My Runaway Heart

by Miriam Minger

  Her heart was beating furiously by the time she reached the tavern, several men looking up from their mugs to eye her with surprise as she rushed inside. So, too, did the portly gentleman who she imagined was the proprietor from the apron around his vast middle. Lindsay hurried over to him when she didn't spy Jared among the few patrons.

  "Excuse me, sir, I'm looking for a tall gentleman, an American—oh, dear, do you speak English?"

  "Sí, señorita, a little," the fellow said to her relief, still appearing as astonished by her presence in his establishment as she was anxious to find Jared. "Upstairs, second room, but—but, señorita, wait!"

  Lindsay paid him no heed, hiking her gown and dashing up the creaky steps two at a time. But she took a brief moment to compose herself outside the second door, although she could do nothing to slow her heart or cool the warmth in her cheeks. She lifted her hand to knock.

  "Señorita, no, no! Wait!"

  Glancing at the proprietor huffing up the stairs, Lindsay didn't tarry any longer but threw open the door. "Jared—"

  She stopped, her eyes widening as Jared hauled himself in astonishment from a huge wooden tub, water splashing everywhere.

  "Damnation, woman! What the devil?"

  She stared; he stared; the proprietor stared, the red-faced fellow rolling his eyes heavenward and clasping his hands together in fervent apology as Jared grabbed a towel and threw it around his lean waist.

  "I-I tried to stop her, señor, but—but—"

  "It's all right, man. I'll take care of it."

  The proprietor appearing only too eager to return to his patrons downstairs, he mopped his face with a handkerchief and left. Lindsay almost felt like following him and she might have if her feet weren't rooted to the floor. Her embarrassment at having burst in upon Jared during his bath was nothing compared with the shock that overwhelmed her. Her stomach still lurched because of the ugly ridged scars she had glimpsed on Jared's powerful back and shoulders—a sickening diamond pattern she had seen only once before.

  One of Captain Oliver Trelawny's crew had served in the British navy, and had been flogged to within an inch of his life when he'd been accused of stealing from another sailor. Within an inch of his life . . .

  Jarred by the memory of Cooky saying those very words that afternoon, Lindsay licked her dry lips, something telling her by the way Jared was looking at her that he knew exactly what she was thinking. He cursed and turned away from her, not even trying to hide what drew her eyes again with sickening force as he reached for a glass of brandy set near the tub and drained it.

  "Why aren't you back on the ship?"

  His tone so harsh she faltered and said nothing, in the next instant she regained a measure of composure as he threw her a dark glance.

  "Dammit, Lindsay, why aren't you back on the ship?"

  "I-I would have been, but your men said you'd come to this tavern, and I so wanted to see you—to show you . . ." Flushing, she glanced down at her gown, spotted now from tiny droplets of water. "Cooky told me you'd wanted him to buy me something pretty. I chose this." She lifted her eyes to his. "Thank you, Jared."

  He didn't reply, but his gaze slowly raked her; then, with another low curse, he poured himself more brandy. "Very well, I've seen you, now go. Have my men take you back to the ship and tell them to return for me—"

  "No."

  He went as still as stone, the glass freezing halfway to his lips. Lindsay had never felt her heart beat so wildly, felt herself tremble so fiercely, but somehow she lifted her chin and met his deepening scowl, scattered pieces suddenly falling together with horrifying precision in her mind.

  Dear God, could it be possible? That Jared, like that sailor, might have served . . .

  "I'm not going to ask you again, Lindsay. I said go—"

  "No, Jared, I'm not leaving. Not until you tell me how you got those terrible scars . . . and about the Trident and—and— Oh!"

  Chapter 27

  Jared had stridden forward and grabbed her arm, spinning her into the room so roughly and slamming the door behind her that she could only gape at him, her jaw dropped in astonishment.

  "Who told you about the Trident? Walker?"

  "No, no, Cooky mentioned the ship a few times, is all. How there was no justice that she'd been the one to attack us—"

  "That damn old fool."

  Jared released her and strode back toward the tub just as abruptly as he had come upon her, leaving Lindsay to massage the white imprints he'd left on her arm. As he took a long draught of brandy, she tried not to let her eyes stray over his magnificent body, but it was impossible, her cheeks growing hot as flame. She tried not to think, too, of that arresting part of him which she'd glimpsed for only an instant— Oh, Lord.

  "I-I'm glad to see that you decided to leave Cowan's cabin, Jared."

  He gave a short laugh, but it held no humor, the sound laced with bitterness.

  "I stank. Decided I needed a bath." His eyes met hers, the blue so deep and dark in the lamplight that Lindsay slowly sucked in her breath. "But I didn't expect to see you."

  "Truly?"

  Her query soft as a whisper, Lindsay was almost as stunned that she had asked such a thing as Jared appeared to be, though a strange intensity now burned in his eyes. She sensed the shift as surely as he had touched her, a shiver coursing down her spine. If he hadn't expected her . . . perhaps at least he had hoped she might find him— Oh, Lord.

  "We have a bargain to make, you and I."

  His voice was so husky and low that Lindsay felt her breath stop; somehow she nodded.

  "I will tell you what you want to know and then you will leave. Are we agreed?"

  Again she nodded, his jaw suddenly so tight that she felt his tension in her own body, her eyes unable to leave him as he drained the last of his brandy. She jumped when he set the empty glass on the table with a dull thunk, the sound strangely deafening to her. She swore she could hear the fierce beating of Jared's heart.

  "I won these scars aboard the Trident. Most of them. The rest came from prison."

  "Prison?"

  "In the West Indies. Four years of forced servitude on a British man-of-war and three years spent in a rat-infested hole no bigger than Cowan's cabin. With two other men for company. Walker and Dag."

  Lindsay was so stunned that she didn't know what to say, while Jared's voice grew only more bitter.

  "I was seventeen, Elise only fifteen, when we returned to England from Calcutta to live with my uncle, Alistair Giles. But I was there only a few weeks when I was attacked on my way home from Seaford one night, two hired thugs telling me how lucky I was not to be murdered as they'd been paid to do, but that they intended to sell me to a press-gang looking for recruits for the Trident."

  "But who hired those men?" Lindsay blurted out, horrified.

  "Sylvia Potter, my uncle's mistress, because she wanted me out of the way. Out of the way so her son, Ryland, would have no impediments to one day marrying my sister. They had planned for me to die in Calcutta with my parents, poisoned by one of our family's most trusted servants—"

  "Oh, Jared, no!"

  "Something I learned from Elise just before she died. They had boasted as much to her after the marriage, all the while making her life a hell on earth—even told her the truth of what had happened to me, at least as far as they knew it. They said I'd been murdered, making Elise believe she was alone for all those years, with no one to help her . . ."

  Lindsay's heart flew out to Jared as his voice caught, but he wasn't looking at her any longer. He stared at nothing, his eyes haunted, his face etched with such anguish she felt she could envision his terrible memories as if they were her own.

  "So you see, I didn't abandon Elise and my uncle as everyone believed. That note I supposedly left behind about returning to India was forged by Ryland, the bastard. He destroyed it after the wedding, not needing it anymore because he had gained his vicious end. But more damage had been done, everyone believing the worst o
f me—the ton, your aunt, everyone. And I did nothing to change their minds when I finally came back to England three years ago. By then I'd had my own purpose in mind."

  His words grown so icy cold, Lindsay felt as if she were staring into the farthest reaches of Jared's soul. And what she saw was so desolate, so full of despair . . .

  "I fitted out a ship and manned it with those who'd suffered the same fate as I, men who'd been treated no better than prisoners aboard the Trident—Walker, Dag and the others—all of them taken against their will from their native ships and impressed into service in the British navy. If not for Cooky, I would have died that first week, I'd been beaten so mercilessly. No one believed my uncle was the Earl of Dovercourt—that foul play had brought me to that bloody warship. I never uttered a word about it again."

  "So for four years. . ." Lindsay fell silent as Jared met her eyes, his expression as hard as stone.

  "We finally managed to escape, almost fifty of us, when we set fires on several lower decks. We lowered galleys, then made it to an island, only to be recaptured and thrown into prison, since the Trident had already headed back to sea. And there we sat for three years, left to rot—and some did. There were only forty of us when we mutinied inside the prison, and nearly less when Dag was shot. He saw the guard about to fire and stepped in front of me—oh, God!"

  Lindsay jumped at the agonized cry that burst from Jared's throat, watching, stricken, as he picked up the brandy glass and hurled it at the wall. Then, as if that pistol ball had seared into his own brain, he sank to his knees and clutched his lowered head. Tears burned Lindsay's eyes to see such torment. Dear God, how could any one man have been made to suffer so much?

  "I swore then . . . I swore that I would do anything I could to destroy England, her trade, her ships . . . for the years, the years when I could do nothing to help Elise . . . for Dag, for my parents. And someday I will find them . . . I will find Sylvia and Ryland Potter . . ."

  He said no more, but his voice had shaken with such hatred that Lindsay shuddered, imagining his retribution against the two who had destroyed his family. His life. She had already seen the fiery devastation wrought again and again by the Phoenix. Devastation she feared, a terrible lump growing in her throat, and a burning need for vengeance that for this man might never end . . .

  "Leave me, Lindsay. Go."

  Tears slipping down her cheeks, she knew suddenly what she risked if she stayed, her love, her heart, her very soul, just as she knew that her decision had already been made.

  She could not leave him. She would not. Quietly, she went and sank down on her knees in front of him. He lifted his head, his gaze so ravaged it stilled her breath.

  "Woman, you must leave . . ."

  She silenced him with trembling fingers pressed to his lips, slowly shaking her head. "No, Jared, this time you will not send me away. I will stay."

  He stared at her for the longest moment, as if not daring to believe the import of her words. Lindsay waited, hoping, fearing, praying . . .

  His hand reaching up to grasp her fingers made fresh tears burn her eyes, but when he upturned her palm and placed a fervent kiss upon the tender flesh, a ragged sigh tore from her that matched his. Her breath gone, time had fled with it, Lindsay aware of nothing more than Jared as he rose and drew her with him, pulling her fiercely into his arms.

  Then his lips captured hers and she was lost, lost to the power and desperate hunger of his kiss as a searing need so intense filled every part of her that she felt her knees give way. But she didn't fall, for she was swept so suddenly from her feet that she gasped while the room seemed to whirl around her, only to still itself when she found herself gently deposited upon the four-poster bed.

  Yet Jared didn't join her. Instead he stood there looking down at her, the tension in his powerful body, the turbulence in his eyes telling her even now he might deny her, even now he was thinking to protect her.

  Everything Jared Giles had done had been to spare her from harm. She knew that now. Just as she knew she wanted to drown in the blazing torment only he could inflict, to drown and never again come up for air. With trembling fingers, she reached up and touched his hand.

  "Jared . . . please . . ."

  Her whisper driving straight into his heart, Jared could hold himself back no longer. All he could see was light, Lindsay's hair, her yellow gown, her skin, against the icy darkness threatening to overwhelm him, threatening to steal even this bright moment from him. All he craved was the warmth of her, the heat of her, as he buried himself in her welcoming arms and blanketed her with his body.

  Just as he wanted to bury himself that very moment in the wondrous softness of her body, to chase away all the howling demons tormenting his soul. But he could not, would not, humbled as much by the priceless gift she was giving him as by the love he'd seen shining in her beautiful eyes.

  His throat tightening, he lowered his lips to hers, so warm and sweet, so innocent, trembling with desire and perhaps the slightest hint of virginal fear. If only for tonight, he would bring her no harm, and as for the rest, with supreme effort Jared shut the looming reality of the future from his mind. Lifting his head, he stared down at her, his gut clenching with emotion so fierce for this woman even as he sought to soothe her with gentle teasing.

  "Hmm, a pity about your new gown."

  "A pity?"

  With her voice trembling, too, her soft breasts rising and falling against his bare chest the most beguiling torture, it was all Jared could do to hold himself still atop her and not think too much yet of that aching part of him pressed against the sweet juncture of her thighs.

  "Yes, that it has no buttons like one of my shirts. But I suppose there are other ways around . . ." His voice so hoarse he couldn't finish, he straddled her legs and began to ease the pale yellow muslin over her creamy thighs, over her hips, his lower body aching all the more at the sheer loveliness of her.

  While Lindsay could scarcely breathe as Jared undressed her, his hands skimming her flesh so lightly that she wasn't sure if it was her clothing or his palms sweeping like a whisper over her. Within a moment the gown was gone, slipped over her head and tossed to the edge of the bed, followed soon by her chemise . . . and then she felt the full seductive weight of his hands upon her; Lindsay moaned deep in her throat when he lingered to cup and squeeze her breasts by turns.

  But not long, dear Lord, not long enough, as he moved to slip her satin drawers from her body. An instant later she truly trembled, lying naked beneath him while his eyes seemed as intensely blue as she'd ever seen them in the lamp's golden glow.

  Her heart thundering, she watched his hands move to the towel slung low around his waist, and then that covering, too, was gone. He loomed, powerfully muscled and naked, above her; the part of him which she'd glimpsed a short while ago taking on new and startling proportions.

  "I'll not harm you, Lindsay, I promise," he whispered huskily, all trace of teasing in his voice gone as he bent over her, his mouth nuzzling at her breast. "Not tonight . . . not in this . . . I'll not harm you."

  She had no chance to wonder at his words, his lips seizing upon a swollen, aching nipple making her cry out, his tongue swirling around and around and then flicking at her with a mastery of equal parts torment and sweet ecstasy. Her fingers funneling into his burnished hair, still damp from his bath, she closed her eyes, never dreaming, never knowing, such pleasure could exist. But she flared them open in surprise when she felt Jared's fingers enmesh in her woman's curls, then slip into her body and tease a secret, hidden place that already throbbed and tingled.

  "Jared . . ."

  "Shhh, Lindsay, shhh." His lips molded to hers, his tongue delved wildly into her mouth and she surrendered to the passion of his kiss just as she gave herself over to the sensual agony of his fingers slowly circling her. Circling and venturing ever deeper only to slide out again until she felt wet and flushed and utterly weak with desire.

  Her hands fluttering to his stomach, she splayed h
er fingers against his taut, masculine flesh, the impassioned recesses of her mind overtaken by an instinctive yearning to touch him, too. And she did touch him, her palm grazing something silken and hard, her fingers closing around him even as Jared started and groaned raggedly against her mouth.

  "Woman . . . no, enough!"

  She did not heed him, would not allow herself to, sensing as he groaned again, like a dawning upon her as old as time, the potential of her feminine power to please him. And she wanted to please him so desperately, her hand slipping lower. Crisp, springy curls entangled around her fingers, his flesh grown even harder and throbbing against her palm

  "Damnation, woman, will you be the end of me?"

  His voice thick and hoarse, Jared dragged her arms above her head so suddenly that Lindsay gasped, a mounting wildness in him now as he clasped her wrists with one hand and caressed her body with the other, his touch first teasing, then almost fierce until she writhed and squirmed and moaned beneath him. Again his mouth found a hardened nipple and he suckled ravenously, only to trail a brazen path to the other breast, back and forth until she was panting and whimpering, her body shaking just as he shook, their desire a raging tempest more frenzied than any storm.

  She felt him part her legs with his knee and of her own accord she widened them for him, opening herself for him, not knowing why but sensing the timeless answer when his full weight settled upon her and a hard ridge of flesh swelled at the aching heart of her thighs. She heard him whisper her name, heard him whisper he might cause her pain, but only for an instant, and then he thrust himself inside her, so deeply that she cried out . . . tears stinging her eyes not because he had hurt her, but because at last, finally, she felt whole.

  "Lindsay, I'm sorry. Forgive me . . ." he said raggedly against her ear.