Persuaded

by Misty Dawn Pulsipher

  “Does he have undeveloped sailor senses I’m not aware of?”

  “One of the nifty contraptions below printed out a warning.”

  Derick descended the steps into the galley, followed by Sophie, Hanna, and Walter, ripping the paper off the printer. Sure enough, a low-pressure system was rolling in from Canada. “Not good,” Derick mumbled as he studied the weather pattern. Suddenly aware of all the anxious eyes and ears behind him, he turned. “But if we get underway now we’ll be able to avoid the worst of it.”

  Adam and Derick lost no time in rigging the Asp, while Hanna and Sophie made sure everything below was secure. The return trip seemed to take twice as long. The water was choppy and difficult the whole way home. Obviously Derick had been in worse weather—the southern ocean, for starters—where the mountainous waves were ruthless coming around the horn of South America. But for something that could barely be considered ocean this close to land, the water was putting up a good fight. He didn’t want anyone else to panic so he kept a level head. They didn’t make it to Old Lyme Harbor until after seven, by which time the sea was throwing a toddler-sized tantrum.

  ☼

  Derick had sent Sophie with Hanna to help get the boys and all their stuff home while the men returned the Asp to the rental place. Fat raindrops pummeled the sand all the way back to Uppercross as the wind wailed under the coal-colored sky. Hanna wondered how the weather could have turned so nasty in so little time. Didn’t modern technology and Doppler radar guard against such things? By the time Sophie, Hanna, and the boys came through the back door, all four of them were drenched.

  “Thank goodness!” came Mary’s stressed voice as she bustled up to them and took Walter from his aunt. “I’ve been texting you for hours! Where have you been?!”

  Hanna hadn’t bothered to tell Mary where they were going, and she assumed that they would beat her and Charles back home. “We went to one of the local islands for a couple nights,” said Hanna as Charles joined them. “When did you guys get back?”

  Mary ignored the question, her eyes bugging out of her head. “Are you telling me that you had my kids out on a boat in this weather?”

  “The boys were inside with Sophie and me the whole time, Mary. They weren’t in any danger.”

  “You could have let me know! The next time—”

  Mary’s rant broke off abruptly when Charles put a calming hand on her back. She glanced at her husband, closed her mouth, and inhaled a breath through her nose.

  Did that just happen? Hanna took advantage of her silence. “I’m sorry, Mare—I forgot to take my charger. I tried calling from Derick’s phone but the reception wasn’t good enough in the storm. I didn’t mean for you to worry.”

  After taking a moment to compose herself, Mary hugged Hanna. “I was worried about you too. I’m just glad you guys are okay.”

  Hanna had just begun to feel as if she was in an episode of The Twilight Zone, when Mary handed Walter to his dad and knelt in front of CJ. “You look frozen! Let’s get you in the tub.”

  “You got some mail while you were gone,” Charles informed Hanna, pointing at a manila envelope on the kitchen table. She scowled. Her mail had been put on hold for the summer back in Harbor. Hanna was derailed from the mystery parcel when Charles didn’t plop in front of the TV and leave Mary to deal with bath time alone, as usual. Instead he followed his wife upstairs, presumably to help. Their getaway had apparently been long overdue.

  “Wow,” Sophie commented once the Musgroves were upstairs.

  “Yeah,” Hanna agreed. “Maybe this storm is a wormhole and we’re in another dimension or something.”

  Sophie gave a tired laugh. “I’m heading home—a hot bath sounds pretty sweet right now.”

  “See you later, Sophie. Thanks for all your help with the boys.”

  “Anytime,” Sophie pledged with a wink, and then she slipped back outside. Hanna went upstairs to change into some dry clothes, stopping off at Mary’s room on her way back down to apologize again for making her worry. She tapped softly but there was no response, so she cracked the door open a sliver.

  CJ, waiting for his turn in the tub, was regaling his mother with tales of Block Island as she peeled his wet clothes off. She was actually listening—not herding him off to bed, not plugging him into the TV—just listening.

  Hanna’s apology could wait.

  Downstairs, Hanna set her phone to charge, then picked up the envelope that was addressed to her:

  HANNA ELLIOT

  Uppercross House

  Old Lyme Beach

  There was no return address, no postmark, no clue as to where it had come from. With her curiosity piqued, Hanna broke the seal and upended it on the table.

  On first glance, she was totally confused as to what she was looking at. It could have been fatigue, or some self-preservation instinct kicking in, blocking her brain from processing what she was seeing.

  It was the picture in the top-left corner of Star magazine that she recognized first, only because she’d memorized the image herself: Ella and Derick’s heads together against a backdrop of fireworks. As she took in the rest of the cover, adrenaline surged in her veins.

  There were a couple more of Derick and Ella, moments Hanna hadn’t witnessed due to her avoidance of the whole situation. The other photos were moments she’d lived herself, precious little snatches of time she’d tucked away inside herself for safekeeping: the day she and Derick had taken the boys for ice cream at the marina, the two of them side-by-side at the breakwater as he told her Maori legends . . .

  Bile rose in Hanna’s throat as she read the headline:

  WENTWORTH TAKES ALL!

  America’s Cup Not Enough for This Sailor

  If the cover was horrific, the inside was ten times worse. Hanna knew that she shouldn’t open it, shouldn’t look on pages 36 through 39 for the full story, but it was a bit like passing the wreckage of a morbid car crash—she was inexplicably drawn in.

  More pictures of Ella and Derick. More pictures of Derick and other girls she’d never seen before. Hanna immediately knew that those pictures couldn’t possibly have been taken this summer, because he’d either been with her or Ella the entire time. By far the worst thing on the pages was the collage of shots taken of Derick and Hanna with the boys. Having thoroughly sickened herself with the photos, Hanna went ahead and read the article.

  It was the most sordid thing she’d ever laid eyes on, and nothing she could have ever thought up herself. Not only did they accuse Derick of being a notorious womanizer, but he had abandoned his team in favor of his preferred sport—putting notches on his bedpost. And it didn’t stop there. The children he had been seen with were his illegitimate offspring.

  Who had done this? Hanna groped inside the envelope for any clue, to no avail. Then she flipped to the credit section at the end of the article, and there it was:

  Photos courtesy of Eli Williams

  Eli? Eli had taken all these pictures and turned every one of her special moments into something ugly?

  No, it couldn’t be. It simply wasn’t possible. There was no way Eli could have gotten some of these shots—like the one of Derick and Ella during fireworks. But then Hanna remembered him beside her, clicking away at the sparks in the sky.

  The shot of her and Derick at the breakwater would have been easy enough to obtain, but how did he know they were there? Had he followed her?

  Cold slithered along her skin at the possibility.

  How could she have been so deceived in Eli’s character? From the very beginning, he’d been nothing but kind, helpful, and interested in her when no one else had been for ages . . .

  And then reality broke over her, an icy spray of sea water that left her coughing and gasping for air. With this new lens of verity, she peered into the past, zoomed in on his motivation.

  The first day they’d met on the beach, he had offered to walk down to the marina with them only after CJ mentioned the Laconia, in conjunction with “Captain
Wentworth.” Could it have been that Eli hadn’t been on a tour of New England harbors after all, but was in town on a lead? She remembered all the pictures of Derick’s boat in Eli’s portfolio, and her stomach began to churn. She had led him straight to his mark.

  He never asked me anything about Derick, though, Hanna argued with herself. A second later she realized, he never had to. She told him the whole story with very little prodding.

  With a slight sinking in her chest, Hanna realized that Eli had never been attracted to her at all. He’d been interested in her only for her connection to Derick, for the intelligence she could provide.

  But that wasn’t the worst part. What would Derick think when he saw this? What would he say? Hanna sank into one of the kitchen chairs, pushing the magazine away from herself with trembling hands.

  All she could do now was wait.

  THIRTY-SIX

  UNFORGETTABLE

  “To my eye, you could never alter.”

  —Captain Wentworth, Persuasion

  A few short minutes later, Hanna looked up at the tapping that sounded on the back door. Her emotions were in a power struggle at the moment: relief that Derick had made it back safe from the marina, and dread at what would happen when he saw the article.

  Launching herself toward the back door, she slid it open and threw her arms around his neck the moment he was inside. He started to protest, something about getting her wet and making a puddle on the floor, but she just tightened her hold until he hugged her back.

  A moment later, he spoke into her hair. “You okay?”

  She shook her head, and he guided her back to the chair she’d been sitting in, then knelt in front of her. “Is it the storm? I’m all right . . .”

  When the tears threatened to come again, she slanted forward and pressed her mouth to his. Suddenly it seemed important—vital, even—to anchor themselves in that moment, against whatever might come next. Hanna could tell that she’d caught him off guard, but he recovered quickly and leaned into the kiss. After a moment Hanna sat back, took a deep breath, and slid the magazine into Derick’s line of sight.

  His eyes hardened the minute he saw it, muscles surfacing along his jaw as he ground his teeth together. Very slowly, as if he was a prowling lion moving in for a kill, he reached around her and pulled the magazine toward himself. He stood, flipping impatiently through it before tossing it on the table and digging his phone out of his pants pocket.

  “Paul, we have a problem. It looks like our old friend Hoss is up to his tricks again . . .” He trailed off as he wandered into the foyer, and Hanna didn’t follow until she heard him end the call.

  She approached warily, not sure of what she might find, but he was standing with his back to the wall, glaring at the ceiling. Without looking at her, he said, “I’m sorry about this, Hanna. I didn’t mean to get you or your family involved—”

  “Hey,” she said, stepping up to him, “you have nothing to apologize for. This isn’t your fault. If anyone is to blame, it’s me.”

  He did look at her now. “What are you talking about?”

  “Eli took those pictures. The day we met he told me he was on a tour of New England, but I think he might have been following a lead on you. If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t have gotten what he was after.”

  With a smirk, Derick said, “As flattering as that is, I’m pretty sure it’s not all he was after.”

  “Yes, it was. I was just a means to an end.”

  “If that’s true then why did he wait so long to make his big move?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have the answers, Derick. I’m just sorry that my poor judgment landed us here.”

  “You’re forgetting that I’ve been ‘here’ plenty of times, without your help. Eli knew I was on my guard with him after that day at the marina when I overheard his phone call,” Derick said. “If he wasn’t interested in you, why didn’t he drop the bomb then?”

  All she could do was shrug.

  He crouched to level their eyes. “You have this crazy notion that you’re not worth looking at—that you aren’t worth anything. But you don’t see what I see.” He inched closer, putting his hands on either side of her face to keep her eyes on his. “Do you want to know what I see? Benny started smiling again because of you. Even a low-life like Eli couldn’t be totally awful to you if there was the slightest chance of him getting you in the end. You may not think either of them saw you as anything more than a friend—but I saw the way they looked at you. And it made me want to claw their eyes out every single time.”

  Relocating his hands to her hips, he tugged her closer until she bumped into him. “I see someone so unforgettable that all these years later, I still can’t take my eyes off her.”

  Such a speech could hardly have missed its target. Hanna placed her open hand against his cheek, loving the way his eyes closed at her touch. His lips parted as she traced them with a fingertip, and then she stretched up on her toes and guided his perfect mouth to hers.

  There was no trace of the patience he’d displayed during that first kiss on Block Island now. His arms constricting around her might have been uncomfortable if it hadn’t been exactly what she wanted. As her mouth moved under his, she clutched at his arms and shoulders, wanting him closer, closer, but it still wasn’t enough. Each point of contact along the length of their bodies was a light she wanted to snuff out, little air bubbles that she wanted to compress into nothingness.

  ☼

  With both Derick and Hanna so absorbed by one another, so tangled up in the pent-up passion of a decade, neither of them heard the front door open. They didn’t hear the gasped shock of the person who walked in to find them in such a state. They couldn’t have known that their love, so precious to both of them, was capable of destroying someone else.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  ELLA DISENCHANTED

  It could scarcely escape him to feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

  —Jane Austen, Persuasion

  “What the—?”

  Hanna practically jumped out of Derick’s arms, whirled, and found Ella dripping all over the entry floor with a scandalized expression. She dropped her bags with a soggy thud as Benny lumbered in after her. He started to say hello as he came in but did a quick double take and fell silent. Hanna vaguely wondered where he and Ella had been, if she’d been with Benny, and if so, how they ended up that way. But then she looked at Ella, and behind the curtain of loathing in her eyes, Hanna could see the hurt.

  “Ella . . .” she began, clueless what she could possibly say to salvage the situation. Maybe there was nothing to say.

  “So, this is what sending Mary and Charles off on a couples’ weekend was about?” Ella accused. “You guys having the place to yourselves?”

  “No, that’s not—” Hanna began, but Derick’s cool voice overlapped hers.

  “If that was the case, it wouldn’t really be any of your business, would it?”

  Hanna winced, and Benny closed his eyes as if he couldn’t believe Derick’s nerve.

  “Excuse me?” Ella said, holding up a finger. “Last time I checked, you were still in a relationship with me.”

  “We broke up.”

  “No, you said you wanted to slow things down. We took a step back—to think about where it was going.”

  “I didn’t like where it was going,” Derick said. “Which is why we broke up. Since you started ignoring me the next day, I kind of figured we were on the same page.”

  “I was giving you space!” Ella exploded. “And the first thing you do is jump into bed with her?” Here she pointed at Hanna as if she was something unpleasant Ella had stepped in.

  “Hanna, maybe we should—” Benny said, but Derick cut him off.

  “There’s no reason for Hanna to leave unless she wants to.”

  She did want to. The last place she wanted to be was in the middle of Derick and Ella’s highly flammable “define the
relationship” talk.

  Charles and Mary emerged from their bedroom with concerned expressions.

  “Ella?” Charles called down the stairs, “what are you yelling about?”

  “The boys are sleeping,” Mary added, put out.

  “Did you know about this?” Ella said, rounding on them as they descended the stairs together.

  “Your sweet, selfless sister only gave the two of you a second honeymoon so she could christen all the household surfaces in your absence.”

  “That is not true,” Hanna said, her cheeks aflame. It wasn’t an embarrassed burning, though. It was indignation. “I know you’re upset about this, and I don’t blame you. It’s not the best way to find out, but that’s no reason to make it into something ugly. The fact is there’s a history here that you know nothing about.”

  Ella’s eyes widened at Hanna’s outburst, but she recovered quickly enough. “How very Count of Monte Cristo of you,” Ella spat. “Well, go on, then. Regale us with your love story.”

  “Enough,” Derick said with a soft, deadly edge to his voice. “How we arrived here isn’t important.” He scooped Hanna’s hand up with his, fixed his eyes on hers. “Hanna and I are together, and there’s nothing you can say or do to change that.”

  Hanna looked up at him, grateful for the pressure of his hand in that moment—another anchor in the midst of a hurricane-force gale. He lifted their twined hands and brushed a kiss on her knuckles that warmed her cheeks.

  “Get a room,” Ella muttered, shouldering past them only to return seconds later with her car keys.

  “Don’t be stupid, Ella,” Charles said. “It’s pouring out there.”

  She didn’t answer, just opened the door and walked out into the downpour without looking back.

  An odd expression came over Benny’s face as he watched her go, and then he and Charles ran out to try and talk her down. When they returned less than a minute later, both of them looked as though they’d been caught in a tsunami. No one spoke. The only sound was Ella’s tires spitting water as she backed out of the driveway and sped off down the street.