by Amber Lin
Once her life had been full of new gowns and theater trips. That had all changed six weeks ago. The invitations had slowed as soon as the rumors started circulating. But Juliana hadn’t understood the severity of her situation until she was turned away from a party she’d been invited to months before. Right at the door, they had denied her entry to a home she’d visited many times. Her response had been indignation. How dare they assume the worst of her father?
He wasn’t a criminal. She had been so sure of it.
Then the creditors had begun calling in their notes. They couldn’t buy anything without cash, and the cash had run low. Servants had to be let go. And still, Juliana remained steadfast in her defense of him.
Even when the investigators had visited her father and interrogated him for hours. When they’d left with boxes full of his company papers, she’d still believed in him. Things would get better. People would accept the truth of his innocence. Society would welcome them back.
Until one evening.
After a light supper, they’d been sitting together in the parlor. He had been silent over dinner. He had grown more and more quiet over the weeks, but this was an extreme. Suddenly, he had slumped over.
She ran to him. “Papa!” His eyes were glassy. His skin was hot to the touch. A fever? He had worked himself ill! “We have to get you to bed. I’ll call a doctor.”
“Don’t need one,” he mumbled.
But she’d helped him up anyway, propelling him upstairs. He’d felt alarmingly lax, as if he would go any direction she pushed him. She got him upstairs and then faltered. What to do next? She had no experience in tending to ill patients.
She’d stammered, embarrassed at the thought of helping him undress. “Perhaps you could…prepare for bed. I’ll leave you to do so.”
He hadn’t heard her. “Ah, Juliana. You understand, don’t you? You understand why I can’t give them what they want.”
She knelt at his side. “Of course, Papa. You would never steal from your own company. You’re too honorable to do that. You care about the company too much.”
“I made the company,” he muttered, suddenly angry. “I own it.”
“I know,” she said soothingly.
“They want to take it from me. I won’t let them.”
“We won’t let them. Papa, please. You’ll overtax yourself.”
“She looks so much like you, Juliana.”
Realization dawned. He thought she was her mother. “Papa,” she whispered.
“I can’t take her with me!” he’d cried. “She’ll be alone, Juliana.”
She hadn’t known at the time what he meant, but the words had imprinted themselves on her mind. Cryptic. Ominous. As she removed his shoes and helped him into bed, fully dressed. As she shut the curtains and blew out the candles. Terror rose like bile when she thought he might have been predicting his own death. That he couldn’t take her with him. She’d kept a vigil at his bedside.
In the morning his bed had been empty and the authorities were knocking on the front door with an arrest warrant.
…
Dr. Richards stepped into the hallway. Nate went to meet him, a strange feeling inside his chest, as if he had a loose cannon rolling around his hull, haphazard and bound to break something.
“Well?” he demanded.
“She has some swelling on her cheek, a slight soreness about her hip, and minor scrapes on the palm of her hand. In short, I think she’ll live.”
Nate scowled. “Thank you for your expert opinion, Doctor. However, did it occur to you she might be weakened after her twenty foot fall into freezing water less than a week ago?”
The doctor sobered. “Yes, it did. However, she seems to have recovered well. Her reflexes are strong. She’s speaking clearly.”
“Yes,” he said impatiently, “But she can’t remember anything. Did she tell you that?”
Dr. Richards looked at him strangely. “No.”
“So? Is that a sign of serious damage? Should she be seen by a specialist?”
The other man spoke slowly. “If memory loss is the only symptom, I expect there’s not much a surgeon could do. It will most likely return as she recovers.”
Nate narrowed his eyes. “There’s something you’re not telling me. Out with it.”
A shrug. “Who knows the way the mind works?”
“I thought you were supposed to,” Nate muttered.
“Not about this. There’s been research that shows even if a physical event triggered the memory loss, the actual source could be mental ill-humors. Severe anxiety. That sort of thing.”
The canon ball inside Nate broke through, leaving him gaping, sucking in water, unable to breathe. His crimes against her kept stacking up. He’d chased her off a bridge, he’d held her captive. And apparently, he had frightened her so much she’d lost her memory.
She should hate him.
Why should that bother him? Everyone had always hated him. They’d tried to have him killed, to imprison him. But he wouldn’t die. Inside, though, it felt a little like he was suffocating. She would hate him, and as soon as she regained her memory, she would leave.
“Captain,” the doctor said. “Clothes aside, she’s gently bred. You only have to listen to her speak to know that. She’s not—”
“I know that,” Nate snapped, unwilling and unable to hear the rest of that sentence. She’s not a commoner. She’s not a courtesan. She’s not for you.
He already knew that.
The doctor nodded. “I’ll return tomorrow to check on her.”
“Thank you.”
“Not that I’m not enjoying my leave, but when do you think we’ll set sail?”
They should already have departed. Nate was supposed to have found Hargate by now. He should have run him to ground and killed him. And then returned to captain the Nightingale, because why should he care about Hargate’s blood on his hands? He wouldn’t. He didn’t.
She would care.
If her father died, if Nate was the one to kill him, Juliana would be heartbroken. And he wasn’t sure he could live with that. Even if he’d already ruined his chance to be with her.
Chapter Ten
Juliana stared out the porthole of the captain’s cabin, which gave a direct line of sight to the back of Hargate Shipping. So this was how Nate had seen her that night. The night she’d been desperate to find evidence to support her father, to restore her family’s name and fortune, and broken into the company offices.
And if she had succeeded, she would have ruined Nate’s employer.
Whoever now owned Hargate Shipping was responsible for the lies and plotting against her father. To hear her father tell it, they were no better than common criminals. Anyone will lie for the right price, her father had told her. He’d cursed the men who’d taken over his company, called them looters and thieves and pirates.
No wonder she had always thought of Nate as her pirate. She had to admit, he looked the part. Though he hadn’t caused her father’s ruination. He was merely a pawn employed by the real culprits.
She couldn’t allow his career, his livelihood, to be harmed on her quest.
Neither could she ignore the call of family loyalty that required she pursue it.
The door opened and shut behind her. She felt him stand beside her.
“Quite a climb,” he said, seeing the direction of her gaze.
Yes, it had been. She hadn’t felt the exertion then, fueled by adrenaline and a desperate need for justice. She didn’t feel any of that now, only a lingering sense of dread.
She took a deep breath. “I have something to tell you. My name is Juliana Hargate. My father used to own the building you found me in. He owned the company your boss took over.”
“You remember?” Nate’s voice sounded rough. With shock? With disgust?
“It came back to me on deck, with Bennett. Because that night…well, that night I had been trying to find evidence.” She turned to face him. “I suppose you know the story. T
hat he was accused of fraud. Of embezzlement.”
Nate cleared his throat. “And you think he is innocent.”
“I wanted to think so. Now I’m not sure. But he is still my father.”
“Juliana… where is he?”
She smiled sadly. “I don’t know. He disappeared before they came to arrest him.”
Nate’s face appeared dark, shadowed. He seemed almost sinister. “And you don’t know where he went?”
“No, he didn’t even tell me he was leaving.”
“I see.”
“I wasn’t trying to steal anything. At least, not in the way you thought. I just wanted to prove he was innocent.” Anxiety rose up, fanned by his silence. “Are you shocked? Do you despise me now?”
“No,” he answered slowly. “I suspected you had ties to Hargate from the beginning.”
Yes, he had accused her of spying for a competitor. He had been right. Words tumbled forth in a rush of breath. “I want you to know you can trust me. It was never my intent to harm anyone, even then. But now that I know you…after all you’ve done to help me…I would never jeopardize your career.”
His expression grew strange, almost comical. “My career?”
“You weren’t a part of that, anyway. Companies bought and sold. Your work is here, on your ship. I would never do anything to jeopardize your job.”
“Ah.”
“But you would never have sent me to gaol, would you? I know that now.”
He was quiet a moment. “Probably not.”
“Why is that? I know you hate when I say that you’re kind. And I was there to steal from the company you work for, exactly as you said. Why didn’t you turn me over to the Thames River Police?”
His expression was impassive. “The obvious reasons, I suppose. Not partial to authority. Or the conditions of prison.”
“You’re a reformer,” she said, surprised.
His hollow laugh filled the cabin. “Not quite. It’s simply a personal preference.”
Her eyes widened. “Do you mean that you…?”
Cold humor lit his gaze. “Yes, I’ve been to prison. That’s who you’ve been living with. That’s who touched you last night. So, you can see why I’m not exactly offended by your single night of recklessness. You played at being a thief for one night. I’ve lived as a convicted man most of my life.”
He was trying to scare her. The same way he’d tried to scare her in his house, all coarse words and cruel irony. But she wasn’t afraid.
She stepped closer and placed a hand on his chest. His heart beat beneath her palm. “Nate.”
However, he wasn’t finished. He turned his hand over and spread his fingers, revealing three black circles on one side of his index finger, normally hidden from view. It looked almost as if he’d drawn them himself, with ink. But why would he…
“Yes,” he said grimly. “One for each year I was in prison.”
“But how?”
“With ink. And a needle.”
“Didn’t it hurt?”
“Curious, are you? Shall I describe it in gory detail? Will I be your personal penny dreadful? I can assure you it hurt least of anything in that place.”
Her voice came out calmer than she felt. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head, dismissive. “Change back into the dress. I’m taking you home.”
She was silent a moment, as the reality of his condition sank in. A convict. Her enemy.
“It’s your home,” she said quietly. “Not mine.”
His gaze turned sharp, cutting her to the quick. “Where else would you go, Juliana?”
She winced at the sound of her name. Her father had been the last person to speak her real name. She had no idea where he was, if he was safe or even alive. And even if she did know where he was, she didn’t have a single farthing to help him.
But Nate did.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, lifting her chin. “Are you feeling well? I knew the doctor was a hack.”
“That’s not it. I can’t impose on you any longer, Nate. It wouldn’t be right.”
He leaned closer, a breath away. “And if I want you to stay? In my house? In my bed?”
She whispered, “Then it definitely wouldn’t be right.”
He chuckled darkly as his head descended. She let her eyes fall shut. His lips met hers, the warmth at once shocking and familiar. He pressed her against the bulkhead, trapping her between smooth planks and the rough landscape of his body. The contrast made her gasp. She leaned into him, seeking the hot coals of his skin, singeing her through the fabric of his clothes.
When he pulled back, the fire in his eyes was banked. “Would it be so bad?” he asked quietly. “Let me provide for you. I’d never hurt you.”
She would be his mistress. It was a good offer, considering she was penniless and already ruined. And she would be able to help her father—if she ever saw him again. But the words to accept stuck in her throat. At one time, she had been destined for marriage.
His eyes searched hers. What did he see?
She averted her gaze. “I don’t know you that well.”
He was kind enough not to mention what they had done last night. In the carnal matter, she knew him well enough.
Though, not completely.
As his mistress she would warm his bed. She would learn his body, and he would learn hers. The idea should have repulsed her, but she felt instead a tightening between her legs. These were the feelings that had driven her into her friend’s bed at school, where nimble fingers had explored and probed until they’d found a shuddering resolution. But it had never been as strong as this, nor as meaningful. As if the clench of her body wanted something to surround.
His hand ran down her arm, lightly, setting off trails of heat that led straight to that place. “Do you know what it does to me to see you in those clothes?” he murmured, his eyes stormy, jaw flexing.
“It makes you angry,” she guessed.
“That’s one way of putting it.” When she looked at him uncertainly, he shook his head, a slight smile on his lips. “Spend the day on the ship, if you want to know me. I have to work, but I can show you around first. If you get bored, the carriage can return you home.”
“The ship,” she repeated.
“The ship. Me. There’s no distinction. I’m the salt in the wood, the wind in the sails.”
Well, well. Her reader of gothic literature knew how to turn a phrase. A smile tugged at her lips. “Well, I’ve already learned one thing about you. You’re a poet.”
He scoffed, his cheeks staining red. “Are insults necessary?”
“I accept your invitation,” she said, as if she were attending a ball. “But only three dances, no more. I would not want people to talk.”
“Of course. Rest assured, I place the utmost value on your virtue.”
Her smile slipped. His words were playful, suggestive, but he’d hit closer to the mark than he realized. He had guessed immediately that she was a well-bred woman of fallen fortune—but neither of them had realized just how recently she’d taken the fall.
Hours, in fact.
She hadn’t yet had time to accept her fate. Maybe that was why she couldn’t accept his proposition to stay with him. Despite how earnestly he had asked. Despite the tender way he’d kissed her. So different from the grasping, crowding man he’d been in the upstairs hallway of his townhouse. And from his agitated manner when he’d visited her.
Being on his ship seemed to calm him. The almost imperceptible rocking seemed to soothe him. He said he would return her to his home, but his real home was the sea.
…
“Are you sure she should be up there?” Bennett asked, looking doubtful.
“She’s as good a climber as anyone here,” Nate said wryly. “Trust me on that.”
As they watched, Juliana reached the top rung and swung herself into the crow’s nest. At least on his ship she could use the safety system installed for the newer recruits. Enhanced guide lin
es and a wider platform on the masthead. A misstep twenty feet above the deck would be dangerous—and he’d injured her enough for one lifetime. He didn’t want to risk her. He didn’t want to use her.
Not anymore.
“Do you think she’ll stick around?” the boy asked.
“I don’t know the answer to that.” As much as he wished he did.
She waved down to him, and called, “Come up here.”
Then she was gone again, leaving him to stare up at her as if he’d gone mad. Which he probably had. He’d given up the only things that mattered to him—family, honor. Revenge. And traded them for a woman who would leave him the second she learned what he’d done.
All because he fancied himself in love. Nate Bowen, a romantic. The notion was so ridiculous he wanted to weep.
Her face appeared again. “Well, Captain?”
He could do nothing but follow her up. She stood at the railing, leaning into the wind. Her deep brown hair whipped around her. A particularly heavy gust made her laugh, and it took his breath away.
“Is it always like this?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“Exciting.”
He laughed. “If this seems exciting, wait until you see the ship in open waters. Then it’s a thing of beauty.”
Her smile dimmed, and he cursed himself for speaking. Of course she wouldn’t see the ship in motion. At least, not from the lookout. She could only wave him off as they pulled away from the docks, just as his mother had done.
His throat constricted as he imagined himself on deck, watching her grow smaller and further away. He would have a hundred tasks to do in that moment, but he knew he would drink up the sight of her while he still could.
Hell, he was doing that now.
He needed to do something to wipe that lost look off her face, to recover the happiness that had been there. “You could come with me,” he said impulsively.
She looked suspicious. “Come with you where?”
Really, he ought to learn how to stop talking. “On Nightingale. We depart soon.”
“And what would I be?” Her tone was playful, but her eyes were grave. “Your first mate?”
“You would be my lover.”