by Connie Mason
When he rounded the corner, he ground to a halt.
Adam Bostock was there.
Damn the blackguard! Wasn’t it enough he’d stolen her in life? Did he think to claim Hannah in death as well?
Nick ground a fist into his other palm. The rain that had threatened earlier finally arrived, first as a fine mist, then pelting him with the relentlessness of a thousand tiny hammers. As he watched, Bostock removed his hat and tucked it under his arm. His shoulders sagged and he swayed unsteadily on his feet. Then he sank to one knee.
Probably drunk. Adam Bostock could cast up his accounts someplace else.
“You there!” Nicholas bounded across the graveyard. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
Bostock scrambled to his feet, swiping his red-rimmed eyes.
He’d been weeping, Nicholas realized with a start, not just wiping away rain.
“Come to finish our quarrel, Nick?” Bostock asked. His voice was less booming than usual, but his bluster nearly covered for it.
“If you’re spoiling for a fight, you’ve picked a poor spot,” Nicholas said. “This is holy ground.”
Adam jammed his black tricorne back on his head, blinking at the rain. “I never figured you for a praying man, Scott.”
“I’m not. But this is my wife’s grave.” Nicholas emphasized “my wife” more loudly than he intended. He was still furious with Hannah, but he owed her that much respect. “That makes this place holy.”
“And your child’s,” Adam said with a curl of his lip. “Let’s not forget it was your spawn that killed her.”
Nick looked at the small ossuary pressed up against Hannah’s vault. His lips clamped tight. If ever there was a place for truth, a graveyard was it.
“The child was yours,” Nicholas said, his tone as flat as the great organ’s stuck note. “She confessed it as she lay dying.”
“You lie!”
Bostock grasped Nick’s collar. Nick was ready for him and swung. Bostock ducked, but managed to throw a counterpunch that landed squarely in Nick’s belly. Nick bent double as the air rushed from his lungs, but he regathered himself and rushed Adam.
Nicholas lifted his enemy up and promptly lost his balance because of the slick moss under his feet. They rolled together across the wet grass and the mud of a newly worked flower bed.
A blow connected with Nicholas’s jaw, and stars careened in his head, but he landed a few good licks of his own. When they finally came to rest, Nick was astraddle Bostock’s chest with his fingers around his enemy’s throat.
Bostock’s body bucked under Nick, but couldn’t shake him off. His enemy tried to roll away, but Nicholas continued to squeeze the life out of him. Bostock’s pale eyes bulged as he shoved the heel of one palm against Nick’s chin. Nick turned his head and bore down all the harder. Adam’s arms flailed and he tried to work his fingers under Nick’s grip. Nick held on like one of the alligators he’d seen in a Carolina swamp. Bostock’s eyes rolled back in his head.
He was dying.
“Damnation,” Nick swore as he released him. He stood over his enemy as Bostock rasped in a deep breath and put a protective hand to his throat. “I promised Hannah I wouldn’t kill you.”
A pained expression passed over Bostock’s face. His complexion was pale as he staggered to his feet. “She made…me promise…the same damn thing.”
“Women,” Nick said simply.
Bostock nodded.
“Hannah told me she was carrying your child.” Bostock sank onto the stump of a huge cedar. The rain was coming down harder now, muffling all sounds but its own steady percussion. Neither man seemed to notice. “I figured the babe was why she broke it off with me. I would have taken her away, but she wouldn’t go. She said she wouldn’t separate you from your heir.”
“Perhaps she didn’t know for certain which of us fathered the child,” Nicholas said through clenched teeth. Hannah had played him false, but she’d chosen him at the last. That ought to count for something.
It didn’t.
“If I’d thought the child was mine, I’d have taken her from you, whether she wanted to go or not,” Bostock admitted. “I should have taken her anyway.”
For a moment, Nick wished he had. Then Bostock would’ve had those haunting memories of the birthing chamber in his head.
The screaming had gone on for hours. But when it stopped, Nick found the silence even worse. The midwife turned him away countless times during the labor, but he finally pushed past her.
Christ, there was so much blood. Pools of it in the rumpled bedclothes. It dripped steadily onto the pine floor. He never thought a body could lose so much and yet live. Hannah was as pale as the muslin sheets, but her eyes burned with fear.
“I’m going to God,” she whispered. “I must unburden my soul.”
She told him all in shuddering gasps, how she’d found comfort in Adam’s bed while Nick was on his last triangular run from the Turks to the Carolinas and home. Then Hannah begged his forgiveness, but he was too stunned by her revelation to say the words she wanted to hear. As the stillborn child finally slipped from her body, her spirit left with it.
Along with any chance to ever make it right.
“Was it a boy or a girl?” Bostock asked.
Only SCOTT was carved on the small vault. There was no need to shame the dead. Nick claimed the child as his, so far as the world knew. But he hadn’t wanted to think about the child more than necessary. He’d taken Hannah’s word that it wasn’t his. Now he wondered if he should have given it a proper name.
“It was a boy.”
A son. A legacy. A piece of himself every man hopes will live on after him. The wee lad might have been his.
And he hadn’t even given the child the simple recognition of a Christian name.
Bostock walked over and placed a palm on the top of Hannah’s vault. “God rest you, love.”
Love. Why hadn’t Nick ever been able to say the word? If he had, maybe Hannah wouldn’t…he shoved away the thought. There was no going back. No way to undo the past.
“It appears we won’t be killing each other today,” Nick said as he stood across the vaults from Adam. He didn’t want to touch the cold limestone of either raised grave, but Bostock stooped to rest his hand briefly on the child’s stone as well.
“No, not today.” Adam strode away, then stopped and turned back. He shot Nick a grim smile. “But cheer up. There’s always tomorrow.”
Nick watched him go, surprised that he’d been thinking along the same lines. Perhaps he and Bostock were more alike than not. Maybe that was why Hannah had turned to the bastard…
He’d never know for sure. He settled on the cedar stump and kept silent watch over his dead till the rain stopped and the warm Bermudian sun began to turn the puddles to steam.
Eve startled at the rap on her door. The rest of the churchgoers had returned long ago. Penny had brought her some clear broth and offered to sit with her till the headache passed, but Eve sent her away. She hated to lie to Pen. Her head was fine.
Her heart was not.
It galloped wildly as she rose from her chair by the hearth and went to open the door. She was certain it was Nicholas on the other side.
Come to gloat. Come to claim his winnings.
She could usually count on her clever tongue to get her out of trouble. It had doomed her this time. The Captain had shown himself in church. And she’d all but dared him to do it by declaring she’d come to his chamber on the day that he did so.
Why, by all that was holy, had that thought even popped into her mind, let alone out her mouth?
The sharp rap at the door was replaced by a demanding knock.
Eve slid back the bolt and opened the door a crack.
Captain Scott had propped himself against the frame with both arms. His gaze was fastened on the floor.
“Nicholas, what’s happened to you?” Eve pulled the door wide. His hair had escaped its tidy queue and hung in wet strands across his
face. His fine suit of clothing was drenched and plastered with mud. The white stockings would never come clean even if Daya scrubbed them for a week and he’d all but ruined his silver-buckled shoes.
“Miss Upshall,” he said, working his jaw back and forth as if testing its alignment. A fresh bruise purpled one cheekbone. “I have come to discuss—”
“I hardly think the hallway is the place to discuss the indecent agreement in which you’ve trapped me,” she whispered furiously, and waved him in, but he didn’t budge.
“It is if I’m calling it off.”
Eve flinched as though he’d slapped her.
He straightened to his full impressive height. “In light of my attendance at services this morning, you may feel yourself compelled to certain actions this evening. Do not, I beg you. I release you from whatever obligation you may feel you’ve incurred.”
He turned to go, but she stopped him with a hand on his soggy arm.
“What sort of trick is this?” she demanded. What had happened to him? He didn’t seem the type to embrace religion. And the filthy condition of his clothing suggested he’d spent the afternoon drinking and brawling.
“No trick.” He laid a mud-caked hand on hers. “I’ve just realized a few things.”
“Such as?”
“Coercion is the worst sort of prelude to shared pleasure. If one party is determined not to be with another party, no power on earth can make them come.” He pulled away and shuffled down the hall. “Or make them stay.”
Chapter Fourteen
Eve threw back her sheets and cursed the moon. Silver light fingered its way through the jalousie shutters and across her bed. It wouldn’t let her sleep. She swung her legs over the side and toed on her slippers. She drew back the long drapes that obscured the door to the small private garden off her chamber. Perhaps some fresh air.
It wasn’t just the moon that disturbed her.
There was something blooming outside her door. Something wild and forbidden and indescribably sweet. The fragrance wrapped itself around her, bidding her to come away, to surrender, to lose herself in its exotic scent.
It wasn’t just the seductive perfume of some unpronounceable flower, she realized with a sigh. It was nothing she could smell.
It was the man. The man whose chamber door was mere steps from hers.
Nicholas Scott wouldn’t let her sleep.
She’d tried to reason with herself all day. Tried to convince herself that she dreaded keeping her bargain with the black-eyed devil. Telling herself that if she made good on her debt, and a lady had to live up to her word, she’d only be doing so out of duty. She’d grit her teeth and submit to his touch till the last grain of sand was gone from the hourglass.
Then she’d laugh in his face and return to her own room, her honor intact, her point made. He’d have to take her to Charleston once he saw there was no sense in continuing his pursuit of her maidenhead.
If she could only reach her mother’s brother in Richmond. Whether she married eventually or lived out her days as a spinster at her uncle’s hearth, she’d do whatever was necessary to live a life beyond reproach. She’d never be at the mercy of strangers. Her family would see to it.
No one would ever whip her again.
And if to accomplish that goal, she had to allow Nicholas Scott his moment of triumph, so be it. She’d endure it and come away unscathed.
She’d developed a real talent for lying while in Newgate Prison. But now even she couldn’t swallow her own golly-whoppers.
It was more than curiosity about what Nicholas would do to her. She wanted to be touched with gentleness, not malice.
And, blast it all, she wanted Nicholas Scott to be the one to touch her. Only touch her. He’d promised.
What had happened to make him decide he didn’t want to now?
She had to know. Eve pulled on her wrapper over her cotton chemise and pushed through her door before she could talk herself out of it.
The latch sounded unnaturally loud to her ears. But when she stood rigid in the hall, listening for another soul stirring, she heard nothing. Before her courage flagged, she padded down the hall to Nicholas’s chamber.
She raised her hand to knock, but stopped herself.
What if someone besides the captain heard it?
She tested the knob. It turned in her hand. She pushed the door open and slipped in.
There was no one in the large bed that commanded the center of the masculine space. But the bedclothes were as rumpled and mussed as her own.
“If you’ve come for the silver, you’re in the wrong room.”
His voice made her jump. She saw him then, his broad-shouldered frame silhouetted against a long window. He was backlit by the moon, but Eve could tell he was naked. She should have expected it.
How else would the Lord of Devil Isle sleep?
Every curve of muscle stood out in stark definition, every long line of him kissed by moonlight. He leaned against the windowsill with both hands, still looking out to sea. Her mouth went dry.
“But you’re not here for the silver, are you, Eve?”
“How—” Her voice cracked and she swallowed hard. He hadn’t even bothered to look. “How did you know it was me?”
“I know the sound of your footstep,” he said, turning to face her slowly. “I know the smell of your skin. What else would you like me to know?”
She wanted him to know every inch of her body and not flinch from the hideous parts. But she couldn’t bring herself to say it. “I would like you to know that I honor my debts.”
He began to walk toward her. It was too dark for her to see everything clearly, but the brief glimpses of him were magnificent. She’d visited a menagerie once when she was small and seen a real live lion from Africa. Mane flying wild, rippling strength in each movement, rampant maleness exuding from every pore—the lion in his prime was nothing compared to this man. She couldn’t tear her gaze from him.
“I released you from that foolishness. You owe me nothing.” His voice was a low rumbling purr.
Would she even care if he ate her alive? “I owe you my life.”
“And you’ve thanked me.” His teeth flashed white in the darkness. “Are you come to thank me again, Eve?”
“I came because…because you have an hourglass and…because neither of us seems able to sleep.”
He stopped an arm’s length away. She’d been an unwilling witness to all manner of sexual congress in the big common cell at Newgate, but she’d never seen a finer example of a man than the one who stood with his cock straining toward her now.
“What do you want?” he asked. The tension in his voice stretched so tight. She’d swear he could launch an arrow with it that would fly clear to Bristol.
“You promised you would…only touch me.”
“And you want me to touch you?” He took a step closer.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
He took another step toward her. She planted a palm on his bare chest. His heart galloped under it.
“The hourglass,” she whispered.
“That’s how it’s to be?”
She nodded, starting to remove her wrapper.
“Don’t,” he ordered. “I’ll do that myself.”
Then he strode across the room and upended the hourglass that sat on his bedside table. He walked slowly back to her.
“Remember, you are here because you want to be. You asked for this.” The serrated edge of something dark and dangerous crept into his tone.
“If I want to leave—”
“You won’t.” His voice fell to a whisper. “But if you do, I’ll not stop you. On all that’s holy, I so swear.”
He stood stock-still. She didn’t even think he breathed. Then, though his lips barely moved, she heard one word.
“Stay.”
It reverberated deep inside her head. But the anguish in that one word was so complete, she drew in a sharp breath. For that slice of a moment, she seemed to feel a
little of what he was feeling.
The man was in torment.
He was on the edge of some precipice, his balance teetering wildly.
“What would you have me do?” she asked.
Relief rolled off him in palpable waves. “Nothing. Just be. I will do what’s needed.”
He didn’t move, but the muscles in his bare forearms twitched beneath his skin. His gaze locked with hers as if he feared looking elsewhere.
His mouth lifted in a brief smile. He raised his hands to her face, gently pressing his fingertips to her forehead, her temples. Her eyelids closed as his hands traced over them and on to her cheeks. He brushed a thumb across her parted lips.
He’d bathed before retiring. His hand smelled of soap and of him. Eve breathed him in. His hands moved down. She opened her eyes and looked up at him as his strong fingers encircled her throat.
She was totally at his mercy and she knew it. He could snap her neck and dump her body over the cliff behind his home. The tide would bear her away and no one would ever be the wiser. Panic curled in her belly.
She’d sworn never to let herself be in another person’s power again. And yet, there was something in his face, a look of such tenderness that made her certain he didn’t intend to hurt her.
He slid his hands down to her elbows and forearms, taking her wrapper with him as he went. Her skin rioted with pleasure in the wake of his touch. The wrapper slid off and pooled at her feet.
When he reached her hands, he grasped one and pulled it between them, tracing around each of her fingers with his forefinger. He was completely absorbed by each of her parts, as if he were committing her to memory.
When her right hand had been explored, front and back, her knuckles and palm caressed with unhurried thoroughness, he placed it on his shoulder and met her gaze for a moment as though checking to make sure she agreed with its placement. Against her better judgment, her lips curved up and she gave his shoulder a slight squeeze.
He smiled back at her and the moonlight seemed to shift around him, flaring silver with his pleasure.
