by Holland Rae
She saw it before Armand, but a moment later, realization flickered in his eyes. The last time she had seen that expression on his face, Armand had been recalling the pirate ship burning like the flames of hell, taking his mother down to a watery beyond.
Fire. Fire lapped at the corners of the cave, spilling across the room like a midnight spook from beneath the bed. Fire crept, and it slunk, and it roared into the room, almost as if sound had paused, only to return in a great thundering rage. Fire brought two very real, very immediate problems. One was in the form of a massive stack of wooden barrels pressed against the far end of the cave and undoubtedly filled with gunpowder. The other was in the form of her oldest friend.
Armand had never been able to countenance fire. Not since it had stolen his mother from him, not since the day it had torn his family apart. This great hulking, powerful man froze in his place, as though he had stared down the eyes of Medusa herself. Only it wasn’t Medusa before him, but an enraged pirate captain with a sword coming down on Armand’s throat.
Catalina Sol didn’t like to kill. But in some cases, killing might be the only way to save someone from certain death. She gripped the pistol. The captain’s hands went up, and he brought the sword up for leverage, ready to slice his opponent. Armand crumpled to the ground before the captain got the chance, felled like a giant tree in the forest, his eyes glazed with the palpable fear she knew to be his very worst. With the captain’s hand raised, arm exposed, Catalina took her opportunity where she saw it. She lifted her gun, aimed at his heart, and shot.
Time slowed, as if they were moving through molasses. The bullet struck him straight in the chest, and a bright bloom of red began to unfurl across his dirty white shirt. Catalina couldn’t hear. The only sound in the room was the rat tat tat of her own heart pounding against her bones. She raced over to where Armand lay upon a rock, his body crumpled from the shock of the fire raging around them. Her heart wrung with the fear he might have hit his head, might have been injured beyond hope. Her fear for his life ran parallel with the need to get them out before the growling, hungry flames made it to the back end of the cave and took them all out in the process. Without thought to the dying pirate, she kneeled before Armand, and that was her mistake.
The knife caught her in the side. Likely, the captain had been aiming for her neck, but the sound of him sliding to the cave ground with a tremendous crash came only a split second after the roaring pain filled her ears, piercing and overwhelming her senses. Yet all she could think about was Armand. Was he all right? Was he alive? That was all that mattered. And then Armand was smiling, and he picked her up, even as the room seemed to fade and the edges of her view grew misty with shadows spiderwebbing across her vision. She felt the low rocking of water, and then a wild, incredible reverberation rocked the world. But it slowed, and so did Catalina’s thoughts. They had Henri, and the pirate captain was dead. All was well.
Chapter Seventeen
Catalina stirred, and Armand jumped from his chair, only to watch her mouth close and her eyes remain shut. Three hours. Three hours since they had pulled the dagger from her side, and she had not woken. The blood loss was overwhelming, and with each moment that passed, Armand’s heart sank deeper into his stomach, as if a great anchor were pulling it down. Across the room, Henri lay stretched out upon another cot, but he was sitting up against the wall, eating a bowl of soup, and watching the two of them.
She had saved his brother. She had nearly gotten herself killed. She might have gotten herself killed. The thought that they were not yet out of the woods was like a rush of hot fiery fear. She needed to be alive because he had to apologize for saying he wanted to change her. What in hell could he have been thinking, saying a fool thing like that? The woman who lay on the cot before him, bandaged side, seaweed-covered hair and all, had nothing about her that needed changing. She was perfect. She had rushed in, headstrong and utterly cracked, and she had saved his brother, just as she had promised him. She had saved them all.
And now. Well, now she was going to die for it. That simply couldn’t be. Armand’s mind was aflame with the molten rage of it. He wouldn’t let it. He had to apologize. He had to thank her for saving his life, for knowing the one thing about him that he had never told anyone—the deepest fear he had never needed to say aloud for her to know. He had to tell her the truth—she didn’t have a damn thing about her that anyone should change. The truth was he didn’t want to marry her out of some sense of propriety and righteousness. The truth was he loved her.
It struck him sideways, like a great wave crashing against a hull. He loved her. He loved her with a ferocity that scared him; he loved her in a way that transcended everything else. If she wanted to return to London, he would follow. If she wished to remain a captain for the rest of her days, he would beg the honor of being her first mate. Because Armand had been falling for her, despite his best intentions, since the day she had walked back into his life, since she had shaken his bed by night and his soul by day, since she had saved his brother, since she had saved him. The only trick now was convincing her of the fact and hoping she survived long enough to try.
****
Catalina was on a boat. Was she on a boat? Her head seemed to be shifting up and down, as if riding the waves beneath. It didn’t feel like a boat. Inside her own head, her mind was cresting and riding enormous waves, painful, brightly lit waves that hurt to stare at for too long.
She could fall off the boat right now, couldn’t she? The water would swallow her whole, and she could slip away into its depths and allow herself to ease the pain. Since leaving home, there had always been a little bit of pain, and though she pushed it far away, it never truly disappeared. Home. Where was home again? She searched for a place in her aching mind, but all she could manage was the image of a man. His dark hair nearly fell to his shoulders, but his face calmed her and lessened the painful thudding of her mind. She knew that man. She knew him from an age ago, knew a man who looked just like him, this one from not so long before she had found herself on a boat off at sea.
And then she heard a voice far off in the distance. Had the man called her? Surely not. He must have heard the call as well, because he turned in her direction, and when she caught his gaze, stark against the white foggy background of the sea outside the ship, Catalina knew exactly who the stranger was. He was the man who had saved her life. Or had she saved his? He was the man she had grown up with when they had been children, the man she had fallen in love with even before she had been old enough to understand what love was. He was speaking now, his voice mouthing words she couldn’t quite understand, as if he were whispering below the surface of the water upon which they rode. She called to him, begged him to say his words again.
“Come back, Charlotte,” he said.
Charlotte. Who was Charlotte? Yet it seemed to make sense that he would call her Charlotte. More words spilled from his mouth, not quite meeting the rhythm of his lips as they did. Was his hair on fire? He didn’t appear fazed by the idea.
“Christ, Charlotte,” he was saying now, though his hair was most definitely burning. “I’m the worst sort of fool for what I said to you. You need to come out of this so I can explain.” Come out of what? They were standing upon a ship together, and the ocean around them was glowing. Everything was so bright, and the waves appeared to catch the sky and pull it closer. She reached for his hand, and their fingers brushed. Whatever happened, whether she fell to the sea or not, she couldn’t be there without him. He would be her lifeline to safety, the closest thing to a rescue mission she had ever known. He would take her home, to the home that was him. If he fell from this ship, she would follow without question.
Because she loved him. The thought seemed to imprint itself against the bright white sky. She did love him, didn’t she, Catalina thought with a detached sense of understanding. She had always loved him. But this new version of him, this wild man who had carried her from the pirate cave, who had made love to her all night long and th
en proposed because he believed it to be the right thing to do, the man who had forsaken all responsibilities that had been given to him and taken up the ones he had been forced to earn, this man was truly the one worth loving.
His fingers seemed to be sliding out of her grasp. They were so hot they burned her like boiling water, and Catalina began to panic. He couldn’t disappear, not when she was only just beginning to understand what he meant to her. She gripped harder, aware that he was slipping away, right out of the picture, in fact. And so she screamed, screamed his name loud enough for the whole world to hear, because he couldn’t leave, because what would she be without him?
****
Catalina woke in a cold sweat. Her body was shaking, and the alarming sound that had woken her had, in fact, come from her very own mouth. With a start, she snapped it shut, an action that sent a pulse of painful irritation right through her sensitive head.
What the devil? Belatedly, she realized a thick blanket lay over her, and she pulled it tight to her body, aware that she felt too cold and too hot all at once, aware that something was wrong. Where was she? Where was the man who had been in her dreams?
“Catalina?”
She looked up to a familiar face, which brought such a rush of relief, Catalina nearly wept.
“Antonia,” she said, her voice a mixture of confusion and comfort. “What happened? Where am I?”
Concern crossed her friend’s face, but then she covered it in an instant. “You’re at Dwyer, love,” Antonia said sweetly, brushing back a piece of Catalina’s hair that had stuck to her cheek. “You gave us all quite a fright.” Catalina looked up, feeling like a small child. Had she really wanted to do this alone? Had she really and truly wanted to be so independent as to never ask for help? With the sweet face of her friend looking down upon her, Catalina could see no reason to lie to herself. Before she managed to answer her own musing, however, Antonia continued.
“You’ve been battling a fever some eight days now, Catalina,” she said. She sat beside Catalina’s bed and began sponging cold water across her forehead. “We weren’t quite certain you would, well…” Antonia looked down at her feet rather than continue. “But it appears you have. You must be starved. I’ll fetch some soup and fresh water.” She stood up and was halfway toward the door before turning back around.
“There’s someone who wishes to see you,” she said with a small smile. Catalina couldn’t quite figure out what that smile meant, but she was too tired to dwell and instead settled back into bed. The image of Armand had all but fled her memory, or dream, or whatever it had been, but the fear remained in the pit of her belly. She had lost him. Eight days, and all she could remember was the searing pain of a dagger going through her skin and muscle, and then nothing. Eight days. A man could travel far in eight days.
She had rejected him. Why on earth had she done that? It was difficult to think. The pain in her side and the fuzziness in her head sent her focus just outside of where she could grasp it, and yet, Catalina knew she had made a mistake. It was a matter of determining what that mistake was.
There was a knock on the door, and when Catalina called for entrance, her heart nearly flew from her chest. He hadn’t left. He was here, in her home for lost souls, and he stood before her with a smile that made Catalina wonder just how close to death’s doorstep she had come.
“You gave me a fright,” Armand said. He sat down beside her, and Catalina realized with a start that he had been in her dream because he had been here beside her. His presence in the small chair was right, it was familiar, it had remained by her side for the eight days of her lingering fever. He had stayed by her side. That was a terribly important fact, and she pushed it into the forefront of her mind.
“Henri?” she mumbled.
Armand’s smile widened. “More than well,” he told her. “I believe he’s chatting up your Antonia as we speak.”
Her heart still hammered. “And the pirates.”
Armand nodded. “Blown to bits, from what we saw. The fire must had reached their gunpowder stock, and the whole cave collapsed.”
A sense of satisfaction washed over Catalina, and she finally turned to the most important matter of all. Managing a small smile, she said, “You stayed.”
He placed his hand upon hers. “I couldn’t leave you,” he replied.
She recoiled. He felt guilty that she had been injured. It was his damned sense of honor coming through again. But then his fingers were stroking her damp skin, and Catalina felt the cool sense of relief that came with his touch.
“I don’t wish to marry you,” Armand said.
She blinked. She thought her grasp on the reality increasing, but apparently, a chapter had been skipped in the book.
He grinned at her expression. “I don’t wish to marry you because you don’t wish to marry me.”
This was important. Images of that morning when they had shared her chamber on board the ship, of her realizing he only wanted to marry her because it was the right thing to do, flashed before her mind. If only she could tell him she had changed her mind. If only she could explain she had never ever wanted to be someone’s burden, someone’s responsibility. If only he understood she needed to be the master of her own fate.
“I was a fool, Catalina,” Armand said, his hands never leaving hers, their weight a welcome warmth. “I should have known better than to try and change you.”
The words were familiar, and she realized he must have said them time and again while she slept through her waxing and waning fever.
He shook his head, presumably at his own stupidity. “It turns out the best parts of you are the ones that drive me the craziest. The madder and more dangerous you are, the more I find myself falling in love with you.”
Catalina sat straight up. “You love me,” she whispered, her heart beating a mad rhythm.
His grin widened. “It’s been a long time coming, has it not?”
Catalina shook her head. “You don’t love me,” she said, convinced of the truth of it. “You think I’m brash and irresponsible and wild and dangerous.”
He nodded. “All of those things and more,” he told her. “Mad, insubordinate, and completely unaware of what you do to me.”
The honesty in his words made her stomach flip, and this time it came out as a question. “You love me?”
Because she had begun to understand it was all the craziest, most maddening parts of him she couldn’t live without. He was temperamental and straight-laced and responsible and damning of his reputation and all sorts of things that had been riding her since the start. But those were all the traits she found she most longed for. Those, and his deep, powerful kisses.
“I love you, Catalina Sol,” Armand said, squeezing her hands in his. “And I’ve been too much of a blind man to admit it. Then we almost lost you, and I knew I couldn’t be any sort of man at all, without you. I don’t know what I would become if I never got to tell you how I feel.”
Catalina’s smile was painful, but she barely felt it. “Armand,” she whispered in wild excitement.
He nodded.
“I think I love you too.” She said it again, for the sheer sake of feeling the words upon her tongue. “I do. I most definitely do love you. I didn’t want to, but then you followed me and saved my life, and I understood you were the support I was most hoping for. I realized in my dreams that if you disappeared, I’d be disappearing with you.”
Armand placed a chaste, sweet kiss up on her lips. “I’m not going to ask you to marry me,” he repeated. “Because I know you don’t want me to ask.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going to ask you to simply be with me.” He released a low, pent-up sigh. “Please? I don’t think I can live without you.”
She shook her head, aware that tears were beginning to pool behind her eyelids.
“Will you marry me?” she blurted out from behind her hands. “Marry me, Armand. Be my magistrate husband and tame my seafaring ways. Marry me, Armand Rajaram de Bourbon.”
The sheen in his eyes made the back of her own feel hot and overwhelmed with joy, a sensation echoed deep in her heart.
He nodded, and then he cupped her in his enormous embrace, and the sheer power of his clasp was at once overwhelming and perfect.
“Yes,” he whispered in her ear. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
****
A few weeks passed before the surgeon declared Catalina fit to return to normal life. The dagger wound in her side no longer threatened her life. Antonia had acted like a bustling mother hen, until Armand had taken over the role, and she was desperate to get a chance to stretch her sore limbs and feel fresh air.
The sun was just rising over the horizon line, when Catalina donned a thin linen shirt and pair of light britches. She left her boots off, preferring the feel of the cool stone floor upon her feet, and then she slipped from the house and into the back garden.
The garden was lovely. Rows and rows of vegetables twinkled with morning dew. Catalina breathed in the fresh sea air, and the whole world came alive around her. How could it not? She loved the man who loved her back. He loved her back. The thought was no less intoxicating for the number of times she repeated it.
In a fit of joy, she planted herself upon a patch of cool grass and looked up to the sky. Light lavender clouds were just beginning to part, in favor of the early morning blue. A small noise sounded nearby, breaking through the calm of the morning. Catalina went to roll up, her instincts kicking in as fast as her panic at recalling that she hadn’t brought her weapons outside.