Touch the Wind: Touch the Wind Book 1

by Erinn Ellender Quinn

  “My eyes are open, brother,” he gritted. “And from what I see, you are the one at fault. Every man on this island knows she’s off limits, but you had to play your games with her. Had to see how far you could go before I put a stop to it. You’re damn lucky she’s all right. I will kill anyone who hurts her. Do not think that because you are my brother, I’ll make an exception. From now on, you’ll keep your distance. If you even think of approaching her again, you will pack your things and leave and you will never come back. Do you understand?”

  “Justin,” Bryce wheedled. “I think you’re making too much of this. She’s hardly worth fighting over, just a hot little piece with an itch that needs scratched.”

  Justin pulled him forward, then slammed him against the wall. “Not by you,” he snarled.

  “No, not by me,” he conceded bitterly. “She’s holding out for the one of us with money. A whore at heart, just like her mother.”

  Justin went still as Bryce’s mouth curled in a thin, nasty, knowing smile. He needed to leave, needed to leave now, before he did something he regretted.

  Justin dropped his hands and stepped back. Bryce rubbed the spots where his fists had dug in hard enough to bruise, his eyes alight with malice. “Has she never told you about her dear maman? No? Her mother liked men with money, too—although she was a bit less discriminating than her daughter’s proving to be. Ask Christiana. Let her tell you about the men who’d come, sometimes two or three or four at a time. They’d bet to see which of them could make the ice queen moan.”

  Justin wanted to call him a liar, but he couldn’t, not yet, not until he’d heard it from Christiana.

  “Ask her,” Bryce challenged him. “I’m sure she can give you details, considering she must have seen most of what went on. She was probably there when her mother killed one of them.”

  “How do you know this?” Justin demanded, his jaw clenched so tightly that it ached.

  Bryce shook his head; a derisive laugh escaped. “I asked,” he said simply. “After her father’s arrest, people talked. There is, I believe, nothing like the promise of reward to open mouths. But what else was I to do when I learned that someone tried to sell our father’s ring? Yes, brother! Our father’s ring! Now do you begin to understand? And you think you are so very clever! Christiana is nothing but a dead whore’s daughter and an Irishman’s by-blow, and hardly worth fighting over, if you ask me.”

  “Get. Out.” Justin was almost afraid of what he’d do, if Bryce didn’t.

  “I’ll go,” Bryce grated. Lifting a hand to the good side of his face, he rubbed behind his ear. “But before I do, I’ll tell you something else, big brother. Christiana Delacorte wants it all—O’Malley, your money, and you—if she can dupe you into thinking she’s worth your efforts. Get O’Malley if you must, but get rid of her before she costs you everything.”

  Justin stared at his brother, hearing the virulent echo of Bryce’s accusations. Thankfully, he knew the way his brother’s mind worked. He’d just been spurned—violently—and his malevolence was directed full force at the woman who’d done it. If he couldn’t have her, he’d make certain neither of them would.

  Christiana had never spoken of her mother, but she’d been killed on a ship carrying convicts to serve out indentures in the Americas. Nine years earlier, a British press gang had seen to it that her pregnant mother was abandoned. God knows how she managed, or what she was forced to do for herself and her child to survive. No one wanted to be judged by the sins of their parents—including him. She deserved better.

  He knew things about Christiana that Bryce would never know. He’d held her in his arms when she thought he was simply a privateer, a mercenary for hire, in need of her coin rather than possessor of his own fortune. He’d tasted her passion, had heard her professions of love while she was delirious, in no shape to weave tales and spout lies. He’d like to think that she loved—and trusted—him enough to tell him the whole truth, eventually.

  Justin looked at his brother. “We are done,” he told him flatly. “You are not my keeper. Whatever happens between Christiana and me is our business, none other’s. I give you fair warning: I will not tolerate abuse, by word or deed, from you. She is my employer, and my guest, and under my protection. If you cannot manage civility, then keep your distance. If you find that too hard, then remove yourself from this island. Visit your scurrilous friends. Seek out women who’ll welcome your business. Drink, game, whore to your heart’s content. There’ll be a purse downstairs in the office in the morning. It’s yours if you’ll take it and go."

  Bryce rubbed his chin, his gaze lit with calculated interest. “For how long?”

  “Three weeks,” said Justin. “No, a month.”

  Enough time to finish plans, make connections, and rescue O’Malley. A month of days and nights to learn about the woman who’d come to mean more to him than he cared to admit, even to himself.

  Turning on his heel, Justin exited the apartment and headed downstairs to his office, slowing his descent when he saw Rafe waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. Justin didn’t doubt that his lieutenant had heard the confrontation in its entirety. The Spaniard’s gaze slid beyond him to the second floor.

  “Do you think he will do it?” Rafe spoke softly, but his words had a razor’s edge that cut to the quick of it.

  Justin heaved a sigh and motioned Rafe into the office, closing the door behind them. “I don’t know. I hope,” he murmured tiredly. “I don’t think I can stand idly by any longer and watch him play his games with Christiana. He’s gone too far this time—and you know as well as I that he can’t be trusted not to try again.”

  “Sí.” Rafe nodded. “But it is good that the señorita has shown herself to be a leona. He knows to fear her claws, yes? Just make certain that you, too, protect yourself, Capitán. Things are worse than I feared.”

  Justin felt the hair stand on the back of his neck. They hadn’t had time to discuss Rafe’s trip to Tortola, not with Mattie flying in, frantic with worry over the missing Christiana. Justin had sent Mattie home and gone to search for his errant guest. The first circuit he’d made turned up nothing. The second time, he’d found her stockings and hat. A fleeting thought of abduction made his heart race, until he’d seen her footprints in the sand, heading back to the house.

  Finding a second set of footprints, he’d put two and two together and come up furious.

  “I have heard the report from Port Royal. The British are taking care not to kill O’Malley,” Rafe said. “Yet they continue to persuade him to talk. They want his ships and hope to learn where to find the take from the Gabrielle before they will agree to hand him over to the French. When I returned to Tortola, seeking answers to your questions, and asked for Druscilla, I was told I would have to choose another. Sometime after my last visit, they found her body, nude, on the beach.” Rafe’s lips thinned. “She had been savaged.”

  Jésu. Justin had a sudden urge to cross himself. Instead he dragged a hand through his hair and looked at Rafe. “Any arrests?” he asked. “Any leads?”

  “The authorities show little concern for the death of the puta. But she was known to be O’Malley’s favorite. Any time his name—either name—was mentioned, people grew quiet. I did manage to learn that the putas are allowed to ply their trade outside Señora Smith’s casa—an arrangement the señora allows so long as she collects her fee. It was said that Druscilla was entertaining a client elsewhere the morning the soldados came and you were nearly captured.”

  Justin swore beneath his breath. He’d hoped to have good news to give Christiana, but O’Malley was being systematically tortured and Druscilla was dead. The only positive thing Rafe shared was that arrangements to break out O’Malley were progressing. The right palms had been greased, signals were in place, and they had set a tentative date.

  Meanwhile, Justin was readying the Raptor to sail. Both men knew there was still much to be done.

  “Uriah is seeing to the ship.” He clamped a hand
on his lieutenant’s shoulder. “We’ll talk again in the morning. For now, I must excuse myself and return to my guest.”

  After Rafe had gone, Justin went to what was appropriately christened his treasure room, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. A shaft of sunlight through the doorway penetrated the darkness of the windowless room, reflecting off the jewels and coins piled on shelves and tables and spilling from opened chests. Plucking a bulging leather purse, he weighed it in his palm, then added another handful of coins. He wanted to make certain that Bryce’s bribe was tempting enough for him to take it and be gone.

  Relocking the door and pocketing the key, Justin placed the purse on his desk as he had promised. He stared at it for a moment, then turned on his heel and walked out the front door, not bothering to secure it. This island belonged to him, and the loyalty of every man on it—

  Every man save one.

  He found it sadly ironic that he could implicitly trust his crews, and their families, but he could not trust his own brother.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Christiana stood outside Vallé’s library door, one hand poised to beg admittance, the other pressed against her churning stomach. He had summoned, and she had answered.

  It was time to finish their discussion. Time to learn about O’Malley.

  Bracing herself, she knocked.

  “Come in.”

  Christiana pushed the latch and opened the door to see Vallé rising from behind a beautifully made wooden desk. Candlelight flickered, reflecting on its polished surface and softly illuminating the rows of books and wood paneled walls. The atmosphere was distinctly masculine: the sharp scent of fine tobacco, the waft of brandy from the snifter on his desk, the seductive blend of beeswax and leather and sea air and Vallé.

  Despite the emotional distance he had established and maintained, he still had the power to make her tremble with longing. Tonight he wore the same blue justacorps he’d worn that first night in Charlotte Amalie, paired with an embroidered weskit and a white silk shirt. There was lace at his cuffs, but instead of a jabot, he had tied a black silk ribbon around his neck. His white-gold hair shone like spun silver, and his gold earring winked in the candlelight.

  She pasted on a false smile and closed the door behind her.

  When she turned, Vallé was standing behind his leather desk chair, a forearm draped across its high back. He canted his head. His blue gaze was enigmatic, revealing none of the explosive anger so salient earlier in the day. Studying his careful pose, she wondered if it had dissipated or if he’d merely managed to bank the fire.

  He motioned to a pair of high-backed wing chairs, upholstered in blue damask, that flanked the cool marble hearth. “Have a seat, ma belle. We have much to discuss.”

  Ma belle. He hadn’t called her that in days. Not since they’d come here.

  Not since they had last made love.

  Christiana’s breath caught in her throat. When her thoughts ran wild, she turned her attention to more mundane matters, like how to sit like a lady. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and curled her fingers into the sides of her yellow silk overdress. Lifting the hinged panniers beneath her skirts, she lowered herself carefully onto the edge of the chair, fitting herself between the arms. Once seated, she arranged the yards of fabric, plucking at the contrasting underskirt with nervous fingers and waiting for Vallé to speak.

  The silence lengthened between them, broken only by the ticking of the brass-faced mantle clock and the first splats of rain on the window. She lifted her gaze to view him from beneath the curtain of her lashes, watched as his thoughtful expression grew troubled. Rubbing his neck beneath his black-ribboned queue, he took his seat, passing an idle hand over the form-fitting breeches before fisting it on his thigh.

  “Christiana,” he began, an unusual hesitancy in his voice. “I realize that what happened this afternoon was not your fault. I have spoken with Bryce. He’ll be leaving in the morning. I’ve told him not to return until I have freed Ian—your father.”

  A sweet surge of relief flooded her, and she gathered the courage to look up. Vallé’s gaze was focused on the patterned carpet, studying the multicolored hues. Ruddy reds, verdant greens, soft blues, and creamy yellows were bathed in the same golden light that gilded his hair and made the silver buttons of his blue justacorps wink in the deepening darkness. Outside, a wall of gray clouds thickened and the rain picked up, tapping against the mullioned window panes.

  He angled his head, setting the single golden hoop piercing his left ear in motion. It swung for a moment, then stilled, resting beside the corded muscle of his neck as he turned his head slowly toward her.

  “I think you should know,” he told her, reluctance and something else lacing his voice, “he might not be in the best of shape when we fetch him.”

  Christiana’s heart stopped, changed its pace while a thousand thoughts crowded her mind.

  “My agent has not seen him, but he learned that the British are trying their best to get information before turning him over to the French.”

  “Their worst, you mean.” She’d been right. He was being beaten, tortured. And she knew they would keep at it, trying to make him talk, coming back, again, and again, for information he did not possess.

  Fighting tears, she pushed herself out of her chair. Crossing the floor in a swish of silk, she leaned her head against the casement and listened to the sound of heaven weeping.

  “Would you rather I had not told you?” he asked, coming to stand behind her. “Was I wrong to think that you still wish to know everything?”

  Straightening, she saw their reflections and inhaled a fractured breath. “No. It’s just…a shock,” she told him, her voice husky with unshed tears. Not just the news, but that he’d shared it with her.

  His gaze met hers in the storm-darkened pane. “The information came from the guard who will be on duty the night we free O’Malley. I’ve done business with him before.”

  “And he can be trusted?” she whispered as lightning danced in the distance, followed by a low rumble of thunder.

  “For a price,” Vallé told her. “Between what I’ve already paid him and what he’ll receive when the job is done, I believe he will be the least of our worries.”

  “And the others?”

  Justin stared at the white lace headpiece secured by pins atop her cap of black silk hair. The tendrils just reached the nape of her neck—short, soft curls that his fingers longed to touch. But he would not stop there. He’d move lower, let his fingers dance along the delicate arch of her neck, down the enticing column of her spine, trailing kisses until he came to the sensitive spot that had made her writhe when he’d fastened his mouth on it before.

  He blew out softly, feeling his body stir at the memory, recalling the feel of her lying beneath him, so beautiful in her submission. He’d turned her onto her side and buried his body in hers, hard and deep, at the same time his fingers had found the fleshy bud at the arbor of her thighs and she’d exploded, bucking and writhing against him.

  His mouth went dry. Breathing deeply, he feasted on the alluring scents of perfumed femininity, sunshine, and sea foam captured in her hair. Venus risen and draped in silk, stirring his hunger with her mere proximity. A stab of desire shot through him as the next bolt split the heaven.

  Christiana flinched at the crack of thunder. She scanned the night-dark sky, her fingers pressed against her mouth, her wide green eyes glistening with tears.

  “Nothing that can’t be handled,” Justin told her, fisting his hands to keep from touching her, from offering her comfort when he knew he might not be able to stop there. She was strong, he told himself. Perhaps nearly as strong as he was. But right now she looked so very vulnerable. Fragile in a way he’d not seen her. Frightened for the other man she loved.

  “With luck,” he qualified, meeting her anguished gaze when she looked at him over the soft curve of her shoulder, her lip caught between her teeth, raw emotion shining in the depth of her eyes. Angl
ing his head, he held her gaze for long, silent seconds, watched her blink away the tears that blurred her vision. Her green eyes widened when she saw how wrong she’d been, and she realized that he found her beautiful, and desirable, and he wanted her.

  He’d never stopped wanting her.

  Justin stepped closer, so that her skirts brushed his boots, near enough to inhale the essence of her skin beneath the light floral scent she favored. He felt a strange tension build in his chest. The fever in his blood grew, until he was torn between the need to offer her his strength and the desire to take her in his arms and make her confess that she wanted him, too.

  Struggling to hold himself in check, he tilted his head and slowly reached to touch her cheek. “There is always a chance of failure,” he murmured, “which is why you’ll be staying here. If something goes wrong—if I don’t come back—I must know that you are safe.”

  “No!” she gasped. Eyes filled with distress, she clasped his hand and placed her smooth cheek against his callused palm, holding his hand in place as if to bind them together. “I must go,” she begged him. “How can I stay here, not knowing? Let me sail with you. Please?”

  “Non, ma belle,” he said gently.

  “I won’t get sick,” she swore, taking his hand between hers to hold over her heart. “I promise to stay out of the way.”

  Justin shook his head.

  She looked away, then swung her desperate gaze back to meet his. “I’ll do anything,” she whispered, tightening her hold.

  Christiana swallowed, then wet her lips.

  “Anything,” she said, rubbing his hand like a genie’s lamp. “I’ll share your bed—”

  Jésu. What he wouldn’t have given to have heard those words last night when he lay burning with need. Truly, he wanted her—but he wanted her to come to him as she had the first time, freely, of her own volition, not in exchange for favors, or to pay an old debt. He didn’t want a commodity, a body given in trade. He wanted Christiana and the joyous union he knew that they could find in each other’s arms.