‘Am I succeeding, Mrs Ellison?’
‘You always do,’ she confessed.
The admission warmed his heart. ‘I am glad of that.’
There was a small comfortable silence.
‘How bad is the damage, Daniel?’
‘She is still afloat.’ Just.
‘Are we going to make it?’
‘We can secure her so that she is watertight. But the Angel is too small a ship to carry much material for repairs. Captain Davies has not the spares needed to repair the mast and rigging. We can stay afloat, but—’
‘We cannot sail,’ she finished.
He nodded. Neither of them spoke of the peril of that position. It would not take another storm to finish the Angel.
‘What are we to do?’
‘Wait until another ship arrives to tow us to port.’
‘In all of the past week we have seen only one other ship and that was far in the distance.’
‘We are without sail and any other vessel that sees will come to our aid. The storm has not blown us far off course. We are north of the Azores.’ He saw she did not realise the significance of the location. ‘There are many naval ships in these waters. We should not have to wait long.’ He turned his mind away from what that might mean for him and focused, instead, on the relief on her face.
Rain began to patter softly around them.
Seymour’s head appeared at the hatch, shouting over at the captain, ‘We need more men down below, Captain.’ And then Captain Davies was bellowing for Oakley and Struthers to go with Mr Seymour.
Daniel smiled. ‘I should get back to work.’
‘I should get back to Imelda.’
‘We will talk later, Sarah.’ But he was not sure he wanted to talk. Not with the knowledge that in all probability a naval ship would soon come to their aid and their journey would be over. And most of all, not feeling the way he did. Daniel was not sure that he wanted to care so much about a woman again.
He walked Sarah to the hatch for the deck below.
* * *
But there was no opportunity for either of them to talk over the next days.
The weather grew worse and the repairs more urgent. Daniel worked with Davies and Seymour and the rest of the crew from first light in the morning, all the day through and into the night, straining to see by the light of their lanterns. The hull had been patched and would hold if the seas did not grow too violent. They repaired the hole in the main deck as best they could, and the bulwark where Sarah and Daniel had stood. But there was little they could do for the rudder or the mast. The Angel stood stripped and bare. Everyone knew they were at the mercy of the ocean and everyone prayed for the sight of another ship before the next storm found them.
It grew so cold that they could see their breath clouding before them even when below deck. A fire burned constantly in the galley, but it made no difference to the men up on the deck. They wrapped themselves in layers of clothes, but the wind whistled through them as if they were naked. Sarah and Fanny stayed within the galley to keep Imelda warm, both helping the cook as best they could. The only time Sarah saw Daniel was when he came in with the others to eat, and the sight of him tired, soaked through and half-frozen tore at her heart.
Sarah tucked Imelda up safe with Fanny and retired to her own cabin, but, exhausted though she was, she could not sleep. There were too many thoughts in her head, all of them centred around one man. A book lay limp within Sarah’s hands. She gave up the pretence of reading, closed its pages and watched the lantern light flicker against the cabin walls.
She had suffered a storm and the near loss of a child she loved. She was adrift in a wrecked ship in the North Atlantic in the midst of winter, at risk of sinking, of being attacked by pirates, or drifting undiscovered until they died of dehydration and hunger. She had worked like the lowliest maid. She had learned to peel potatoes, wash dishes and clean lantern glass. She had scraped wax from tables and dug out ashes from a fire, and drunk beer. Her fine dresses were marked with soot and grease and gravy. Her hair was a mess. She had never experienced so much fear, never felt so cold or tired...or so happy.
Imelda was alive and well. And for the first time in all her life, Sarah felt alive too. Perhaps it was because of how close she had come to losing everything. But she knew it was not.
She had never met a man like Daniel Alexander. She knew virtually nothing of him. Nothing save that he had lost a wife and babe. Nothing but that he had saved their lives during a storm. Nothing except he had been there to help her when she needed him during those long dark hours when the fear of losing Imelda had almost broken her apart. And to hold a woman’s hair while she retched her stomach overboard on a winter night. She knew, too, the smoulder in his eyes when he looked at her and the way her heart thrilled when he was near.
Robert had never looked at her like that. Robert had never been kind or protected her. After two years of marriage Robert had remained a stranger to her. After little more than two weeks with a man who really was a stranger it felt as if she had known him a lifetime. It felt as if she had loved him a lifetime.
Men’s voices murmured as they passed by her cabin, making their way to their own cabins. The sounds trailed off into the distance. Across the deck she heard a door open and close, and did not have to look out to know that it was Daniel’s.
All would change when they were saved. If they were saved. She would go back to her own life, turning away from men lest she make the same mistakes she had made with Robert and with Brandon Taverner. But here and now in this little window of time, Sarah had been granted something magical, a chance to know real happiness, the chance to love, for however short a time. It did not matter if it was weeks or days or only hours. She set the book down on the lipped shelf and, pulling her shawls tight around her, slipped from the cabin.
Her lantern swayed softly in the draught, illuminating the darkness. There was only the creaking of timber and the sound of wind and waves. Her heart began to thud as she made her way across the deck.
Chapter Five
Daniel had taken off his coat and was sitting on his cot, unwinding his neckcloth when he heard the quiet knock at his door. He gathered up his coat and with a weary sigh got up to open the door to Davies, but it was not Davies that stood there.
‘Sarah.’ The sight of her chased away all exhaustion, only to be replaced with a sudden worry. ‘Has something happened? Imelda...?’
‘Is well.’ She glanced away, and when she looked at him again he could see the nervousness about her and he knew why she had come, knew what had always been inevitable between them from the very start, but still he gave her one last chance to turn away from it.
‘Do you wish to take the midnight air?’ He smiled.
‘No. Not that.’ Her voice sounded breathless. Her eyes, so dark and soulful, met his. There was a smudge of soot on her cheek, her hair was escaping its pins, she was bundled beneath two shawls, and she was the most beautiful woman Daniel had ever seen. He knew the level of trust she was putting in him by coming here, and his heart was tender with the knowledge.
‘Come in, lass.’
Her teeth nipped at her lip. She hesitated, her eyes meeting his again.
Further along the deck there was the creaking sound of the deck hatch being opened and the thud of footsteps coming down the ladder.
He reached for her hand and pulled her inside.
* * *
The door was hard against Sarah’s spine, Daniel, close before her, his hand still warm around hers so that she could feel the little rough scar on his thumb. She opened her mouth to speak, but he touched a finger to her lips to hush the words.
Two sets of footsteps passed by outside his cabin. A voice recognisable as young Oakley complained that he was starving.
Sarah stood frozen
where she was, her lips burning beneath his touch.
It seemed they stood that way for ever, so close that she could smell the intoxicating scent of him, so close that she could see each lash that lined his eyes and feel the brush of her breasts against his chest with every breath. At last the footsteps and voices disappeared into the distance. A door slammed.
His finger dropped away.
Neither of them moved, just stood as they were, looking into each other’s eyes. The lantern trembled where it hung in her free hand, casting shadows to flicker and dance upon the chiselled planes of his face.
He took the lantern from her and set it upon the shelf.
Nerves wriggled and danced in her stomach. The enormity of what she was doing and all that it meant hit her. ‘Oh, Lord! I’ve never done this before. I should go.’
But he caught her hand in his. ‘Stay. Please.’ The Highland lilt was so soft and beneath it she heard a depth of emotion and need that matched her own. He stroked a hand against her cheek and she could smell the scent of cold air and tar and soap from his skin.
‘It turns out I am the sort of woman who knocks on a strange gentleman’s cabin door in the night.’
He smiled, and so did she.
‘Sarah.’ He took her face gently between both his hands and kissed her. His lips were everything that she had imagined—warm and tender and giving, nothing like Robert’s, nothing like Brandon Taverner’s. He kissed her and her heart overflowed with love for him.
Beneath the flat press of her palms against the linen of his shirt she could feel the beat of his heart, strong and steady as the man himself.
He kissed her and it felt like all the broken parts fixed back together, that all her insecurities, all her fears and worries paled to nothing. He made her feel as if she were the only woman in the world and he, the only man. All the shadows and darkness of the past faded and there was only light. Their lips met again and again, sharing, giving and taking in equal measure. It was as if she had waited all of her life for this moment, for this man, as if this had always been destined to happen between them. There was no one beside him. He was the one, she thought. The only one.
Her hair tumbled loose around her shoulders and she was not aware that he had unpinned it. He slid his fingers through its lengths, bunching them against her scalp, angling her face to his, kissing her all the more.
She skimmed her hands over his shirt, gliding them around to reach his back, feeling the ripple of the muscles beneath. He was lean and hard and strong. She clutched him closer to her, feeling the echo of his heart against her own.
Their tongues danced together, their mouths inviting deeper intimacies.
Her shawls were gone. His hands stroked over her shoulders, over her back, against the curve of her hips, over her buttocks. Low in her belly the heat flared hotter. She melted against him, pressing herself to him and all of his masculinity, acknowledging that she had wanted him from that first day on deck. She wanted him as a man, as a lover. She more than wanted him, she needed him, in a way she had never needed before.
She pulled his shirt free from his breeches and slid her fingers beneath the linen, sighing with the relief of touching his naked skin at last. He was so big, so strong, so warm. She traced her fingers over the hardness of his chest, down over his stomach and abdomen, feeling the ribs of muscle contract beneath her touch. All that power and yet there was nothing of brutality in him, nothing of greed or the rush to satisfy only himself. He wooed her with such gentle enticing persuasion.
It was only when he unfastened the buttons of her dress, sliding it down to land, with a soft rumple of wool, upon the deck that she began to tremble. What if he, too, did not want her when he saw her? But she forced the thought away and turned her back for him to unlace her stays, catching them before they fell away and hanging them over the chair back. Standing there before him clad only in the thin shift that revealed too much, the trembling had advanced to a blatant shivering and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She wrapped her arms around herself, knowing hers was a body that had made a husband seek other beds.
‘You are cold.’
‘A little.’ But it was not the cold that was making her shake.
‘Then let me warm you.’
He came to her and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again with such passion, such desire, caressing her breasts, stroking her hips, revering her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world. He chased the chill from the night air, made her forget her embarrassment. She was aware only of him and her need for him. He made her burn. He made her ache and throb for his long hard length that pressed against her belly. She wanted him in her, filling her.
‘Daniel,’ she pleaded.
He stripped off his clothes and, scooping her up into his arms as if she were small and light as a child, carried her to his cot to place her beneath the blankets.
She loosed the tie of her shift, pulled the thin linen over her head and dropped it to the deck.
He climbed in beside her, the lantern light revealing her nakedness as he did so. He stilled, his gaze sweeping with appreciation over her breasts, over her stomach.
‘God, lass, you’re beautiful!’ His fingers traced the path his eyes had led before his body moved to cover hers. His eyes smouldered dark with desire and his smile was both teasing and sensual. ‘But I’m supposed to be warming you.’
He took her mouth again, harder this time, with a hunger that matched her own. He kissed her chin, trailed kisses all the way down her neck to her breasts, taking her fully in his mouth, to work a magic with his tongue, while his hands caressed her waist, her belly, her hips, working ever closer to the place between her thighs. Until he reached his destination.
She gasped aloud, threading her fingers through his hair, arching into him all the more.
Daniel did things to her that no man ever had. He made her feel things she had never felt. He made her gasp and moan and beg. Pushed her body and mind to a place high in another world where she shattered in an explosion of blinding unbelievable pleasure, before he entered her, as he made her truly his own, and again.
He loved her with everything he was. And she loved him.
And afterwards he held her in his arms and stroked her cheek and dropped a tender kiss to her forehead. And she took his hand and kissed the crescent scar that marked the pad of his thumb.
They both knew that what had just happened between them was more than a bedding, so much more than coupling.
It was a sharing of souls, a union that could never be undone.
It was love.
* * *
Daniel found Sarah in the galley the next morning, with her niece and maid. It looked like Fanny was teaching them how to make bread. All three were wearing long white aprons over their dresses and stood busy kneading dough.
It was the first time he had seen her since returning her to her own cabin in the wee small hours of the morning. Last night had been nothing of dishonour. He could no more have turned her away than stopped breathing. And what they had shared... God help him! Why the hell did it have to happen now? Of all the worst bloody timings in the world!
‘Mr Alexander,’ she said and he saw the flush of pleasure that touched to her cheeks, the way her beautiful dark eyes sparkled, and the smile that curved her mouth, shy from the intimacies that had passed between them. And there was both an agony in his heart and a dread of what was coming.
‘Mrs Ellison, Miss Bowden.’ He could not take his eyes from Sarah’s, could not smile in return. ‘A ship has been sighted.’
Imelda clapped her hands and yelped with excitement.
But Sarah knew. The smile faltered upon her lips, even as she wiped her floury hands on her apron and forced it back into place. ‘That is good news.’
‘Can we go up and see? Please, Aunt Sarah, ple
ase!’
‘Fetch your cloak first.’
‘Ohh, Aunt Sarah!’ the bairn grumbled.
‘Do as your aunt says, then go on up on deck with Fanny. We will follow on shortly.’
‘Yes, Captain Alexander!’ Imelda gave a whoop of delight and ran off across the galley, leaving the maid to hurry after her.
The galley door banged shut. The patter of small footsteps faded to the distance.
He took Sarah’s hands in his own.
‘The ship is good news, is it not, Daniel?’
‘Of course it is.’ For the Angel and her crew. For Sarah, Imelda and Fanny. But not for him.
‘Then what is wrong?’
‘Probably nothing,’ he lied. Given the Angel’s location the probability was stacked against him. He knew too well the frigates that patrolled this area, and one more so than the others. There was no time. The minutes were counting down and even were they not, he could not tell her.
‘There is a favour I must ask of you, Sarah.’
‘Anything.’ The level of her trust flayed him. After all she had been through. She trusted him, just as he trusted her—with his life and more.
He would have given much not to have to do this, to wipe the worry from her face and have her smile at him again as she had done only moments ago. But too much was at stake. He had to ask her.
‘Sarah... If something happens to me and we cannot finish this journey together...’ He produced the letter from the pocket of his coat. ‘Take it. Keep it hidden. Tell no one. As soon as you reach England send it on to whom it is addressed.’
‘What do you mean “if something happens to you”?’ She stared up into his face, her eyes wide with concern.
‘There is no time to explain. Please, Sarah, will you do this?’
‘Of course.’ She accepted the letter and hid it within her own pocket.
‘Swear it. For the sake of all that is between us.’
‘Daniel...?’
‘Swear it, Sarah.’
‘I swear.’ Her eyes held his. ‘This is to do with the ship that comes to our rescue, isn’t it?’
A Sprinkling of Christmas Magic Page 24
