by Eve Silver
* * *
Aidan let Jane feed him warm tea and drag him near the fire for only a few moments. Once the worst of his shaking subsided, he insisted on tying himself back into line, taking his place among the others as they battled the waves.
In nightmarish misery the minutes dragged past and, in the end, there was no one left to save, no hope left to stoke. The child had been the last living creature given up by the sea. After that, only the dead washed ashore and, finally, only fragments of the raw wooden skeleton of the ship, tossed on the sand.
Weary to the bone, the villagers began to coax those few they had managed to save away from the beach, packed in wagons, or walking with blankets draped about their shoulders. Exhaustion marked them all, and deep sadness for what they had seen and suffered.
Such horrific loss. Of life. Of possessions. Of dreams.
Finally, to Jane’s secret joy and relief, Aidan slogged from the water. She snatched a blanket from the dwindled pile and with every muscle in her body screaming in protest of the damp chill that crept into sinew and bone, she went to him, dragging her crippled limb along like a twisted branch. Her foot gouged a trail in the sand with each lurching step.
He met her partway, and her heart thudded at the sight of him, wet clothes clinging to his tall frame, shadows of fatigue forming dark crescents beneath his eyes. Despite the weariness that etched his features, he was so very magnificent to her.
With shaking hands, he went for the buttons of his waistcoat, but she brushed him aside and undid the fastenings herself, uncaring who might see her tending to him. The cloth clung stubbornly as he shrugged out of the dripping garment, and she curled her fingers into the collar and tugged with all her might. His skin was so cold. With renewed vigor she pulled until the waistcoat came free. She reached for the lacings of his shirt but he caught her wrists, leaving her wondering at his strange modesty. Snatching the blanket from where she had dropped it, she wrapped him in the thick wool to ward off the chill.
She nudged him closer to the fire. “The dawn must come soon,” she said, aching to fill the void of silence with human sound.
“For us, the dawn will come.” His voice was rough gravel.
Snatches of conversation drifted along the beach, and the song of the ocean, far tamer now than it had been hours past. The length of her arm was pressed to his and she felt the shaking of his muscles as his body instinctively sought to warm itself.
She wanted to warm him, to press her mouth to his and breathe heat into him, from her body, from her soul, from the deep, dark longing that burned hot at her core.
“Your lips are blue with cold,” she said. “Let me fetch you another blanket before you catch your death.”
He closed his hand about her arm as she made to turn away, long fingers, strong, pale against the dark red cloth of her old cloak.
“I have been far colder than this. Tonight’s paltry chill is a balmy breeze.” Aidan laughed, a hard sound tinged with bitterness. “As to catching my death…” He turned to her, his eyes burning, and his hand fell away. “Would you mourn me, Jane?”
Until my dying breath. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, making prisoners of the words, for once they spilled forth, there would be no calling them back.
“Don’t answer.” He pressed a finger to her lips, his touch brief, his skin cold as ice.
Brave and strong and true, he had battled for every life this night, willing to sacrifice his own. But what of other nights?
The mystery of him tormented her.
“You saved many this night. You saved that child. You fought for life when others thought your efforts wasted.” She paused. “How many men have you killed?”
He stilled, then offered a rakish smile, laced with menace, designed to hide much. “More than one, so why bother with the tally?” The smile dropped away. “It’s what I am, Jane. What I was molded to be.”
Was there ever justification for such a foul and evil deed? Wetting her lips, she recalled the feel of the pistol in her hand, the recoil as the shot flew and found its mark in Gaby’s flesh. She had shot him because he would have killed her. Was that justification?
“Would you have me beg a pretty pardon of you, Jane?” Aidan rasped. “Ask forgiveness when I am not sorry in the least?”
With her gaze locked on his, she battled her perplexity, her dismay, the turmoil in her heart that pummeled her with vicious blows. How could Aidan be both the villain and the hero?
She thought of another cold dawn, another day, a woman dead at the far end of this very beach, and she saw at least one clear certainty. “You did not kill her. Ginny. You did not kill her, nor did you order her death. But you were on the cliff because of it.”
“Do you ask me, or tell me?” He did not look at her, instead staring out to the horizon, but she heard the tension in his tone.
“Tell you,” she said, and his breath hissed from between his teeth. She studied the clean, handsome line of his profile and felt a cool assurance. “I am certain of it. Whatever, whoever, decided Ginny’s miserable fate, ’twas not you.”
She slipped her hand into his. He did nothing for a long moment, and then, finally, his fingers closed tight about hers.
“It matters not, Jane.” He sounded infinitely tired. “I am still exactly the man I was before you reached that conclusion. My soul is still muddied, my heart shriveled and black as coal.”
Yes, she knew that.
And still she held her fingers laced with his.
* * *
Jane could not say how or when they returned to Trevisham. The journey was a great blur of chattering teeth and shivering muscles. Having offered his coach and the wagons as transport for the servants and the survivors, Aidan pulled Jane up before him on a great black beast that tossed its head and pawed the ground. And then they were away, riding through the bitter night, her back pressed to his chest.
She could not imagine how he found the strength to hold himself astride, but he did, his body a hard wall at her back.
At Trevisham, he tossed the reins to a groom, and helped Jane down from the horse’s back. She had taken only three halting, agonized steps, her aching limb threatening to dissolve out from under her, when he muttered a soft oath. Sweeping her into his arms, he strode through the house to her chamber and bellowed for a hot bath to be brought straight away.
He lit candles and stoked the flame in the hearth until it crackled and roared with blessed warmth, the lord of the manner doing the tasks of a servant. He appeared indifferent to the oddity.
In a short time, two young lads with sleep-tousled hair and bleary eyes brought the copper tub and poured steaming water from wooden buckets. Jane sidled closer to the fire, and stared longingly at the water, knowing it would go far toward easing the ache in her leg. The servants withdrew. She waited for Aidan to go as well. Instead he stepped toward her.
Far too aware of the width of his shoulders, the height of him as he towered over her, she watched him warily. His waistcoat was gone, shucked at the beach and never retrieved. He stood before her in shirtsleeves stiffened by salt and brine, dried by the wind. She could smell the ocean on him, though she must surely carry the scent as well.
Tipping her head back, she looked up at his face, at the hard planes kissed by firelight. His long hair fell in unkempt snarls, darkened by the touch of salt and sea. A fine gold stubble glinted on his jaw.
Exhaustion did nothing to dull his allure—not the shadows beneath his eyes, or the lines etched to bracket his mouth. He was elegant, sculpted lines, gilded gold.
He was unbearably beautiful.
“This tub is huge,” she murmured, then glanced away, wondering if perhaps she might have chosen a different topic of conversation.
“I had it made that way. A reminder of my fortunate end.” There was sarcasm there, a faint ugly edge.
“I don’t understand.”
“There was a time when I was lucky for a splash of salt water on my skin. I vowed that if ever
I had the good fortune of success, I would commission a tub as large as the one that lives in the memories of my childhood.” He gave a careless shrug. “Of course, to a small child, a tub appears far larger than it truly is.”
For a moment, she said nothing, overwhelmed by the information he had shared. Those frugal sentences revealed so much. A privileged childhood. A harsh youth. What exactly had made him into Aidan Warrick, the man?
The only sound was the tick of the mantel dock counting the seconds. Grasping the edges of her cloak, he undid the frogs that held it closed, his movements spare and intent. She trembled, her breath catching.
“Jane.” Her name was a command, bidding her to draw near.
“Go,” she whispered raggedly, raising her eyes to his as he dropped her cloak to the ground. “You must go and take off your own damp things before you catch the ague.”
He stood mere inches from her. She could feel the tightly leashed energy that coursed through him despite the trials and tribulations of the night. His hard mouth curved in a half smile. “I will take them off here, sweet Jane. Or you may peel them from me, if that is your preference.”
She gasped at the image conjured by his softly spoken words, at the touch of his hands as he cupped her face and leaned in until his lips brushed her mouth. She stopped breathing, wanting to press herself full against him and open her mouth and take his tongue as he had taught her. His fingers stroked her jaw, her throat, before coming to rest on her collarbone, leaving a trail of tingling awareness.
“Unless you bid me go.” His gaze locked with hers. “And Jane, know that if you send me away, I will leave. The choice is yours.”
Choice. Once before, he had reminded her that the choice to accompany him had been hers. Now, he left the decision of intimacy to her. On a night saturated with death, he offered her a moment to taste life.
“You have only to stand close to me, and my blood begins to sing,” she whispered, her breathing swift and uneven. “Where is the choice in that?”
His pupils dilated, dark pools surrounded by a bright band of gray and blue, glittering in the firelight. Sinking his fingers into her hair, he tilted her head, and when his lips met hers once more it was no tender kiss, but an open-mouthed claiming that sucked her into a vortex of need with uncompromising speed. She moaned as his tongue swept into her mouth, tasting her, stroking her, fulfilling the secret wish of her heart. He kissed her with intensity, with focus, and she felt as though she was his entire world in that one hot, wild moment.
“My God. You make me want to feast on you, taste every sweet inch of your body,” he rasped.
He captured her mouth once more. Her skin was awash in shimmering sensitivity, every stroke of his palm, every touch of his fingers making her weak with an aching desire that clenched low in her belly and shot through her limbs with near painful force. His fingers moved to the buttons of her dress, undoing them one by one.
Her breasts seemed to swell against the cloth, to strain for his touch.
Curving her hands about his hard shoulders, she reveled in the feel of his powerful frame, strong and solid. She leaned into him, the movement bringing her weight onto her damaged leg. A terrible wrenching pain shot from her knee to her thigh, and with a cry, she stumbled, crumbling to the floor, one hand clutched to her now gaping bodice.
A dreadful realization stole over her. Whatever his reason for wanting her, she did not doubt the sincerity of it. But she doubted the likelihood that his passion would withstand the sight of her misshapen limb. Tears pricked her eyes as he hunkered down next to her, his expression one of concern.
“Your leg, sweet? Here, let me work the stiffness from the joint.” His fingers grasped the hem of her dress, and he began to pull it up.
The thought that he would look upon her flawed limb was too much for her, he whose face and form surpassed perfection. Insecurity gnawed at her, her emotions strummed to a knife-edged volatility, and she knew that she would not survive the look of repugnance that would surely twist his features when he saw the ugliness beneath her skirt. Had not her father told her time and again that no man would want her with such a flaw?
Tears trickled down her cheeks as she frantically pushed at his hands, desperate to stop him from seeing her secret horror.
“Jane!” He rocked back on his heels, withdrawing his hands, his expression one of confusion. “Did I hurt you?”
She scuttled away from him, shaking her head wildly from side to side. “No,” she said.
There was hurt and perplexity in his gaze, and she was stunned to realize that her rejection caused him pain.
With fluid grace, he rose to his feet, giving a sharp nod. “Very well. I promised to go, and go I shall.”
He strode toward the door, then paused and spoke without facing her, his voice low and rough. “Once again I must ask that you forgive my trespass.”
Jane’s heart fractured at his words. She had wounded him without meaning to, but how to explain—
“Wait!” she cried. “There is no trespass to forgive!” Dragging in a fortifying breath, she continued, “The fault is mine.”
Slowly, he turned to face her. The candlelight cast his face in a flickering glow, highlighting cheeks and brow and jaw, accentuating his rugged beauty. He studied her with a cool and distant smile, in control now, his mask firmly in place. All this, Jane saw, and it only served to convince her that he would surely find her lacking.
Odd, that she had never before thought of herself as a woman of insecurity, never considered herself so faint of heart. Now, faced with the burning desire of this man, her dark prince of shadows for all his golden beauty, she became someone she did not recognize.
He took one step toward her, hands fisted at his sides, and the mask slipped just a little. “Tell me why you bid me go when your eyes plead that I stay.”
Tears clogged her throat, but she refused to let them force her silence. Better to end this now, end her foolish fantasies and tell him the truth. Lord, could he not see, did he not know that her limping gait was caused by some terrible anatomic flaw?
“I am not perfect.” The words came out flat and hard.
He blinked. “And?”
She stared at him for an endless moment while the fire crackled in the hearth and the wind rattled the windowpanes. “And you are. Perfect.” She looked away. “I will repulse you.”
In an instant he closed the distance between them, hunkering down before her once more.
“Look at me, Jane,” he commanded.
As she turned her face to him, he stroked her cheek.
“Look at me.” Slowly, he raised his fingers to the lacings of his shirt, but the knots had dried tight. With a snarl, he grasped the edges and tore through the lot so the cloth hung open revealing the elegant planes of his chest, the ridges of his belly.
She stared at the smooth expanse of skin, and the thin line of hair that arrowed down his taut abdomen to disappear into the waistband of his breeches.
“You think me perfect. Me? I stole you from your home, dragged you into danger not once, but twice, nearly costing your life.” With an impatient gesture, he raked the snarled strands of hair back from his face. “I offer no excuse for what I am... smuggler, privateer, pirate... name me what you will. And you dare call me perfect?”
Her breath came fast and harsh, for in his gaze she yet read his desire, the sharply honed lust that he made no effort to conceal.
“You think I will find you repugnant?” He gave a strangled laugh. “Hardly that. You are strong and brave and beautiful, my Jane.”
She shook her head.
“No one is perfect.” He rose to his feet, towering over her, and she could not take her eyes from him as he drew his ruined shirt first from one shoulder, then the other, before letting it slide from his fingers with a soft swish to puddle on the floor. “Everyone bears scars, some more noticeable than others.” A strange, sad half-smile curved his lips. And then he turned his back to her.
She cried
out at the sight of him, unable to stop herself. His back was a hideous meshwork of scars, raised ridges of angry puckered skin that crisscrossed with ruthless imprecision, as though someone had flayed the flesh from his back, right down to the bone, then shoved it back in place with cruel and uncaring hands.
The flickering light of the candles only accentuated the shadows and hollows. She could not imagine the pain he had endured.
A fresh surge of horror buffeted her as she realized that the scars were long healed, that this torture had been carried out many years ago, that some unspeakably evil soul had inflicted this cruelty on him when he had been little more than a child.
“Who did this to you?” She could barely breathe, so great was her rage, so intense her anger at the perpetrator of such a heinous crime. “Who did this?”
He turned to face her then, and in his eyes she read her answer.
“No,” she moaned, wrapping her arms about herself. Not her father. It could not be.
Aidan met her gaze, and when he spoke, his voice was cold and flat as the stone face of Kilmar Tor. “It was another’s hand that wielded the whip upon my back, but your father placed these marks upon my soul. Gideon Heatherington condemned me to hell, and like as not, he wishes I had extended my visit there indefinitely and stayed to act as right hand to the devil.”
A sob caught in her throat. If he truly believed what he said, then there was no mystery in his grave hatred of her father, no secret to his enmity. The mystery was his kindness to her, his enemy’s daughter.
She stared up at him where he towered over her, reading so much in his bleak expression, even as she read nothing. The light of the candles haloed him, touching his hair, his skin.
“How can you look at me?” she whispered. “How can you bear to even be near me?”