He was angry at her, furious in fact, judging by the tautness in his features. And so profoundly proud, standing there so magnificently, almost rebelliously, trying to show that the scars didn’t matter, that they were nothing. She wished she hadn’t seen how terribly he’d been hurt. But she had and she couldn’t undo what she’d seen. She felt sicker in her stomach now than she had during the worst part of the storm.
He’d been a lad when he’d gone to sea, seeking adventure, not much younger than Mouse. Had he been as slender, as vulnerable? Had he been near that age when he felt the bite of the whip? Had he screamed? Had he cried? Had he begged them to stop?
“How can men do that to another?” she asked.
“It’s standard practice on a ship when someone isn’t behaving . . . quite properly,” he bit out.
“Do you take the lash to your men?”
“No, but then none were forced aboard my ship against their wishes. They share in the bounty. They work together because it adds coins to their pockets.”
“You said you went to sea for adventure. Were you forced—”
“No,” he interrupted before she could finish her question.
A knock sounded, and relief washed over his face as though the disturbance would bring a natural end to this conversation, which he obviously loathed. She watched as he strode across the room, his hair freely grazing over his wide shoulders. She wondered what he would say if she offered to take a brush to it, to sift her fingers through it, to provide comfort to him as he had to her. He opened the door and Mouse scurried in with his rocking gait. On the desk, he set a tray with a teapot and some cups on it.
“Mr. Peterson thought ye be needin’ this.”
“Good lad.”
“She gonna be a’right?”
“Should be. Just a bit of seasickness.” He placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. It seemed a tender gesture, even though he was guiding the lad out of the room. Had anyone placed a kind hand on the captain’s shoulder or brow after the flesh on his back had been ripped apart?
When they were again alone, he returned to the desk and poured some tea into a cup, then added a splash of amber liquid to it.
She settled back against the pillows, ever conscious of keeping the blanket high.
“This should help settle your stomach a bit,” he said as he handed her the cup and saucer. The china seemed incredibly delicate in his large paw.
As for himself, he poured a generous helping of spirits into a glass before pulling over a chair and sitting beside the bed.
She supposed as things were settling down that Martha could rejoin her now, but she didn’t suggest it on the off chance that she was sleeping. She didn’t want to disturb her. More, she wasn’t quite ready for him to leave. She took a sip, recognized the flavor, and smiled. “Brandy.”
“Your indulgence of choice, I believe.”
“Only because it was the easiest bottle to swipe from my father’s liquor cabinet.” She studied him more closely. He appeared older now than he had before, and she realized fighting the storm had taken a toll on him. She missed his ready smile and teasing.
His eyes contained a distance, as though he were looking inward rather than outward, and she wondered where his thoughts traveled, if he was thinking about the pain he’d endured when they whipped him or how he battled the sea or . . .
She knew so little about him, knew it was foolish to want to know more. Once they were again in England, she would never see him again. They would take diverging paths, hers leading her to ballrooms and his returning him to the sea.
She wanted to talk, but the brandy was having its way with her, swirling warmth and lethargy through her bones. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised, considering that nothing remained in her stomach to absorb it, to halt its progress.
After finishing off the tea in one long unladylike swallow, she set aside the cup and saucer on the table beside the bed. Then she snuggled beneath the blankets, slipped her hands between her cheek and pillow, and watched Jack. He didn’t quite look like a Jack to her. His lids were half lowered, his glass empty, and she wondered if he was feeling as languid as she. “Why did they whip you?” To her surprise, the words came out slowly, slightly slurred.
“I won’t discuss my back, Anne.”
The anger was still in his voice and he studied his glass as though it were far more interesting than her. She didn’t know why that stung.
“Where did you grow up?” she asked.
Finally, he shifted his gaze over to her. “On the sea.”
She smiled, or at least she thought she did. Her mouth definitely moved. “Before that.”
“Yorkshire.”
“Lovely country.”
Leaning forward, he brushed back some wayward strands that he’d failed to secure in the braid. “You should sleep now, Princess.”
“So should you.” She furrowed her brow. “Where do you sleep . . . since I have your room?”
“In the room next door or in a hammock on the berth deck.” He cradled her chin, his thumb stroking her cheek.
“Doesn’t sound comfortable.”
“It’s not.”
“You should have taken my two hundred pounds to make it worth your while.”
“It’s worth my while.”
He sounded as though he meant the words. How could a kiss make up for all the discomforts he endured?
“Are you going to kiss me now?”
“Not when you’re too weak to return the kiss with enthusiasm.”
“You seem to have a rather high opinion of your kissing talents. I might not have any enthusiasm for it at all.”
“You will.”
Such an arrogant cad, she thought dreamily as she fought to keep her eyes open. “I thought we were going to die tonight,” she whispered.
“I would never have allowed that to happen.”
He said it with such confidence, as though he commanded the sea. She trusted him, believed in his skills, and had to reluctantly admit that she even liked him. “You had a rough night of it, didn’t you?”
“Very rough.”
“You must be exhausted.”
“Terribly.”
He shouldn’t have a hammock tonight. He should have his bed. Only she was in it. She certainly didn’t want a hammock. “You could sleep here . . . on top of the covers,” she hastily added.
His response was a tender smile that caused her heart to flip. She didn’t remember moving, but between one blink and the next, the cabin was in darkness, she was on her side, and he was spooned around her. In the vaguest corners of her mind, she thought she should stiffen, elbow him in the ribs, or shove him away with a reprimand of, “Not so close.”
Instead, she snuggled more securely against him, his soft moan wafting around her as she sank into the land of dreams.
With her body pressed against his, she felt better than he’d anticipated. Even with clothing and blankets separating them, he couldn’t recall ever being quite so aroused with so little effort. Especially as his body felt as though it had been transformed into an anchor and was dragging him down.
He’d spoken true. He was exhausted. Beyond measure. He wasn’t certain that he could have made his way out of his quarters to a hammock below. In all likelihood, he’d have been able to do little more than slide out of the chair and land in an unconscious heap on the floor.
The weariness had slammed into him the moment he’d finished braiding her hair, the moment he’d realized that her bout of sickness had passed. The moment he’d acknowledged to himself that she would survive, that she would recover. Until then, he’d been so focused on seeing to her needs that he’d had no time to consider his own.
He’d never been selfish when it came to women. He’d always put their pleasures first, but he’d never been quite so consumed with a female to the degree that he was when he was around her. Pain, aches, weariness ceased to exist for him until she was clearly out of harm’s way.
It was a strange . . . thing. He didn’t quite understand it.
But he did understand that being this near to her was dangerous. Very, very dangerous.
From the moment he’d seen her, he’d wanted her beneath him, his body pounding into hers with a fierceness that would cause the ship to rock on still waters. But with her in his arms now, he feared he’d not be content with having her only once. He would want her again. When they returned to England.
He wished he could work up the energy to skim his fingers along her cheek, down her neck, across her shoulders. When he woke up with her, he might very well be unable to resist the lure of a kiss—but he would have to remain strong, stronger than he’d ever been.
Because he just realized with startling clarity that he couldn’t kiss her before they arrived at Scutari. No, he would have to wait until afterward, until they were nearer to England.
Her fiancé would no doubt kiss her when he saw her, kiss her when he said good-bye, and his mouth on hers would wash away anything that remained of the kiss she would share with Tristan. Therefore, it stood to reason that he would have to remain in purgatory a bit longer.
Because when they arrived at England’s shores and she walked away from him, he wanted his kiss to be the last upon her lips.
It was a bittersweet awakening for Anne. The captain was gone, so she was spared the uncomfortable awareness of being in his arms. She ignored the disappointment that struck her because he had taken his leave so quietly, so unobtrusively.
Which left her to deal with the guilt and the immense longing to have such a memory of being held through the night with Walter. He’d wanted it, had asked for it, and she’d denied him. Of course, what he wanted involved more than simply holding her. But she now had an inkling of how lovely it might have been. It was no longer just a wispy imagining. She knew the feel of a man’s body pressed against her, the warmth, the scent. She knew the sound of his breathing luring her as though it were a lullaby.
She was beginning to regret that she’d decided to take this sojourn, but it was far too late to turn back.
Stepping onto the deck, a much recovered Martha at her side, Anne shielded her gaze from the brilliant sunlight reflecting off the blue water. After what they endured several hours before, she expected to encounter some remnants of a storm, but instead all appeared as though it had never been. Men were working. The breeze toyed playfully with the sails.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think we imagined the horrors of last night,” Martha said.
Only Anne did know better. The leather strip with which the captain had bound her hair was tucked into a hidden pocket on her skirt.
“Oh my God, land.” She walked to the edge of the ship and gripped the railing. “We can’t be too far from our destination, do you think?”
“Not too far,” a deep voice responded.
She spun around, her heart seizing as she gazed at the captain. He, too, looked as though last night had never happened, as though he hadn’t held her, as though they hadn’t shared a strange sort of intimacy. She wanted to reach out, touch him, curl her fingers around his shirt, and bury her face in his shoulder, inhale deeply of his now familiar fragrance. Instead she balled her hands into achingly tights fists. “How soon?”
“A few more days.”
They turned out to be the longest and loneliest of her life. He didn’t have dinner with her. If she was on deck, he was below or on the opposite side of the ship. She knew it was just as well that they weren’t in each other’s company. Each day she recovered a little more from the illness she experienced during the storm, but as they neared their destination a weariness settled over her.
Finally, she saw the spires of the city as they pulled into the harbor. They were here. They had arrived.
But a secret mourning part of her wished they hadn’t.