“Pour les voyeurs,” she whispered, answering his silent question. “At the end of the passage, keep to the left and watch your step. Follow it until you come out into the kitchen and exit through the servants’ entrance. I shall bar the door as long as I can. It does not lock.”
Vallé flung a look past her shoulder. The noise was still downstairs. “Come with me,” he said, his voice rough with urgency.
“I’ll slow you down. Please, hurry! Go!”
He looked at her for one moment frozen in time, then dragged her up against him. “Fool,” she whispered, resisting. What was in his character to take such chances, first in coming here, now in delaying his retreat for a parting kiss, fierce and hot and bittersweet?
Stunned by the strength of his passion, she raised a hand to the fullness of her bruised lips.
Vallé angled his head, then noticed the ring she wore. His piercing blue gaze narrowed, and she realized she must seem a liar, telling him the coins she’d taken to Charlotte Amalie were all she had. Her explanation lodged in her throat when someone barked an order below on the first floor, then footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Vallé’s whole face seemed to darken. With lightning speed, he ripped the black silk scarf off his head and gagged her mouth. He robbed a tie-back cord from the drapes, then bound her hands with it. Tossing a last glance toward the door, he hefted her over his shoulder and ducked through the mirror with her, swinging it closed behind them.
If Christiana hadn’t been so very frightened of what fate awaited them, she might have enjoyed being carried away by Vallé, who was obviously, passionately determined that they remain together. She often dreamed of it, but usually her fantasies involved violins and flowers and impassioned kisses, being swept up in his arms and magnificently borne away on the wings of desire. Instead, she was hauled like a sack of potatoes, her head hanging down behind his back, his arms wrapped around her knees, and the top of his shoulder cutting hurtfully into her empty stomach.
Vallé swore beneath his breath to see soldiers near the docks, between him and the sloop he’d sailed in on. Backtracking, he carried her through alleys in the meanest part of town, where those few who saw him with a woman flung over his back merely laughed and cheered him on. Eventually they came to a private dock, where a twenty-foot centerboard sloop was moored, unguarded and theirs for the taking. With the weather deteriorating, given their alternatives, she was not surprised when Vallé carried her aboard. Hoisting the mainsail in a light rain, he freed the boom from its crutch and cleated the halyard, then tightened the downhaul and hoisted the jib to cast off.
Bound and gagged, Christiana watched him perform a starboard tack, then man the tiller, keeping his weight to windward as their vessel picked up speed. His skills were impressive, but she wondered if they would be enough to see them to safety. Four years of convent school had instilled a healthy respect for nuns and the fear of righteous retribution but hadn’t dimmed her instincts. There was a heaviness to the air that made her edgy. Vallé seemed to sense it too and cast an anxious eye to the sky, although he waited until they were well away before taking time to free her.
Christiana rubbed her wrists, shaking blood back into her hands and working her jaw. The taste of silk clung to her tongue. Tortola’s shoreline had long disappeared, and Vallé had plotted a westerly course.
“Where are we headed?”
He gave her the barest sidelong glance, keeping his jaw clenched, his eyes on the far horizon and the darkening sky. “For the Raptor,” he said tightly.
The edge in his voice made her sorry she’d asked. Vallé had the patience of Job, but when he was riled, the best bet was to simply stay out of his way and leave him alone until he’d had a chance to calm down. He was clearly aggravated with her, and this small sloop offered no place to hide from his anger—and no shelter from the swiftly approaching storm, either, she was afraid.
The drizzle changed to rain, pelting the deck and soaking their clothes. The wind picked up. Vallé close-reefed the canvas when the wind grew stiff, finally easing out the halyard to lower it. They’d each lived at sea long enough to know the danger posed by lightning or being swept overboard. To reduce the risk, they lashed themselves with lifelines to cleats on the centerboard, then positioned themselves away from the mast, sitting low on opposite sides of the stern, their efforts aided by the jagged streaks that illuminated a sky darkened early by preternatural night.
Then came the fury.
Rain poured in buckets, plummeting from the roiling black clouds that scudded across the sky. Thunder crashed. Lightning lit the heavens and set the sea on fire. The mast groaned, and wind screamed in the rigging, driving the rain in sheets and raising waves that broke over the sides, drenching them head to toe and filling their noses and mouths with brine.
Blinded by the savage downpour, they communicated by touch, working as a team. Seated on either side of the tiller, they took turns bailing and manning the helm. The minutes dragged into long, agonizing hours, as tortuous as any Christiana had ever known. Her chest hurt, her arms were numb, her body bruised by the battering rain. She fought against a rising tide of panic when her breaths came in fits, burning paroxysms that should have comforted, offering proof that she yet lived. But with her strength waning, beaten out of her body by the howling forces of nature, she slumped over the tiller and experienced that moment she’d heard about, that instant when one’s life flashes before her eyes.
With her head butted against Vallé’s shoulder, his hands forsaking the bucket to grip her shoulders over the wooden shaft she clutched, Christiana recalled the other men in her life: Philip, Cookie, Jimmy.
O’Malley.
For better or worse, she alone was his legacy, destined, it seemed, to die at sea as surely as she’d been born beside it. Had lived on it. God knew she’d always loved it, and respected it, even if she sometimes feared it—
And suddenly Christiana understood that the soul-stirring feeling that the sea inspired in her is what she’d always sought for—had always needed—from a man. That’s why no one else had ever measured up to her memories of Justin Vallé, no matter how much she wished it. Whatever she did, no matter how hard she had tried to forget him, no man had made her feel the way that Vallé could without his even knowing it.
Now that she had given herself to him freely, out of love, what if he never returned her sentiments? If he tired of her and went his separate way, was there any place in this cold harsh world where she could find a measure of warmth and happiness, knowing that her only paradise, her only heaven was in the circle of his arms?
Damn it all, she thought when she sensed the fierceness of the storm abating, felt the wind die, the rain slack, heard the thunder rumble in the distance and knew they would survive.
Damn him, she thought when, looking up, she saw his pirate’s grin, saw his savage joy at cheating Death transmute into a man’s desire.
And damn herself for daring to dream.
She hated admitting she was wrong. Even more than conceding that snot-nosed Jimmy had grown out of his sinus condition and into an undeniably handsome and relatively charming lieutenant-at-arms, it hurt to admit that she loved a man who merely desired her. She’d foolishly opened her heart to him—the man by whom she’d judged all others, yet who didn’t quite measure up to her memories of him. Vallé was neither gallant knight nor laughing swain nor a unicorn to lie gently in her lap. Rather he was a dragon in human guise, at once beguiling and terrifying because he had the power to hurt her as no other.
Knowing it, she looked away, and began to count the cost.
Justin pulled her closer, and thoughts of her bravery and fortitude in the face of adversity dissipated in the salt water mist. The memory of their narrow escape from Tortola, his suspicion of possible treachery was obscured by the white hot flood that pulsed in his veins and throbbed in his groin. He’d fought enough battles both with men and nature to recognize the lust that followed, and he was wise enough to understand i
t. Sexual union was an affirmation of life itself, the driving need to join male to female made all the stronger by a brush with death.
Basic physical need worked independently of lofty sentiments such as love and trust. Justin could reconcile the fact that he wanted Christiana Delacorte regardless. At the moment, his body was urging him to celebrate their victory over nature in a most elemental way. But when he cupped her face and turned it towards him, intending to devour her, he saw the suspicious sheen of moisture in her eyes and felt his desire flag.
Never able to stand her tears as a child, he’d done anything to see them dried, offering a story, a joke, a song. In Charlotte Amalie, when she’d kissed his scar and cried, he had comforted her with his body, but what was he to do when she stared at him, gloriously defiant, clearly wanting neither his passion nor his pity?
She dared to bare herself while she challenged him to do nothing. Nothing. Somehow she had turned the tide, and he was adrift in uncharted waters. It was not a comfortable feeling.
When the first tear fell, Justin dropped his hands and looked away, casting a tenuous gaze about the vast arch of the changing sky. Darkness was turning back to day. The setting sun barely breached the horizon.
“The rain should pass soon,” he told her, feeling foolish. Both of them knew it had stopped already.
“Aye,” she agreed, her naturally husky voice grown thicker. But in its strength, he heard her gratitude as well, that he hadn’t crushed her pride—a small act of kindness on his part that seemed to surprise them both. To distract herself, she wrung out her skirt, then peeled off her wet gloves, exposing the ring he’d seen on Tortola.
It was a remarkable piece. A row of emeralds that matched her eyes, set in a golden band. A ring worthy of a princess but which was made thirty-five years ago, given by a French shipping magnate to his wife for presenting him with an heir.
His mother’s ring, and Christian—Christiana—had it.
Questions burned, pressuring him to demand where she’d gotten it, who had given it to her—and had he murdered its rightful owner? But he couldn’t ask, not yet. He couldn’t alert Christiana to his suspicion, lest she build a wall he could not scale and his questions remain unanswered.
Justin was a patient man. He’d spent three years searching for his parents’ killers, rogues who’d attacked the Gabrielle, slaughtering and looting indiscriminately. Forcing himself to look away, he turned his attention to bailing water and tried to figure how far off course they were.
With luck, his second-in-command Uriah Heath would find them before the next day’s end, and he’d have his answers. He hoped his instincts were right and her father wasn’t involved. And if O’Malley did carry the taint of guilt, he could only pray that she’d understand when he did what he had to do.
Justin had vowed to see the guilty punished. He’d followed the path of retribution too long to abandon it now, even for her sake.
CHAPTER FIVE
Christiana inhaled deeply, stomach rumbling, mouth watering at the delectable aroma drifting from the dish that the tow-headed cabin boy carried into his captain’s quarters. Caleb set the lidded tureen upon the table, between a pair of pewter bowls flanked by matching spoons and heavy green glass goblets. One place was set at the table’s head; the other setting would put her to Vallé’s right. To the left sat a corked bottle of wine and a large wooden carving board. A knife was laid across it, with a wedge of sharp cheese and flats of hot grilled bread.
It smelled like heaven. What she wouldn’t have given to have this last night, when she and Vallé were on the open water, hungry and miserably cold, huddling together when the temperature dropped low enough to make her teeth chatter and turn her skin blue.
By contrast, Vallé’s cabin was blessedly warm. In the dim glow of the lamp suspended overhead, the mahogany paneling and brass fixtures gleamed. The fine wood furnishings were polished to the same high gloss—a small dining table flanked by four straight-backed chairs, a bed built to hold a man Vallé’s size, and a captain’s desk kept tidier than O’Malley’s. A lone chart was spread upon its surface. Other maps were neatly rolled and placed in a cabinet that held nautical instruments. A well-stocked bookcase revealed Vallé’s leanings toward the intellectual. A seaman’s chest occupied a corner near a mirrored shaving stand, where built-in storage held linens above and a chamber pot below.
Vallé had brought her to his cabin as soon as they’d rendezvoused with the Raptor, shortly after dawn, nearly twelve hours ago. She’d had time enough to familiarize herself with these four walls and hoped he would allow another view tomorrow. When he’d gone on deck to confer with his officers, he had ordered her to stay here, out of his crew’s way.
Caleb lifted the tureen lid and set it on the tray at the end of the table. Christiana leaned over the dish and inhaled deeply.
“Salmagundi,” she breathed. Sheerest ecstasy. In her childhood, when provisions ran low and rations were so riddled by pests that they chose to eat in the dark, she’d dreamed of it, her favorite meal: chunks of roasted meat marinated in spiced wine, mixed with whatever fruits and fresh or pickled vegetables were available, seasoned with garlic and spices, then anointed with vinegar and oil and served, to her younger self, with watered beer or wine.
“Aye, Miss.” Caleb beamed, his chest swelling with pride. “The Cap’n keeps a pretty tally such as ye never seen, he does. Breakfast tomorrow is cinnamon rice with almonds and ginger—”
“Enough, lad,” Vallé growled as he ducked through the open door.
His tone made the boy’s grin broaden rather than make him quake in his boots. Christiana was relieved to see it. Vallé hadn’t smiled in her presence since coming aboard the Raptor. She wasn’t quite certain how he’d react when he saw that she’d raided his sea chest.
Vallé flicked his assessing gaze over her, from the shirt she’d pilfered to her ill-fitting breeches, held up by the length of rope belting her waist. To her vast relief, he merely lifted an eyebrow and said nothing.
“Aye, Cap’n.” Caleb motioned to the neatly set table. “Will ye be needin’ aught else, sir?”
Vallé shook his head. “Non. That will be all for us tonight. Just see to it Jamaica is fed as well.”
Jamaica?
‘Twas Caleb who answered the question in her eyes. “The Cap’n’s cat, Miss. She done dropped her litter in the galley, Miss—in the middle of the storm!” He turned back to his master. “I’ll see to it, sir!”
Only when the boy was gone did Vallé allow his shoulders to visibly relax. Excusing himself, he shed his brine-stiffened justacorps and poured wash water into the porcelain basin, setting the ewer back in its place, secured by a railing to prevent breakage. He stripped to the waist and washed as he did nearly everything else, thoroughly and efficiently, with purposeful motion.
Vallé’s back, like O’Malley’s, was marked with stripes of service. It hurt too much to look at his scars, and so she busied herself checking the clothes she’d washed free of salt this afternoon.
“I’m decent,” he said at last.
“Decent or dressed?” Glancing over her shoulder, Christiana saw Vallé standing by the table, in a clean chemise d’homme and a blue silk brocade weskit, worn tonight without a justacorps. His capable hands rested atop the chair he’d pulled out for her.
“Touché.” His lips curved in a faint, tired smile that she felt all the way to her heart. “Join me, mademoiselle? I fear it is the best my chef could do, between playing midwife to Jamaica and nursemaid to her kittens.”
Adopting a poise that would have made the Ursuline sisters proud, Christiana nodded her assent and allowed him to seat her. Vallé was the perfect, attentive host—even though he’d gone without sleep last night, manning the tiller with one arm while she dozed in his other. For the length of their meal, she managed to behave as if she were truly a lady, despite the lack of feminine trappings. She wore no powdered wig or artfully applied cosmetics, no carefully placed mouches to signal one’s a
vailability for affaires de cœur, no hooped petticoat or panniers worn ‘neath a Watteau gown, no stiffly boned stomacher or steel-stayed corset laced to emphasize the smallness of her waist above the slight flare of her hips.
Christiana had never been able to wear a corset. She nearly wished she could, if only to prove to all the Druscillas of the world that she did indeed possess something of a woman’s form. But one unguarded moment, one careless, wistful gaze, and she was thankful she had done nothing more to emphasize her gender, not when Vallé looked at her as if she were to be his dessert.
He dropped his gaze and reached for the wine bottle, uncorking it with practiced artistry, each movement of his capable hands unbelievably, unbearably sensual. With dinner nearly done, she allowed herself the luxury of looking at him, mesmerized by the fanning lines at the corners of his eyes, witness to his humor and a life spent outdoors, and by the play of golden lamplight on his arresting face. An arrangement of planes and angles too strong to be beautiful, it evoked fantasies and stirred desires that she struggled to keep concealed.
He filled his glass half full of wine. Ruby liquid eddied in the bowl while thoughts of what lay before them, tonight and all the nights to come in the bargain they’d struck, swirled madly in her head.
He took her goblet, filled it nearly to the rim, and handed it back to her with a curious smile.
She blinked to clear her thinking, trying to remember how much she’d drunk, wondering if he’d somehow known that she would need liquid courage—something to quiet apprehension and free her inhibitions, allowing her to come to him unencumbered as she secretly longed to do.
Careful not to touch his fingers, she took the goblet by the bowl, brought it to her lips, and took another sip. “If I didn’t know better,” she said, lifting her gaze to find his focused on her mouth, “I’d think you were trying to get me drunk.”
Touch the Wind: Touch the Wind Book 1 Page 6