He could have touched her, could have taken advantage of her tender heart and accepted her offer. He could have had her, here and now. Could have carried her upstairs and had his way with her. Instead, he denied himself what she would have given and asked her why.
“Why?” he whispered again when she did not answer him the first time. Looking down, he framed her face in his hands and studied it, taking into account her luscious mouth, her pert reddened nose, her green eyes, fringed by black lashes so long he could feel the sweep of them against his finger as they came to rest upon her cheeks, the fine-drawn hollows beneath them now almost filled out to perfection.
“Why?” he asked a third time, hearing the soft pant of her breath when he slid his hands behind her neck and drew her closer, marveling at how a handsome, reckless waif had grown into such a beautiful, daring, passionate young woman.
“You said—your price,” Christiana whispered. Keeping her eyes closed, she placed her hands on the broad wall of Vallé’s chest, while her pulse beat a silent song beneath his fingers.
“Non,” he said, stroking the sensitive flesh behind her ears with his thumbs. “Before. Why did you give yourself to me before?”
She bit her lip, inhaled tremulously, and raised her gaze to meet his own. His eyes smoldered, luminous in the dark, the blue deepened by desire, the black centers large enough to pull her in and hold her spellbound. “I think you know why, Vallé,” she said, unable to bring herself to say more.
“Justin,” he told her, drawing her closer. “My name is Justin.”
Lowering his head, he brushed his lips lightly across hers, teased them again before pulling back, breathing deeply, nostrils flaring, with a hunger in his gaze to match her own.
“Tell me,” he cajoled, tempting her with his touch. “Say it,” he demanded, pulling her against him, allowing her to feel his desire, a desire that threatened to drown her reason.
Christiana shuddered at the ramifications if she allowed him to continue. Her better sense took over, allowing her mind to break free of the spell he wove around her. Jesus and Mary, what was she thinking? How could she fall so easily into his arms when not three hours gone he’d all but accused her of sleeping with his brother? Was he so confident of himself, of his powers of seduction, that he believed she would just forgive and forget? Did he think a deft touch and passionate kisses would compensate for a week’s worth of snubbing and a day’s worth of doubt? She loved him, yes—but did he believe her to be a fool, to serve up her heart on a platter, her stubborn pride be damned?
Quelling the temptation to do exactly that, she stiffened beneath his touch. Sensing the change in her weather gauge, he angled his head in puzzlement and loosened his grip, allowing her to twist free and put distance between them. She retreated to the center of the room before turning to face him.
Disbelief etched his features. His breath expelled in a rush of sound. “I seem to be missing something here,” he said tightly. “One minute you’re offering to share my bed. In the next, you spurn me. I don’t suppose you care to explain?”
“It was…a mistake,” she told him. “I thought I could change your mind, but I can’t. I won’t. Besides, I’ve paid you enough to free O’Malley,” she hedged, twisting her fingers together. “Please credit me with intelligence enough to understand that the outcome won’t hinge on my presence in your bed.”
Vallé glanced away, focusing on the tempest outside rather than face the storm in her eyes. “And why shouldn’t it? We had a bargain. Why should I fulfill my part if you are not willing to do yours, hmm?” He snapped his head back to pin her with his pointed gaze. “I would think a dutiful daughter would do anything to see her father freed.”
“That’s not fair,” she volleyed back.
“Tell me, what in life is?” He circled her, his eyes lupine as he took her measure. “Was it fair for us to be taken and forced to sail for the British? Forced again to sail with Bonnet? And what of you?” He paused in his pacing. “What fickle god of fate put you in the belly of that ship for him to find? Tell me,” he said, smiling darkly. “Confession, they say, is good for the soul.”
“For some,” she agreed. “For those allowed to attend Mass, and take communion, and have absolution rained on them like manna from heaven. Mama and I, we were not that lucky. Is that what you want to hear?” she challenged him. “To learn how low was my birth, how poor my upbringing, how my mother had no pedigree to protect her from men who would ill-use her? Who tried to use me, too, believing it of no consequence? Because she protected me,” Christiana said tightly, “she paid the price. Convicted of manslaughter and the both of us shipped off, out of sight, out of mind.”
She squared her shoulders and drew herself up. “I spent the first part of my life learning to avoid such men. I cannot change the circumstance of my birth, or the sad facts of the life that led to her death. She did what she did because she had no choice. I have no such excuse.” She shook her head, unable to keep bitterness from tingeing her voice. “I gave myself to you once. More than once. Who would blame you for taking me again?”
Another man might force himself on her, but this was Vallé. She prayed she had not misjudged him.
She stood her ground while Vallé stared at her, his face pinched as he absorbed her cut. For long moments, he remained quiet, breathing deeply, as the black clouds wept outside and her heart ached for love of him.
“No one,” he said finally, “except the one who matters most….”
He smiled, then—a pirate’s smile that promised adventures beyond her wildest imaginings, should she choose to join him. In two steps, he could have taken her in his arms, and she might have gone anywhere, given him anything. Instead, he rewarded her honesty with a confession of his own.
“I am a patient man, Christiana. But I have my pride as well,” he said. “I want you. All of you, comprenez-vous? Until you are prepared to give it, you shall continue to sleep alone, and undisturbed by me.”
Vallé reached for her hand and brought it to his mouth. He captured her gaze and brushed a kiss across her fingers, his eyes never leaving hers. Gone was the wall they’d erected between them. In its place was an awareness that left her shaken.
He wanted her. All of her.
He didn’t know—couldn’t know—what he asked.
The idea of exposure was frightening. He offered a chance to rip away the masks and unveil the true Christiana Delacorte—and who was that? The daughter of a former dairy maid who used to brush her hair and feed her bits and pieces of her heritage as a special treat when there was nothing to fix for breakfast. A childhood where precious few pleasant memories were overshadowed by the bad. Dark, wicked, evil things—the stuff of nightmares, the reason she thrashed and moaned in her sleep, awoke dripping with sweat, her eyes glazed with horror.
And she had told no one. No one. Not even O’Malley.
“Talk to me,” he whispered, stroking her cheek with their entwined hands.
Christiana closed her eyes, her mind reeling, trying to find a way to warn him from the path he’d chosen. Truth. Unadulterated, bitter truth. Where—how to begin?
“Please, ma belle?” he said, not knowing what he asked, this man who had accepted the gift of her virginity, who’d taught her what it was to be a woman in love with a man—a man who wanted her again, regardless of what he had learned thus far. He already knew a fraction of her sordid tale. Surely he would not turn his back on her once he learned the rest.
Taking a deep breath, she decided to start at the beginning, how her parents had met.
“My mother was an orphan,” she told Vallé. “Her parents died when she was twelve. She was sent to her nearest relatives, an aunt and uncle who kept an inn. She was…ill-treated, working from before dawn until after dark, always at her uncle’s mercy. On good days, he used his fists, although he was careful to leave bruises where they would not show.”
There was no hiding the rancor in her voice, and she lay the blame squarely on her grea
t-uncle’s door. “Maman was beautiful,” she told Vallé. “Petite, like me, but with a pleasing form and pretty white teeth from drinking milk, so she claimed. As she grew older, she was expected to charm the patrons and encourage business. But one day she took notice of a customer in turn. He played the fiddle, and when she sang with him, her uncle flew into a rage. He beat her first, then decided he would put her to use in the nighttime hours, too, beginning with himself. His wife helped her get away in time. She was fifteen. The patron was O’Malley.”
Christiana took a half step back and pulled her fingers from his. Outside the rain still fell, though somewhat slower, fat, lazy drops that tapped on the glass panes while thunder rolled in the distance. She stared for a long moment, then shook herself.
She turned to find Vallé watching her, listening, waiting. She’d come this far. Farther than she had with anyone. But she was tired of hiding. He thought he wanted all of her. Let him listen, then, and learn.
“O’Malley took her to Limerick, found a place for them to live. A small place—it was all he could afford. Still, she was happy there, with him. Until the night he went out for a drink after work, and he never came back.”
“The night we were taken.” Vallé did not bother to hide his bitterness. She was not the only one who had demons to deal with, after all this time.
“Aye. Although my mother could only guess he’d been impressed. She paid to have word sent to his parents in Dublin. They knew of her from the letter he’d written after they’d settled, telling how they’d met, letting them know that they planned to wed, and hoping they would wish them joy. When she realized she was pregnant, carrying their grandchild, she used what little money was left to go there herself.”
Christiana threaded her fingers together and squeezed tightly. “She was turned away at their door. They told her to go home to her uncle—even knowing what he’d done! Their hearts were cold, with no speck of kindness in them. She was afraid to tell them she was with child. She feared that they would try to take me away, or force her to return to her uncle, or both. She ran away, slept in alleys, begged for food, finally found work and a room with a price she could meet…until her belly started to swell and she lost her job.”
So sad, she thought. All the more tragic, when it didn’t have to be that way. “I have tried to understand,” she whispered, “how they could have left her with no choice. As for my mother, she did what she had to do to live, for both of us to survive and to be together. I was his, you see, her last link with the only man she’d loved. On my birth record, she named my father as Étienne Delacorte, to keep O’Malley’s family from finding me or trying to take me. She fought to keep me, when anyone else would have given me up.”
She felt a painful lump lodge in her throat and focused on the black ribbon tied at Vallé’s neck. Her vision blurred, and she squeezed shut her eyes, turning away as a crystalline drop rolled down her cheek. “She made me hide, you know. She tried to keep me safe. But one night, she was sick. So sick. I was afraid she was dying and ran for the leech. He…the times before, he took his payment in trade. But he didn’t want to risk catching what my mother had, and he decided to take me instead. He pushed me to the floor, threw himself on top of me.” She shuddered. “He crushed me, smothered me with his weight. You remember my night terrors after O’Malley found me? I could tell, you thought it was because of seeing my mother killed. The truth was, she was already a dead woman. Bonnet spared her a syphilitic’s end.”
Vallé said nothing, just watched her, and listened.
“The leech was the only one who knew. For years, if I smelled civet or bergamot or anise, or saw a hat like his, I would find myself back in Dublin, pinned beneath him. When I was sick and couldn’t breathe—it brought the nightmares back. It’s as if he’s still smothering me, and I can’t breathe. Can’t push him off.”
Christiana closed her eyes and swallowed. “My mother crawled from her sickbed and tried to pull him away, and he hurt her. He hurt her, then tried to rape me. It was the last mistake he would make. I was hysterical by the time my mother rolled his body off of me,” she told him. “I can still see, still feel, still smell the blood in my dreams.”
Christiana had had night terrors as long as Justin had known her. He had always put it down to the butchery she’d seen aboard the Bess. Mon Dieu, what she had lived through!
“They could see how badly he’d mucked her up. Because of the circumstances, when she was convicted, the magistrate ordered for her to be transported rather than hung. We never reached the colonies. I lost her to Bonnet, and I found O’Malley—or, rather, he found me. You know, it was months—years—before he told me that he was my father, and then, only because I pressed him. I might never have known, but one night he got hold of a fiddle and I heard him play a tune my mother used to hum. To this day, on paper, I’m his niece, or his ward, depending on what name he’s using. He thinks to protect me,” she added sharply, clearly disagreeing with her father.
Vallé angled his head. “O’Malley and I are alike in that regard.”
When Christiana met his gaze, she could tell he’d made up his mind to do just that—protect her. She should feel glad. Flattered. Some women would be content with that, but she wanted more.
“I would prefer honesty. From both of you.”
He had the grace to look chagrined. “Then let me say what a fool I’ve been. I have been avoiding you, it is true. I thought I could erase this past week with a kiss, and I expected you to act as if it had never happened.”
“Only a feckless mooncalf would rush in so soon,” she told him succinctly. “For days, you shunned me. You seemed repulsed by the very sight of me. What was I to think when you could finally bring yourself to touch me again?”
The line of Vallé’s mouth twisted with regret. His jaw hardened, and he looked down at his boots. When he lifted his gaze, it was to meet hers with a flash of heat, full of implication.
“You nearly died, dammit. Mon Dieu, all I had to do was see how thin you were and know how close I’d come to losing you. I couldn’t look at you without remembering why—without being eaten alive, because I was responsible. And so,” he whispered, reaching to cradle her face in his hands, “I tried to not look at you at all. But you are much mistaken,” he finished roughly, “if you think it was easy.”
Christiana searched his eyes, and was touched by the raw emotion he allowed her to see.
“I won’t go back,” she told him. “There’s been enough silence in this house. I need you to talk to me, to tell me a story, sing me a song. Laugh with me.” She lifted a hand and placed it over his heart. “Love me….”
Pain flitted across his face, and he stepped back, letting her hand fall awkwardly between them. “I don’t know if I can,” Vallé told her. A strange emptiness knotted in her chest when his eyes turned flat. He crossed to his desk, and dashed the last of the brandy down his throat before turning to face her again.
“Is it—is it because of my mother?” she asked, fighting the urge to clench her fists and rail at him for shuttering himself away.
Vallé shook his head. “Non. Something else,” he said. “Truly. Nothing to do with you.”
“Then what? Tell me,” she begged him, hurting for them both. “If not me, and not my mother, is it—is it Felicia…?”
She dared whisper the name, and for a moment he looked through her, as if she, too, were a ghost. “Tell me,” she pleaded. “Help me understand. Haven’t we been through enough? Shared enough?”
He looked away, refusing to meet her eyes. “Perhaps,” he said wearily. “I don’t know.”
His admission was oddly vulnerable, as if she held the power to hurt him, too. Because his wounds ran deep, she didn’t pressure him. “I accept that, for now,” she said softly. “I would tell you one more thing—something I learned the hard way, that each of us is responsible for our own happiness. We can account for another’s joy no more than we can blame ourselves for their actions.”
She paused to let her words resonate in his conscience, in the hope that he would take a page from her lesson book and apply it to his own. He needed to absolve himself and release Felicia if he were ever to be free.
“That realization,” she told him, “hasn’t totally rid me of guilt in Philip’s death, but it’s gone a long way, Justin.”
Using Vallé’s Christian name pleased him, she could tell. Lifting on her slippered toes, she brushed a kiss on his scarred cheek. “I do not possess your patience, but I am willing to wait, if it will help you put your own past to rest.”
Justin watched her go, silk skirts swishing as she glided towards the door. Opening it, she cast one last look at him, then bid him good night and disappeared—
Leaving him alone with his ghost.
Felicia’s memory. It haunted this house, though she’d never set foot here. He was very much afraid that there would never be room for another woman here, or in his life, unless he managed to exorcise it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hours later, Christiana stood at the night-darkened window of her bed chamber, a strange tension building in her chest as lightning crashed and huge trees danced madly in the howling wind. Shuddering, she tightened the belt of her robe de chambre. It was near to midnight, and she had yet to hear Vallé come to bed.
Lightning cracked, and she inhaled sharply. The scent of tobacco lingered from much earlier, when she’d lit a twist and cleansed the room, driving out the biting insects and purifying the heavy night air before closing the window tightly. Another bolt split the heavens, illuminating the room enough to find the flint and steel and candle. Lighting it, Christiana went in search of Vallé.
Her worry over the wisdom in approaching him was outweighed by her concern for the storm. She had a bad feeling, and every instinct screamed that they should prepare to face its fury.
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