She saw the memories flash in Vallé’s blue eyes, in a specious life review, stippled with mixed emotions. What irony of fate had led a Frenchman and an Irishman to their shared experience, impressed into service on the same night by a gang who’d taken some of Limerick’s best? Both were of an age, and though Vallé considered himself a Frenchman, he was not exempt, since he and his mother were Irish-born. O’Malley and Vallé had served together with the British merchant marines until their ship was taken by Blackbeard’s fleet. Given the option to join or die, they chose life, and had sailed with Bonnet until he took the Bess.
Once, long ago, when the three of them had jumped ship together and she had not yet learned to swim, she had depended on Vallé to survive. Now she needed him again, to save O’Malley. The only reason he was still alive was the international tug-of-war being waged between the British and the French. If the French won the game, he’d stand trial for piracy. If the British got their way, he’d hang for desertion. When Druscilla’s letter reached her, she was so afraid he’d be convicted, even executed, before she could reach him. As it was, he was being held with no date for a trial until they decided who got him.
Either way, she feared she would watch him swing.
The thought made her shudder. Desperate, she searched Vallé’s face, trying to reconcile this angry, naked Frenchman with the laughing young man he’d been once upon a time. Even if his memories of her were far less endearing, she’d clung to the precious gifts he’d given her, songs and stories, myth and legend from the four corners of the world, until she’d nearly elevated him to the status of a saint, she realized—remembering too late that until last night, she’d still envisioned him through the eyes of the adoring child she’d been. Now, staring at the sultry mouth and assessing gaze, she forced herself to sweep her vision free of fantasies, then tried instead to find what O’Malley had seen in him once, that had made him believe Justin Vallé would do anything for a friend, the price be damned.
A chimera, she decided sadly. A phantom in the mist, almost as if it were never really there. Time changed people, and in the years since she’d last seen Vallé, experience had softened her edges and made his harder, affecting him in a way she had not expected.
He didn’t care. Realizing it, she took the halo off his head to pack away with her childhood dreams. In truth, the sooner she was quit of him and this room, the safer she’d feel—and the sooner she could find another man to help O’Malley escape the hangman’s noose.
“Pardon, monsieur,” she said in flawless French, her beautiful mother’s legacy, God assoil her tarnished soul. “I can see this was a mistake. You’ve clearly never forgiven me, and now I must find another who will serve.”
Dropping to her knees, she began sweeping the coins with her hand.
“A moment.”
“No,” she told him, shaking her head, taking little pleasure when he cursed beneath his breath and stepped out of her way, allowing her to pick up the doubloons while he gathered his clothes from the floor.
With her réticule ruined, Christiana removed the food from the napkin and piled the coins in its center. Gathering the edges, she turned to find Vallé dressed in his breeches, standing between her and the door, his bare feet planted hip-distance apart, his corded arms crossed over his chest, looking very much the pirate in that moment.
She could not help smiling softly, remembering another side of him, from long ago. “You used to tell me stories.” She set down the coins only long enough to put on her gloves and hide her scar. “You told me so many tales when I was a child, but that day, the day you raided the Bess, you had to tell me the truth. Had to explain that you and O’Malley sailed with Bonnet by force, not by choice. How if you’d tried to stop the mayhem, we’d only have become victims as well.” The smile disappeared, wiped away by regret. “When the time for my truth came, I could not risk it, and I am sorry for it.”
“Sorry? Now where have I heard that before? But yes, I recall that you did apologize profusely once, hoping to escape your punishment.”
When Christiana shook her head, Vallé reached for her, caught her, pulled her to him, pressing her feminine softness against his hard male flesh in a show of domination that only fed her secret fear. Wrapping a sinewy arm around her, he lifted her off her feet and crushed her against him, gold coins digging into her breasts and cutting off her air.
True panic gripped her then. He wanted her to fight him. She closed her eyes and went limp. Struggling would only make it worse, and she would not give him the pleasure of her resistance.
“Look at me and say it again,” he demanded, his scarred cheek ticking dangerously. “Say it…sweetly. I believe it would give me great pleasure to hear you beg for mercy. But be warned,” he told her darkly. “Words won’t begin to pay your debt to me. For all the lies, for all the pranks you pulled as a child, for the loss of my wine when you dropped it overboard, for the mark I bear upon my cheek—you owe me, ma belle. And if you thought that what we shared tonight would satisfy my appetite for vengeance, you are much mistaken.”
The pressure on her wrist vanished when Vallé released it to tunnel his fingers in her hair. Her scalp burned where he gripped it, tilting up her face and holding her at the precise angle he wanted. Slanting his head, he lowered it until his mouth was barely touching hers, calculatedly poised as if he were a bird of prey and she was his next prize.
Or victim.
Christiana pushed against his chest, words of denial lodged in her throat. She closed her eyes, refusing to respond when Vallé crushed his lips against hers, forcing them apart and diving in deeply, leaving nothing unclaimed. The ocean roared in her ears, then the hot, fluid pulse of her heart’s quickened beat, pounding in her veins, echoing in the distant corners of her mind, reminding her of another time, another place, and what she’d once felt for this man. Impossible then, more so now.
“Please—don’t,” she whispered, twisting her head away, chest heaving as if she’d lost a race with the wind. “Remember O’Malley.”
Vallé caught her chin and pierced her with a look that was chillingly effective. “Oui,” he murmured, releasing her abruptly. “Let’s not forget Ian. If I’m going to risk my neck to spring him from the gaol, I want to know everything…and everything includes you, Mademoiselle O’Malley.”
“Delacorte. Christiana Delacorte,” she said, pride stiffening her spine. She refused to apologize for her illegitimacy.
Vallé barked a sharp laugh. “That explains one of his names, at least. I wondered, when he took the king’s pardon, why he chose to become Jean Delacorte to sail with his nephew Christian.”
“He was impressed under his real name. It wasn’t his choice to raid with Bonnet, but by the time he jumped ship—we jumped ship, O’Malley had me, and he couldn’t go back to service. Before that—you must understand, and forgive us, if we weren’t exactly free to speak the truth. A few aboard the Revenge viewed anything with fresh cheeks as fair game for their lust, and you know as well as I, if the others suspected I was a girl….”
Letting the obvious go unsaid, she braved a look at Vallé, only to find herself being watched intently, his brow furrowed, blue eyes shaded by a brush of thick honey-blonde lashes. One corner of his mouth curved tightly downward, as if he genuinely shared her revulsion. Taking some comfort that even fallen angels remembered the moral lessons of their youth, Christiana continued.
“You knew that I wasn’t his mollie-cully, but when you assumed I was his nephew, O’Malley was convinced that the only way I could stay with him was by being what you thought you saw. In all the time I sailed with him, Blackbeard was the only one to see completely through my disguise. The rest of our crew and the Brethren of the Coast accepted me as O’Malley’s—Jean Delacorte’s—kin, and I did my best to make him proud.”
The corners of her mouth curled upwards in a rueful smile before flattening again. She sighed and shook her head. “I’m not making excuses, mind you. I just want you to see. To sail with
him, I had to be as good as any boy, as any man, and the others knew that I never turned down a dare. One night, they challenged me to steal a bottle of wine from your cabin.”
“And I caught you red-handed.”
“Aye,” she said. “You did. And I’d have stood for punishment—except—“
Christiana thought twice about explaining, then wrapped both gloved hands around the napkin of doubloons, pressing tightly. “Except what you suggested would have exposed me to the world.”
“What I—” Vallé stared at her, denial in his eyes.
Bowing her head, she focused on her fingers, saw the stains on the leather and felt the blush rise to high tide in her cheeks. “You were about to pull down my breeks and give me ‘the spanking of my life,’ if you recall.”
A long moment of silence followed.
“And you were how old?” he said slowly.
“Nearly thirteen. Old enough to realize the danger of making my secret known.”
Christiana glanced up to find Vallé’s head cocked, his mind at work, piecing new information into an old memory and resisting the change.
“I warned you not to do it,” she reminded him. “I begged you not to try. But you were so hell bent on punishing me that you didn’t heed my words and I was forced to defend myself.”
“With my knife,” he added grimly, stroking the scar she’d left. “But that was—what, five years ago? Where has Ian been hiding you since?”
“North,” she said simply. “I came as soon as I heard he’d been taken, and sought you out when I learned he was still awaiting trial. But that could change any moment. And when it does, he will hang. So you see, there is no time to waste. Either help me or I shall find another who will.”
Vallé picked up his shirt, but decided against putting it on. Canting his head at a pensive angle, he looked at the napkin of coins for a long, taut moment. Then he slowly raised his sharp blue gaze past her breasts, her neck, her throat, her chin, to focus on her mouth.
“Your urgent business,” he murmured. Breathing deeply, almost silently, he leaned closer. “I told you before that your purse wasn’t enough to tempt me.”
When he finally met her eyes, Christiana could see that, despite his enigmatic expression and his lack of inflection, his mind was alive with possibilities. Her mouth went dry when she considered what would tempt him—what else he would require as payment. Not gold doubloons, ducats or deniers, nor silver pieces of eight, she was certain. No coin of any realm but payment in kind, flesh for flesh, her body for O’Malley’s life.
A jaded thrill shot through her. She hid it by trying to stare him down. She failed. “Go on,” she said, inhaling deeply. “Name your price.”
He tilted his head, eyes alight with an intensity that was raw and elemental. “You.”
The huskiness in his voice and his bold appraisal set her body on fire. Rather than fan the flames, she backed away. Vallé stepped closer, checking her attempt to put distance between them. His blue eyes darkened when she wet her lips. Mesmerized, Christiana stood caught in his gaze as he took the treasure-filled napkin from her fingers and brushed a whisper of a kiss upon her mouth.
“I’ll get Ian for you, ma belle,” he purred, “but my price is this gold—and your willing presence in my bed.”
“For how long?” she whispered, wondering if he had any idea what he asked of her. In his arms is where she’d always dreamed of being. Now he was ordering her to fulfill her fantasy.
He paused, considering, then turned to put the gold by his pistol on the table. “Until I free him or die trying. Fair enough?”
Christiana shook the chill off her soul, glad his back was to her so that he could not see how much the thought of his death disturbed her. By the time he turned around, she had managed to compose herself.
“There is just one problem,” he said, rubbing his scarred cheek. “I’ve always been a man of my word, but I cannot say the same for you, ma belle. I promise you, I’ll do my best to see Ian O’Malley freed, but will you swear to me you’ll keep your part of the bargain?”
Christiana caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Why wouldn’t she? she asked herself. Since the women in her life had either been nuns or prostitutes, she hadn’t been raised to expect conventional courtship and marriage. Her mother never made it to the altar with her father, her first and only love, and if the best she could hope for with Vallé was to win his pirate’s heart—
A daunting task but possible, particularly if she pleased him in bed.
“Will you give me some time?” she hedged, knowing better than to appear too eager. “A week?”
“You may have tomorrow,” he said firmly. Reaching, he lifted a black waving lock of her hair and let it fall in a tumble over her breast. “After you’ve given me tonight to seal our bargain.”
The sudden heat in his eyes triggered memories that nearly made her knees buckle. “You take advantage, monsieur. I am desperate.”
Vallé could not resist toying with her. “Desperate to leave?” he asked. “Or desperate to stay?”
How could he know that every fiber of her being stood on alert, each beat of her heart was a sound to quarters? “I will not give you the pleasure of seeing me run,” she promised.
He stroked his face and begged to differ. “You did last time.”
The loaded look he gave her was unsettling, sensual, charged with primal need. Once, long ago, she had slipped free of him, but here, in this moment, her choice was not one of fight or flight, but resistance or surrender.
Sensing victory, Justin smiled and drew her into his embrace, marveling at the perfect way she fit against him, his body already craving the release she’d brought him twice before. Feeling generous, he kissed her chin, her cheek, and nuzzled the seductive shell of her ear.
“Come,” he whispered, then bent to kiss her opened mouth, capturing the words she would have said and eliciting a sensual moan that echoed through the night.
CHAPTER FOUR
Christiana slept little, haunted as she was by dreams. Specters of the present. Phantoms from the past. Lives lost, and lives led aboard Stede Bonnet’s Revenge. A successful escape on a storm-tossed December night when two men and a child slipped free. They did so despite their fears, wondering if they would make it and somehow managing to beat the odds. She dreamt of their next berth with a Welsh smuggler who shared their grudge against the British government, preferring to harass it rather than steal from every man jack. Then word came that the King had issued a blanket pardon to all pirates surrendering before September 5, 1718. Vallé declined and joined a French privateer, advancing to command of a small fleet when a festered wound claimed his predecessor. O’Malley accepted the pardon, for her sake, under the assumed name of Jean Delacorte, and had found them a berth on a Dutch square-rigger plying the Atlantic trade. He advanced to command of his own ship as well, resorting to smuggling when his funds ran low, until he found that, for him, gambling paid better.
Luck had won him an estate to retire to and a second ship—a two-masted schooner christened the Deirdre. He’d celebrated each win by buying Druscilla for the night. The last time he’d visited his favorite Road Town brothel for entertainment, he’d won enough to fill a pouch and bought Druscilla’s time again. But he left his luck at Mrs. Smith’s House of Entertainment. The next morning, when he tried to fence a crested ring he’d won, he was arrested, charged with piracy and the murder of its owner three years earlier.
O’Malley could offer no acceptable defense. He’d been on a smuggling run at the time, and Druscilla said he was too drunk to recall his fellow card players at Mrs. Smith’s, let alone which of them had staked the ring. They might have released him to the French authorities—except he’d been recognized by a British officer who once, long ago, had been severely thrashed by a newly impressed and very angry young Irishman. He knew O’Malley’s real name, and Ian O’Malley was still wanted for desertion.
If she were to save him, she must have help, and V
allé’s price was her body. He had demanded that she share his bed, for as long as it took to free her father.
But before that, she had one more promise to fulfill.
Shifting in bed, Justin wondered why his muscles were so sore…then smiled when he remembered the reason. He opened his eyes to see a single strand of waist-length black hair caught beneath his hand, its reddish highlights painted by the fingers of early morning sunshine that poked through the curtains.
Christiana.
Intending to pick up where they’d left off, he rolled over. His jaw tightened when he saw how the strand snaked across the empty pillow beside him.
He jackknifed, upright, wide awake and furious.
Sometime in the wee hours, she’d snuck out of his bed—Christiana Delacorte, Ian O’Malley’s nephew. Where once he’d have dropped her drawers and given her the spanking—so richly deserved—that her lenient “uncle” had ever failed to administer, now he would have to devise something else, a punishment both suited for a young woman Christiana’s age and one to fit his needs. A punishment that would not break her spirit but which would allow him to take the fullest measure of her worth.
Justin pushed himself on his hands and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Rubbing a hand over his beard, he wondered if he should take time to shave or simply dress and begin tracking her down. Mon Dieu, he should have known she’d disappear. She had all but told him. When he’d outlined his demands, the only promise she’d given was that he would not see her run.
Vixen. And now, like fox and hound, he must give chase.
His gaze fell on the bedside table, and he blew out softly, wondering at the game she played. Mademoiselle Delacorte had left her gold, along with a message, scrawled on white linen. Snatching up the napkin, he read one side and then the other.
Mrs. Smith’s House of Entertainment. Road Town, Tortola.
Touch the Wind: Touch the Wind Book 1 Page 4