by Nina Bruhns
She glanced at Tyree, who was standing behind him, feet spread in the sawdust and a nasty glint in his eyes.
"St. James wasn't Blackbeard," she informed the waiter before Tyree decided to bean the kid. If he was going to work here, he should get his facts straight. "And it wasn't in cold blood. It was an accident. They were best friends."
The waiter gave her a doubting look. "Yeah, whatever. Have a nice day." With that, he took his tray of dirty dishes and walked off.
She shook her head and turned to the door, only to hear a large crash behind her and a chuckle from Tyree.
"Clumsy oaf," he offered in a tone of unrepentant satisfaction.
As they went out into the bright sunshine, she looked reprovingly at him. "You are so bad."
"The guy was an imbecile."
"You should go back and pay for those glasses and plates."
"I'll send them a check. Where to now? The museum?"
She stopped at the front window where all the brochures and advertisements were taped. "No, I was thinking—"
Tyree interrupted with a groan, pointing at the poster for the Pirate Festival. "I'd forgotten that farcical masquerade was this weekend."
"Yep, I can't wait. You'll be going, right?"
He muttered a curse. "Not on your life. Especially not if it's Saturday."
Lord, the ubiquitous Saturday. "Ah, but you'll have to. I vowed not to let you out of my sight that day, remember? And no way am I not attending the festivities. It's my last night and I plan to celebrate."
"Celebrate?" he asked with a knife-edge to his tone. "Your leaving, or mine?"
She frowned. "Neither. Finishing my research."
His jaw flexed. "Sorry. It's just that… Damn, this is a first."
"What?"
He sighed. "That I'm not looking so forward to … going away. I'm going to miss you."
A couple of tourists walked past and he moved out of the way, leaning back against the tavern's mullioned window.
"I'll miss you, too, Tyree."
They stood side by side in silence for several minutes, pretending to enjoy the sunshine and the quaint atmosphere, when in reality she was sure he was thinking just as hard about her as she was about him.
"Then don't go," she whispered. "You could come with me, if I win the trip. You love sailing, right?"
When the silence continued, she forced a laugh. "Never mind. I probably won't win anyway."
"You'll win," he said.
She turned to him. Her knees were suddenly, inexplicably shaking. "Will you come with me?" she asked again, every instinct of logic and survival screaming at her to keep her mouth shut.
He traced his fingers down her cheek, brushing a thumb over her quivering lower lip. "I'm sorry, sweeting. I cannot."
The sharp sting of rejection spun through her and she turned away before he could see how much it hurt. She'd known his answer all along, but hearing the actual words defied her attempts at calm reason. She started walking.
His footsteps followed. "Clara, honey—"
"No, it's okay," she told the sidewalk as it sped up beneath her. "I understand."
"You don't understand. Not really." His steps quickened.
"I do." She was practically running now.
He was a recluse. He'd had a bad love affair. He was afraid to feel anything again. Afraid to live to the point he imagined he was dead. She'd been forced to stay home all her life when she wanted nothing more than to get out into the world. She'd never had a love affair, not a real one. She wanted to feel everything, experience everything this beautiful world had to offer.
Everything, she suddenly realized. Even if it meant getting hurt.
But not if it was one-sided.
He wasn't willing to take a chance on her, and that was that. Experience was one thing. Stupidity was quite another.
"Clara!" His hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her to a stop. "Where are you going?"
She lifted her chin, squaring off against the allure of him. "The cemetery," she said, and looked him in the eye. "I want to put flowers on your grave."
And with them, lay to rest the ridiculous notion that anything at all could come of the crazy emotions she was feeling for this helplessly confused and complicated man.
Then hope like hell they didn't come back to haunt her.
* * *
Chapter 9
« ^ »
"Clara!"
Tyree wanted to rush after her retreating back, but his feet wouldn't move.
Flowers on his grave? Why the hell would she want to do that?
He didn't like visiting his own grave with its crooked headstone, stuck way in the back of the cemetery where no one ventured except to knock down tent caterpillars and spray for poison ivy. He liked looking upon his own grave even less than seeing the place he'd died.
"Clara!" he called again, and took off after her. She was kidding about the grave. She must be. She didn't even have any flowers.
But she was angry. Understandably. Had she really asked him to go with her? This was not good. It meant he was failing miserably to put emotional distance between them. Only a woman with feelings for a man asked him to run away with her. Feelings that could lead to disaster if she found out the details of the curse.
At all costs he must protect her.
He looked up just in time to see her disappear into one of the dozen or so small boutiques that crowded the main street of the village. A flower shop.
Blast. He waited outside until she emerged with an armful of calla lilies tied up with vines of fragrant white jasmine.
"For God's sake, why are you doing this?" he demanded.
"To convince myself you're dead. Maybe do a little spell of my own."
He frowned. "What kind of spell?"
"Something to get rid of unwanted apparitions."
"Very amusing."
At least she still had her sense of humor. He took the flowers from her and hooked his arm through hers, steering her to the shop next door—Sweet Secrets Lingerie.
"I've got a better idea. Why don't you go in here and pick out something nice. We'll spend the afternoon in bed instead."
She stared at him like he'd suddenly grown horns. "Are you nuts?" She slapped her forehead. "No, wait, I already know the answer to that."
She grabbed the flowers back and marched down the street.
Well, it had been worth a shot. And if he didn't miss his mark, it had also made him look like a royal jerk. How could she have feelings for a royal jerk?
He walked after her, catching up at the gate to the cemetery.
She aimed a glare at him. "Are you still here?"
He smiled. "In spirit only."
Her eyes rolled heavenward. "Show me where Sully's grave is."
He frowned. "I thought you wanted to put flowers on my grave."
"Changed my mind." Her foot tapped impatiently on the cobblestones. "Will you show me or shall I find it myself?"
He resisted grabbing the flowers from her again. Just. "Very well. It's not like you could miss the thing."
He led her to a large enclosure surrounded by an ornate wrought-iron fence. Black, of course. In it stood two giant windswept marble headstones, one for Sully and one for his Elizabeth, engraved with names and dates. Below the lettering sailed a pair of carved ships, the hulls of which contained two insipid poems.
No vow to God or girl or friend
Could keep this gallant from his fate
For Death leaves port without a sail
Its driving breeze a cruel betrayal
The second one read:
Ne'er a chance to be a bride
For swiftly came life's changing tide
Beauty and charm, her virtues exalted
In the arms of her love her voyage was halted
Nauseating. Tyree's only consolation was that surely Sully lay spinning in his grave with equal revulsion. Or up on his cloud, or wherever the hell he was.
Clara stood perfectly s
till.
"Moving, aren't they?" he asked, his voice deliberately neutral.
"They're awful. Did you put them up?"
"Hardly. The first director of the pirate museum did. Maybelle Chadbourn. She was obsessed with Sully and Elizabeth."
Clara looked at him for the first time. "Maybelle Chadbourn? The one who wrote the infamous penny dreadful?"
"The Pirate's Lady. One and the same."
"I must have read it a hundred times as a girl."
"Figures," he muttered.
"So scandalous. And the original source of St. James's dire nickname and black reputation, if I'm not mistaken."
He lifted a shoulder. "The nickname, anyway. Don't give her all the credit for my reputation. I had something to do with that, too."
"You mean as a greedy, womanizing, murdering traitor?"
"Damned lies. I was never a traitor."
"To your country, at any rate."
"Aye, I did kill my best friend."
After a short pause she said, "You never finished telling me how it happened."
He let out a long breath, loath to relive the horrible event. "It was stupid. The whole situation. And all because of an idiotic wager."
"The duel was over a bet?"
"It wasn't actually a duel. We'd made a wager to see who could shoot the nose off a stuffed trophy boar over the bar. I was to go first."
"You're kidding me. A boar's nose?"
"No one liked the thing, it was hideous. Preparations took on a dramatic aspect. We pulled out shot and powder to load our pistols, and took our time about it. There were jokes and side wagers all around. Someone ordered more ale."
"There would be drinking involved."
We were about to leave on our next voyage and had been having a farewell party. For two days."
"Lord, Tyree. What happened?"
"Well … you recall my eye patch?"
She nodded. "I've always wondered about that eye patch. Some of St. James's portraits have it, some don't."
He touched the thin blue scar under his left eye. "I was nicked by a sword during a boarding the previous year. It was basically healed, but…"
"Then why wear the patch?"
He stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. "You really want to know?"
"Sure." Her unsuspecting expression told him she had no idea what was coming. Nothing like the truth to drive the last nail into his own coffin.
"I wore it because the ladies liked it. And I liked the ladies. That part of the St. James myth, at least, is true."
She flinched and turned back to the headstones. "Yes, I can believe that. It certainly worked on me."
"Clara—"
"Go on. Please."
"Very well. I was wearing it that night."
"Because the ladies liked it."
She was deliberately goading him. It was working. "Damn females," he growled, suddenly furious with himself and his eternal weakness. Even after two hundred years he was waging the same battle. "If it hadn't been for that cursed patch…"
"What does the eye patch have to do with killing Sully?" she asked with an edge of impatience.
"Because of the patch on my left eye, I didn't see Elizabeth coming from the left with a tray of drinks. She was distracted and walked in front of me just as I pulled the trigger. I shot her instead of the boar."
"My God."
"I was horrified. Sully'd planned to marry her. She died in his arms and he went mad."
"So you killed him?"
Tyree squeezed his temples between his fingers. "He chased me around the tavern with his sword for half an hour trying to slice me in two. I was growing tired and accidentally cut him when I parried."
"And he ran you through in return."
"That about covers it."
"Is that when he put the curse on you?" Her question caught Tyree by surprise. When he didn't immediately deny it, she said, "I knew it was him."
The woman was like a dog with a bone. He may as well tell her so she wouldn't be tempted to read the diary to find out. "Aye, it was Sully's dying words."
She shifted the flowers in her arms and contemplated the two headstones. "So he put a two-hundred-year curse on the man who'd killed his beloved. Generous terms, I'd say."
Tyree whipped his gaze to her. "Who said anything about two hundred years?"
"All the Pirate Festival posters say it's the two hundredth anniversary of the duel, and you insist the curse is over on Saturday. It's so obvious I can't believe I didn't see it earlier."
Only if one was looking. Tyree wasn't a secretive man by nature. He'd told Mrs. Yates and his other caretakers everything about himself over the years they lived together. And Rosalind, of course. But no one outside his confidence had ever bothered to add two and two about him and come up with four. No one at the museum, not one of the hundreds of pirate fanatics who'd come to pay tribute to Sullivan Fouquet since Magnolia Cove was put on the map by Maybelle Chadbourn's lurid penny novel of swashbuckling and sex. Not his own father or brothers, who had disowned him at the first whispered rumor of piracy, even before he was killed.
Not until Clara Fergussen. Sully's own great-great-great-great-grandniece. Funny how the universe worked.
He watched as she opened the enclosure gate and deposited her armful of lilies on Sully and Elizabeth's graves, biting back a whiplash of envy. Envy for the love Sully and Elizabeth had shared before their deaths. Envy for Clara's loyalty to her family, however distant. Envy for what might have been between himself and this sensitive, amazing woman, had he been free to pursue her.
"Where is St. James's grave?" she asked as she looked around, snapping him out of the rare bout of self-pity.
He mustered the discipline to point toward the rear fence of the churchyard. "All the way in back. Down the path and to the right."
"Show me?"
He shook his head, avoiding the sight of her empty arms. He'd done what was necessary to distance her, but he didn't have to like it. "I have some errands."
"I'll see you at dinner, then."
Doubtful. He didn't think he had the strength to face her wounded disregard. He pretended he didn't hear.
Well, at least one good thing had come of driving her away, he thought sullenly. He'd managed to avoid visiting his grave. He only wanted to see that weed-infested plot once ever again, and that was on Saturday, when he could finally lie down and sink into its oblivion, leaving this lonely place behind forever.
But before that, there were a few things he needed to tie up. First, he had to check in with Mrs. Yates about her visit to the attorney. Then came the tricky part. Taking the Sea-Doo out in broad daylight. It was risky as hell, but he had no choice.
He wanted to take another look at the Pryce-Simmons House. This time on the inside.
* * *
Clara swallowed three times and ignored the stinging behind her eyes as he walked away. Stupid stupid stupid. It wasn't Tyree who was certifiable, it was her, for giving a fig about the man.
How did he do this to her?
Heading for the back of the churchyard, she upbraided herself for caring.
She couldn't believe she'd actually asked him to go with her on the trip if she won. He was so regretful in declining her offer that if she didn't know better, she'd be convinced of his sincerity.
Ha. That bit about the eye patch had brought her back to reality with a bang. The ladies liked it, indeed. Apparently, she wasn't the only one with a bad-boy pirate fantasy. Small consolation for her heart. He'd already plundered it but good, as skillful in his emotional piracy as his namesake had been on the high seas.
She searched along the fence for St. James's headstone and found it tucked away in a shady spot under an ancient oak tree. Covered by vines and weeds, it was in shocking disrepair.
"My Lord," she muttered, taking in the listing granite stone and drifts of dead leaves nearly obscuring the plot. "This is disgraceful."
Did no one take care of him? She was surprised Tyree d
idn't pay someone to keep it presentable. Especially if he believed it was his own grave. Or maybe he thought it was too creepy. Tending your own grave might feel a little weird, at that.
Never mind. She'd do it herself.
So for the next hour she kneeled over the mortal remains of the pirate—make that privateer—Tyree St. James and pulled weeds. The whole time making up excuses to herself as to why on earth she'd want to undertake such a thankless, useless task.
Tyree wouldn't appreciate it. St. James himself was certainly beyond caring. Obviously no one else in Magnolia Cove considered him worth braving the mosquitoes and thorny creepers.
But none of that mattered. It was something she just had to do, though God alone knew what compelled her. And when she was finished and sat back on her heels to survey her handiwork, she'd rarely felt as much satisfaction.
She thought about righting the chipped, crooked headstone, but ended up leaving it just as it was. For some reason it looked exactly right in its lopsided ruin.
On her knees, she reached out and ran her fingers slowly over the rough, lichened stone, tracing the weathered letters of his name one by one. She touched the date of his birth and lingered over that of his death, hardly noticing the tear that crested her lashes and slid down her cheek.
With a sigh, she rose to her feet and dusted off her hands, taking one last look at the too-long-abandoned grave.
And realized there was still one thing missing.
* * *
Clara was going to be a very rich woman.
Tyree smiled as he skipped along on the Sea-Doo, dodging sandbars, ducks and thickets of spartina grass in the narrow channels he was using to get to the Pryce-Simmons House.
Boy, was she going to be surprised when she got his lawyer's letter announcing her "inheritance." Maybe then she'd believe Tyree.
Probably not. But it didn't matter. He wasn't giving her the gold bullion so she'd regret not believing him. He was doing it because he wanted to make all her dreams come true, and he wouldn't be around to do it himself. Riches were a poor substitute for love, but it was all he could manage beyond Saturday.
At least…
Nay, he shouldn't think about that. The want of her was too strong in his blood to think about the kind of love he could give her before he left. The physical kind.
