He glanced down, surveying her, and even in the dim light she could see the amusement flickering his eyes. “You’re obviously as unfamiliar with a sailing vessel as I am with a plantation. On a ship, one goes up on deck, or above deck, not ‘upstairs.’”
The hint of laughter in his voice relieved rather than annoyed her. “Above deck, then. May I?”
“I suppose so, under the circumstances—if you can keep out of the way of my crew.”
“Of course.”
As Selena moved to cover the cage with the cloth, Kyle indicated the parrot with an inclination of his head. “Do you mean to take Horatio with you?” he asked curiously.
“To be truthful, I’d rather not expose him to the rough language of seamen. He’s very clever for a bird and is likely to repeat anything he hears.”
“I’ll warn my men to keep their salty tongues between their teeth.”
“Oh, no, there’s no need—” Selena began before realizing that Kyle was roasting her. “I shall keep Horatio out of their way and yours,” she assured him frostily, her spine stiffening as she turned to don her pelisse as protection against the wind.
Belatedly remembering his duty as a gentleman, Kyle took the wine-colored garment from Selena and held it up for her. When she had slipped it on, he hesitated, his hands resting lightly on her upper arms.
“Moonwitch,” he said gently in her ear, “you needn’t fear the ship will go down. I haven’t lost a vessel yet.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Kyle, conscious of the intense physical awareness she felt at his nearness. Why was she so strongly attracted to him? He had treated her with little more than grudging tolerance since he had known her. “You don’t think my drowning would be a fitting revenge for forcing you into marriage?”
She regretted the words at once, for Kyle’s expression instantly turned grim again.
His hands dropped to his sides. “If you need anything, Hardwick is at your disposal.”
What if I need a husband who cares for me? she thought despairingly. What if I need a friend to converse with, to share laughter and sorrow with, someone to love? But she said nothing.
Instead, she mounted the companionway stairs in the fading twilight to bid a silent and lonely farewell to her homeland.
Chapter Seven
As it turned out, the voyage wasn’t quite as bad as she feared. The first night was the worst. Realizing she couldn’t remain on deck the entire time, Selena allowed Mr. Hardwick to escort her to the officers’ cabin for a late supper, where he tried to entertain her in Kyle’s absence. After a brief stroll on deck, he persuaded her to retire to her own cabin.
Selena passed a restless night, starting awake every time the schooner rolled over a deep trough, but at least her preoccupation kept her from feeling too homesick. And she suffered nothing more than a minor queasiness from the rising and sinking with the motion of the ship. Thank goodness, Selena thought as she dragged herself from the bunk the next morning. If she had been susceptible to seasickness, she would have lost Kyle’s respect entirely.
She had vowed to keep out of his way and not cause him or his crew any trouble, but she ran into a minor difficulty almost at once: the matter of her corsets. Unlacing was no problem, for she could reach the ties easily enough. But without a maid to help, she found it was impossible to tie the laces tightly enough to fit into her gown.
When a cabin boy brought her breakfast, she had to send him away, for she was still engaged in the struggle. Hardwick came a moment later. He called to her through the door, expressing worry that she might be ill, and his concern made her overcome her discomfort at being seen in such a state. Dressed in a wrapper, holding the lapels close together at her throat, Selena opened the door a crack.
“I’m not ill,” she explained with a blush. “Indeed, I’m quite comfortable. It’s just that I am having a slight difficulty getting dressed. I’m accustomed to the services of a maid, you see.”
“Of course,” Hardwick said kindly. “I should have foreseen it. I’ll fetch the captain at once.”
“That won’t be necessary!” Selena protested. “I’m sure I can manage.” But Hardwick murmured that this problem was in the captain’s domain and disappeared along the companionway.
When Kyle arrived some moments later, he entered the cabin with extreme wariness. But his unwanted wife wasn’t attempting a seduction, he realized as she carefully shut the door. Rather, she was embarrassed. Her cheeks were flushed the same pale coral shade as her wrapper.
“Hardwick said you needed me,” Kyle remarked, his tone guarded.
Selena couldn’t meet his eyes. “Do you suppose,” she asked in a faltering voice, “that you might help me tie the laces of my corset? I can’t accomplish it alone… and I had no one else to ask.”
Kyle, who had spent far more time helping ladies out of their corsets than in, stared at Selena. Her appearance was a striking contrast between angelic and wanton. Her pale hair, still tousled from sleep, spilled around her face, while the virginal way she was clutching at the throat of her wrapper suggested she feared he might attempt her virtue again.
Kyle greatly preferred her hair down to the severe style she frequently wore, but the sight, combined with quick rise and fall of her breasts beneath the frail muslin, aroused carnal feelings in him that he had no business feeling if he meant to seek an annulment of their marriage. Yet he couldn’t think of a way to refuse her simple request without seeming churlish, not without admitting how fragile his control was whenever he was near her. Especially, he thought with a mental groan, when she was half-naked. Gritting his teeth, he nodded brusquely.
Selena, who still wouldn’t meet his eyes directly, modestly presented her back to him. She was, however, quite aware of Kyle’s scrutiny. It had sent her pulse rate soaring and nearly shattered what little composure she had been able to summon. Now she would have to yield what little protection she had. But it had to be done. Her body tense, she took a deep breath and let the wrapper slip off her shoulders.
Kyle, too, sucked in his breath. The loose corset covered her long, slender back with lace and satin, but Selena’s smooth shoulders were completely bare and so was a vast amount of ivory skin. He realized at once that breathing was a mistake, for her scent—the scent of warm violets—filled his nostrils and made him want to brush aside the fine, silver-blond tresses and lower his lips to the curve of her neck. It was all he could do to keep his hands from sliding around her to fondle the ripe breasts that were being pushed up so provocatively by the stiffened fabric of the unlaced corset.
With a silent oath, Kyle forced such provocative thoughts from his mind. Bracing himself, he focused on the crisscrossing laces of the garment.
Her body was tense; he could feel it as he began his task. But so was his. And his fingers, which had tied thousands of knots during his long career at sea and mended even more sails, were unsteady. They slipped as he pulled on a delicate ribbon.
“Infernal things,” Kyle muttered, trying to get a better purchase.
His voice was huskier than he would have liked—and huskier than Selena would have liked. It quivered down her spine like a caress. Tensing even further, she focused her gaze on the cabin porthole and tried to ignore how Kyle’s long fingers felt as they brushed against her back. Her skin had turned into a trembling jumble of nerve endings.
When Kyle mumbled another oath, she cast a worried glance at Horatio. Yet she was less concerned that he might add Kyle’s comment to his vocabulary than grateful for the distraction the parrot presented.
The silent Horatio was no distraction at all to Kyle, though; his fumbling fingers refused to do his bidding.
“Damn and blast it!” he swore as he tried for the third time to loop the ribbon ends into a simple bow.
“Awk! Blast it! Blast it!”
Kyle’s head came up abruptly at the squawk. “No one asked your opinion,” he growled, giving the parrot a darkling look. He turned that look on Selena when she caught he
r lower lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry!” he ground out. “I forgot that blas… that bird was there.”
He tackled the laces again, wishing he was anywhere but there in the cabin with an eager-eared parrot and Selena Markham… Ramsey. Especially Selena. One part of him wanted nothing to do with her. Another wanted to punish her for bringing him to such a pass. And yet another—by far the greatest part—wanted to take her in his arms and awaken all the exquisite, undiscovered passion in that lovely body.
One thing he was certain, though: he couldn’t take being in such close quarters with Selena for the entire trip. It would be more than a week before they reached New Orleans, and he was already aching for her like a callow schoolboy. What was worse, his condition would be obvious to any of his men, if not the lady herself, which meant that when he left her cabin, he would have to find a remote hiding place where he could cool off.
No, definitely he wasn’t fool enough to repeat this torture day after day.
“I suggest,” Kyle said tersely as he at last succeeded in strapping her into the feminine garment, “that from now on you leave off wearing a corset until we leave the ship. I don’t have time to play lady’s maid.”
“Corset, awk! Horatio loves a corset!”
“Oh, dear,” Selena breathed. Biting her lip, she glanced up at Kyle.
The look she gave him wasn’t so much accusing as humorous—whether due to his woeful attempts at acting as maid or the parrot’s ability to latch on to improper words, Kyle was in no mood to find out. At the end of his patience and restraint, he strode to the door and flung it open.
“I also suggest,” he warned with quiet vehemence, “that you find a way to teach that bird to button his lip. I’ve heard tell that parrots make excellent fish bait!”
Kyle had thought he had solved the problem of his lovely wife by refusing to go near her, but his plight somehow only became more unbearable as the northeast trade winds carried them swiftly toward their destination. A four-hundred-ton schooner was only so big, and since Selena, with his permission, chose to spend the greater part of each day on deck, Kyle couldn’t help but see her frequently.
He watched her from a distance without meaning to, his gaze frequently settling on the awning that his impassioned and adoring crew had rigged to protect her delicate complexion from the Caribbean sun. The sight often set Kyle’s teeth on edge. His officers were leaping over each other to be of service to the lady—fetching her parasol or a cool drink, or whiling the time away by entertaining her with amusing stories of the sea. Tiny, the ship’s massive boatswain, trailed at Selena’s skirts like an overgrown puppy.
His own jealousy an unrecognized emotion, Kyle dealt with the enforced confinement by driving himself relentlessly, as if he could burn some of the anger out of his system. And at night he lay awake in his oversize bunk, restless and dissatisfied as he listened to his first mate’s slow breathing issuing from the hammock that had been strung across the cabin. He was acutely aware that only a bulwark separated him from the beautiful young woman to whom he had been forced to give his name.
Despite Kyle’s assessment, Selena was timid at first about making friends with his crew, but their consideration and eagerness to please, aided by her own wistful longing for companionship, overcame her natural reserve. It was an uncommonly lonely feeling not to be needed or wanted. At home there had always been some person or problem requiring her attention, and her relationships with many of the islanders were characterized by mutual affection. But on board the Tagus she felt useless and unnecessary and bored by her idleness. Often her gaze would stray to wherever Kyle happened to be working.
She had hoped their relationship would change for the better as they got closer to New Orleans, but he had only become more untalkative and morose, snapping at his men and making them wonder what had become of their jovial, high-spirited captain.
Except for a few terse comments in passing—required by politeness—Kyle hadn’t spoken to her again. She was afraid to approach him herself or to inquire what he intended to do with her when they reached New Orleans, whether she would be on her own or if she would accompany him to Natchez while he initiated proceedings to annul their marriage.
So she only observed him from a distance, her attention captured by the solid play of muscle in his powerful, sun-gilded torso. In the heat of the afternoon, he often went shirtless and sometimes barefoot, wearing only the cutoff canvas breeches that hugged his lean hips in a scandalous fashion.
How he contrived to look so unkempt and rough and attractive at the same time was a mystery to Selena. She was becoming used to seeing him in his half-savage state, though, and used to seeing him perform feats with his ship that amazed and alarmed her for their danger and daring.
The first time he had gone up into the rigging, she had caught her breath. Kyle had given the order to trim the sails to a steady five knots and then proceeded to swing himself nimbly up into the shrouds. As he climbed hand over hand toward what Hardwick told her was the main royal and lost himself in the forest of billowing white canvas, Selena raised trembling fingers to her mouth. It seemed impossible that he could hold on, for though the bow of the ship carved purposefully through each successive wave, the vessel still dipped rhythmically, making the upper masts a precarious, swaying perch.
Hardwick, who had followed her uneasy gaze, merely grinned. “Don’t concern yourself, Mrs. Ramsey. The captain was born at sea, for all that he claims to have spent his first twelve years on land.”
It seemed to be true, Selena reflected four afternoons later as she watched Kyle. A storm was swiftly approaching, and already the sky was thick and gray. The wind whipping through the rigging made the topsails flap so hard that hearing was difficult, yet Kyle looked as if he were enjoying every minute. He stood at the helm, his long legs braced against the roll and sway of the ship, his face turned to the wind.
Selena saw him shout at Hardwick over the snapping canvas and creaking tackle. And at the mate’s reply, Kyle threw back his dark head and laughed.
This was how she would remember him after they parted, Selena thought: laughing in the teeth of the wind, loving the sea in all its capricious moods, embracing life with joy. Here, he was in his element. Indeed, he was like the rugged elements: Free and untamed, raw, powerful.
This was where he belonged—not tied to the land. He was not a farmer. No matter how large or luxurious or comfortable a plantation, he would never be so at home as he was at sea.
And when, caught up in the exuberance of the moment, Kyle met her gaze and grinned at her, Selena was sure of it. She understood the excitement he found in the sea then, and for a heartbeat or two, she even shared the feeling. But only for a moment. During the past few days, she had come close to overcoming her dread of ships, but now the swelling waves flecked with whitecaps made her recall how she had lost two of her dearest loved ones to a hostile sea, and the increasingly choppy motion of the schooner renewed her fears.
She didn’t want to return to her cabin, where she would be trapped if the Tagus were to sink, but as the thunderheads grew more ominous, Kyle ordered her below. Selena went reluctantly, for it was cold and dark down there; no braziers could be lighted during a storm, or even lanterns, Hardwick had explained to her, for fear of fire.
“Awk! Come to tea!” Horatio said in greeting, fluttering his wings.
Selena didn’t have the heart to reply. There would be no tea, since the galley stoves would be cold.
As the afternoon wore on and the rain began, the conditions became worse. Bright veins of lightning briefly illuminated the cabin and the foamy, rolling seas beyond the porthole, making the intervals of darkness seem even blacker. Even the parrot provided little solace, since he grew silent except for an occasional squawk.
Shivering as she crouched in her bunk, Selena could imagine what the men were going through on the decks of the pitching ship. The pelting rain had become a downpour, and several times she was almost thrown from the bunk as a tempest
uous swell lifted the schooner only to drop her with a sickening lurch. Minutes later, as the ship rode the crest of a wave, a gust of wind caught her sails and hurled her forward into the trough. When they sank so far down that Selena thought they would never come up again, she knew she couldn’t stay below any longer, not in the dark bowels of a ship that seemed like a coffin.
Her stomach knotted with fear, she staggered and groped her way along the companionway and up the stairs, gasping as she pried off the hatch cover. The rain was cold and slashing, and it drenched her before she could pull herself up on deck, making a shambles of her bonnet and plastering her pelisse against her body.
Yet she breathed easier in the open. Laboring to replace the cover, she struggled to her feet.
The clap of thunder, which sounded like a cannon’s roar, startled Selena less than the fierce fingers that suddenly gripped her arm. She looked up to see Kyle glaring down at her in the dim light, water streaming down his face in rivulets.
“Blast it, woman, what are you doing up on deck! Don’t you know you could be washed overboard?”
She could scarcely hear him for the wind howling through the shrouds, but as if to prove his point, a shower of spray burst above the gunwale as the ship pitched to starboard. She would have fallen except for the powerful arms that came around her and pulled her close.
“Please,” Selena asked, clinging to his shoulders, “I’m afraid down there in the dark.” It was scarcely lighter here, but even the wretched cold and wet was easier to face than confinement below.
A muscle flexed in Kyle’s jaw, and he looked as if he would refuse, until Hardwick, who had materialized in the teeming rain, shouted, “Maybe you should let her stay, Captain!”
“Please,” Selena repeated.
Kyle relented. “Get her an oilskin and a line,” he commanded Hardwick, before leading Selena amidships and settling her in the protection of a bulkhead, where she would be partially sheltered from the rain. He had shed his own oilskin in order to move more freely, but there was a rope tied around his waist, she noticed.
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