by Howe, Cheryl
Obviously, he didn’t intend to carry the game further than his token look of hurt at her accusation. The anguish she thought she glimpsed might have been an expression used out of habit. Surprise was curiously absent from his display. Perhaps he’d expected her to discover him. Perhaps he’d intended to kill her all along.
When she turned to bravely face that possibility, ready and willing for a fight, she didn’t imagine anything so ruthless. He stood where she’d left him, staring at the flag crumpled on the floor.
He looked up at her with wide eyes and damp lashes. “Felicity, what can I say to make you—”
“Don’t bother saying anything. I talked to McCulla. I know everything.” She found the strength to stare at him coldly. He wouldn’t know how much he hurt her or how close she came to falling into his arms in spite of everything.
The moment of vulnerability left Drew’s wet gaze. His features hardened. “I won’t deny I’m El Diablo. The Spanish gave me the name five years ago. How the hell was I supposed to know it would bloody stick?”
She heard the anger under his words. Let him be angry. She could bear his cool aloofness and his anger, but not his mock concern.
“You lived up to the name, didn’t you? Will you kill me once you’ve tired of me? McCulla wanted to know.” Drew didn’t answer, but for the first time in their acquaintance he looked truly murderous. She stepped back with the realization that despite her emotional devastation, she had no desire to die after all. The crimes he’d committed against her thus far were nothing in comparison to those of which he was capable.
He stalked her, backing her into the wall. Anguish over her broken heart hadn’t left room for her to consider that he could actually stop the organ from beating altogether. The furious set of his jaw rapidly changed her mind.
“How would you like it done, love? After all we’ve been to each other, it seems too ordinary to just skewer you with a cutlass or slit your throat. I know—perhaps I should strangle you with my bare hands.” He wrapped his fingers around her neck. “Isn’t this much more intimate? And I won’t be bothered with any blood in my cabin.”
His rough fingers covered her neck, his touch mockingly gentle. Her traitorous body interpreted the contact as a prelude to something more sensual than strangulation. Damn him for touching her with a lover’s caress rather than a murderer’s grip. His hold slackened and his hands slid down to her shoulders. He caressed the hollow of her neck with his thumb.
“For one moment...did you think I could ever hurt you?”
Of all the treacherous things the chameleon could do, he’d turned the shade that left her most vulnerable. The soft pleading in his eyes was more dangerous to her than his callused hands around her neck
Her arms came up between them, violently breaking his embrace. “Is that the look you gave Beatrice Marley before you sliced her open? I won’t shut my eyes in a pretty swoon while you do your dirty work. I’ll curse you until I’ve taken my very last breath.”
Drew looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Without another word, he strode to the door. Before he reached his destination, he abruptly turned to face her again. Self-preservation sharpened her instincts. He wouldn’t take her by surprise.
His tight jaw pulsed with suppressed violence. “Don’t worry that I’ll kill you, love, though you are sorely tempting me. I don’t care for men, and I’ve nothing else in which to spill my lust. You’ve served your purpose too well to destroy just yet.”
She wished he had strangled her. On pure impulse, she rushed him, but he caught her wrists before her nails could draw blood. His show of superior strength fanned her outrage. She kicked him in the shin and anywhere else she could reach. He tried to dodge her onslaught by holding her away from him, but her aching toe told her she’d gotten him at least once.
The fruitless struggle brought her quickly back to her senses. Her violent outburst plainly displayed the ravaged soul she had desperately wanted to hide. He had taken away even her pride. She gave up with a defeated sob, yanking herself free of his grip.
She turned her back on him as tears rolled down her face. “Get out. I never want to see you again.”
“This is my cabin. I’m afraid you’ll have to see me again,” he said in a thin, brittle voice.
She struggled to remain on her feet. Pain consumed her. He had to be out of the room before sorrow overtook her. Tomorrow she would be stronger, but not today. “Then leave me alone. I know who you are. I know what you are.”
Drew said nothing, but she could still feel him standing behind her. She had to say something, anything, to make him leave. “Your game is over and we’re all losers. Richard Marley and his poor wife, and God knows how many others died by your hands. If my father joins your list of victims, I swear I’ll find a way to send you to hell.”
“I’m already well acquainted with hell. I’m the devil, remember?”
She heard his departure but waited for the lock to click before she fell to her knees. Each sob burned her already swollen eyes and bruised her aching chest, but still she could not stop. After today, she’d force herself to act with all the strength she possessed. Her wretched tenacity would get her out of bed in the morning, even though she wanted to go to sleep forever. That same unyielding will would allow her to destroy a man she still loved any way she could.
***
The cabin door’s thick wood muffled what Drew guessed were Felicity’s sobs. Drew rested the back of his head against the sturdy portal, for a moment not entirely sure whether the noise came from inside his own head or from the other side of the door. For the rest of his life, he would hear her broken cries in the darkness of his mind. If he moved away from the room, maybe he could block out the sound, but he had nowhere to go. He could not let anyone see him like this. The tears Felicity freely wept were trapped inside him. Recriminations ate him alive.
He’d wanted to comfort her, wrap his arms around her, but she’d made it plain she loathed the touch of a murderer. She had been correct in laying the blame for Marley and Beatrice’s deaths squarely at his feet. He might not have killed them by his own hand, but if not for their association with him, they’d be alive today.
Drew walked away from the cabin, unable to bear being so close to Felicity without holding her. An orange haze filled the companionway, signaling late afternoon would soon give way to evening. He braced his back against the hull and waited. Dusk would allow him to hide in the shadows above deck.
When Felicity had believed him to be the man who’d murdered a man he’d once called a friend and a helpless woman in cold blood, he’d been beyond hurt and bloody well furious. In truth, Drew should have killed Marley once he’d revealed to Ben his plan to turn Drew in to save himself from possible exposure. But Ben had told Drew in confidence, and even if he hadn’t, Drew doubted he’d have been able to do in Marley, and certainly not his wife. That act in itself had been the first nail in his coffin. A pirate who shied away from ruthlessness didn’t survive.
Now, Drew had committed an even graver error. He’d left himself open to the opinion of a woman. After they'd made love, he would lie in bed surrounded by darkness and Felicity, and things he thought he’d forgotten had been pulled from him like rotten teeth. Throbbing memories of his childhood and of his family, to his surprise not all heartbreaking, evaporated in the sweet heat of the cabin. How could she see him as the fiend described by McCulla? But her accusations strayed too close to the truth. He’d finally been forced to see himself through her eyes.
The games he’d been playing had cost too many innocent lives. If Ben’s name was added to the growing list, it would be as good as killing his friend with his own hands.
He’d repaid the man’s kindness by dragging him along to spit in the face of England, society in general and even the devil. And as if that wasn’t enough, Drew had taken Felicity to his bed while running from the hangman’s noose.
Now his sire was calling in his due, and Marley, Beatrice and possibly B
en were forced to pay with their lives. Thus far, Felicity only had to sacrifice her heart. Though it physically sickened him for her to believe him a ruthless killer, he couldn’t blame her. The overwhelming evidence almost convinced him he was the one and only El Diablo.
He pushed himself away from the hull in disgust. His phantom persona couldn’t take the blame for the disastrous end to Drew’s relationship with Felicity. She had seen through him from the very beginning. He had kept things from her, not actually lied, but never told her the whole truth about anything. That was the way he had always lived.
Drew emerged on deck to find a waning moon struggling through a veil of dark clouds. Night promised to be swift and black. He strode across the deck, not doubting his face looked as menacing as the sky. Felicity deserved better than the half-truths he’d doled out. He’d smiled and only told her what he wanted her to hear. Somehow, he’d expected her to find out in the end, but he hadn’t anticipated the knowledge would rip him apart.
He should have apologized or at least taken his due like a man, but instead he’d acted like the bastard he was and always would be.
He’d lashed out at her for forcing him to care about what she thought. Her belief in McCulla’s tale left him feeling betrayed. The disgust in her eyes stopped him from defending himself. At least if he had tried, she might not despise him now.
Let her hate him. She’d still be close to him, but as his prisoner. He had told her he was already acquainted with hell, but the word he’d tossed around flippantly was about to take on new meaning.
His aimless wandering returned him to the door of his cabin. He braced his hands on either side of the portal. Having Felicity in his bed every night and not being able to touch her would be torture. The days would be worse. He’d have to avoid his cabin altogether. Felicity would skewer him with venomous glares or slap him with verbal accusations.
He fought the urge to fling open the door and promise anything that would make her look at him again through sleepy, sated eyes. That seemed like a lifetime ago. Even if he gave in to his weak impulse, nothing he could say or do would bring her back to him. He walked away from the cabin in no particular direction.
***
Sometime before dawn, Felicity heard Drew’s footsteps. She had retreated to bed, hoping the pretense of sleep would ease her emotional turmoil. It hadn’t. Drew’s approach proved that. She cursed her racing heart, willing herself to breathe deeply and her body to relax. Feigning sleep would forestall a confrontation for which she was not yet prepared.
He sank down on her side of the bed. Earlier, she had scooted to the edge of the large mattress. In the event he wished to sleep in his own bed, she thought the distance easier for both of them. Apparently, he had other ideas. His closeness stole her breath.
Behind the shelter of her closed eyes, she could feel his gaze on her, hear his breathing. Each second seemed an eternity. He just sat, nothing else. If his intention was to sleep, an expanse of empty bed loomed on her other side. His purpose in the room had everything to do with her. Had he decided to smother her while she slept?
She pictured her demise, hoping to dispel the deep desire to have him touch her. She had forced herself to imagine every brutal crime Drew had ever committed in an attempt to make herself stop mourning her lost love. For the second time in her life, the man who had stolen her heart didn’t exist.
In Drew’s case, she’d been unsuccessful in convincing herself of that. Too late, she realized she’d never really loved Erik. She had used him as an excuse to stretch the bounds of her sheltered life. His advances had met a willing partner.
If she weren’t so busy testing her wings, she might have noticed Erik was a scoundrel before he left Boston with her father’s money. Though Drew’s reputation made her first lover look like a saint, in the deepest recesses of her heart she could not see Drew for what he was. God help her but she still loved him.
He picked up a lock of her hair. Instead of preparing for the attack she should expect, she lay perfectly still, fearing he’d stop if he knew her awake. He gingerly replaced the strand, then leaned so close, she could feel his breath on her cheek. If he kissed her, she’d throw her arms around him and remember to hate him all the more in the morning.
With his arms braced on either side of her, he hovered as close as he could without actually touching her. After a moment, she realized he was smelling her hair.
“Please forgive me,” he whispered in the tangles next to her ear.
In that moment, Felicity knew she would. She’d forgive him anything and in the process lose every ounce of respect for herself. When he was near, she didn’t even care.
He straightened but lingered beside her a moment longer before standing. She clutched the sheet under her fingers to keep from reaching out to him. Until she heard the door close, she didn’t realize he’d left the room.
She flung back the covers and swung her feet to the floor. “Drew!” The cabin’s dark silence forced her to consider whether Drew’s presence was just a desperate dream.
No, he’d been no dream. His essence lingered in the cabin as clearly as the warmth left over from the hot day. But he was gone now, and she couldn’t go chasing him around the ship in her nightclothes, or anything else for that matter. She retreated under the covers and recalled his caress and his plea. Fortunately, her father’s face obliterated the softening creeping through her limbs and around her heart. To hold Drew within her body again, she might be able to turn her back on everything she believed, but she could not turn her back on her father.
When Drew was out of sight, her loyalties were without question. If her father was to have any chance at all, they must remain that way. She must get off Drew’s ship. No matter the risk to herself or to Drew, she had to set things right. She had to let the authorities know the truth. Her father wasn’t going to take the blame for Drew’s deeds.
The next time temptation came to her in the night with soft whispers, she knew she would relent. The cost of her weakness would be her soul and her father’s life. She might be willing to sacrifice the first, but the latter would surely destroy her. More danger threatened her in the confines of these four walls than did on the rest of the ship.
Chapter Sixteen
The pretty barmaid set a bottle of rum on the scarred table and winked at Drew. She reminded him of Felicity. Not because the slender blonde resembled Felicity in the slightest. It was just that she was female. Actually, every damn thing conjured images of Felicity.
He should have stayed away from her room last night. The pain of being physically near her, yet knowing she despised him, haunted him all day. Their arrival in New Providence should have turned his thoughts to the business at hand. But instead of studying the scarred faces that roamed the cobblestone streets, he found himself distracted.
He uncorked the bottle. After filling a battered tankard for Solomon and then himself, Drew drank deeply. The cheap rum burned his throat and made his eyes water. He had to get a hold on himself.
Forcing a smile, he glanced at the barmaid. She must be new to the island. Though the front two were seriously bucked, she had all her teeth, and her skin glowed with a slight tan instead of bruises. Women didn’t stay pretty long on New Providence.
Between his thumb and index finger, he held up a gold doubloon. He turned the coin until it caught the light pouring in from the large glassless windows cut in the tavern’s front. “I’m looking for a man who looks like me. He calls himself El Diablo. Have you seen him?”
She reached for the coin, purposely caressing Drew’s fingers in the process. He moved his hand and let her have the coin.
A seductive smile curled her lips. “No. I can’t say I’ve seen anyone as handsome as you, love.”
Her mouth was thin and even more so when she grinned, nothing like Felicity’s full...
“Surely you’ve heard of a pirate using that name. I’ve been told he has a king’s ransom on his head.”
“If you’re after the
reward, you best be quick. His Majesty’s men came ’round not but an hour ago asking the same thing. Those Redcoats drove away the business, they did. Could be fortunate for you, though. With my customers scared off, I haven’t a thing to do for the rest of the afternoon.”
“Nothing would please me more, but I fear I have a matter to settle with El Diablo that takes priority over my own pleasures.”
The lie rolled smoothly off his tongue, rewarding him with the barmaid’s promise to save any new information for his ears alone. The urgency to find the man who had killed Marley was real enough, but he had no desire to rise to her offer. Felicity had at least temporarily soured him on all other women. Maybe forever. If only he could handle her with the ease with which he had enlisted the barmaid’s loyalty. Felicity would have served him his tongue on toast if he’d dared to have attempted to sway her with such honeyed lies.
Solomon toyed with his untouched tankard of rum. “That wasn’t wise. Calling attention to the fact that you hold a remarkable likeness to El Diablo cannot be healthy. The woman could tell the British about you for the reward you were thoughtful enough to mention.”
Drew shrugged. “We don’t have time for subtleties.”
Solomon’s brow furrowed. “I could have made inquiries without you. You should have stayed aboard the ship.”
“No. I couldn’t.” He’d rather be chased by a platoon of Redcoats than stay on his ship a moment longer. Felicity’s animosity had started to seep through the walls.
To Drew’s relief, Solomon had ignored his dark mood through their search of New Providence’s crowded waterfront. Admitting he was upset would be akin to acknowledging how much he’d come to care for Felicity. He hoped his other unwanted conclusion was more mental flogging brought on by his rift with Felicity, rather than the only solution to his problem.