[GOD08] The Lost Gentleman

by Margaret McPhee

  Standing there in North’s arms. It felt like a safe harbour from the storm. She knew that was all wrong and that he was the storm who could destroy her. But in that moment the knowledge seemed small and inconsequential. What she felt, what pulsed through her heart, what filled her every pore, what was deep inside the marrow of her bones, that was all that mattered.

  ‘This is about more than Tom,’ he said. Not a question, just a fact.

  Her cheek was pressed against his shirt, against the hard muscle of his chest, against the beat of his heart. She nodded.

  ‘He reminds you of another.’

  She pulled back, and looked up into his eyes. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Gunner told me that your body bears the marks that you have carried a child.’

  ‘Two children,’ she said. ‘Ben is six years old. Bea is four. Both are as blond as young Tom and as their father was. Both the cutest little pumpkins you ever could meet.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Back home in Tallaholm. My mama looks after them while I’m away. It is a good arrangement. It gives her purpose since my papa died a few years back.’ She took a breath. ‘I miss them so much. They are the reason I was in such a hurry to get back to Louisiana, the main reason at least.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘Why? It would not have made any difference. I knew you could not go into Louisiana waters.’

  ‘I would have found a way.’

  She looked up into his eyes, so dark and intense. ‘I believe you would have, Kit North,’ she said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. ‘You are not the man I thought you were.’

  Their gazes held and locked.

  The next step was inevitable and unstoppable. She knew it was coming and she wanted it. She needed it.

  His mouth lowered to hers and she met his lips with all the tenderness and feeling that throbbed in her heart.

  She gave herself up to him. She gave herself up to all that her body had been deprived of these past three years. All that her heart missed and craved.

  He kissed her with tenderness and gentleness and, beneath it, the same fierceness of passion that she felt; their lips igniting those sparks to flames that could not be doused. She was lost in its heat and so was he.

  And when he snuffed out the lantern light and unlaced the black silk from her, stripping it off...when his hands caressed her naked skin with reverence and tenderness and desire...when his mouth closed upon her breast to pleasure them both...when she pulled the shirt from him and ran her hands over the toned hard muscle of his body, feeling bumps and ridges and welts on his skin, feeling his strength, feeling the power that was in him...it was more than want, more than desire. It was a need so guttural and raw that she could no more deny it than wilfully stop herself from breathing.

  Everything in him mirrored what she felt. As though he understood, as though he was just the same as her. As though his strength could feed her and mend her and make everything all right again when it hadn’t been all right for such a long time despite all of her pretences.

  Their bodies spliced together as if they had been made to fit that way.

  There was only Kit North, only this healing that was happening between them as their bodies merged. They moved together, their rhythms perfectly in tune, reaching, striving, needing what only the other could give. A journey together. A journey that faded everything else to oblivion.

  ‘Kit.’ She called out his name as they finally reached their destination and she exploded in a surge of white light and stardust and sunbeams and a pulsing pleasure that overcame the entirety of her being as he pulled out just in time to keep her safe.

  And afterwards, when the urgency and madness had passed, when their bodies parted and they both realised what they had done, awkwardness and embarrassment replaced passion. She clutched the covers to her, hiding her nakedness even though it was dark.

  ‘I should go.’ She felt him leave the cot, felt the dip of the mattress as he sat on its edge and pulled on his drawers and breeches, quickly dressing himself. Then rose to leave. There was a small hesitation, as if he had turned to say something, then thought better of it. He did not say another word, just left, closing the door quietly behind him.

  She lay there, her body warm and sated, while a cold wind of horror blew through her heart at what she had just done. Lying there, naked beneath the sheets, his scent strong upon her, her skin still flushed from his touch, she stared up through the darkness towards the low wooden planks of the ceiling above. Everything she believed of herself was shaken. All of her values and her standards. If someone had told her two weeks ago that she would have behaved like a wanton, forgetting everything that was important to her, forgetting the vow she had sworn, so driven by the need to couple with Captain Kit North that she would lay herself down before him and go at it like a barnyard animal, she would have laughed in their face at the utter absurdity.

  What have I done?

  Betrayed the memory of her husband. Betrayed her children. Betrayed her own self.

  She was Le Voile. He was the man the British establishment had sent to capture her.

  Lord help me, what have I done? The question whispered again and again through her mind as the full horror of it sank in.

  Her anger was not at him, but herself. For her weakness.

  But she knew the answer, and worse than that was the fear that, despite that knowledge, if he were to kiss her again and whisper her name with such tenderness, she would do it all again.

  In the darkness of the tiny cabin Kate shivered and, wrapping her arms around herself, curled on her side. She did not weep, there were no more tears left to cry.

  She just stared into the black night and wondered how on earth she was going to get through the rest of this journey with what lay between her and Kit North.

  * * *

  Kit did not return to the dining tables. He did not want any of the others to guess what had just happened between him and Kate Medhurst, both for her sake and his own. Instead, he climbed the ladder that led to the upper deck and sought the sanctuary of the open night sky.

  Briggs was at the helm, Collier on watch, but neither would bother him. Through the darkness that submerged him they would see nothing of the truth. He stood by the rail, feeling the whip of the wind against his face and through his hair and staring out into the dark roar of the ocean.

  He thought he was a man who had righted his course. He had sailed so far and never felt temptation to veer from that course, not once, until he met Kate Medhurst. And now he had faltered, fallen. So close to home.

  ‘There you are.’ Gunner’s voice was quiet as he came to stand by his side, handing Kit his lantern so that he could lean between his stick and the bulwark to look out over the side at the dark night seascape.

  ‘You should not be up here. You will exhaust yourself,’ Kit said.

  ‘I thought I was the physician here,’ Gunner said, and he could hear the smile in his friend’s voice.

  They stood in silence for a little while, with only the creak of the timber and the flap of canvas and the ever-present roar of the ocean.

  ‘Is she all right?’ Gunner asked softly after a few moments.

  ‘I hope so.’ He hoped, but he feared what he had done had only made matters worse.

  Another silence before Gunner spoke again. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Why would I not be?’ He would not lie, deception went too close to the tear in his soul that could not be mended, but he would do all that he could to protect Kate Medhurst’s reputation; he owed her that, at least.

  ‘No particular reason,’ said his friend. But he had the sensation that Gunner knew something had happened between them, maybe not the full extent of it, but something that should not have happened all the same. He should not h
ave bedded her. He should not have loved her. It whispered of dishonour, in more ways than one. He would have put his head in his hands were there no one to witness it.

  ‘Seeing the boy, Tom, upset her.’

  ‘You were right. She is a mother, with two young children back in Louisiana—a son and a daughter. She misses them.’

  ‘I am sorry for her. It cannot be easy.’

  ‘More difficult I would guess than either of us can imagine.’

  ‘Did she tell you anything else of herself or her circumstances?’

  ‘A few things,’ he said, staring out at the blackness. ‘But nothing that changes my thinking on her.’ He could still feel the softness of her skin, he could still smell the clean womanly scent of her and feel her in his blood. What had happened in that cabin felt like a lot more than just sex. It felt like something he had no damn right to experience.

  ‘Well, I suppose we should be glad of that.’ Beside him he could feel the weight of Gunner’s gaze upon him.

  ‘Yes, I suppose we should,’ he said, but supposing and being were two different things.

  ‘Come on, old man, best get this old crock back down below,’ said Gunner.

  Kit took hold of his friend’s arm to help guide him through the darkness.

  Slowly the two men moved together across the deck towards the ladder.

  * * *

  She could not hide from him for ever. She had to face him sooner or later, and the sooner it was done, the better. Kate rinsed her face in the cold water and stared at her reflection in the small looking glass that hung over the cabin’s washstand.

  The night spent sleepless with regret and remorse, with guilt and shame, with anger and all sorts of other confusing emotions, had left its mark on her face. Her eyes were ringed with shadows, her complexion too pale and ashen.

  The soap and water had washed North’s scent from her body easily enough. But no amount of scrubbing could erase the knowledge of what they had shared together. It felt like that was engraved on her soul.

  Lord, help her, she cringed at the thought of seeing him again.

  But not once in her adult life had she hidden from what had to be done. Fear was a thing that lurked behind you, in shadows and round corners, the only way to deal with it was to turn round and confront it. She did not know any other way. So she dried her face and dressed in her own black muslin and fichu and the black shawl, and tidied her hair all neat and respectable. And with her head held high she went to face the crew of Raven and its captain, too.

  * * *

  Gone was the bright sunshine of home. In its place were grey skies and a churning charcoal ocean beneath, both of which matched the sombre mood that hung about the ship this morning.

  North was in his usual place on the quarterdeck, peering into the distance through his spyglass when she emerged from the deck hatch. There was no sign of Gunner, although the rest of his crew seemed at busy industry. Bob the raven sat perched on North’s left shoulder.

  Her heart was beating harder than normal with the illogical fear that somehow what had happened between her and North was branded there on her face for all to see, almost making her turn right around and hurry back to her cabin.

  But none of the men treated her with anything other than their normal respect.

  North’s eyes met hers across the deck. She gave him a small polite nod of acknowledgement, as if nothing had happened last night, then walked to stand by Raven’s larboard rail, not too close that might be construed she was angling after him, but not far enough away that might be thought avoidance.

  A few moments later and she heard his footsteps. Her heart began to race in earnest, part of her praying he would walk on by.

  All her blood rushed and tumbled, and she felt her cheeks blush rosy as any green girl’s at the sight of her lover, as his footsteps came to a halt by her side.

  She did not trust herself to look round at him, not until she could be sure of her composure.

  ‘Last night—’ he began to murmur quietly.

  ‘Should not have happened,’ she said, finishing the sentence, taking control of the situation. She knew what she was going to say, had rehearsed the words a hundred times through the night, but still her throat was dry. ‘We were both tired and our sensibilities were running high.’ She said it quietly, but with a firmness of confidence that brooked no disagreement. ‘It will not happen again.’

  ‘It will not,’ he agreed. It was what she wanted to hear, but those words upon his lips made her feel strangely bleak. ‘I hope you do not feel that I took advantage of you. It was not my intention.’

  She met his eyes then, seeing that there was a gravity in them that matched the darkness of the daytime sky. ‘You know you did not,’ she said, angry that he could think such a thing. ‘Do you honestly think me so weak as to be so easily coerced against my will?’

  ‘No, Kate,’ he said. ‘I do not think any such thing.’

  She gave a tiny nod. ‘Please do not let me keep you from your duties, Captain North,’ she said, effectively dismissing him.

  ‘You know I could not allow such a thing, even were I to wish it otherwise, Kate Medhurst,’ he said softly, and there was such a look in those dark eyes of his that made her feel as though she had just had a glimpse of some deep personal truth in him—a look that held both intimacy and pain.

  He walked away, returning to his charts and his spyglass.

  She wanted to retreat to her cabin, but she stayed where she was, looking out over the grey swell of the ocean, for the sake of appearances and pride.

  You know I could not allow such a thing, even were I to wish it otherwise, Kate Medhurst. It was not so much the words that haunted her as that look in his eyes.

  Her bonnet’s black ribbons fluttered wildly in the wind. Her skirts moulded themselves to her legs and beneath the dark shawl she shivered from the cold and from other things, too. But still she stood there, and would do so for the next half-hour until, with her pride intact, she could go below. She shivered again, the shiver bone deep and cold as ice this time, as though someone or something had walked over her grave. And then she saw it—the ship that sailed out of the bank of clouds in the distance, the ship on which Kit North had trained his spyglass. And her mouth went dry and her stomach gave a somersault and she understood the reason for the men’s mood and intensity of focus. And her heart leapt at the same time as there was something sad beneath it.

  For the ship heading straight for Raven was one that Kate recognised. Although it was sailing under French colours and flew neither black sails nor any flag to proclaim its privateer status, she was under no doubt as to the identity of the schooner—La Diligent. Only one man commanded that vessel: Captain Jean Lafitte. And there could only be one reason why Lafitte was this far across the Atlantic and flying not the bloody flag but the white one of parlez.

  The ship heading straight for Raven was coming for Kate—to save Le Voile from North the Pirate Hunter and take her home to Louisiana.

  Chapter Eight

  Kit watched Lafitte’s ship, judging the distance with an expert eye, aware that there could only be one reason big enough and important enough to bring Lafitte chasing all this way across the Atlantic.

  ‘Continue to hold our current course and speed, and ready the guns,’ he commanded.

  ‘Aye, aye, Captain.’ The men moved smooth and efficient as cogs in a clock. Everything timed to precision. They all knew who was coming and that Lafitte had not carved a name for himself amongst the Baratarian pirates for nothing. They all knew that La Diligent was a match for Raven. They knew, too, that her long guns were big enough to come close to the range of those that Raven carried.

  Kate Medhurst stood statue still, her hands gripping the rail, her focus fixed all on the pursuing ship.

  He moved to stand by her side.
‘Go below, Kate.’

  She glanced round at him, meeting his gaze briefly, but with an intensity that mirrored what he was feeling himself. ‘You know who that is, right?’

  ‘I know,’ he said. Then, to Briggs, ‘Escort Mrs Medhurst to her cabin.’

  ‘No.’ She turned to where Briggs was advancing towards her, stopping him in his tracks with a look before returning her gaze to Kit. ‘That will not be necessary, sir.’

  Briggs looked at Kit.

  ‘As the lady wishes,’ he murmured, knowing that short of slinging her over his shoulder and carrying her down that deck ladder by force she was going nowhere.

  Briggs hurriedly returned to his station.

  ‘Six hundred yards!’ shouted Collier from the crow’s nest, whose eyes were trained on the approaching ship.

  ‘Stand ready with the guns,’ Kit ordered.

  Kate stared round at him with a look of incredulity. ‘Do you not see the white flag of parlez?’

  ‘I see it.’

  ‘And yet you mean to shoot at him?’

  ‘Just as he means to shoot at us.’

  ‘You are mistaken!’

  ‘I do not believe so.’

  ‘He wishes to parlez,’ she said, not understanding what it was Lafitte had come to do.

  ‘He wishes anything but to parlez. He knows who I am. And the cargo I carry. He intends to stop me reaching London with La Voile.’

  ‘You don’t know what he wants until you listen to what he has to say,’ she implored. ‘Jean Lafitte is an honourable man. I give you my word on it.’ Desperation made her careless.

  ‘Men are not always as honourable as they might seem, Kate.’

  But she still did not understand what was happening here and no amount of words would ever convince her. But she would see soon enough, La Diligent was already within penetrating range for her own guns.

  ‘Kit, please...’ Her hand touched his arm and stayed there, betraying them both.