Touch the Wind: Touch the Wind Book 1

by Erinn Ellender Quinn

  Her accusation hung in the air between them. The silence spun out while he dragged his gaze slowly from her lips to her eyes.

  Curling one side of his mouth upwards, Justin lifted his wine glass in a toast. “But of course.”

  Acknowledging his intention proved much easier than burying his qualms about it. But Justin sensed her wariness. Spending a celibate night in his arms had thrown her off balance, and he needed for her to be comfortable enough with him to answer his questions, at least.

  Christiana arched a dark brow at his admission. He allowed himself to smile; the corner of her mouth twitched as she fought not to. She dropped her gaze to her glass instead and, after a moment, took a long, deep drink. And another. He filled her goblet again, capturing her hand to wrap her fingers securely around its stem before letting go.

  The contact ruffled her composure. Catching the fullness of her bottom lip between her teeth, she glanced across the room at his bed and exhaled softly, tremulously. When she slid her gaze back to him, it was open and oddly vulnerable, as if the alcohol she’d consumed had rendered her incapable of deceit. In her face, her eyes, he saw that she was recalling their agreement, was thinking of what tonight would bring and silently asking him to not hurt her. Ever again.

  Damn. Damn. He couldn’t promise himself anything but that he’d do his best, even if it meant not freeing O’Malley and letting him die at the hands of the French or British rather than beneath his own blade.

  He poured more wine, for both of them. Christiana smiled softly, hesitantly, then lifted her goblet in a silent salute and proceeded to get heartily drunk. Unlike his brother, who drank to forget and grew either more truculent or melancholic with each subsequent glass he raised, Mademoiselle Delacorte thankfully lowered her defenses. At the same time, she found her gift of blarney. In the strangest French-flavored Irish brogue riddled with sailor slang, she regaled him with stories from her misspent youth.

  “I remember once,” she slurred, “Jimmy—that whelp what helped the Annie Laurie’s cook—dared me to take Cookie’s best pan and tie it atop the mizenmast. An’ I did,” she said proudly, lifting her hand dramatically as if placing it there anew. “But the wind was…was howlin’ that day, and it started to rain. I slipped afore m’feet reached the deck. Broke a leg and caught hell for it, I did.” Her head lolled to the left and she wavered unsteadily in the chair. Just when he thought she’d list to the side, she caught herself and smiled in inebriated triumph. “But it healed straight as a stick. Good as new, see?”

  Scooting back, she managed to plunk her heel by her plate on her second attempt. Leaning forward, she worked the leg of her borrowed breeches up, untied her garter, and peeled down her stocking. “See?

  “Oui,” Justin humored her. “It seems to have healed nicely.”

  “They swore I’d be crip-crippled.” She hiccupped midsentence and patted her shin. “You’d never know, to look at it.”

  But Justin could not examine the shapely limb she’d exposed, not with his eyes focused on the ring she wore.

  “What a beautiful piece,” he commented carefully.

  “I di-did not lie to you,” she said, in a voice that pleaded to be believed. “Druscilla had it. She was h-holding it for O’Malley. But I can’t thank him for it. They won’t let me in, you know. When I went to Port Royal, the gaolers told me I am not allowed to see him…until he hangs….”

  Reaching, Justin took her hand and patted it gently. “The British won’t hang him. He served nearly nine years before he was taken by Bonnet. A good lawyer and enough coin in the right places, and he’ll manage at least a dishonorable discharge. That leaves the French, who will need to wheedle him away from the British before the French can try him. By then, O’Malley will have vanished, thanks to us.”

  At least he hoped that’s how it would be.

  He ran his thumb across the backs of her fingers, pausing at the ring O’Malley had given her. He tsked and shook his head. “You need to be more careful with it,” he told her. “You’ve already put scratches on the band.”

  “I wear gloves,” she reminded him primly, though her blush said she remembered how he’d asked her to keep them on. “And I am careful. It is a beautiful ring, but, you see, it is not new.”

  Justin’s stomach clenched; his chest grew painfully tight. He wanted to tell her to say no more, but he needed to hear it, even if the words cut deep.

  Her green glass eyes grew troubled; the line of her succulent mouth twisted in self-deprecation. “O’Malley has an aversion to spending hard coin on gewgaws, but he’s free enough with whatever he wins gambling.”

  Justin released a deep, cleansing breath. She as much as said that O’Malley had won it. But from whom? It was possible this Druscilla knew, but he could not risk returning to Tortola on chance.

  Christiana turned her hand in his so that the emeralds winked in the lamplight. “Druscilla had this in a drawer full of his trinkets,” she confided wearily. Wistfully.

  Druscilla had a drawerful, and she had but one.

  Jésu. O’Malley had always loved women, but was he truly so blind that he couldn’t see what he was doing to Christiana, favoring a whore over his daughter?

  Justin kept hold of her fingers, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles, torn between the hurt in her voice and his need to learn more. He didn’t like dredging up painful memories, but O’Malley stood accused of piracy based on the possession of goods that he’d won. Was it possible…?

  Justin lifted her hand, touching the ring with his thumb, seeking affirmation. “He won this?”

  She nodded.

  “Recently?”

  Christiana gave a quick sniff to clear her nose and tilted her head, staring at the row of emeralds set in a golden band, gems that matched her eyes to perfection. “Two months ago.” There was a sad, lonely quaver in her voice. “The night before he was arrested.”

  “Do you know from whom?”

  “Nay.” She shook her head sadly.

  “Who else played? They might remember who staked the ring he tried to pawn.”

  “No one seems to know. Or if they know, they are not saying.” Extricating her hand, she put down her healed leg and sat staring pensively at her hand, with her bottom lip caught between her teeth, her gaze growing unfocused, her thumb rubbing the gold band. The disturbingly dispirited action turned blessedly hypnotic as the wine took its toll. Her fingers gradually stilled; her lids drooped to half-mast. Behind them, her gaze grew vacant and her head nodded forward onto the arm she’d propped on the table. Bringing the other arm up to better pillow her head, she drifted into a drunken sleep while his mind worked incessantly, piecing information.

  When he’d discovered Christiana’s note in Charlotte Amalie, a small, dark voice had whispered that it might be part of a trap. Despite what they had shared that first night, he hadn’t survived this long by not examining every angle, considering every risk. Then, when Mrs. Smith’s establishment was raided, the first thought to cross his mind was that Christiana had betrayed him; after all, it was possible that the key to Ian O’Malley’s cell could only be gained by the capture of Capitaine Vallé. Another theory—that O’Malley was never in prison at all—he rejected outright, simply because the gold she’d paid him was nearly the price on his head. But a traitoress would have sounded an alarm. Instead she had shown him the way to escape, and once more, his emotions warred. Having come to get her, he hadn’t wanted to leave her behind. But when he saw the ring, he had no choice but to take her with him.

  He regretted having to truss her, but he’d had no time—either to explain, or for her to drag her heels and slow him even more than she originally feared. But now, now she seemed to have forgiven him. That, or else she had simply chosen to accept it as a fact of her life and had taken it in stride. It was a pattern she’d demonstrated throughout her youth, when he’d called her “brat” or “Christian, with a little devil inside” for the stunts she pulled and the dares taken that put her at risk. She’d
been through hell and back, but she rarely complained.

  Amazing, considering what she’d lived through.

  Justin’s gaze fell on Christiana’s dark head, and he couldn’t help recalling the times he’d patted it when he’d thought her an orphan, a lost boy, craving approval and basking in the glow of praise, however small. A child plagued by night terrors that made her cry out, in desperate need of reassurance and comfort. Sailing aboard a pirate sloop, she’d been the only true innocent of the lot, since he and O’Malley had had to prove themselves as adept at looting as the others.

  And although she had later sinned against him, she might still be the most innocent of them, in what was beginning to look like a tangled web of murder and betrayal.

  Oui. But what was the extent of O’Malley’s involvement? Was it simply taking the wrong hand of cards, collecting a random win that might have gone to anyone? A man with enemies might reconsider his luck, question whether he was allowed to win, and why.

  Exploring the possibilities, he thought of how else O’Malley might have acquired the ring. A man could have taken it, held onto it all this time, presented it as fresh winnings—but Justin refused to believe this was the case with O’Malley. Gut instinct told him that his once-best friend could not have changed so drastically that he was capable of the atrocities committed aboard the Gabrielle. If the story was true, if O’Malley had won it two months ago, who, then, had had it the three years before that? Through how many hands had the ring passed since it was stripped from his dead mother’s finger?

  Justin rubbed a weary hand across his face. It was getting late, nearly light’s out. Rising, he circumnavigated the table, urged Christiana’s head onto his shoulder, and lifted her in his arms. She barely stirred as he tucked her, fully clothed, into his bed. Once he’d returned the dishes from the evening’s repast, Justin shed his own clothes and extinguished the lamp before joining Christiana.

  She murmured in her sleep, and he drew her into the cradle of his naked body, inhaling her essence, stroking the soft black silk of her hair, enjoying the feel of her so much that his body naturally responded, urging him to do more. Justin denied that basic instinct. He’d had her willing. He wanted her that way again, when she was coherent enough to be an active participant. To take her like this, while she was soft and yielding but insensate, would be no better than rape.

  Justin held her for long moments, content to listen to the sounds of her breathing, even when she started to snore. He smiled despite himself, but his grin faded when he realized that this might just be their calm before another storm, the peace preceding a war of wills. He was determined to have Christiana, and equally determined to find his parents’ murderers. To learn what he needed to know, he’d have to start with the ring on Christiana’s finger and work his way back. He was prepared to be ruthless, both in getting information and in using it for retribution. He could not allow her to withhold anything from him.

  Justin lay next to her, a man torn, his mind too engaged in conflict to sleep. After three years of searching, the truth of his parents’ deaths might be as close as Ian O’Malley.

  He could only pray that Ian’s prison was Tartarus, and not Pandora’s box.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next day, Justin banished Christiana to the galley, telling her she could choose to help or simply pass the day with a lapful of cat and kittens. He did not see her again until evening, when they shared a simple meal and a bottle of wine.

  Justin watched her by lamplight, somewhat bemused when she became suddenly uncertain after an evening of polished poise. All he did was mention it was time for bed, and her slim bare fingers fluttered, twisting her napkin into an intricate knot. Her teeth gnawed her lower lip. The way she eyed their berth, you’d think it was Hades and he were the son of Cronus, come to take her there.

  Bien, thought Justin. She had had all day to think about what he might expect, what he would require as payment for past sins. She could not deny there was an old score to settle between them. But how little she knew if she thought she would find no pleasure in his arms while he was extracting the sweetest of revenge.

  But not yet.

  He let her fidget a moment more, then recognized the wisdom in choosing honey over vinegar. “Ship’s rules call for lights out at eight,” he explained, adding, “All lights, Christiana. No exceptions. I’ll leave you to get settled while you can still see.”

  Justin returned the laden tray of leftover food and used table service to the galley and checked on Jamaica’s first litter. She was such a small cat, and the tom who’d been courting her was so very large, he’d had his doubts that she would survive the delivery, not when she’d taken nearly three years to first conceive.

  Jamaica greeted him with a lusty purr. Bought off with a piece of cheese and a scratch behind the ear, she let him see her fruit: four scrawny, mewling, sightless kittens wriggling on a hemp sack and complaining of their mother’s desertion. Only one of them resembled her, glossy black with four white feet. The rest looked like their sorry sire—his mother’s cat Buí that his brother had fetched from France. Bryce had given Buí to Justin in a reconciliatory gesture after their parents were killed, though the cat berthed where he damned well pleased.

  Poor kittens. The three petite plain orange tabbies were destined to be confused with most of the feline population on Valhalla. For better or worse, he had named his tiny island in honor of a Viking ancestor, a Norseman who’d invaded Ireland. Like him, he had found an Irish lass to warm his bed, settling in Limerick and passing his fair hair on to their progeny.

  Justin had discovered the uninhabited island at a time in his life when he was ready for a home. Tired of endless weeks at sea with no place to hang his hat but the captain’s quarters or a doxy’s wall hook, he’d claimed the twelve square miles for himself and his crews. He had built a house to be proud of and had written to his parents in Havre, finally prepared to enter the marriage they had arranged.

  But fate had dealt him a cruel hand. True, he had his island, and on his island, his brooding younger brother and a growing feline population, but he had no bride, nor parents anymore, just a rolling deck beneath his feet and an empty house to welcome him home.

  “Jamaica,” he said softly, “I may never find heaven on earth, but I believe I have found a woman worthy of a Valkyrie. I can only hope that I am not wrong, that my instincts have not failed me.”

  Not the way they had with Felicia.

  Justin gave Jamaica another scratch and a chunk of leftover chicken, then checked on things above. Somewhere on the forecastle, a sailor with an ocarina coaxed a soft, sweet melody that drifted on the breeze. Justin recognized the tune and hummed along, while the words to “Greensleeves” echoed in his mind. Remembering the one who’d taught it to him, he felt the tightness in his chest and thought about the last time he’d hear his maman sing it, to her ailing mother.

  When they’d learned of his grandmother’s illness, his Irish-born mother had insisted on going home. As usual, his father was too busy with business concerns to be bothered. It was decided, as the firstborn son, that he should accompany his maman. They had traveled by sea from France to Limerick, then hired a carriage to take them to his mother’s birthplace, and his, a once-prosperous estate that had since fallen on hard times. Used to a measure of luxury, he’d found the place barely stomachable. Incredibly, his mother had bloomed, performing tasks that their staff of servants did in Havre. Years fell from her face until she looked younger than he remembered ever seeing her. She laughed as she hadn’t in years. Sang songs he hadn’t heard since childhood, before the joy of life had dimmed in her eyes, dulled by the smothering blanket of a loveless marriage bed, then nearly extinguished when his father stopped frequenting it altogether in favor of his mistresses.

  Seeing his mother smile again had made his time there tolerable. But he was young, sixteen years old with a lust for life. The night he turned seventeen, he’d bid the two women adieu and ridden to town, intending
to drink his fill at the public house and hoping that he might ease his loins as well. He’d had one pint, and then another—only the second was never finished. He’d been taken by a press gang with a number of young men, including seventeen-year-old Ian O’Malley, a braw, dark Irish lad whose objection to their present situation graphically manifested itself in the laying out of the two closest guards, while Justin had taken down a third. Their act of defiance earned them a hundred lashes each and bound them together in a friendship that lasted until the day Ian drew his pistol on him, to protect his “nephew” from the punishment he deserved.

  Or so Justin had thought. At the time, he’d been stunned. And hurt, that Ian would let something so small destroy a friendship that spanned thirteen years. Now that he knew the truth, he wondered, given the circumstances, if he would not have done the same.

  The music swelled behind him, poignant and persuasive. The melody curled up the masts and spiraled upwards to join the wind in the sails that would eventually carry them home. Breathing deeply, he let the music take him, too, on a journey of remembrances. He thought not of the hurtful end of a friendship but of the years gone before. He recalled the best of times, the camaraderie, the laughter, the dreams once shared, and finally let go of his anger. Moving past the bitterness and regrets, Justin Vallé forgave Ian O’Malley.

  Smiling softly, he went to seek his own bit of heaven below.

  Christiana woke at the sound of hinges in need of oil. Fixing her gaze on the doorway, she propped herself on one elbow and drew the covers to her chin as a man’s shape crossed the threshold.

  “Vallé?”

  “Oui.” Closing the door, he teased her. “You were expecting someone else, ma belle?”

  Glad to hear the humor in his voice, she lay back down, wondering what he’d think when he came to bed and found her naked. Two chaste nights of lying clothed in his arms were too many for her, and her whole body quickened with thoughts of what tonight held in store.