by Anne Stuart
She ignored the insult. She wasn’t quite sure what a dolly-mop was, but she knew it wasn’t complimentary. “Wouldn’t that solve a lot of problems?”
He appeared to consider it. “I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t think the captain would mind.”
He was saying it to goad her, she knew it, but it still stabbed her to the heart. “Then go away.”
Billy’s eyes had narrowed. “Did he give you that bruise on your face?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Did he?”
“No. That was the man who was trying to kill me. He gave me this one.” She lifted her chin. She hadn’t looked in a mirror since she’d left her room yesterday morning, but her chin was tender and she had to assume he’d left a mark.
Billy peered at her. “Don’t see nothing. He always did have a light hand.”
“You mean it doesn’t tend to show when he beats women?”
“You’re a sassy one, aren’t you? No wonder he…”
“No wonder he what?”
“No wonder he thinks I ought to drown you. Wait for me and I’ll be back.” He was already gone before she could come up with an answer, and she heard the lock in the door. What had he said? A storm was coming? If the ship foundered and she was locked in a cabin she would drown with Mr. Quarrells’s help.
She dropped the blanket and took care of things, refusing to even look down at her betraying body as she slid into the steaming water. It wasn’t until she put her hands in that she let out an involuntary shriek of pain, and she drew them up, out of the stinging heat. She’d forgotten what she’d done to her wrists in the struggle against the ropes. They were red, raw bracelets of pain, and she forced herself to put them back into the water. She could hardly wash herself without using her hands, and the water would start the healing. Funny, now that she remembered they hurt like hell. Last night she hadn’t even noticed. Last night in his arms.
She slid all the way under the water, soaking her hair. She’d washed it just a few days ago, in the large copper tub on Water Street, but she couldn’t resist, and she held her breath, letting the water cover her, closing her eyes as she felt her hair drift around her. Maybe drowning wouldn’t be that bad a way to die.
But she could only hold her breath for so long, and she surfaced with a gasp, dragging in the fresh air. All right, drowning wasn’t the answer. And in fact it was just as well her night with Luca had been a singular event, one he had no interest in repeating. One night had almost demolished her will and her common sense—a second one would end her completely, and she’d be pathetic, begging for even a scrap of his attention. No, that would never happen. No matter how much in love with him she was, she would never…
She ducked under the water again. Bad thoughts, dangerous thoughts. She had to concentrate on what she could do. She had to make plans.
She should be happy. Finally she had proof that someone had been out to hurt her father, and now her. No one would have any reason to hurt her, and to have a hired killer show up and almost finish her off meant someone wanted her silenced. It would have made perfect sense if it were Luca.
The memory of Mr. Brown’s limpid gaze came back to her. Luca didn’t believe he was the one who’d hired the killer, but Luca hadn’t looked into Mr. Brown’s flat brown eyes.
Who the hell was he?
She knew she’d never met the man before, and her father had certainly never mentioned him. Then again, if his name was really Brown then she was Queen Victoria.
She needed to get back to London. She could insist on being paid for the days she’d toiled in the captain’s household—she’d certainly earned it under Mrs. Crozier’s direction. She could go to the police and make them listen. If she only knew of some way to get in touch with Bryony, she could ask her if she knew anything about the mystery man.
With enough money she could get back to Somerset and Renwick and figure out what to do next. Nanny Gruen was levelheaded and very wise—between the two of them they could come up with a plan. Even her airheaded younger sister might be able to help.
She climbed out of the tub, reaching for the length of thick Turkish toweling that had been laid out for her use. She was fine, she was perfectly fine. The best cure for a broken heart was to throw yourself into work. Not that she had a broken heart—that was clearly absurd. No, she’d had a setback, there was no denying that. But once away from Luca she would stop thinking about him. It was only natural that her body felt sensitized, attuned to his, that she could close her eyes and still feel him within her, moving, and her breasts would tighten and everything would cramp inside with longing.
She’d be over it in a trice.
The clothes were ridiculous. She stared at them in disbelief. Her petticoats were there, and to her astonishment they had been laundered, as well as her shift. There was no sign of her pantalets, and the only other article of clothing was an oversized white shirt that would doubtless reach to her knees. She shook it out, staring at it, and then brought it to her face. It was clean as well, smelling of soap and a sea breeze. And Luca.
She hadn’t realized he was so much bigger than she was. His lean grace belied his actual size—the shirt was almost as long as her shift.
She dropped it, looking around the small cabin for anything, anything she could wear instead. Nothing. She had no choice. She pulled it over her head and let it drop down, ignoring the way it seemed to caress her body. At least she was decently covered, though the sleeves hung down below her hands. She started to roll them up, then stopped. To do so would expose her wrists, and that was the last thing she wanted.
What she wanted, needed, was to get off this blasted ship and get back to her original goal. So Luca wasn’t guilty of sabotage—he’d merely taken advantage of the carrion left behind. She shouldn’t be surprised—the man had been a pirate.
She heard the knock on the door—Billy must have returned. “I’m ready,” she called out. The doorknob rattled but didn’t open, and she sighed. “You locked it, remember? Don’t you have the key?”
There was no answer. Just the quiet tread of someone moving away. Maybe not Billy—whoever had been at the door was too light, though not as silent as Luca. He had a faint hitch to his step as well—was it perhaps a peg-legged pirate? No, he’d probably clump along the deck. It had to have been Billy. “Can you let me out?” she called through the door, but whoever had been there had vanished.
It was probably close to ten minutes before the door opened, an impassive Billy Quarrells returning. “Why didn’t you just leave the key in the door?” she demanded.
He frowned. “How do you know I didn’t?”
“Because you tried to get in earlier, of course,” she said impatiently.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, someone was rattling the doorknob. Was someone else planning a bath?”
“The bath is for the captain and any guests he might have, not for the able seamen,” Billy said. “And both the captain and I were on deck. I told him you were ready to go.”
That only hurt a little bit, she thought in relief. After all, it was only the truth, and she needed to accept it and move on. “Then who wanted to get in here?”
“Aye, that’s the question. Come along, Miss Russell. Back to your prison.”
For a moment she was afraid he really was going to put her in some kind of jail cell, and then she remembered they called it the brig on board a ship. Another one of those ridiculous terms, when the real words would do well enough.
Back to the captain’s cabin, the wooden deck cool beneath her bare feet, and when she went inside it looked as if someone had cleaned the room. The berth was freshly made—no signs of what they’d done in it would remain. She turned to look at Billy. “I need to talk to Luca,” she said abruptly.
“Anything you need to say to him you can say to me,” Billy said. “He doesn’t have time for you right now.”
She could have clung to the “right now” if she were weak and addled. But
she wasn’t, she was a fighter. “Tell him I want to go home.”
“You’ll go where he takes you. Trust me, he wants to get rid of you as much as you want to be gone, and that’s the Lord’s truth.”
There was an odd note in his voice, and she narrowed her gaze, staring at him. Did he look a little less disapproving, a little less grim? His next words confirmed it. “He’s not for the likes of you, lass, and you know it. He’s part gypsy, and he goes where he wants, when he wants.”
“I’ll have you know I’m planning to marry Lord Eastham. I have absolutely no interest in a pirate,” she said stiffly. It wasn’t a lie. She was planning to marry the old man. She just hadn’t informed him of the fact yet.
“Privateer,” Billy corrected. “And that’s a good thing, then, for the both of you.”
“How’s she doing?” Luca didn’t turn his gaze away from the sea, but he expected Billy could read him like a book.
There was a long silence. “She’ll be fine,” Billy said gruffly. “Just keep away from her and she’ll get over you.”
That caught his attention, and he jerked around. “What do you mean by that?”
“What do you think I mean? The girl’s in love with you, like they all are. She’s just another one of your conquests—don’t give her another thought.”
“I’m not,” he said grimly, turning back to the ever-soothing balm of the sea. It was the calm before the storm, a time he knew well, and he was taking it in before all hell broke loose.
Billy followed his gaze. “We didn’t outrun it, did we?”
“We’ll find out. I think we’ll miss the brunt of it, and the Maddy Rose is tough. She can withstand a lot.”
“Like her namesake.”
Luca whirled around. “What the bloody hell are you talking about? I thought you hated her.”
“I’ve never hated her. I just thought she was bad for you. All upper crust and all that, and a liar to boot. I’ll say one thing for her—she knows how to work hard. That old witch Mrs. C. near killed her.”
But Luca was focusing on one thing. “You said you ‘thought’ she was bad for me. Past tense.”
“Ah, don’t go bothering me with your fancy English stuff. I should never have taught you to read,” Billy said genially. “You prefer me to say that I think she’s bad for you?”
“It depends on what you mean.”
“Lord, boy-o, do you realize what a mess of trouble she is? I did what you told me to do. I told her you didn’t want to see her again and you’d drop her off at the first port we come to.”
“Good.”
“You don’t look happy about it.”
“It’s for the best. She’s a grown woman. She knows better than to fall in love with a half gypsy who works for a living.”
“Her father worked for a living.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours, laddie. Always yours.” Billy put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I just want you to make sure you know what you’re doing.”
Luca didn’t answer. They’d ended the night at a standoff, even if she’d been curled up in his arms. They struck sparks off each other, and either or both of their lives could go up in flames. He knew what he wanted, and it didn’t include an upper-class wife and a life in London. He didn’t want her, damn it. Even if his body and something else inside him that he refused to recognize craved her.
“I’ll take first watch,” he said finally, changing the subject. “You’re as good as I am in a storm…”
“Better,” Billy said.
“Maybe,” Luca said grudgingly. “Let’s hope we don’t have a chance to prove it.”
The hold of the ship stank. It smelled of men living in close quarters, of rat shit and sour milk and grease and over everything else the strong stench of Chinese tea from previous voyages to the Orient. As the ship rolled back and forth beneath him, Rufus nestled into his spot behind the crates and decided he would never drink tea again.
They’d been out at sea for more than two days now, something he’d never expected. The cargo had been bound for Plymouth, not elsewhere, and yet that gypsy trash hadn’t stayed long enough to have it unloaded before taking off again, and he should have been out for less than a day, just long enough for Rufus to finally finish what he’d started.
Rufus would have been astonished at his luck in being able to sneak aboard without being noticed, but he didn’t consider such things luck. There had been signs all along—this was his path, his destiny. To wipe any trace of Eustace Russell and his spawn off the face of this earth, and it had been… not a mistake, exactly. He didn’t make mistakes. But a miscalculation, a failure to understand his own importance in the scheme of things. Bringing down Madeleine Russell hadn’t been a job for hired help, and the corpses of Parsons and the killer he’d hired were testament to that.
No, it had always been Rufus’s lot in life to finish this, and he seized the opportunity as the gift and the duty that it was.
He just wished it hadn’t required him to go to sea.
Really, there was no way a man like him should be trapped in the bulkhead of a clipper ship, feeling every dip and sway of the waves. He’d been sick at first, and the smell of that only added to the odors that surrounded him, even though he’d changed position several times to distance himself from the contents of his stomach. It was undignified but necessary, and he accepted it. The good news was that they couldn’t possibly be at sea for long—they hadn’t the supplies laid in, and he would escape the moment they reached land.
The bad news was they wouldn’t be at sea for long, and he couldn’t afford to wait. Madeleine Russell was going over the side of the boat, never to be seen again, and he would return to his hiding place until they landed, with no one the wiser.
He might have called it luck that he’d discovered in time where Morgan had taken her, but again, he knew this was simply one more sign that his path was true. That hulking idiot had locked her in the bathing room and taken the key! It would have been the perfect time to finish this—everyone was preparing for an upcoming storm. He’d heard the crew discussing it—their quarters weren’t far from his hiding place—and he only hoped the captain would have the sense to bring them back in before it hit. In the meantime, though, no one would notice another sailor, albeit one with a slight limp, and the bundle he tossed over the side of the ship.
It had been easy to steal clothes, though they stank as well, making him shudder in disgust. He’d found a canvas bag large enough that he could stuff the girl inside if he were forced to dump her anywhere near witnesses, but he was hoping it would be easier than that. If the captain would just allow her to walk the decks for a bit, to get some fresh air, it could be child’s play.
If the storm hit, he’d adapt. It would cover her death admirably, and no one would think to look beyond the simple tragedy of it. That is, if anyone considered it a tragedy. The gypsy didn’t seem to have any use for her, for all that he spent the night shagging the hell out of her. The first mate was carrying out his orders, and he was a hard man.
It was easy enough to slip around the deck of the ship once the sun set. He looked like everyone else, with his cap pulled low about his ears. It had been a risk, creeping out to see if he could reach her, and he’d almost been caught. He was either going to have to get the key from Quarrells, that was the man’s name, or figure out a reason for the captain to free her.
He wasn’t worried. Things worked out as they were meant to, and he knew it was his task to kill Madeleine Russell and her sisters. He’d been… misguided to think other people might do it. It was for him and him alone.
The opportunity would present itself. All he needed to do was watch and listen. And wait.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BILLY HAD BROUGHT HER food, and Maddy had resisted the impulse to throw it at his head. There’d been a piece of rope left behind after someone cleaned the room and she’d wrapped it around her waist so she wouldn’t feel as if she were in her nightdre
ss. She didn’t cry, she didn’t rage. There was something in the air, a feeling of tension, a sense of danger that she couldn’t explain, couldn’t understand. It must be the storm that was coming—the very thought of it made her ill with fear. And yet… it seemed as if it was something else.
It didn’t matter. If she were dead from the storm, that something else would probably cease to exist as well. The main thing she needed to do was get through it as calmly as possible. Which right now seemed unlikely.
She heard a quiet rapping on the door, but she stayed where she was, seated by the window watching the now choppy sea. “Yes?” she called out.
“It’s Jones, miss. One of the kitchen hands. Just wanted to see if you needed anything else.”
Jones must be from Wales, she thought absently. His accent sounded odd, and Jones was a Welsh name, wasn’t it? “Get me a bottle of brandy so I can ride out this storm unconscious,” she said flippantly.
“Yes, miss. Can you unlock the door?”
She laughed without humor. “Do you think I’d be spending my time stuck in this tiny cabin if I had a key? Your Mr. Quarrells has locked me in. If you want to bring me something you’ll need to get the key from him.”
There was no answer. How very odd. “Mr. Jones?” she called out. Still silence. He’d probably gone in search of Mr. Quarrells, who would promptly tell him to mind his own business.
But she didn’t think so. It was just another patch of oddness in the strange afternoon. She stretched out on the bed. The water was getting a little rough, but everything in the cabin appeared to be bolted down except her. She vaguely wondered whether the added turbulence of the ocean would make her sick, but her stomach seemed made of cast iron. If anything she was still hungry.
Lying on the berth wasn’t a terribly good idea either. It smelled like Luca—like clean skin and the ocean and something else indefinable. And all she could do was relive every moment from last night, every touch, every taste, every thrust, every shattering response that had destroyed her and brought her back again. She wanted him inside her again. She wanted his big, hard body covering hers, straining against hers, she wanted his hands, his mouth on her breasts, which had suddenly hardened, and she reached down to touch them, wondering if she could give herself any relief.
