Bloody damned hell. Tristan rolled off Anne and stared at the beams of the ceiling, waiting for his heart to calm, his breathing to settle. She was unlike any woman he’d ever known. She gave so much of herself, gave so willingly. He’d never felt so shattered, so vulnerable, so . . . lost.
He wanted to take her again, but it was more than her body that he wanted to possess. That strange yearning made little sense. He’d never experienced it before. He enjoyed women, enjoyed the pleasures that could be shared. But he’d never gone beyond that. Had never wanted to. Had never been tempted to.
Perhaps it was because she’d been a virgin. He’d never taken a virgin before. He felt a sort of responsibility toward her, a need to protect—
She sat up, the sheet gathered at her waist, her legs drawn up, her arms wrapped about them, her glorious hair cascading down her back and pooling at her hips. He skimmed his finger along her arm, but she neither acknowledged the touch nor looked at him.
“Regrets already, Princess?” he asked, shoring himself up for the brutal blow of the truth, wondering why he should care if she had misgivings. He’d gotten what he wanted from her, what he’d wanted from the moment he’d seen her walk through the door of the tavern on that rainy night.
With her knuckle, she swiped at her cheek. He didn’t want to acknowledge the clutch at his heart because his actions had brought on her tears. It was all he could do not to sit up and begin kissing them away, but he knew once he was wrapped around her that it would be hell not to continue on to another sated adventure.
“I lied,” she rasped.
His gut clenched and a fissure of unease went through him. He narrowed his eyes. “About what precisely?”
“Walter. I didn’t see him off at the railway station. I assume he was in uniform and that he looked as handsome as always. I don’t know if he said anything about being home in time for pheasant hunting. I heard the Duke of Ainsley’s brother did. I stole it for my memory, because I had none. The night before we had an awful row and so I didn’t go to say a final good-bye. Our last words to each other were spoken in anger. He wanted this from me and I said no.”
“This?” He sounded like a bloody echo, but he didn’t want her dead fiancé here now, between the sheets with them. By God, the man’s ghost had been with them on the entire journey. Couldn’t Tristan at least have tonight without the man haunting them?
She waved her hand over the bed. “This.” She sniffed, scrubbed at her eyes. “We were walking in the garden. He wanted me to slip out of the house later, meet him in the mews. He said he’d take me to a room at a hotel, that no one would ever know. But I said no.”
She twisted around, clutching the sheet with one hand to her breast, doing an incredibly lousy job of covering herself because one nipple was playing peek-a-boo and distracting him.
“A proper lady says no,” she continued. “I wanted this”—she jerked her hand back and forth between him and her—“to mean nothing. But it’s so intimate, so personal. I wanted proof that what I had denied him was of no consequence. But it wasn’t. It’s important. It’s larger, more than I expected it to be. He must have died hating me for denying him this.”
“No.” He cradled her cheek, urged her down until her head was nestled in the nook of his shoulder. “I can assure you that he did not hate you.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because you are the sort of woman a man could never hate.”
He had expected her to be stiff in his arms, but as always she melted into him. He wasn’t accustomed to talking afterward. Generally he would simply go to sleep, but something was to be said for lying here in the lethargy of lovemaking—even if the conversation revolved around another man, one he was coming to loathe.
“You should know, Anne, that a man will always strive to get a woman into his bed. It’s our nature. Even when he expects the lady to say no, he will still try to convince her otherwise. He may be disappointed if the lady turns him down, his pride may sting, but he won’t hate her. If anything, it was his pride talking that night. Not his heart.”
She tightened her arms around him, and he felt warm tears trickle onto his chest. “Yet, here I am with you, someone I don’t love. Being intimate.”
“It’s easier if you don’t love the person. If you make a mess of it you can just walk away. Besides, we’re not in Society. Out here there are few rules. Who is to care what we do?”
“And you’re safe, I suppose,” she said quietly. “I’ll never see you again. I can pretend this didn’t happen.”
Could she? Could he mean so little to her? And why did he care if he meant nothing at all to her? What did it matter if he was simply an itch that she had a need to scratch? How many women had he left in ports throughout the world and never given another thought to them?
Why was he certain that he would not so easily forget her? The one woman he should forget.
He became aware of her soft, even breathing. Gently he slid out from beneath her and covered her with the blankets. He’d never had a woman sprawled in the bed on his ship. Now he would always see her there.
After drawing on his trousers and a shirt, he slipped silently out of his quarters. The ship creaked and rocked, and he found comfort in the familiar sounds as he made his way to the quarterdeck. Gripping the railing, he stared out at the vast expanse of black sea and star-blanketed sky. He remembered the first time he’d done so. How small and insignificant it had made him feel. How frightened. He hadn’t known then what awaited him. He’d never felt so alone or betrayed. All he’d thought about was making his uncle pay for sending him into hell.
In time he’d conquered his terror, mastered the hell to such an extent that he couldn’t envision leaving it. He was a ship’s captain. Traveling the world was what he knew. In spite of what he and his brothers had accomplished two years ago, he couldn’t imagine giving up his roving life, his ship, his unencumbered existence.
He didn’t know why his thoughts were trudging along this path.
Perhaps because she had not wanted him per se; she had simply wanted the sensations. He thought of all the women he’d taken to his bed over the years—for pleasure’s sake. Had they left his bed feeling as . . . used, as dissatisfied? Were they as he was now: wanting more?
Why? Why did what he shared with Anne suddenly seem as though it wasn’t enough?
“Jack?”
“Tristan,” he said quietly, so quietly he wasn’t certain she heard. She stepped nearer until he could feel the warmth emanating from her body, could smell the lavender and citrus scent that was such a part of her, but layered now within it was the fragrance of their lovemaking.
“Pardon?” she asked softly.
“My name is Tristan. Jack is simply . . . a name I use on the sea.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her wrap her hands around the railing. After all they’d shared, he should place his arm around her, but that somehow seemed far too intimate, more so than what had transpired in his cabin. He was floundering here, like a fish tossed onto the sandy shore. He didn’t like it, wasn’t certain how to regain his footing, because everything seemed to be shifting beneath him.
“Why? Why do you use a different name?”
“I lied,” he forced out, repeating the simple words that she’d used earlier, “when I said I went to sea for adventure. I went to sea because someone was desperate to kill me.”
“Dear God, why?”
“It doesn’t matter. That part of my life—” He tightened his own hold on the railing. How could it not matter when it had shaped him into the man he was? He didn’t want it to matter; he didn’t want to consider that in some perverted way his uncle had won. “—is unimportant.”
Her delicate hand crept slowly across until it was resting on his. He wanted to fling it away. He didn’t want comfort. He hadn’t had comfort in years, fourteen to be exact. Half his life he’d lived without tenderness or care. It unmanned him. His eyes burned. Damned salty air. Or maybe it was the breeze causing his eyes to water. But it wasn’t her. He wouldn’t allow it to be her.
If not for his uncle, he might have grown into a man who would be worthy of Anne. He’d have been embraced by Society, instead of perceived as a pariah. He might have met her at a ball before she’d come to love her fiancé. He might have been the young lord she’d denied, although for the life of him he couldn’t imagine that he’d not have enticed her into his bed. From the moment he’d spied her, he’d wanted her too desperately.
“Why Crimson Jack?” she asked.
He swallowed hard. He didn’t want to tell her and yet he seemed incapable of holding in the words. “The captain named me Jack. He knew I was running from someone. At first I was angry, wanted to smash something. Got into a fight with one of the mates. Roughed him up good. Captain said I had to apologize. I wouldn’t. They took the lash to me. Still wouldn’t apologize. I was a bloody mess when I finally lost consciousness.”
He heard her tiny cry of dismay, knew if he looked he’d see tears in her eyes. So he didn’t look. It was easier not to feel anything.
“Crimson.”
“Yeah. After that I was known as Crimson Jack and no one wanted to risk upsetting me.”
She squeezed his hand. “I hate that they hurt you so badly.”
He didn’t want her sympathy. It made him feel weak, not quite the man he knew himself to be.
“It all worked out satisfactorily in the end.” He turned to face her. Her hair was loose, flying in the wind. The moon was full, and her features were limned by its pale glow. Touching her cheek, he felt the dampness of her cooling tears. “But what am I to do about you?”
She smiled sweetly. “Remember me, perhaps.” Her inflection was that of a question, doubt, insecurity.
“That I most certainly will do.”
He captured her mouth, relishing the taste and feel of her. That she scared the bloody hell out of him was something to be dealt with another day, another night. For now, he was greedy for whatever more she would give him. He would leave her in port. He would watch her march away, disappear into the fog-enshrouded shadows—
He would be left behind, but this time it was what he wanted. He wanted to sail the seas. He wanted to command his ship, his men. He wanted only memories of her.
She would waltz in ballrooms, walk through parks, and flirt with gentlemen. She would be sought-after, desired. She would have a husband and children. She would possess everything that he had no aspirations to own.
So it was with a measure of regret for what he could not give her that he swept her into his arms and returned to his bed for what he could bestow on her.
Tristan, Tristan, Tristan.
She murmured his name as she nibbled on his neck and ear while he carried her to his cabin as though she weighed little more than a cloud hovering on the distant horizon. How strange that she had never thought he looked like a Jack to her, had never called to him by what she thought his name was until after they’d made love.
And only then to discover that his true name was Tristan. It suited him. Jack was too common. But Tristan belonged with the dashing sea captain.
He shouldered his way into his quarters and kicked the door closed without releasing his hold on her. He set her on her feet near the bed. She quickly undid the buttons on her gown and let it slide down her body. It was all she’d bothered to put on before seeking him out on deck.
She saw his eyes darken with appreciation just before he dragged his shirt over his head. He unfastened his trousers and dropped them. Would she ever tire of the sight of him straining with desire for her?
When he made a move to come in for another kiss, she stayed him with a hand on his chest. “Not yet.”
She knew once he claimed her mouth again, she would be lost to the sensations and would allow him to steer the pleasure. “I want a moment at the helm.”
He flashed a purely masculine predatory grin. “By all means.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it dim when she eased behind him.
“Anne—”
“Shh, Tristan.” She studied the crisscross of lines marring his back. “How many? How many lashes?”
“The first time or the second?”
His voice held no emotion. He might as well have been asking if she preferred marmalade or jam. “It happened more than once?”
“I had a lot of anger in me.”
She trailed her finger over the longest, thickest welt. Crimson Jack. Covered in blood. “How old were you?”
“Princess, this is hardly conversation that will lead to seduction.”
“How old?”
She felt him tense beneath her touch, heard him swallow.
“Fourteen.”
She slammed her eyes closed. She hoped she’d been wrong. That he’d been a man better able to withstand the pain and humiliation of it. She pressed her lips to the center of his back, for the boy he’d been, the man he was.
“Is he still alive . . . the man who did this to you?”
“Yes. A captain called Marlow. Our paths cross from time to time.”
“I hope you beat him.”
“I never blamed him. He needed order on his ship and I was of a mind to create havoc. The one I blame is the man who wanted me gone. He’s now dead.”
“I’m glad.”
“No more than I.”
He twisted around, cradled her face with his palms, and gathered her tears with his thumbs. Only then did she realize that she was crying. “Don’t weep, sweetheart. As I’ve told you before: it was a long time ago. I never think of it.”
How could he not? It had shaped him, was part of his life. She supposed it was a testament to his character that he had moved on, that he thrived in spite of knowing that the world could be unkind. He didn’t wallow in self-pity or bemoan the unfairness that had been bestowed upon him.
She wanted to be as strong as he, to remember the wonderful moments she’d spent with Walter, to release the regrets. The regrets no longer served a purpose. She saw that now. She had said good-bye. She must move on.
Like Tristan. She had to turn her attention toward the horizon where better things awaited. While she knew he would not be waiting for her there, he was here with her now.
She couldn’t waste these moments with sorrow or remorse. She needed to relish the joy that being with him brought.
Peering up at him beneath half-lowered lashes, she gave him an impish smile. “I see your interest in me has dimmed. Pity.”
He gave her a cocky grin. “I can be at full sail before you hit the bed.”
With a laugh he grabbed her and tumbled her onto the rumpled sheets. The fragrance of their previous lovemaking wafted around her. As he nestled himself between her thighs, she wasn’t surprised to discover that he was true to his claims. He was ready for her.
“Are you tender?” he asked.
“Yes, some, but we have only tonight.”
She saw an emotion pass over his eyes that she couldn’t quite decipher. He nibbled on her ear.
“Tell me if you experience discomfort. I know other ways to enjoy each other.”
She’d learned that quickly enough. She supposed there was a comparable way to pleasure him, but then his mouth was again ravishing hers and she wasn’t supposing anything at all.