He glanced down at her. Her brown eyes shimmered with surprise, and something else. . .ardor? Her skin glowed in the moonlight, her lips parted slightly. And in that moment, he saw nothing plain about her. Even the feel of her rounded curves beneath his hands sent heat into his belly. He released her and backed away.
She averted her gaze.
“How is your head?” He gestured toward the spot where her wound had been, now barely discernable beneath her hair.
She dabbed her fingers over it. “It heals nicely.” She gave him a curious glance from the corner of her eye. “If not for this wound, none of us would be on this vile ship.”
“Indeed. And you would still be with your mother.”
“And you would have made your fortune and be attending soirees with Priscilla and have no need of. . .” She lifted a hand to her nose.
“Have no need of what?”
She waved a hand at him and turned her eyes to the sea.
Noah shifted his bare feet over the deck. Guilt assailed him and he didn’t know why. He had done nothing wrong. Was she concerned for her mother? “Is your mother ill as you said?”
She shot fiery eyes his way. “How dare you? I wouldn’t lie about such a thing.”
He shrugged. “I thought you were exaggerating so I would return you home.”
She looked back out to sea.
“I’m truly sorry that you are separated from her.” He wanted to erase the pain from her face and see the sparkle return to her eyes.
“She’ll die if she doesn’t get her medicines. And without me to care for her…” She inhaled a sob and lowered her gaze. “I tried to explain to the captain that I can’t be here…” She rubbed her hands together in frustration and Noah noticed that they seemed raw, rough.
He took one and flipped it over, examining it in the light of the mainmast lantern. Red blotches marred skin that was streaked with cuts and scrapes. “He works you to death.”
“He is particular about the way things are done.”
Noah shook his head. In all that she had endured, she never once complained. Without thinking, he placed a light kiss upon the blisters on each hand. She gasped, yet she made no move to take them from his grip. He ran his thumb over her skin. “Does he hurt you?”
She shifted bewildered eyes between his, then shook her head. “The captain is a lonely, bitter man. Truth be told, I think being at sea so long has befuddled his mind.”
“He certainly wasn’t open to reason the other night.” Noah continued caressing her fingers, relishing in the feel of her skin. She gazed across the deck, anguish flickering in her eyes.
Concern for her, for her safety, for her family, flooded Noah like never before. “I will get you off this ship, Miss Denton.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But I will find a way.” He leaned closer to her. “I promise we will not be here forever.”
The wind whipped the curls around her face into wisps of glittering cinnamon.
“Do not promise me anything, Noah. Promises are too easily broken.” Sorrow glazed her eyes.
And Noah wanted more than anything to prove her wrong. His thoughts shifted to Lieutenant Garrick and the way he had hovered over Marianne on deck, the way he had looked at her. Noah’s muscles tensed. “What does this man Garrick have to say to you?”
Her hands trembled. She pulled them from his grasp and hugged herself. “He is a cad, of course, but he is harmless.” Her voice lacked conviction.
“I am not so sure.” Noah caught her eyes with his. “Stay away from him.”
“I assure you, Mr. Brenin, that is my intention.”
The deck tilted again. Marianne reached for his hand. The melodious purl of the sea played against the hull, and Noah had the strangest urge to dance with her across the deck.
“Unless, of course, you plan on charming him as you have the captain?” His tone taunted her. But he meant his words. She possessed a unique charm he could no longer deny.
“Charm?” She huffed. “Surely you jest. I have not charmed a soul in my life.”
“I am not so sure.” Noah fingered a silky strand of her hair. What was wrong with him? Surely exhaustion had taken over his reason.
She stepped away. Her chest heaved. Then she glanced up into the tops. “They work you hard as well.”
Stunned by the concern in her voice, he nodded. “Ah yes, the top yards.”
“Is it safe?”
“Safe?” His laugh came out bitter. “It’s not safe anywhere on the ship.”
She lowered her gaze. Her delicate brows furrowed. “You are frightened of the height?”
Though the man in him wanted to deny any fear, something about her made him willingly admit it. “How can you tell?”
“I am not unfamiliar with fear.” She gazed across the molten dark waters and took a deep breath.
“You seem to handle your fears much better than I.”
“Don’t let me fool you, Mr. Brenin.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.” He smiled.
He glanced aloft, then back down at her eyes—penetrating eyes full of compassion. And something within them bade him to bare his soul. “My brother fell from the t’gallant yard.”
Her mouth opened.
“He was teaching me to sail.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “Oh, Noah.”
He jerked from her, chiding himself for saying anything, for invoking a sympathy he did not want. “It doesn’t matter.”
♦♦♦
Marianne swallowed the lump in her throat even as her eyes burned with tears. “Of course it matters. It wasn’t your fault, Noah.”
He turned away. “How do you know?”
News of young Jacob’s death had spread quickly through Baltimore, but no word followed as to the cause. An accident was all they’d heard. Afterward, Noah never accompanied his father when the man came to visit Marianne’s family.
“I know you, Noah.”
“Do you?” Agony burned in his eyes. He ground his teeth together. “I caused him to fall.” He tore his gaze from her. “I challenged him to race up through the ratlines and around the lubber’s hole while I timed him.”
Marianne stepped toward him, but he raised a hand to stop her. The ship bucked, blasting them with salty spray.
“It was my idea.” His voice cracked. “He was teasing me because of my fear. It made me angry, so I challenged him to best a time only a seasoned topman could match.” He hung his head.
A gust of wind whipped over them. Noah’s Adam’s apple leapt as he swallowed. “I held his bloody head in my hands and watched him die.”
Marianne’s vision blurred. The horror of it. The agony. She could not comprehend. Her throat burned as she tried to gather her thoughts, but they refused to settle on anything rational, on anything comforting. She laid a hand on his arm. This time, he did not resist.
“You meant him no harm, Noah. It was an accident.” Yet her words seemed to fall empty upon the angry waves thrashing against the hull.
“Tell that to my father.” Noah frowned. “Jacob the good son, the smart son, the brave son.” He shifted moist eyes her way. “He wished it had been me who’d died.”
Marianne shook her head, wanting to comfort him, but not finding the words.
“And I’ve spent a lifetime trying to make it up to him.” He gripped the railing and stared out to sea. “But nothing I do will ever be enough.”
The weight of his guilt pressed down on Marianne. How could anyone live with this kind of pain, this burden? No wonder Noah was driven to succeed. It wasn’t for the money, for the prestige, it was in payment for the death of his brother.
And his father had encouraged it, fostered it. It was, no doubt, why Noah had agreed to marry her—a woman he didn’t love.
“I miss him.” He rubbed his eyes again, then straightened his shoulders. “Forgive me, Miss Denton. It seems exhaustion has loosened my tongue.”
“There is no need for apologies.�
�� Marianne longed to comfort him but, as in most things, she felt woefully inadequate to the task. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. “No one can bear the weight of this, Noah. You must let it go.” A tear slid down her cheek.
He stared at her curiously. Lifting his hand, he wiped her tear with his thumb then caressed her cheek. His touch sent a wave of heat across her skin that made her thoughts swirl and her body reel.
It meant nothing, she reminded herself. He was beyond exhaustion. He was angry and despondent. Surely any woman with a listening ear and a caring heart would suffice to appease his loneliness. Marianne knew she should leave. She needed to leave, but the look in his eyes held her captive—a look that slowly wandered down to her mouth and hovered over her lips as if only there could he find the sustenance he needed. Marianne’s breath halted in her throat.
Then he lowered his lips to hers.
A quiver spread down Marianne’s back. Warmth flooded her belly. Noah’s lips caressed hers, playing, stroking, hovering. His hot breath feathered over her cheek. She drew it in, filling her lungs with his scent. He caressed her cheek, her neck, and ran his fingers through her loose curls.
Laughter shot through the night air, startling her and jerking Noah back.
“That ought to keep the blasted Yankee awake.” One of the watchman chortled to another man who’d just leapt on deck.
Heat flamed up Marianne’s neck. She attempted to regain her breath.
Noah’s jaw tightened. “My apologies, Miss Denton.” Then avoiding her gaze, he marched away.
Marianne laid a hand on her stomach and stared out to sea. Not exactly the reaction she expected from the first man she allowed to kiss her.
Chapter 16
Marianne fell onto her bed and sobbed. Her first kiss. She should be elated, filled with joy. For she had never thought any man would find her alluring enough to kiss unless it was forced upon him by marriage. Why then did she cry? Sitting up, she wiped the tears from her cheeks and tried to regain her senses, traitorous senses that had danced in a delightful flurry when Noah’s lips touched hers. Not simply touched, but caressed as if he truly cherished her.
But that couldn’t be. Especially not Noah Brenin.
Noah had not slept in nearly three nights, she reminded herself. The moonlight, the late hour, the slap of the sea against the hull, and Marianne lending a caring ear to his woeful tale, all combined to create an atmosphere, a desire that was if not imaginary, surely ephemeral. In his weary delirium, Noah had simply given in to the manly desires Marianne’s mother had warned her about.
Then why did she care?
This infuriating, reckless boy who had done nothing but make her life miserable as a child, who had shunned her and teased her until she cried herself to sleep at night. This oaf who had abandoned her at their engagement party.
Then why did she wish for something more?
Why did he consume her thoughts day and night? And why did the touch of his lips on hers send a warm flutter through her body?
A kiss. She’d been kissed at last. Marianne smiled and brushed her fingers over her lips. She had no idea it could be so pleasurable.
But in that pleasure she also sensed a power that could rip her heart in two.
♦♦♦
Following a line of crewmen, Noah lifted his heavy legs and climbed through the hatch onto the main deck. He rubbed his eyes against the glare of the rising sun that promised a warm day ahead. When the watchman had relieved him of his punishment at four in the morning, he could hardly believe it, for he had begun to think his penalty was more eternal than hell itself. Stumbling below like a drunken man, he had crawled into his hammock. Two hours of sleep. Two hours of precious slumber was all he’d been granted in the wee hours of the morning. But it was the sweetest sleep he’d ever had. In fact, he hadn’t even heard the boatswain’s cries “All hands ahoy. Up all hammocks ahoy,” nor the scrambling of his mates unhooking their bedding around him. Not until Weller and Luke—who had been released at the same time as Noah had—dumped him from his hammock and he fell to the hard deck below did he snap from his deep slumber.
Noah’s thoughts sped to the kiss he had shared with Marianne last night. No, it was not last night, but the night before. After she had fled the deck, the rest of that night and all the next day and night had blurred past him in turbulent shades of gray and white and black like a fast-moving storm. Visions of her maroon gown, brown hair, and full lips mingled with holystones and oak planks into a disjointed mirage that had him wondering if he had only dreamed of the kiss.
But no. He could still feel the tingle on his mouth. What madness had possessed him to taste her sweet lips? What madness had possessed her to accept his advance? Whatever the disease, he hoped there was no cure. She had responded with more passion than he would have guessed existed within her. For years, he thought her nothing more than a pretentious prig. When in reality. . . His body warmed at the remembrance. Was it possible she cared for him? Or did she kiss him out of pity or to make amends for what she had done? Since he had not seen her in over a day, he had no way of knowing.
“To your stations!” a boatswain brayed, and the crew scrambled to take their assigned watches across the deck where they would assist with the sailing of the ship or perform necessary maintenance. Normally the crew swept and holystoned the deck each morning, but due to the gleaming shine glaring from the wooden planks—thanks to Noah—he had saved them at least that chore.
One would think they’d thank Noah instead of shower him with grimy looks of contempt.
Flinging himself into the ratlines, Noah followed Blackthorn to the tops, trying to shake the cobwebs from his weary brain even as his old fear rose like bile in his throat. If he could not keep his concentration, he might end up a pile of broken bones and blood splattered on his clean deck—a tragedy after all his scouring.
“Good to ’ave you back,” Blackthorn said as they positioned themselves on the footrope.
A gust of salty wind clawed at Noah’s grip on the yard. “I’d like to say the same, my friend, but I’d rather be on the deck than up here where only birds and clouds have God’s good grace to be.” Noah tried to blink away the heaviness weighing down his eyelids.
Blackthorn smiled. The wind whistled through the gaps left by the two missing teeth on his bottom row. “Sink me, I’ll look out after you.”
Noah nodded his appreciation.
The ship pitched over a wave, and Noah gripped the yard. His feet swayed on the footrope. Every rise and fall and roll of the ship seemed magnified in the tops. His legs quivered, and Blackthorn clutched his arm. Though the morning was young, sweat slid down Noah’s back, and he wondered how he would survive the day.
The sharp crack of a rattan split the air, drawing his gaze below to where Luke and his watch mates battled a tangled rope. His first mate winced beneath the strike even as the petty officer glanced at Lieutenant Garrick at the helm. For approval? For direction? Or to plead with the lieutenant for mercy? Noah couldn’t tell. Regardless, Garrick nodded at the petty officer then chuckled at his fellow lieutenants lined up at the quarterdeck stanchions like cannons in a battlement. None joined him in his mirth.
Luke swept his gaze up to Noah. Even from the tops, Noah could see the bruises covering his face. Released from his irons around the same time Noah had been sent below, they’d barely managed to grunt at each other before they took to their hammocks.
The ship plunged down the trough of another swell, and Noah hugged the yard and curled his bare toes over the rope. After his heart settled to a normal beat, he turned to Blackthorn. “What has Luke done to incur such wrath from Lieutenant Garrick?”
“Sink me, who knows with that blackguard?” His friend spit to the side. “He hates everyone, ’specially Yankees. Before they assigned me t’ the tops, he used to have me whipped too.”
“Reef the topsail!” the order came from below. Men on deck began hauling the tackles. Noah bent over the yard to pull in the reef
lines, but he had difficulty keeping his mind on his task. If he didn’t get Miss Denton and his men off this ship soon, he doubted any of them would survive.
♦♦♦
At six bells before noon, or eleven o’clock, the bosun’s shrill pipe halted the men in their work. “All hands on deck!”
Thankful for the temporary reprieve from the harrowing heights, Noah followed his crew down the ratlines to the deck below. Still slower than a fish through molasses, he always landed last on the planks. But he would wager that he was the most grateful for the solid feel of wood beneath his feet.
Captain Milford emerged onto the deck in a burst of pomposity. His crisp, white breeches, stockings, and waistcoat gleamed beneath a dark coat that was lined with buttons shimmering in the bright sun. Black hair, streaked with gray, was pulled taut behind him. Traces of strength remained in the muscles that now seemed to sag with weakness. Climbing the quarterdeck ladder, he took his spot at the railing before the helm and looked down on his crew.
The bosun piped the men to attention and called them to muster in the waist. The marines, fully decked in their red coats and white pants with bayonets gleaming formed a line before the men. The petty officers fell into jagged rows behind them, while the midshipmen and officers assembled in crisp ranks on the quarterdeck, immediately aft of the mainmast.
Captain Milford stepped forward.
Wiping the sweat from his brow with his sleeve, Noah lingered near the back of the mob, anxious for possible news of the ship’s destination. But instead of good news, the captain bellowed, “You shall witness a hearing and subsequent punishment of a fellow crewman. Remain orderly and in your ranks.”
Noah bristled beneath the excitement in the captain’s voice.
“Master of Arms, bring forth the prisoner,” the captain shouted and Noah’s throat went dry, hoping it wasn’t one of his own men. Relief allayed his fears when the master dragged forward a middle-aged, beefy sailor whose neck seemed to disappear beneath his head. He halted before the railing, his face lowered and the irons around his hands clanking.
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