Bryce said he planned to court her. When Vallé said nothing in refute, not a word to indicate either his approval or displeasure, Christiana squared her shoulders, determined that two could play his game. If he wanted to pretend there was nothing between them, so be it. She would continue as she was, accepting Bryce’s company while treading carefully, neither encouraging his attentions nor cruelly dashing his hopes. And if Bryce chose to overlook more subtle hints, if a time came that he actually began to press his suit, then she would do what she’d done with Philip, confess that there was no hope for anything between them.
Not when her heart belonged to another, however unattainable he might be.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next day was too glorious for Christiana to be cooped up inside. In defiance of Vallé’s orders, she visited the beach on the far side of the island, unwilling to risk discovery along the leeward shore’s main beach, since wharfside was where he was likely to be.
Christiana slipped off her shoes and wriggled her bare toes in the sun-warmed sand, raising a hand to her broad-brimmed hat and making certain the pin was secure, lest it fly off in the ocean breeze. The trade winds lapped at her dress and licked her face, grooming her like Jamaica did her kittens.
Placing a hand over the sudden queasiness in her stomach, Christiana frowned, disturbed and saddened by Bryce’s true nature. It had been simple enough to discern, once she saw how he treated animals. Not with Justin’s deft touch and uncharacteristic gentleness, but with gruff reprimands and swift kicks when he thought no one was looking. Seeing him once, she’d had her doubts. Seeing him exhibit that kind of petty meanness twice, she’d discerned that a far different man lay beneath his courtly exterior.
And that made her wonder about Vallé.
“A picayune for your thoughts.”
Bryce had followed her.
Christiana schooled her features. It would not do to let Bryce know what she’d been thinking. He’d been more ardent of late, keeping her company while his brother sequestered himself in his library with his books and a bottle of Madeira. When she’d frowned over Justin’s drinking, Bryce had gone so far as to shun liquor in her presence, seeking yet another way to ingratiate himself with her.
She curved her lips in a careful smile, unwilling to encourage him in any way. “I’m afraid they’re not worth that much,” she told him. “But since you asked, I was wondering, has your brother said anything about how soon he plans to go for O’Malley?”
Bryce cast his gaze out to sea, in the direction of Jamaica. “If you must know,” he said carefully, “his agent has returned from Port Royal. He’s speaking with Justin now.” He thought twice, then told her, “I’m afraid it’s not good news, ma petite.”
She looked at him and knew that Bryce had kicked her as surely as he had the yellow tomcat he’d caught hanging around the house. He wanted her to hurt, so that he could offer solace.
Rather than let him see the fear that threatened to overwhelm her, she shoved on her shoes, not bothering with stockings. “I must go,” she said tightly when Bryce caught her arm, his eyes burning with blue fire. “Don’t,” she warned him. Ignoring her, he drew her to him, slid a hand to the nape of her neck, and lowered his head while tipping hers to meet him.
He kissed her. Gently, persuasively, trying to coax a response that she was incapable of giving. He was not unskilled. He applied himself most ardently, but her refusal to participate pricked his ego, she could tell.
Bryce slanted his head to deepen his kiss. Christiana held herself motionless, resisting the urge to drive her knee into his groin and fell him where he stood when he pressed harder, forcing her mouth open for a rapacious kiss that made her feel violated.
“Non, please!” she rasped, tearing herself away and pushing futilely against the wall of his chest.
Bryce merely chuckled and tightened his hold, surprising her with his wiry strength. Against her belly, she could feel how her resistance affected him. Panic rose, unbidden, and she froze, when a voice from the past warned her not to fight, not to give him the struggle that he expected, that he wanted. If he had smelled of civet and bergamot, she might have been lost. As it was, she managed to keep enough of her wits to focus on escape.
“Ma petite,” he crooned. “I have waited too long to taste your lips. To taste the passion I sense in you.” Without permission, he thrust a hand between them and cupped her breast.
“Mais oui,” he murmured darkly, enjoying her gasp of outrage. “What pleasure we could find together, you and I. Such lovely ripeness above and such delicious smallness below. Tell me, are you a virgin?”
Something in her snapped. Ten years ago she’d been asked the same question, by the leech who usually took his payment out in trade with her mother. He liked it rough. When her mother was ill and could not give him what he wanted, he’d gone after her instead. Not quite eight years old, she’d been. She could still smell the civet and bergamot on his leather apron, the anise on his breath, when he’d grabbed her and pushed her to the floor. Flipping her onto her stomach, intending to take her like a boy, he’d crushed her with his weight so that she could not breathe at all.
He had hoped for a struggle and paid with his life.
Remembering her mother’s fury, Christiana channeled it, curled her fingers, and slashed at Bryce’s face. Stunned by her savagery, he released her, stepping back with one hand clamped to his face where her nails had raked four parallel strips of flesh.
He took one step only, before noticing the hat pin she held like a fencer’s foil. The look she gave him said she would not hesitate to drive it through his heart, or where his heart should be, if he had one.
“Bâtard,” she hissed, her chest heaving, her pulse tripping, unwilling to take her eyes off her adversary. Why, oh, why had she disobeyed Vallé and come to the far side of the island? There was no one to help her. No one to stop Bryce except herself.
Bryce shook his head, a dangerous light in his eyes that made her step backwards, beyond arm’s reach. “Au contraire,” he said softly, insidiously. “I know my pedigree. And I’ll thank you not to cast aspersions on my mother—although you can curse my father all you want. I was never good enough for him, you see, not even when Justin was gone, believed to be dead. I worked for him, learned the business, improved it when finances began to suffer and our operations needed to change with the economy. I helped build his shipping line into one of the greatest in France…and then he came back! The heir to the throne resurrected,” he spat, venom in his voice.
“Justin—always worthy in our father’s eyes no matter what he did and, despite that scarred face of his, still appealing to the women. Why is that?” he asked her tightly. “Why are some females drawn not to the one who would woo them gently or pay court with flowers and poetry, but to the one who doesn’t give a damn? Tell me, chérie, does Justin’s aloofness appeal to you?” he asked, eyes glittering dangerously. “Does the challenge he poses excite you the way it did the maidens in Havre? If not, what does excite you, ma petite?”
Christiana knew her choices were limited. Had she worn boy’s clothes, she could have taken him down, she was certain, using his weight against him as O’Malley had taught her long ago. All she needed was a lucky break, one clean throw, to buy her a head start.
She watched Bryce, knowing she didn’t dare take her eyes off him even as she plotted her next move. She could lose him, she was certain, in a nearby tangle of tropical forest, but not without exposing herself to a different kind of danger. Her best chance lay in racing straight for the safety of Vallé’s house.
Keeping the hat pin pointed at Bryce’s chest, she put another step’s distance between them. And another. And another. Only when she’d breached the top of the first rise did she turn and run, madly, desperately, startling a heron into flight. Her heart drummed wildly in her chest, and she half-expected to hear an outraged bellow and furious sounds of pursuit. Instead a man’s mocking laughter lifted on the breeze, as if warning her
that she might escape this time but she couldn’t hide forever.
Christiana didn’t stop running until she reached the cuisine, chest heaving, lungs burning from exertion, her whole body still trembling in the wake of womanly fear. She collapsed against the stone sink that drained to the outside of the kitchen and sank to the patterned brick floor, too weak to stand any longer.
She dropped the hat pin and put her head in her hands, ripping off the lace cap she wore and digging her fingers through her shortened locks. At the sound of her first smothered sob, Jamaica roused herself from her nap on the window sill, raising her head and peering over her shoulder. Stretching out her front legs and working her paws, she pushed herself up and jumped to the floor. After one quick glance showed her young ones still sleeping in a corner box, the cat crossed the floor, tail twitching, to rub against her elbow.
Exhaling shakily, Christiana lifted the nursing mother with care. Settling the cat on her lap, she stroked the sleek black fur, felt the vibration as Jamaica purred her pleasure. The cat dipped her nose and jutted her chin, angling her head to encourage her favorite scratch behind her ears. Christiana obliged, finding solace in the simple act, appreciative of the animal’s companionship since she was in no shape for the questions she’d face, were she to encounter Mattie Sharp or Justin Vallé.
As for Bryce, she thought she was safe enough for the time being. He would not dare come to dinner bearing her marks upon his face.
Composed now, Christiana stayed in the cuisine, petting Jamaica, then handling the kittens, whose eyes were now opened, to keep them tame. She didn’t notice how much the angle of light had changed until a streak of red appeared outside the window, catching her eye. Scarlet ibises, bound for the far side of the island.
A new panic gripped her when she realized how long she’d been gone. Christiana hurried to the house and slipped inside the back door…only to be brought up short by the sight of Vallé storming in the front, one hand gripping the stockings she’d left and, the other, the hat she’d lost at the beach when she’d taken out its pin.
The look of vast relief that registered briefly on his face disappeared when he saw her dishevelment. His jaw hardened; his eyes glittered dangerously, searing her with a glance that started at her uncovered head and ended at her feet, making her feel like an errant child awaiting punishment.
“O’Malley,” she said, hoping to change the subject. “You have word of him?”
“He’s not going anywhere,” said Vallé. “Not yet.”
She knew better than to press him when he set her hat on the sideboard, centered it carefully, deliberately, each motion and each word as calculated as moves on a chess board.
“Mattie has been looking for you,” he grated, his voice rimmed in cold, hard steel. “She’s been worried sick.”
He looked at the stockings, as if weighing evidence in a criminal trial where she was the accused. “The next time you arrange a tryst, do try to come up with some excuse to be gone so she will not trouble herself.”
Vallé was as bad as his brother, making wrong assumptions, but in some ways he was worse.
Vallé should have known better.
“I’m sorry,” she said stiffly, refusing to demean herself for a situation that was only partly her fault and mostly Bryce’s. “I didn’t mean to make her worry. It was just so lovely—I went for a walk.”
“A walk, you say?” He raised his eyes; his scarred cheek ticked. After her experience with his brother, it was all she could do not to cower in front of him. “You’ve been missing for hours. Your lips are swollen. Your hair is….is wild. And you, grown so careless, you couldn’t bother with stockings when you finished.”
Finished? Christiana didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He’d thought she’d gone out willingly to meet someone and—oh, oh, how could he be such a fool?!
“You’re wrong,” she spit at him, anger taking over. “Who are you, to judge me on appearance? You know was well as I, not everything is as it seems! Do you think,” she grated, “that I’ve not a brain in my head? Looking like something the cat dragged in, do you think I’d not fess up to mischief if I had committed any? Why don’t you ask me for bloody details?” she challenged. “I’ll burn your ears, I swear I will!”
Vallé’s scarred cheek twitch ominously, but she was too upset to quit while ahead. “Would you believe me if I said I serviced half your bloody crew and the other half is expecting me tomorrow? Would you believe me if I said that the next time I’m to bring rope and a whip so we can play a doxy’s games?” She thrust her chin up defiantly, taking no small comfort in the way his frown smoothed and the corner of his lips threatened to lift into a grin.
He was starting to believe her. Another woman would take her salvage and run. Sweet Mary, she thought, why couldn’t she let it be?
Because she’d always been as reckless as Vallé was patient, that’s why.
“I went for a walk,” she said carefully, understanding the importance of being completely honest with him after he’d been betrayed by Felicia, cuckolded before his wedding, Bryce had said. The knowledge had poisoned him against any thoughts of marriage, ever.
“A walk,” she said. “‘Tis all I’d planned. All I wanted. Anything else—it wasn’t my fault.”
Vallé’s mouth tightened grimly. He crushed the stockings in his fist. “What happened, Christiana? The whole truth of it, regardless of what you think does or does not matter.”
She met his gaze, refusing to cringe beneath its searing heat. “The truth is, Bryce tried to flatter me and took objection when I did not return his regard. I didn’t want anyone to see me like I was, so I went into the kitchen for a while. I petted Jamaica and played with the kittens. I had no idea Mattie was looking for me, else I’d have come in sooner.”
“Are you certain that’s all that happened?” Vallé asked, his voice deadly calm despite the undercurrents she felt radiating from him. “Or did you flirt with Bryce, and when he started to play rougher than you liked, you changed your mind?”
“Jesus and Mary,” she swore, sensing the riptide of white-hot anger that pulsed in Vallé’s veins. “If life has twisted you so much that you cannot trust, then why do you bother asking? Why don’t you just make up your mind and be done with it?”
She bit off, clenching her fists rather than succumb to the urge to slap some sense into him.
“The truth of it is, your brother is a comely man and a bully boy. He is spoiled,” she said, her brogue thickening with her rising anger. “Set on having his way—a family trait, it seems to me. I went walking alone and came back alone. I didn’t ask him to meet me, and I didn’t flirt with him. Sweet Mary,” she hissed at him, lowering her voice to the barest whisper. “Do you think me so ugly that I must throw myself at a man to get his attention? Do you think me so desperate that I’ll settle for anyone, now that you don’t want me anymore? Well, I don’t want another man,” she gritted, snatching up her hat and planting it on her head. “And if you believe that I’ve spent the afternoon welcoming one’s attentions, then go out to the kitchen and ye’ll find the hat pin I used to defend meself. Or hie yourself down to the dock and see if you can spot that scurvy brother of yours. He’s wearing stripes down one side of his face for trying to take liberties he had no leave to take.”
Vallé stared at her for a long moment, implacable, then shoved a hand into his hair. “I’ll be back,” he gritted, “and when I return, you and I are going to finish this discussion.”
Rage. Justin blazed with it. He stormed from the house and down to his office, taking the stairs two at a time and shoving open the door to Bryce’s upstairs apartment. His brother was standing by his shaving mirror, gingerly dabbing a damp rag to his face. He paused mid-motion when the door bounced off the white plaster wall.
Swinging his head around, Bryce met his gaze for the briefest moment, then looked back into the mirror and pressed the rag on the next spot.
“What took you so long?” he murmured out of th
e side of his mouth.
“Bastard,” Justin hissed, grabbing Bryce’s shoulder, hauling back his hand, and letting it connect with his brother’s jaw. Bryce lost his balance and fell against the shaving stand, knocking it over. The porcelain basin hit the floor, shattering, splashing water on their booted feet.
“I warned you not to hurt her,” Justin grated. He stepped over the mess, following his brother’s retreat. “She is under my protection. Mine,” he said fiercely, lunging forward to fist his hands in Bryce’s shirt and pin him to the wall.
His brother stared at him, wide-eyed. A sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead when he sensed how close Justin was to losing control. Thoughts of Bryce and his bride never filled Justin with rage, not like this. His marriage had been arranged; he hadn’t known Felicia well enough to be possessive. When he learned that she’d been unfaithful, the sadness over her death was entwined with an odd sense of relief. Why, then, did the sight of four red lines marring the perfect handsomeness of his brother’s face give him such savage glee? Why did thoughts of Bryce and Christiana together tear him apart inside?
“Justin, Justin. You’re overreacting.” Bryce licked his lips and swallowed nervously, his gaze darting wildly, unable to look him in the eye. “Sh-she wasn’t hurt,” he stammered. “I—I am the one with marks. She doesn’t have a bruise on her. I swear! I—”
A wave of sheer panic washed across his face, taking the color with it.
He didn’t know if he’d left bruises or not.
Justin ground his fists into the slight pad of his brother’s chest. “You touched her,” he growled, daring him to deny it.
“She led me on. Let me think she wanted attention. How was I to know she’d change her mind? She’s a tease, Justin! If you’d open your eyes and see her for what she is, you’d realize that!”
Touch the Wind: Touch the Wind Book 1 Page 13