken—and she might not be welcomed in his arms anymore. Their fellowship might be . . .
She swallowed her misgiving. In slow strides, she approached William as if he were a skittish deer, but she should have remembered he never let anyone get too close, much less sneak up behind him.
“Good evening, Maddie,” he said without glancing in her direction.
She settled beside him, unsure of her words. She’d rehearsed an explanation all day, but now, feeling the tension between them, her excuse seemed trite. Aye, her concern for his chronic headaches, his nose bleeds remained, but she had gone about searching for answers in the wrong way.
In the end, she said, “I’m sorry.”
The simple truth.
“I believe you,” he returned in a calm voice.
A surprise, that. But he’d always had a reasonable temperament—well, most of the time—and she sighed with unbound relief.
“I apologize, too,” he said next, his voice tightening.
She shivered, chilled. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve made a terrible mistake.” He finally looked at her, his soul in obvious turmoil. “And I accept full responsibility for it.”
Her heart dropped. “What are you saying, William?”
“We had a business arrangement: a straightforward exchange of services. I would rescue your grandfather, while you would deliver a letter to my sister.” He looked off, then. “I broke that bargain when I bedded you, offered you the impression you had a right to interfere in my private affairs. I regret that decision. I am fully to blame for it. I am always in control of my impulses, and I failed to control them these many nights.”
“I see.”
She didn’t see, of course, as her world turned on its ear and muddled her entire soul. She remembered every tender touch and whispered word. She remembered every intimate conversation, every moment of laughter. And it was all a mistake? A failure on his part to maintain control?
She seethed, gripping the rail. “And your demand that I take anything from you, everything from you, if it pleases me?”
“Another mistake.”
Her voice turned acrid at his cruel and cutting words. “You make a lot of mistakes, Captain, for a man who proclaims to be in constant control.”
His shoulders stiffened at the jibe, but his tone remained unflinching. “It would be wise if we returned to our previous arrangement.”
“And what arrangement would that be?”
“The one where I govern this ship . . . and you stay away from me.”
As a welter of feeling stormed her breast, she gathered her strength and walked away from him. “Aye, Captain.”
CHAPTER 11
William slammed his fist into the cabin wall. Once. Twice. He was such a fool, playing house, pretending death wasn’t looming over him, that Madeline wouldn’t notice it, ask about it. That she would pretend, too, and ignore the obvious. But it was always there. Death.
He punched the wall again. “Shit!”
He wanted to tear the ship to pieces, to rip up every deck board until the ocean swallowed him. Instead, he braced his hands apart and leaned them against the wall, bowing his head, heaving. He’d have to find the damnable strength to keep away from Maddie until he rescued her grandfather, but even now he burned for her, for the comfort of her touch.
She wasn’t to blame for the letter. She wanted the truth. But he wouldn’t dare tell her. He wouldn’t dare tell anyone. He would give the letter to his lieutenant with orders to pass it to Madeline once the ship reached England. If she read the letter then, it wouldn’t matter. His whole family would know the truth by then, and he’d be on the other side of the world. Dead.
Bang. Rattle. Thump.
William listened to the commotion next door. What the devil was Madeline doing? He wanted to throttle the woman. Kiss her. He wanted to toss her overboard. He wanted to take her in his arms and never let her go.
Blast it!
He left his cabin and entered her room, eyed the carnage scattered across the floor: a broken chair, pewter plates, books. Was that the chamber pot broken in half?
She folded her arms under her breasts and lifted her chin in defiance. “It was either the furniture or your head.”
Her cheeks were wet, flushed, and his innards twisted at the sight of her pain . . . pain he had caused. He wanted to fix everything that was broken, including her. It was his nature. He had always settled the squabbles between his siblings. He had always cleaned up their social messes, even hauled them away from dangerous spheres, but he had never been immersed in the fray. He was the peacemaker, not the instigator. And now he didn’t know what to do to make it right for Madeline.
He shut the door. “Maddie—”
A pewter cup went sailing passed his head, crashed into the wall behind him, then clattered to the floor.
He saw red.
When she reached for a fork, he spanned the room and grabbed her wrist. “I won’t tolerate destruction aboard my ship.”
That was his prerogative.
“Then you’ll have to lock me in the brig, Captain.”
And she flicked the fork.
He cocked his head to avoid the utensil before it, too, hit the ground. Her insolence disarmed him. He clinched her other wrist and crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her against the wall.
He spotted the tiny red veins in her green eyes and desired to take back everything he had said to her, but he had said it for her own good—for both their goods.
“Let me go, Maddie.”
Her lips trembled. “I know it’s easy for a man to dismiss his whore, but I—”
“Damn it, you are not my whore!”
“Well, no gentleman would’ve treated a woman like you treated me unless she was his whore.”
William sucked a breath between his teeth with such swift force, the air whistled. He dropped his brow, resisting the temptation to kiss away her tears.
“I’m sorry, Maddie.”
“I don’t forgive you.”
But she believed him sincere, the incorrigible woman.
“Stay angry with me, lass,” he whispered, his voice strained. “Keep that fire burning in your soul. Hate me, even. It will protect you in the end.”
“From what?”
“Trust me, Maddie. I-I cannot give you a future.”
It was the closest he had ever come to confessing his secret. He stepped away from her, shaking, sensing he was on perilous ground.
He turned away. “I should go.”
“William.”
He paused at the door. “What?”
“If you could give me a future, would you?”
At the enduring hope in her voice, he looked over his shoulder. “You are shamelessly persistent, woman.”
She huffed, ind
ignant.
“That,” he clarified, “was a compliment.”
And he left the cabin.
~ * ~
Madeline sat in her room, sewing, but she was a wretched seamstress, the repair in the garment a rumpled mess, her finger bandaged from all the times she’d stabbed the tip. She finally tossed the dress aside and curled onto the bed, wrapping her arms around her knees.
For two days she’d fretted, stewed, cried and cursed, but she wasn’t any closer to making a decision. Should she let William go? In truth, give up on him? Or should she fight for him like the shamelessly persistent woman he’d claimed to admire? Was he asking her to fight for him in a roundabout way?
She pounded the pillow. The man was impossible. She would never really know what he wanted from her, if anything a‘tall . . . so perhaps her choice was easier than she imagined? What did she want? To be with William? Or not?
An explosion off the starboard stern shattered her rumination.
Shrieking, she rolled off the bed and onto the floor, covering her head. For several breathless moments, she waited before easing off the ground and peeking through the scuttle. Smoke wafted across the glass. She detected the scent of sulphur. But there were no more canon blasts. No sound of breaking wood. No smell of fire. A warning shot?
She scurried topside, bumping into tars making madcap dashes across the deck. She heard the lieutenant’s orders for gun power and manning the canons, shouts to the helmsman to take evasive maneuvers. Amid such organized chaos, she spotted William on the poop, spyglass in hand, as he scrutinized the other ship, fast approaching.
“Her colors, Captain?” hollered the lieutenant. “Spain? Portugal? Or the Jolly Roger?”
“No colors,” returned the captain, unflappable.
Madeline’s throat closed. Why would a ship attack without revealing its colors? Even pirates raised a flag to signal their intent.
As she sidestepped bustling sailors, she wondered if the attacking ship was a pirate rig, the one holding her grandfather hostage, but she quickly dismissed the idea. The Nemesis had left port in a hurry, without revealing its destination, so the tropical brigands would never expect Madeline to arrive with a crew of armed privateers to rescue her grandfather. Besides, they were still days away from the Bahamian islands. Who was the other vessel, then? And why was William so calm? Was he always so unnervingly blasé in battle?
How to Steal a Pirate's Heart (The Hawkins Brothers Series) Page 6
