Princess at Sea

by Dawn Cook

  “Duncan, no.” I rushed to block his words. “Don’t say it.” Fingers trembling, I reached to stop his words with my fingertips. His eyes closed, and his hand came up to take mine away.

  “But I want to,” he whispered, his brown eyes fixed on mine.

  The wind tugged at his overly long bangs, and I felt the tears start up again. “I can’t hear it,” I said, pulling my gaze from his. “Not now. I can’t bear it. You mean too much to me.”

  “But . . .” He took a hesitant breath, leaning closer to block the wind and brushing the tears from my cheek. Wonder shone in his eyes, bright in the sun. “I thought you didn’t like me. I thought you thought I was beneath you. That that’s why you always said no.”

  “You thought I believed you were beneath me?” I said, a hiccuping sob breaking free and sending a flash of pain through me. “I’m the one who was bought in the gutter. You, at least, have a name that’s yours, not given to you out of . . . convenience.”

  Relief seemed to pour from him. “Tess,” he breathed, his featherlight grip around me a mix of protectiveness and gentleness that made me feel all the worse. “You silly, silly girl. I’d give you my name. I said I never would give it to anyone, but I’d give it to you. If you’d have me.”

  I closed my eyes in misery. “Stop . . .” I whispered, hardly audible as my heart broke. “I can’t, Duncan.”

  His arms about mine didn’t move. I could smell the sea on him, and sand. “Why?”

  My eyes went to Contessa. “No,” he said as he followed my gaze. “You can’t blame this on your sister anymore. Alex is going to live. Look at them. She’ll be fine. He can help her become a proper queen. And I won’t let Captain Rylan hurt you, so don’t tell me it’s because you don’t think you’re going to survive.”

  “Contessa didn’t write what I told Captain Rylan,” I said, grasping at anything to avoid telling him the truth. “She told Kavenlow not to pay the ransoms and that we would be within a day’s sail of the capital in a few days. He’s going to try to retake us under her orders, and he’ll do it, even knowing we might all die in the process.”

  The tension in his arms shifted, then relaxed. “You clever, clever woman,” he whispered, tilting his head so his lips brushed my ear. “That’s why I love you, Tess.”

  “Duncan ...”

  “Not a word,” he said, gently turning my chin to him with a sun-browned finger. There was sand on it, and the grit rubbed against me, making my venom-sensitive skin hurt. “I’m going to kiss you, and there’s not a thing, legally or otherwise, you can do to stop me.”

  “Duncan . . .” I protested, but it would hurt too much to try to stop him, and in all honesty, I didn’t want to.

  His hand brushed the hair from my face. Cupping my chin, he leaned forward until the wind was gone. Soft, and with a tenderness born from his fear of hurting me, he met my lips with his own. The warmth of the sun was replaced by the heat of his touch, almost not there. It was that very hesitancy that struck a chord within me. Oh God. I think he loves me.

  Knowing it was a mistake, I leaned forward, prolonging it. Nothing else mattered right then. Nothing. My eyes closed, and my good hand rose to find the back of his neck. Duncan seemed to hesitate, then accepted it, his kiss turning deeper and more dangerous. Mind whirling, my thoughts jumped to our first kiss aboard the Sandpiper last fall. My desire rose twofold, building upon old emotions kept in check too long and for reasons the heart couldn’t understand. My pulse quickened, and my entire right side seemed to tingle from the increased circulation.

  A small sound escaped me, and he pulled away with a shocking suddenness. My eyes flashed open, finding his wide with worry.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked breathlessly, eyes pinched.

  “Only my heart,” I whispered. Why did I do this to myself? To him?

  His eyes were deep with emotion as he tilted his head and leaned forward again.

  “Duncan!” came Captain Rylan’s shout, jerking him to a halt. “Get your no-account arse over here and away from that woman!”

  Our eyes never left each other as Duncan ignored him, coming close to give me a fleeting, last kiss. My heart pounded, and I felt weak from the toxin coursing through me. “I’ll be back with something to eat,” he said as he rose and brushed the sand from his pants. Head down and steps slow, he went to the community fire. I was left sitting on the sand, my thoughts confused and conflicted.

  Miserable, I shifted position, my breath catching as all my hurts, forgotten in the passion of the moment, reminded me of their existence. Behind me, I could feel Contessa watching, wanting to help but utterly unable.

  Giving in, I silently wept, my face to the unseen ocean so no one would see me cry.

  Eleven

  “Contessa?” Alex whispered, his low voice soaked up by the chill darkness of the night.

  “Yes?”

  Her response was equally soft, almost inaudible over the wind in the palms brushing the swelling moon. I snuggled deeper under the blanket the mystery of surviving the punta had granted me. The pirates had fed me well today, too, now that I was going to survive the cat when poor Gilly hadn’t. I’d like to say that it had been common decency that prompted the show of humanity, but it was fear. If I died under their care, the superstitious crew believed my soul would haunt them forever. They would have to find a way to kill me that wouldn’t give my soul a clear way to hunt them down. And I was going to hoard that card as long as I could.

  I heard the sand shift, and I cracked my eyes. A dark patch of night moved. It was Alex propped up on his elbow. Beyond him was the community fire, a few crewmen yet sitting around it. We weren’t being watched very closely, much of that due to my sorry state.

  “I never thanked you for tending me,” Alex said, his voice clear in the night-silenced air.

  “Shhhh,” she soothed. The gray lump that was my sister never moved, deep within the windbreak they had put up earlier. It had been the first time I’d seen them do anything together without arguing about it. “I’m glad you’re better,” she said. “As your wife, it’s my place to see to your comfort.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he protested. “And a queen shouldn’t be tending the sick.”

  Her shadow shifted. “I helped the nuns heal the sick. I gave no thought to it. You shouldn’t either.”

  “Thank you, anyway.”

  I closed my eyes, wishing I had put my bedroll farther away. Captain Rylan had allowed me to move closer to Contessa so she could tend my wounds instead of Duncan, and today had been an awful mix of satisfaction and envy as I watched Alex and Contessa interact in close quarters, their cautious hesitancy turning to a timid closeness.

  We were all shackled like errant goats since I was again mobile—though my movements were frustratingly pained and slow. Alex, though, was showing vast improvements. He had spent some of his day making slow and careful poses, brandishing a lengthy piece of driftwood as if it were his absent sword as he gently stretched idle muscles. A few pirates had watched, laughing and mocking him until Mr. Smitty took the stick away, sullen and bad-tempered.

  I’d found Alex to be a good man despite his Misdev heritage—proud but not overbearing, with the wisdom to know when to hold his tongue and when to speak, down-to-earth and a realist, never complaining about the poor conditions and food though I knew he had never been deprived of anything in his life. Much as I wanted Contessa to remain true to her heart, I was finding myself thinking she would be a fool to toss aside his offer of a real marriage.

  My eyes flashed open when a soft shift of sand reached my ears. I expected a drunken sailor to come torment us at any moment. But it was only Alex, sitting up. “Contessa?” He seemed unusually awake, almost eerily so.

  “Yes?”

  “When I was in fever . . . did I say anything?”

  “No, love,” she whispered. “You didn’t.”

  My brow rose as much for the lie as the word love, and I wondered what had shifted in her thoughts. The slim l
ine of her arm broke the plane of her body, and she pulled him down. “Go to sleep.”

  “Sleep is all I’ve done for the last four days,” he said, an unusual petulance entering his voice. “I’m tired of sleeping.”

  “Lie still and keep me warm then. It’s cold.”

  It wasn’t, the southern current keeping the island warmer than one would expect, and I kept my eyes open while my thoughts whirled at what it might mean.

  “You’re too good to me,” he breathed, and his shadow settled beside her.

  “You deserve better,” came her hesitant answer. I closed my eyes then, as he leaned closer as if for a kiss. Or perhaps it was to whisper something more private in her ear. Either way, I didn’t want to watch.

  I must have fallen asleep, for the next time the sand shifted to pull my eyes open and make my body tense, the light from the community fire was only coals. Nothing moved, and I lay still. My bitten shoulder started to itch, and I ignored it, listening for whatever had woken me. If we were going to be accosted, it would happen in the small hours of the night. The moon had shifted, being almost straight up and lighting the clearing in a dappled silver.

  Faint in the distance, I could hear the waves on the beach. My pulse stayed fast, though the night seemed safe. The dull ache in my punta bite worsened, and I maneuvered my left hand up to rub it gently, the motion hidden by my blanket. Overhead came a whisper of wind in the fronds, and a scattering of seeds fell with the sound of pattering rain. My breath eased out of me as I decided that’s what had woken me.

  Stomach unclenching, I eased myself upright in painful stages, breathing through the lingering pain that pulsed in time with my heart. It left trails of fire down my side to my toes. The soft ache, punctuated by surprising jolts of hurt, seemed easy to bear.

  Not liking how weak I had become, I rubbed harder at my shoulder, wedging past the rude lacing Contessa had used temporarily to stitch up the rag my sleeve had become. Driven by the itchy pull, I dared to run a careful finger under the bandage. It felt far better than it should for having been bitten only two days ago, or had it been three? My shoulder itself was mostly numb, the ache having spread down my side and into my hip. My fingers, too, had regained most of their movement, if not all their feeling. The most I had been incapacitated by toxin when Kavenlow had been building my tolerance had been a day, and that had only been a mild ache. I could only hope that tomorrow would be better.

  Holding my breath, I dug a finger deeper under the bandage, feeling the soft ache start to feel good. With a sudden decision, I undid the loose stitching and completely exposed the bandage. I wanted it off.

  Like an animal in a trap, the need to be free of it became all-consuming. I tugged and yanked, picking at it with my fingers of my good hand, ignoring my clenching stomach and the slight nausea. The sharp jabs of hurt only urged me on until, with a moan of relief, I got it off.

  I dropped the bandage to the sand and immediately rubbed the scabs with a gentle finger, trying to soothe the itch. Flakes of dried blood came away under the soft pressure, and I slowed, exploring the healing gashes with a careful touch. It hurt under my gentle prodding, but it was a good hurt: the hurt of a healing wound.

  I hadn’t let Duncan look at it since regaining consciousness, and Contessa hadn’t said a word when she had tended it before sunset, washing it and binding it up with pursed lips and a confused expression. It didn’t surprise me that, when I twisted to look, I found the two upper tears made by the punta’s canines and the one lower gash were almost healed over with wide slashes of tender, pink skin.

  It left me with a funny feeling. The bite looked good—over a week’s healing, I’d guess, in two or three days. I didn’t understand how Jeck made his magic work through a dream, even if we had both been dangerously overdosed on toxin at the time. And knowing he could have killed me just as easily as healed me only left me more concerned.

  The flesh running to my elbow and waist was slightly numb and swollen yet from the poison. I went worried upon recalling what Jeck had said about the venom fixing itself into the healing tissue instead of working itself out as it usually did. Resigned that there was nothing I could do about it, I tugged the cord holding my dress together tight. The bandage lay beside me, and thinking it ugly, I scratched out a shallow hole and buried it.

  I felt the strain from the effort of doing just that, and disgusted with how weak I was, I sat in the dappled moonlight, sleep gone and feeling restless. The sand was cold upon my left hand; the sand upon my right hand I couldn’t feel but for a faint whisper of movement. I stifled a surge of pity, telling myself I was a fool.

  My gaze drifted to where Contessa and Alex lay, and I froze in a sudden wash of fear. Alex was there, but Contessa was gone.

  Pulse hammering, I looked to the fire and the pirates, then the silent huts. Had someone taken her without my knowing? How could I not have heard? I thought, my mouth opening to call Alex.

  But then a movement at the edge of our tether’s reach caught my attention, and my held breath escaped me. It was Contessa, her knees drawn up to her chin as she sat in the shelter of a water-smoothed root that had washed ashore long ago, sitting to look toward the unseen ocean.

  She was fine—as much as any of us were—and, feeling foolish, I decided she looked too melancholy to leave alone. Carefully I got first to my knees, then my feet. Right leg slow and lethargic, I adjusted my blanket about my shoulders and crossed the sand. My tether dragged behind me, and I hated it.

  Contessa jumped as the sound of my approach reached her. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, giving me a weak smile as she wiped a hand under an eye. The thin moonlight that made it under the trees made shadows on her face, but I could see where tears had left a soft shine.

  “Sorry,” I said, hunched and holding my blanket tight with my good hand. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She made a very unqueenlike face and scooted sideways. “Here. Sit. It’s warmer with your back against something. Just watch out for the clams. They’re sharp.

  I squinted, seeing where mussels, not clams, had attached themselves when the root had been submerged. Feeling old and pained, I cautiously lowered myself to sit beside her. She was right. It was warmer. With a sudden thought, I took the rope about my ankle and started rubbing it against the remnant of a sharp shell.

  Contessa saw what I was doing. Saying nothing, she sniffed loudly and pushed her hair back behind an ear. I had tried to braid it for her today with one hand, finally giving up when she told me to stop. “I don’t know what to do anymore,” she said softly. “Everything was so much easier when I was a foundling at the nunnery.”

  I stifled a bark of rude laughter. Life had been easier for me when I was the crown princess, innocent and unaware of my true potential. “Alex?” I guessed.

  She nodded. “He’s like no man I’ve ever met. So neat and tidy.”

  My hair swung into my eyes in time with my sawing. Tidy? She thinks he’s tidy?

  “He shaves every day that he can,” she continued, but her eyes going everywhere but to mine told me she wasn’t saying what she wanted. “And he’s always concerned about me.”

  “He teases you,” I prompted, digging. “You hate that.”

  “No,” she breathed. “I don’t.” She was silent, bringing her gaze back to me. “I like him, Tess. And that’s wrong. I love Thadd, but I don’t want to hurt Alex. He’s too good a man.”

  The last was a faint whisper of guilt. I didn’t look up, busy with the rope. I knew there would be more.

  “And he gave up everything,” she said, her tone bordering on that of justification. “Everything so I wouldn’t grow to hate him and his Rosie.”

  The first strand of the rope parted. I cut my finger, and took a moment to stick it in my mouth.

  “It’s not fair,” Contessa all but whined.

  “No, it isn’t,” I said, unable to keep silent anymore. “It would be easier if he was ugly and fat and beat you to leave bruises where no one cou
ld see. No one would fault you if you should find your own happiness among your court then.”

  “But Alex is so . . .” Contessa said. “He’s so . . .”

  “He’s a Misdev prince,” I finished for her, resuming my work. “Sound of body and reason. Courtly and kind. Able to make you laugh and willing to die for your safety, with nothing promised from you in return. God save you, Contessa. You couldn’t ask for a more fortunate match. I know you love Thadd, but you have to face this.”

  Contessa turned to me, looking like a younger version of our mother. The shadows hid the hunger and fear, making her beautiful. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted. “I promised Thadd—”

  “I can’t tell you what to do,” I interrupted. “I don’t know either. But our parents loved each other, and it made them stronger.”

  “They knew they would wed strangers,” she said bitterly. “They didn’t make ties to anyone else. I did. I can’t just leave Thadd because—something better came about.”

  “That’s not fair,” I said shortly, tired of her whining. “And Father . . .” I took a slow breath, asking Father to forgive me for the coming falsehood. “Father did.”

  Her eyes went wide in the faint light.

  I nodded, unable to hold her gaze. “Father had a courtesan he loved very much,” I lied. “No one talks about her, and everyone denies she ever existed. Mother was said to have been very polite, though it must have torn her inside. Father grew to like Mother, finally seeing the pain he was inflicting on her, and because of it, he finally asked his mistress to leave.”

  I sawed at my bindings, not knowing if the sudden slick-ness was sweat or blood. “It must have been one of the hardest things he ever had to do,” I said softly. “He offered to put her up in a fine house with servants, but she simply left one night, and he let her go, never searching her out. I think it was the sole best thing he ever did to ensure the safety of the realm.”