Love Inspired Historical July 2015 Box Set: The Marriage AgreementCowgirl for KeepsThe Lawman's RedemptionCaptive on the High Seas

by Renee Ryan

  Each emotion that had flitted across her face as she spoke to the babe had somehow seemed tied to him, especially her sadness. He did not like it. Not at all. Once he had her off this cursed vessel and placed some distance between them, he’d breathe easier. Relax, be more himself.

  “Why the scowl, Nicolaus?”

  Nicolaus snapped his head toward his smiling friend. He squeezed his hands into fists but kept them at his sides lest he clout the smirk from Xandros’s face. “As much as I like to swim, I do not like standing in water. Not. On. My. Boat.”

  Perhaps if he bellowed loud enough his crew would believe him. His scowl certainly had nothing to do with the slip of a maiden who wanted to keep the orphaned babe. The woman who made him want to smile, and even more, to make her smile. Before he knew it she’d want to keep the children, too. And how was he to give her that gift? They didn’t belong to him.

  Xandros laughed, filling the cavern and further irritating Nicolaus’s mood. “Are you certain it has nothing to do with a stubborn woman?”

  “Ay, and why should it? She means nothing to me other than more work to keep her out of trouble. The next time she disobeys a command, I’ll throw her overboard myself.” Nicolaus prided himself on not choking on the words, even if he did feel the blood drain from his face at the thought of losing her. Perhaps he could find a household in Joppa to take her in as a servant. It was far enough away from Andros.

  He clenched his fists tighter and growled. Three days’ travel in good weather was not far enough to halt the longing he felt where Ada was concerned.

  “That is good news, my friend.”

  Nicolaus shook the disturbing thoughts from his head and focused on Xandros. “What is?”

  “The hole was small and has been patched. The men are bailing out the water as we speak.” Xandros twisted his lips. “Have you not been listening?”

  “Ay, we’re about to set sail again. We’ll be in Andros in no time.”

  The corners of Xandros’s mouth lifted as he shook his head. “Unfortunately, we need to port at Joppa. The mast needs to be repaired and we need to decide what to do with the fishing boat and her people.”

  “That could take days.” Only moments before he was ready to leave Ada at Joppa, to distance himself from her, but the thought of losing his father’s game, losing the ship, his chance to stand out as a merchant on his own, Ada…it left a bitter taste of sour grapes in his mouth.

  Xandros squeezed Nicolaus’s shoulder. “We do not need a sail to make our way home. The rowers will do the job fine.”

  No, they did not need the sail. However, they still needed to port at Joppa. The storm, no doubt, had taxed his men. They needed a rest, and he needed time to think through his choices and hopefully make the right decisions. Distance from Ada was the only way to clear his head, or so he hoped. He had acquaintances in Joppa who would treat her well. “I’ve a boon to ask of you, my friend.”

  Scratching his beard, Xandros looked wary. “What is it you ask?”

  “I have business to attend in Joppa. I would ask that you see to the repairs.” Nicolaus lowered his chin and stared at the wet planks beneath his feet. Turning, he grasped the rail and climbed onto the deck before seeking out the commander’s post.

  “We have no more room for stores, Nicolaus.” Xandros leaned his forearms against the railing. “What has such great importance that you’d abandon your duties?”

  Nicolaus turned. His gaze sought the shadows where he’d left Ada. Even with the distance between them he could see the way the sun captured the strands of her hair, making them seem as if they were embracing. Was the sun captivated with her, too? “I am torn between the rights and the wrongs of what I have done. After Desma was taken and I’d spent months in cruel bondage I vowed to never buy another human being, no matter the cause.” He drew in a ragged breath. At least he spoke partial truths. When he found his sister, if he found her, he fully intended on purchasing her with all that he owned, even with his life if necessary. He had nothing to offer Ada, not even a position in his household since he didn’t plan on remaining in Andros long. Of course, he had planned on setting her up in his mother’s home. How was he to endure her presence so close, for however long it took him to find Desma? Of course, first he had to win his father’s game if he was to claim this vessel and the merchandise within. He needed it to fund his mission. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken the woman from her home.”

  Xandros swung around and looked toward Ada. “You saved her from a far worse fate. What wrong can be found in that?”

  “I risked her life bringing her aboard this ship.”

  “No doubt death would be preferable to what that man had in store for her. I shudder to think of any woman being used in such a way, especially one as small as her.”

  Nicolaus gave in to the smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “Ay, even stubborn ones with tendencies to disobey.” Recalling the quietness of his sister as she was taken away, he quickly sobered. Had his docile sister met with such a fate? He hoped not. Hoped she’d found a home with kindly masters who wouldn’t crush her sweetness. “A maiden such as her should not be at sea.”

  “Ah,” Xandros said as he twisted back around. “This has little to do with Ada and more to do with Desma.”

  Feeling the heat rise in his cheeks, Nicolaus scrubbed his hand over his face. “I should have listened to my instinct. I should not have agreed to travel to Rhodes so she could marry Knosis. The man is four times her age. I should have listened to Jasen and hidden her away. If I had, she wouldn’t have been taken by David’s men.”

  “You have captained many vessels and commanded hundreds of men, but there are some things you have no control over, my friend. Destiny, such as that dealt to Desma, is one. The nature of the sea is another. She flows to and from at her own will, not ours. She embraces us with calm waters, and tosses us about in her rages. She has no master to obey. If she chooses to take Ada from you, she will and there is nothing you can do about it.”

  Nicolaus followed Xandros’s gaze. The waters had calmed. The once murky color now brightened to the unearthly hues he loved so much. There was a delicacy to the beauty, much as there was to Ada. And just as he could not command the sea to obedience when she was in a fit, neither could he command Ada. Even if it was for her own good.

  “If the tales to be heard are true, your sister was to be Knosis’s tenth wife. All the others, for reasons unknown, died.”

  Gentle waves splashed over the brass battering ram, bathing them in salty water. Nicolaus loved this about the sea, the peaceful tranquility of each roll and the drops of kisses upon his face. The sea was the only one to embrace his moods. His mother tried to coddle his moods, his father tried to command them, and Ada…she challenged them, firing his blood to anger and eliciting his softer side all at the same time.

  He clenched his teeth. How was that even possible? He prided himself on having a sound mind. As the Sea Dragon he’d fought battles and conquered men. He turned a blind eye at the agonizing sounds of death because it threatened to weaken him. He ran from weakness, he despised it in his men as well as within himself. The emotion did not belong in the heart of a warrior, in the heart of a captain of the sea, especially in the heart of the infamous Sea Dragon.

  Nicolaus cupped his hand at the base of his neck. The Sea Dragon had died. That part of him had died, but had it died enough to accept the weakness Ada made him feel?

  Xandros nudged him with his shoulder. “Your father was not pleased about sending Desma to Knosis, but he’d had no other choice. Her destiny was changed when she was stolen.”

  As was Nicolaus’s.

  “For the better? We may never know. What we do know is that Knosis is still searching for his tenth wife. Perhaps, Ada’s destiny was to become a slave, a prostitute in Ashkelon.”

  Nicolaus snapped his gaze to Xandros. How could his friend think as such?

  “Then again, perhaps her destiny was to be rescued by a Greek merchant who me
ans her no harm. One who is honorable and kindhearted.”

  Nicolaus may mean her no harm, but that seemed to be all he’d brought to her. She’d nearly been lost to the sea while under his command, not once but thrice. Then there was that small matter that he seemed to be losing himself each time his gaze touched hers. Surely he’d hoped to find a bit of his old self on this challenge of his father’s, but it seemed as if he was discovering that the old him was truly dead and gone. Strange how she made him feel more alive than he’d felt in months, years even. And yet a part of him, the part that wanted to please his father by becoming a wealthy merchant, that part of him that needed to become more like the thieves of the Great Sea, to revive Sea Dragon in order to find his sister, seemed to be long gone, and all because of Ada. Was he willing to give up that part of himself completely in order to truly live? He just didn’t know if he could since it would mean giving up on finding his sister.

  Chapter Nine

  “You are husband and wife?”

  Ada opened her eyes and jerked fully awake at the words spoken with ease in Nicolaus’s language. She curled her legs beneath her and toyed with the soft sheep’s skin cushioning her seat. “No, we are nothing of the sort. What makes you ask?”

  Several toothless grins appeared at her response. “You’ve the look of a woman in love.”

  The constant thick knot in her throat dislodged and plummeted to her gut. Was she to suffer as her mother had, loving a man who could not, would not love her? It had taken all of her concentration to keep from giving in to the sickness plaguing her stomach, and now it came to life with a fierceness she could not tamp down. She had been fine when holding the babe, cooing whenever he began to cry, but her shoulders ached from the weight of the linen knotted at the base of her neck, and her eyes had grown tired. Each note sung out by the helmsman followed by the lurch of oars had lured her into laying the babe down on a blanket beside her and closing her eyes for a moment.

  She would not be taken in by Nicolaus’s kindness. She could not allow her curiosity about him to be misconstrued by these women. She did not love him. No matter how much she wanted to dance and sing with joy in his presence. She couldn’t, wouldn’t love him.

  A whimper quivered from the baby’s lips, cutting through her heart. He must be growing hungry, and she had not the means of feeding him, nor fresh linens to change his swaddling. She ignored the questioning looks, ignored the woman’s words burning in Ada’s chest. “What happened to the babe’s mother?”

  Ada tilted her chin and looked to each of the women when she was met with silence. The two who were injured from the splintered mast trapping their legs were beyond childbearing years. The others seemed just as old, or so the creased lines wrinkling their cheeks told her they were. Certainly one of these could not be the child’s mother. “The mother?”

  She might as well have spoken in her own language for all the response she received. A disappointed breath of air rushed out of her lungs. Edith peered around the side of Galen. Pale trails from her tears cut through the grimy cheeks. Knots of matted hair the color of the desert clumped at odd angles around the child’s head. Galen tried to push her back, but she shoved the hand holding her away and stood. Dark lashes opened wide, revealing blue eyes. The same as the babe’s.

  Ada motioned for the child to move closer, but she shied back behind her little protector. “Would you like to hold him?”

  “Leave the girl,” one of the women croaked through parched lips. “Their mother is dead. Or she will be soon. The cursed seafarers. What care can we give the babe? They have taken all our young women among us. We have no one to care for or feed him. At least these young ones are old enough to care for us.”

  As if he understood the words spoken, the child began to cry. Ada crooked her finger and stuck it in the babe’s mouth. “Shh, hush now, little one.” She glanced at the woman brave enough to break her silence. “I am sorry for your trials. God has blessed you with the captain’s help. He will see you well.”

  “Bah, the gods have abandoned us to our deaths. Most assuredly because we did not toss that wee one into the sea.”

  Heat filled Ada’s cheeks. Her sisters worshiped many gods as did her father. She’d learned to keep her beliefs to herself, there was only one God. One who did not abandon his people in their time of need. “Ay, the babe lives, and Nicolaus found you. We have survived the storm and still breathe life into our bodies.” Ada offered a smile. “We are blessed. Blessed by the one true God. Now, if you will hold the babe for a time I will find you water to drink and bread cakes to eat.”

  She’d also inquire about the infant’s needs. With great reluctance, she deposited the babe into the older woman’s arms. The child was one of them. He needed them, and no matter how much Ada wanted to keep him, she knew she couldn’t. Ada straightened her tunic and then ducked beneath the canopy. She gasped at the beauty before her. What looked to be shimmering stars danced upon the surface of the crystalline water, but it was nothing more than the sun kissing the top of the waves.

  She’d never seen anything like it. Certainly, she’d seen the reflection of the sun upon the waters near her home, but the brilliant shades of blues were incomparable even to that of the morning sky.

  A command came from the post, and she immediately sought out Nicolaus. Once again he stood with his feet braced shoulder width apart and his arms crossed over his chest. The breeze ruffled through his dark curls, and Ada knew a hint of jealousy for she wanted nothing more than to run her fingers through his hair, to see if the curls were as soft as they looked.

  Long paddles cut through the water as the helmsman sang out orders in an odd cadence. The fishing boat, although smaller and with fewer rowers, glided beside them. Ada walked carefully to the ladder leading to Nicolaus’s post. With one hand on the rung, she hesitated climbing. Not out of fear but rather she did not wish to anger Nicolaus. Nor did she wish to be in such a confined space with him, especially not after the observation of the other women. How was she to look at him without it seeming as if she were a woman in love? Before she could turn back she climbed the ladder. As soon as she stood on the platform, the brunt of the sea breeze brushed against her. “It is captivating.”

  Nicolaus snapped his gaze toward her. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and then he smiled. “I am surprised you stayed beneath the helmsman’s perch as long as you did. My thanks for heeding my command even if it was for a short time.”

  “Nicolaus, I do not mean to tax your patience.” She twisted her hands together.

  He brushed his hand over her brow and down the side of her cheek causing shivers to run along her arms. “Are you unwell again?”

  “No.” She looked to her feet. “The babe…they say his mother was taken by the thieves. He’s—uh—hungry, and I know not what to do.”

  “And you think I would have knowledge of such things?”

  She didn’t know how to respond. Why had she assumed he would? “You have been capable and acted wisely in every trial we’ve met with thus far. I only assumed—”

  “Come,” he said grabbing hold of her hand. He pulled her close to the rail and pointed toward a spot on the horizon. His warmth encompassed her and she felt herself leaning closer. “Do you see those rocks and the city beyond?”

  Squinting her eyes, she tried to see what he said was there but could not. She shook her head.

  “It is Joppa. Not much longer and we’ll be at port. I will send one of my men in search for a wet nurse. Perhaps, she’ll be willing to travel with us and care for the child.”

  Ada’s shoulders sunk in relief. Although she didn’t relish giving up tending the babe, she also knew she was incapable.

  “If she is not willing, then we’ll continue to find wet nurses at each port until we reach Andros. Of course, we must seek the wishes of his people.”

  “They all but left him for dead, abandoning him in the hold to fend for himself,” she snapped.

  Nicolaus turned her to face him. With
the crook of his finger he lifted her chin so she’d look him in the eye. “I am not your enemy, Ada. Nor do I wish harm to befall the child. These people have been through much, and it is only right to determine if they wish to keep the babe among them.”

  “My apologies, Nicolaus.”

  He rubbed his thumb over her chin and pulled her closer as he lured her in with the intensity of his dark eyes. Air caught in her throat, and her pulse sped. Anticipation, fear and joy swirled in her thoughts holding her captive.

  “There is none needed, Ada. You’ve been through a trial yourself.” He leaned down. The warmth of his mouth brushed against her brow, danced across her wind-cooled cheek and then hovered over her lips. An unexplained fire pressed against the wall of her chest and settled in the pit of her stomach. She shouldn’t delight in the simple gesture, couldn’t, but oh how she wanted him to touch his lips to hers, to know what it was that bound a man and woman together besides a marriage contract. What it was that had bound her mother’s heart to her father.

  A husband, children, a home to care for, those things were not the lot cast for her life. Even if her sisters hadn’t sold her, even if she had remained in her father’s house, marriage wouldn’t have been possible, for no man wanted a Hebrew woman for a wife, even if her father was a Philistine. She’d heard that many times. None of that mattered, though, for she was a slave, a slave to this man who sparked a longing within her that she had no right to feel. Yet, here she was gazing into his eyes like a woman in love.

  Pain, worse than any of her family’s rejections, tore through her heart. The old woman was correct in her observation. Squeezing her eyes against the tears burning and threatening to spill, she shoved her palms against Nicolaus’s chest and all but jumped from the platform. If God had any mercy on her at all he’d grant her a new master, one who didn’t make her dream of things she shouldn’t be dreaming of.