"I'm coming to believe that Miss Euphemia is an expert at everything," Kai said. "She's just too modest to tell us about it."
Zora and Maddie either already knew that Euphemia could play, or were too tipsy to question this newfound development, because they simply danced and whirled around the fire, holding each other's hands as they spun. Katherine and Franky followed suit, joining their circle, and when Euphemia was done with her song, Katherine let out a roar of a laugh and pulled each of them in for a quick kiss one by one. They looked surprised by this, but not irritated—Kai doubted very little could bother any of them this night.
"Sorry, Maddie," Katherine said as she caught sight of the startled look on Maddie's face after she'd kissed Franky. "No harm meant."
"Of course not."
Kai watched Katherine curiously. The flame around her aura, that hint of attraction, stayed precisely the same whether she was speaking to Franky or Agnessa. "Is it common?" he asked. "For a human to feel lust toward both the females and males of their species?"
"Not common, that I know of," Isabelle said. "But it happens, yeah. You talking about Kath? Dunno if she likes both, at least seriously. She just kisses everybody. It's kinda her thing. Not shy."
"No," he said, grinning at the memory of how she'd removed her shirt without hesitation so he could give her a tattoo. "Not at all."
"And that's what that part of her light means?" Isabelle asked. "It means she cares about someone?"
"In a way," Kai said. "There's a difference in the light between wanting to bed someone and caring for them. When the two combine, of course—"
"Just look at them," Isabelle said, sounding so dazed he doubted she'd heard a word he had said. "They're all as bright as the fire."
"That they are," Kai said, his gaze focused on Harry. Then Maddie passed in front of her, and he realized how she'd begun to worry at her lower lip with her teeth. He had thought nothing could affect any of them on this night, but clearly he'd been wrong. Franky propositioned other members of the crew with alarming frequency, and this never seemed to be a problem. Both he and Maddie seemed to recognize effortlessly that there was nothing serious in the offers, simply a more elaborate form of teasing.
But once in a while, when the women teased back, Maddie began chewing at her lower lip and didn't talk quite as loudly for a while.
He didn't fully understand it; simple words—or, sometimes even actions—didn't mean feelings for another weren't true. Junia's odd situation proved as much. She felt no desire for her late husband—on the rare occasions when she spoke of him, there hadn't been a flare of anything in her aura that signaled as much. At first, due to this, Kai had briefly assumed their relationship had been a marriage of convenience, but then he'd listened to the way her voice sounded instead of just watching her light. There may not have been desire there, but she had loved Landon deeply, and the grief lay over her aura like a cloak.
She came to him some nights, simply asking to be held. There was nothing in her request to make him think he was betraying Harry, or that she was betraying her mate—it was a harsh world, and he reminded her of the one she'd lost.
Though Franky was young, he had not been spared the world's cruelties. And so he gave most of his focus over to things that weren't cruel— honest laughter and good friends and a beautiful woman's smile. No harm was intended in his attention to the last, and most of the time, Maddie clearly understood this, laughing along with him when he was given yet another teasing rejection.
"Maddie," he called, waving her over. It wasn't any of his business, truly, and he probably wouldn't talk it over with her now if he hadn't had several cups of rum. He could help; he was sure of it. Why in the world hadn't he done so before?
"You needn't worry about him," Kai confided, once Maddie had moved a little closer. "There's a light to him when he's with you that doesn't show up with anyone else."
Maddie smiled a little at that, her own aura flashing brighter, but his voice had apparently carried further than he'd intended, because Agnessa was staring at him with wide eyes.
"You can see things like that?" she asked him.
"Like what?" Jo asked.
"Who has feelings for who," Isabelle said. "Ohh, that would have been a useful skill to have when I was a girl."
"Kaiiii," Franky said, flopping down onto the sand next to him and slinging an arm around his shoulders. "You are my new best friend."
"You are to give him no information," Harry said, "upon pain of death."
"Awww, you're just saying that because you're sweet on me and don't want me to know," Franky said, turning to give Kai a hopeful look. "Right?"
"Actually, her aura around you is far more maternal than sexual."
Franky clutched at his chest as though he'd just been stabbed in the heart, while Harry spluttered out a litany of offended words.
"How dare—I am in no way maternal, I will have you know—"
"Of course not," he said, smiling fondly up at her. "You merely take people in both as casually and as wholeheartedly as others would wounded strays."
She blinked at him, struck silent, and then turned away. "I... I'm going to get some more rum from the ship."
There was an entire case of it sitting on the sand mere feet away, but even in his apparently-addled state, he knew better than to mention that.
"Shouldn't you go after her?" Maddie asked worriedly, staring off after the captain.
"No," he said. "She's not upset, merely surprised."
"And you can tell that? From her aura-thing?" Maddie asked, dropping down into the sand beside him, taking another swallow from her bottle.
He grinned. "No. Because if she had been upset, they would be able to hear her three ports away."
Maddie snorted with laughter. "You're not wrong." Then the laughter faded as abruptly as it had appeared, and she looked at him with seriousness bordering on tears. "Need to ask you something. Franky, can you... can you go be over there?"
"Why?" he asked.
"Cause I have to ask this, but I don't know what the answer's gonna be and if it's bad you don't—"
"I firmly believe that nothing can be bad where you're concerned," Franky said, scooting over so that he was sitting behind her, wrapping his arms around his waist. She gave him a look that bordered on panic, and he leaned forward slightly, resting his cheek against hers. "You sure?"
"Yeah."
"Okay." He got to his feet, moving just barely out of earshot.
Kai had heard Harry say that there were cuddly drunks, maudlin drunks, and mean drunks, but he didn't think any of those fit Maddie. She seemed to flit from one emotion to another as quickly as a minnow. Now, the panic she'd shown an instant before was entirely gone, and she looked at him with a mixture of fear and stubbornness, as if preparing for a physical blow.
"All right. I need you to tell me the truth."
"Of course."
"My life-light thing. Aura. Whatever you called it. I know it's yellow, you told me, but color is just that. Color. Some parts of the body turn yellow when a cut gets infected enough. I need to know. Am I good?"
He reached up to take her hand—he missed on the first try, given that rum made two of everybody appear after a while—and held it tightly. "You're beautiful, Maddie."
She grinned, tears falling, and he felt a quick jolt of confusion. That had been good news; why was she crying? He wasn't sure he would ever truly understand human behavior.
Then Franky was sitting back down in the sand next to Maddie, giving her a loud kiss on the cheek. "Everything okay?"
"Uh-huh."
"See? Of course it is. I keep saying I'm always right, but none of you believe me..."
Then he and Maddie and Isabelle let out surprised squawks as the ocean, which until now had been content to lap gently at their feet, decided to splash up almost over their heads. Kai watched them, nonplussed and smiling, as they scrambled further up the beach closer to the fire.
Harry still wasn't back. She
hadn't been upset when she'd left, true, but he clearly had surprised her, and perhaps not in a pleasant way.
Leaving the crew to their revelry, he slid back into the water and swam for the ship.
Revelation
From a very early age, Deborah knew her own mind. She woke knowing what she wanted from the day. She ate only what she wanted to eat, read only what she wanted to read, went only where she wanted to go. She grudgingly wore the clothes society dictated a woman of her means and standing should wear, but wore only what suited her tastes. Her dresses were of the finest silks and softest satin, in flamboyant colors and with daring necklines.
As a child, she was called 'precocious', 'insatiably curious', and 'a handful'. As she aged, she became 'opinionated', 'headstrong', and 'a bloody nuisance'. And with each passing day, she took more and more delight in defying every expectation.
When she went to the breeder to select a new horse, she ignored the docile, tame little mares with the dainty, feathered fetlocks and instead chose the fire-eaten, half-mad stallions with a propensity to buck wildly and kick viciously at anyone who approached them. She paid no attention to the safe little books about polite women coming of age, finding a kind husband, mothering doe-eyed children, and leading quiet, peaceful lives. Instead, she devoured novels of scandalous adventure, travelogues that spared none of the depraved or grimy details, and other hot-blooded volumes that would have given the average society miss an aneurysm. While other young women of the ton committed almost every waking moment and thought to the avid pursuit of an eligible—and rich—husband, Deborah Cavendish wasn't in the slightest hurry to secure a man.
Because—knowing her own mind as she did—Deborah had decided long ago that a husband would never satisfy her appetites.
No, what Deborah truly wanted was a partner. A cohort in crime. Someone to travel with, to share madcap adventures with. She wanted someone who would never demand—nor even ask—that she change a single particle of herself or want anything less than the most out of life. Someone who could match her pace and passion.
And, ideally, this partner would have fantastic breasts.
But such a thing would be frowned upon in her genteel, ordered, polite world. Ladies were supposed to marry lords. Women went to bed with men, and only after a ceremony in a crowded church, officiated by a pompous windbag in expensive drapes.
That was the natural order of things. That was the way of the world.
This was disheartening and frustrating, and would be cause for great concern and depression in most.
Deborah, however, carried on in spite of this. At the age of twenty-five, she merely resigned herself to the life of a spinster—which didn't feel like a poor second choice in any way, shape, or form.
As a spinster, after all, she would remain her own mistress. No one would have the right to give her orders or make demands on her time; as a lady of wealth, independent of a man, she could spend her riches however she wanted, keep her own hours, and travel to her heart's content. Hardly an unfortunate or unlikable life. In fact, that suited her right down to the ground.
It took her roughly four hours aboard The Sappho—and oh, how she had reveled in that fortuitous name; clearly it was a good omen for her—to make up her mind on several counts.
Firstly: these pirates were nothing like the pirates she had encountered before, and if more pirates were like this lot, she would have let herself get shanghaied long ago.
Secondly: the life of a pirate was vastly superior to life in London, if only because the former did not require corsets or three layers of petticoats.
Thirdly: Katherine struck her very forcefully as a lady worth knowing.
"...and this is the cargo hold," Katherine was saying, having usurped Maddie's usual role as tour guide. "Not a lot to look at right now, since we're sort of in-between hauls at the moment."
"Why is there a table right here?" Deborah asked.
"Lizzie and Marcella use it, mostly. When they're working on one of their projects. And that's basically it," she said in closing, making a sweeping gesture with her arms. "All that's worth seeing on the good ship Sappho. We could go see what Wil's cooking in the galley now, if you're hungry."
"Oh, I am hungry. But I doubt she'll have anything that would satisfy my current craving. I'd be more than happy to stay here for a while longer..."
Katherine gave her a look: it was an amused, appraising look. It was a look that said, I know exactly what you're doing, because it's exactly what I'd do in your place. It was a look that said, I'm definitely not saying no, but you might have to convince me a little more. And it was the look of someone who was unused to a so-called nob being so forthright.
"I'd like to see the rest of your tattoos," Deborah said, all innocence.
"I've only just met you, Lady Cavendish," said Katherine. "Usually I only show all of my ink to friends. Good friends."
"I would like us to be good friends," she said. "More than that, even. You're the most striking woman I've ever met."
"And how do I strike you?"
"As someone who could teach me a lot of things. I've always been a glutton for education—it's part of the reason why I travel."
"I'd be happy to teach you anything I know," Katherine said blithely. "But you have had an unexpected day, what with the kidnapping and all—perhaps you'd rather settle in first, find your bearings, get a good night's sleep under your belt?"
"I'm not wearing a belt," Deborah countered. "And I thrive on excitement. I'm insatiable when it comes to excitement—one can never have too much of it. Now, Katherine. Are you going to continue undressing me with your eyes, or are you actually going to act on those promising glances?"
"You don't like to dance around the bush, do you?"
"Why bother?" Deborah said. "We're all allotted a finite amount of time on this planet. I believe in speaking plainly. Does this surprise you? Only hours ago, I was baying for your blood whilst under the misguided conception that you were a villain who meant me ill—when I realized you were the opposite, I readily jumped ship because I knew I'd have more fun with your lot than the crew I was already sailing with. If there's anything I cannot abide it is tedium, and I was up to my neck in that on the Williamson. I'm counting on The Sappho to prove much more exciting."
"I can promise you excitement here," Katherine said. "Of all sorts."
"Wonderful. You can start delivering on that promise now."
"You like to order people around, don't you?"
"I'm an aristocrat. It's what we do."
"Well, I'm not an aristocrat. I'm the illegitimate daughter of a wench, and an avowed pirate. Are you so sure you want to tussle with a low-born peasant and criminal?"
Her tone was light; there was no malice or anger behind her words. But it was also obvious—in the set of her shoulders, in the serious lines of her face—that it was an earnest question. Katherine was making it clear that she had no interest in indulging a toff who was only slumming it for the thrill. That she wouldn't let a lady get away with treating her badly just because of their disparate classes.
"Most people look at me and see only the title, and the money," Deborah said. "They don't see me. Back home, I'm a chess piece in a game played by old society dames who cultivate bloodlines the way breeders produce champion racehorses. I'm a walking chest of money to the men eager for a quick piece of gold. I'm my father's daughter: constantly running away to sea, where I can be something more, something different, something free. My own woman. Free to learn whatever I want about life. And right now I want to learn all about you."
"...How attached are you to that corset?"
"How do you mean?"
Katherine stepped closer. Reached out and began calmly unbuttoning the front of Deborah's dress until the tight laces of her corset were revealed. "I ask," the much taller woman said conversationally, "because I don't have the patience to untie laces like these. Much easier to just cut through them." A small knife was suddenly in her hand, and there was a
smile on her face that was positively wolfish.
Deborah found she was having difficulty swallowing. "I can always buy new laces," she said, hoping her voice didn't sound as shaky as it felt in her throat.
The sharp edge of the knife made a whispering shhh as it sliced cleanly through the white ribbon laces; then the blade disappeared back into a pocket and Katherine pushed the sleeves of the satin dress off her shoulders while the undone corset slid to the floor.
"Have you ever done this?" Katherine asked next as she brushed long, dark curls away from her pale neck, continuing in the same even, casual tone. It was a reassuring voice, very matter of fact, and Deborah found her painfully thrumming heart begin to steady under its influence. "Been with a woman?"
"No," Deborah confessed honestly. "I've never been with anyone."
"But you've wanted to?"
"Oh, yes. Very much so."
"I'll try to make this worth the wait, then." Katherine bent her head and caught the waiting lips with hers. The large hands slid down from her firm shoulders and across her chest, cupping and kneading and caressing the full breasts.
Deborah shivered, a violent full-bodied tremor, and reached up to put her arms around the bended neck. She stood on her tip-toes and balled fistfuls of Katherine's shirt in her hands as their tongues slipped over lips and rubbed against teeth. Her nipples were painfully hard in the cool air of the hold, beneath Katherine's knowing touch, and she felt feverish all over, skin too tight and hot and pricking with sweat.
"How does that feel?" Katherine asked, pulling back momentarily.
"Marvelous," Deborah replied ardently.
"If I do anything you're not comfortable with, anything you don't enjoy, tell me and I'll stop," she promised.
"You're wearing too many clothes. I said I wanted to see your tattoos—show me all of them."
Katherine readily complied, casting off her loose shirt and unbuckling her pants. It took both of them to unfasten Deborah's petticoats and skirts and they were laughing by the time they were puddled around her feet.
"Damn to the depths whoever decided women's clothing should have so many buttons and buckles and ties," Katherine said with feeling, before scooping Deborah up without a sign of strain and setting her down on the edge of the long work table. "Lie back," she told her with a grin and an arched eyebrow.
The Search for Aveline Page 23
