by Nina Bruhns
A cool breeze blew up the narrows from the open ocean beyond a collection of smaller islands that crowded around Frenchman’s Island. Mrs. Butterfield had packed a picnic basket with lunch and lent them a couple of beach towels to sit on, so they’d spread it all out and cracked open the six-pack, and were now lying contentedly on their backs watching the pelicans play dive-bomber.
“Dieu! How I miss the sea,” Sully said with a frustrated sigh.
Elizabeth rolled to her side and propped an elbow on the rough wooden decking, cradling her head in her hand. “Tell me about being a pirate,” she urged, wanting nothing more than to listen to his deep, melodious voice sharing tales of the life he’d had before she was born. Hell, before her great-grandmother was born.
“Privateer,” he corrected with a sardonic smile. “Remember?”
“Right. But weren’t you a pirate first?”
“Aye, though we confined ourselves to enemy vessels, even before gaining our letters of marque. Except for the slavers, of course. They were always fair game in my eyes, regardless of origin.”
So she’d gathered, from reading through a couple of the diaries while waiting at the hospital. Davey Scraggs had spared no detail in telling of the several merchant vessels the Sea Nymph had boarded and taken during the two years those particular journals chronicled. He’d also reminisced richly about the “old days” in between those colorful descriptions, as well as going on about the abominably heartbreaking conditions on the one or two slavers they’d liberated, too.
“You were a good captain,” she said, using Scraggs’s oft-repeated assessment of Sully’s abilities. “The men liked you.”
“Aye,” he agreed softly. “A leader is always better for having labored at the bottom of the chain himself.”
She wanted desperately to hear about those times, when he’d worked as a servant boy on the vast Sullivan estates of the 1700s. But sensed he wasn’t there yet, either. “Tell me about taking the merchantman in ’96,” she said, settling back down for a good story. The entry in Scraggs’s journal had made her laugh out loud—parts of it, anyway.
Sully grinned. “Ah, the Maria Estrella Encantada. Now that was a fun one,” he said, obviously knowing exactly to which adventure she was referring. “Her hold was full of good Cuban rum, the passenger cabins overflowing with lovely aristocratic Spanish señoritas being sent back to the old country as bartered brides and the captain’s quarters fairly sizzled from the vivacious presence of the captain’s wild Irish mistress.”
Elizabeth already knew who ended up with the exotic but incorrigible Irishwoman—Captain Tyree St. James of the Sea Nymph’s sister ship and constant companion, the Sea Sprite—or she would never have brought up the subject.
“Those poor innocent Spanish señoritas,” she observed with a disapproving frown. The one thing that had given her pause about the incident. “Being thrown to a pack of savage pirates—er, privateers.” Such scenarios might be the stuff of spicy romance novels, but the reality of it she was sure had been far from romantic.
Sully snorted eloquently. “Innocent? Ha!” Then his eyes lost all trace of humor, narrowing dangerously. “And you do realize, don’t you, that rape was a hanging offense even on pirate vessels? Strictly against the Code.”
“No,” she said, surprised, especially by his sudden turn in mood. “I had no idea.”
“Alors, there may have been exceptions,” he said with thick intensity, “but my ship was assuredly not among them.” Then, just as suddenly, his smile returned. “Non, those señoritas, they were smart, headstrong girls bound for lives of closeted servitude under the yokes of crusty old noblemen they’d never even met, in a country they’d never lived in. They were used to the relative freedom of the Caribbean colonies, and most resented having to give it up. Can you blame some of them for choosing to take their fates into their own hands?” He grinned and gave her a wink. “But not without some lively bartering first.”
Well, that didn’t sound so bad. She was possibly being delusional, but she believed him. As captain he no doubt had protected those girls and any other innocents who’d landed under his care during his life as a brigand, legal or no. His reaction just now said it all; his honor would let him do no less.
He continued the tale, filling in where Davey Scraggs had left off, and then went on to regale her with a dozen more adventures, each more entertaining than the last. Each liberally spiced with gold and jewels, liquor and women of easy virtue. The latter, he was always careful to point out—as had Scraggs—inevitably ending up in St. James’s bed, usually much to the other captain’s misadventure and the amusement of the crews.
“And what about you, Sully?” she asked as he chuckled at another of Tyree’s romantic foibles. “All those women…”
“Ah, chère. If you’ve read a single entry in those diaries, you’ll know I was ever-faithful to your namesake.” The laughter faded and again his expression clouded. “And more the fool for it.”
She turned to him. “What did she do?”
“It seems she plotted behind my back to relieve me of my wealth. Using my love for her as a weapon against me.” He took a long swig of beer. “The signs were all there. I was just too blinded by her allure to see them.”
Elizabeth turned away again, all of a sudden uncomfortable. Was she doing the same thing? If you substituted “wealth” for “bone marrow”…?
“Don’t worry, chère,” he said, as if sensing her guilt trip. “You have been honest with me about your plotting. If she had been as honest, had she but asked me, I would have given her everything she desired….”
And yet Elizabeth had asked him over and over for what she needed, only to be refused each time. Sorely piqued, she sat up and wrenched off the top of another beer. “How nice for her,” she muttered under her breath.
She didn’t know what it was, the thought of him loving another woman so much he’d give up everything for her, or his continuous flat refusal to help her brother, or the reality-bending fact of his present existence, or a combination of it all. Or hell, maybe just too much sun. But whatever it was, she suddenly couldn’t take any more.
He’d proven without a doubt who he was. But she was in no mood to press him about the subject she’d originally wanted to broach—the true reason behind his hatred for the Sullivans. The last thing she wanted to hear was still more reasons for her insanity in falling for the man.
She got to her feet and dusted off her butt.
Alarmed, Sully sat up. “Lizzie? Where are you going?”
Now, there was the million dollar question.
She started packing the picnic things. “I don’t know, Sully. I honestly don’t know.”
But this was not working. Every minute she spent with him she fell more in love with the stubborn mule. But it was all on her. He wasn’t willing to compromise to be with her. Wasn’t willing to give her the only thing she wanted from him other than his love.
And God help her, she couldn’t compromise, either.
No, this train was heading down the track to true disaster and she had to get off soon or risk crashing with it. Already, she’d be hurting for a long time. Possibly a lifetime.
“What did I say?” he asked in true bewildered male fashion as he muscled to his feet. “Mon cœur, you know I’ll give you anything your heart desires. I’m a very wealthy man, thanks to those coins. And Tyree, of course. He recovered our buried treasure and invested…”
The words trailed off as his gaze found hers. “Ah.” He pulled the brim of his ball cap over his eyes and stared out over the water.
“Yeah. Ah,” she echoed. “It’s no use, Sully. We’re wasting our—”
“You promised you’d stay,” he interrupted, his voice tinged with a shade of boyish petulance, “if I explained my reasons.”
“I haven’t heard any, yet.”
“True,” he said, raised his nose and set his frame in an arrogant, spread-footed power stance she was sure in his past had intimidated grown
men into obedience and impressionable women to swoon. Even in shorts it was impressive.
But she was beyond intimidation, and she’d never swooned in her life. She hiked her brows.
“I never said when I’d explain.”
“No,” she said stiffly. No wonder the Sea Nymph rarely had to fire a shot to capture an enemy vessel. The man was a born negotiator. “And how long do you expect me to wait?”
His gaze slipped from her face and slid down her body, then worked its way up again. Somewhere along the line she’d shed her shirt and shorts, so there was a lot of territory to cover. He paused at her barely covered breasts, which were rosy from the sun and glistened with a sheen of sweat and suntan lotion. Her nipples tightened as though she’d suddenly been transported to the Antarctic.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
She blinked. Then her jaw dropped as the inference became clear. “Excuse me?”
“Tomorrow,” he repeated.
She stared at him, stunned. “You want me to stay until tomorrow because…?”
“That should be fairly evident.”
It was, in fact, evident, and growing more so by the second.
“You would blackmail me for a night of sex?” she said incredulously.
What was less obvious, she despaired, was how tempted she was to accept the devil’s bargain.
Sully refused to back down, even as he watched Elizabeth’s face fill with disbelief. Perhaps horror.
“I am a pirate,” he reminded her flatly. “And it was you who said all is fair in love and war.”
And one thing he’d realized about Elizabeth. She didn’t prevaricate or do things halfway. If she was determined to leave, he had no choice. He must discard all his scruples to make sure she didn’t.
He wanted her to stay.
He wanted her to be his.
He wanted her any way he could get her.
And what Captain Sullivan Fouquet wanted, one way or another he always got. Always. Hadn’t he even been brought back from the dead to have his greatest wish fulfilled?
He felt an unwelcome stab of guilt over the fate of Elizabeth’s brother. But it was too late—the damage was done. The curse had sealed Caleb Sullivan’s destiny long ago. Long before he was born.
“Is that what this is…war?” she asked.
Personally he would have chosen the other alternative. But it was a close call, so whatever worked. He lifted a shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be.”
She cut him a look. “If I surrender, you mean?”
“If you accept things as they are.”
“Not in my nature.”
He reached out and caught a strand of her hair being tossed by the breeze, and fingered it. “But surrender is.”
A wellspring of vulnerability rose in her eyes for a split second, then she tried to take a step back. In a flash he grasped her behind the neck, preventing her from moving away.
“Sully…” she whispered. “Don’t do this.”
“Why?” he asked softly, hauling her gently back to him. “You’re my woman. I have every right to want you. To enjoy your surrender.”
“I’m not your woman,” her mouth said, but her eyes said differently.
And to prove it, he pulled her lying mouth against his and kissed her. She gave a weak mewl of protest, tried to pull away, but soon gave in and wrapped her arms around him. As he’d known she would.
“Tomorrow, Elizabeth,” he murmured. “Surrender to me today, and tomorrow we can take up the fight again, if you must.”
“I must,” she said, but kissed him back.
And then she sweetly surrendered to him. Let him hold her close and kiss her there on the pier in the warm sunshine surrounded by the lapping water and the calling birds and the fragrant smells of summer. And then she let him lead her back to his room and she surrendered all over again, let him hold her close between his cool sheets, surrounded by his yearning body and their hoarse cries and the musky scent of their desire to be one forever.
A desire, he feared, their present course would shatter, as surely as their bodies lay shattered and spent as the sun dipped beneath the horizon, turning today inexorably into tomorrow.
They had a tacit, unspoken agreement not to bring up anything that might divide them. To save it for tomorrow. Tonight, tonight would be their midsummer night’s dream, where they could lose themselves in the gossamer spell cast by their lovemaking and pretend the fairy story would never end.
Sully stroked Elizabeth’s bare hip as she lay across his chest reading from one of Davey Scraggs’s diaries. He was as content as he’d ever been. His body was sated, his hunger quenched and his soul rejoicing from the miracle of this new life he’d been granted and the love he’d found here.
Something warm and wet plopped on his chest. He glanced down in surprise to find her wiping away a tear.
“Hey, what?” he asked.
She smiled and shook her head, embarrassed to be caught. “Nothing. Just being silly.”
He took the diary from her and checked the date on the entry she was reading. Merde. “You’re reading about my death?”
“The funeral, actually. Yours and Tyree’s. Your men were quite upset.”
Mon Dieu. He touched her cheek with his thumb, wiping away the moisture that clung to her eyelashes. “You mourn a man who just made love to you, mon coeur.”
She gave him a watery smile. “Davey wrote some very touching passages.”
Moved by her reaction, he pressed a kiss to her lips. He wanted to tell her how much her tears meant to him. How much he loved her sentimentality and softness of heart. How much he loved her. But he didn’t dare. Tomorrow she would only use it against him.
“You are sweet,” he said instead, and kissed her again to disguise his yearning. “Read some more. Aloud for me. But not there.” He settled back down on the mattress, pulled her onto his chest and gave her back the journal after turning a few pages forward. “There. I’d like to know what the men did after Tyree and I were gone.”
Unfortunately, when she began reading, it couldn’t have been from a worse page.
“T’peaceful proceedins was interrupted by an outburst from Gideon Spade t’Nymph’s boson who claimed he had t’love o’ the wench and they was t’be married. Gideon were led away a’shoutin and spent t’nite in gaol for bein in his cups ’n disturbin t’seriousness o’ t’priests pretty readin. Course, t’were all utter rot cuz everone knowt that cap’n Sully was Elizabeth Hayden’s betrotht.”
Sully froze, comprehension dawning as to what the passage was all about. Fury swept through him. Here was proof positive of her treachery!
But he was snapped back to the present by Elizabeth slamming the book shut and tossing it angrily onto the bed next to her. “Damn it! I just can’t get away from that woman, can I?”
He was paralyzed for a moment, caught between wanting to read more, to backtrack to the beginning of this passage in Davey’s journal and learn the whole sordid truth of his former fiancée’s perfidy, or to soothe the woman lying over him and assure her the other one meant less than nothing.
It was really no contest. He gathered this Elizabeth into his arms and kissed her warmly, tucking away his fury for a more appropriate time. When he was alone.
“Jealous?” he asked lightly, and gave her an unrepentant grin.
She scowled peevishly and smacked his arm. “Not a chance. Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Oh, just a crazy hunch.”
She stuck out her bottom lip. “Well, I’m not.”
He flipped them on the mattress so she was forced to grab his biceps as she landed under him. “Bien. Because,
chère, you have no reason to be. You’re the only woman I want. The only woman I’ll ever want again.”
Her eyes softened and her arms slid around his neck. “Oh, Sully. If that’s true…”
“I know,” he murmured. “I’m in big trouble.”
“No,” she whispered. “We both are.”
&nbs
p; Chapter 12
W hen Sully awoke late the next morning, Elizabeth was curled up on the window seat overlooking the back garden, engrossed in another of Davey’s diaries. For a moment, he stacked his arms under his head on the pillo w and just watched her with a loopy smile.
She was so beautiful. Silhouetted against the blue sky and light green of the foliage, her pale skin appeared porcelain delicate and her blond hair shone like pieces of eight in the morning sun. She’d slipped on one of his white T-shirts, but he could see right through it to the delicious curves of her body. And her legs, her gorgeous long legs, were folded around her luscious bottom, reminding him of how they’d wrapped themselves around his hips for most of the night.
His smile must have changed character during his slow perusal of her body, for when she glanced up and saw it, her lips parted and her cheeks took on a rosy flush.
“Morning,” he said.
“You’re awake.”
“Seems to me I’m still asleep and dreaming of an angel.”
The flush deepened, accompanied by a shy smile of pleasure. “Keep talking, pirate man. Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“That’s what I was hoping.” He flipped down the covers. “Come on back over here and I’ll whisper some more in your ear.”
She dropped the journal and came to him, sliding into his arms as he rolled them and thrust into her in one motion. She greeted his entry with a low moan and held him tight.
This morning he wanted it long and slow. So, true to his word, he began whispering sweet nothings in her ear, along with a few less-than-sweet ones designed to arouse and enflame. It had the desired effect. She was soon breathless.
He made it last and last, bringing her to a peak twice before allowing himself to join her in completion. And when they’d finally come back to earth and lay in each other’s arms, she turned to him with dreamy, half-lidded eyes.