“You wanted bolts of fabric from St. Thomas. Just think if we’d gone elsewhere.”
Comfort shrugged. “She’d have found ye anyway, whether ye docked in Charlotte Amalie or no’. She just found ye sooner, tha’s all. ‘Twas…destiny…tha’ ye meet again,” she told him softly. “Where ye go from here—now, tha’ will be yer choice, and hers. Remember tha’, for better or worse, ye shape yer own fate. I’m thinkin’ tha’ the two of ye will find more happiness sailing together than goin’ yer separate ways.”
He did too. “Just help keep her off my ship this voyage, please. ‘Tis all I want for now.” His gaze flicked to the telltale curve of Comfort’s belly. “If you’re certain it’s not too much to ask. You don’t have to do this yourself,” he added. “Mattie will help. And the sea urchins—are there any you can trust to be your eyes and ears?”
Comfort smiled at his concern. “If it will make ye feel better, I’ll ask fer help. Adrienne and Beau are old enough, and dependable. I would trust either of them to watch, and come fetch me, should your lady try to leave.”
Adrienne was the fair-skinned waif whose face held the promise of her late mother’s beauty. There was a special bond between Comfort and her body servant’s daughter, whom she’d legally freed, fulfilling the death-bed pledge she’d made Adrienne’s mother. And Beau was, well, Beau, who sometimes shadowed Justin as closely as Buí did Comfort.
“Adrienne and Beau. Very well. And Comfort?” he added. “Merci. Merci beaucoup.”
Comfort declined his help in rising from her chair and, with surprising grace for a woman in her condition, escorted him to the door. She accepted his thanks again as he took his leave and watched him go, chewing her lower lip and resisting the urge to call him back and tell him what she’d sensed. But the images were unclear, confusing, like a puzzle turned upside down. The only thing she’d been absolutely certain of was that Christiana would not be aboard Captain Vallé’s ship when next he sailed from here, and that she had promised him.
Nay, she told herself, sensing that she’d done all that she was supposed to do. Captain Vallé’s and Christiana Delacorte’s fates were in their hands and God’s.
Heaven help them both.
Two days later, the sun was sinking in the west by the time Justin made his way home after another long day, filled with endless details that needed attention—attention he had trouble focusing, since his mind kept wandering up the hill to his house. He would have only one more dawn to wake up next to Christiana before he set sail without her.
He had done as Comfort suggested, had taken Christiana to the newly-christened Principia and shared his plans to rescue her father. She had seen the layout of the prison, had heard Uriah and Rafe’s assurances that he would manage to get in and out with no difficulty. Once his officers had gone, he’d locked his door and made sweet love to her.
He was so caught up in the memory that he was home before he realized it. Stepping inside the front door, he took the tricorne hat from his head and absently set it on the hall table. His gaze swept past the lit sconces to focus on the ethereal vision drifting down the stairs, his sea nymph, as beautiful and desirable and vivacious a temptress as a man could imagine.
Christiana’s eyes were luminous in the soft candlelight, her lips slightly parted, her breath a seductive whisper that stirred another hunger than the one he’d thought to satiate first. Her hair was dressed in clever braids that disappeared beneath her lace cap, making it appear much longer. He smiled at her feminine vanity, flattered that she would go to so much effort to please him.
She blushed in response, until her cheeks were a delicate shade of pink that nearly matched the silk overdress she wore, closed in front by a lace-edged stomacher that brushed the tantalizing swell of her bosom. She’d traded her day hoops for panniers, and the embroidered toe of a slipper peaked from beneath the hems of her petticoats.
She stopped on the bottom step, waiting.
“Bonsoir, mademoiselle.” Justin closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. Angling his head, he pressed a kiss to her mouth, capturing her gasp of surprise at his boldness. He kissed her thoroughly, tasting her, sipping at her lips as if they were the finest Madeira, and his thirst was unquenchable. He felt himself swell, felt his fashionably snug breeches grow another size too small. Pulling back, he touched his forehead to hers and smiled when she protested his withdrawal.
“Mon Dieu,” he breathed, careful to keep his hands on her shoulders. Even his patience had its limits. One touch of her breast, one stroke of his hand upon her slender waist, or of hers upon his chest, and he would be tempted to take her where she stood, here on the stairs, or against a wall, or on the floor.
Christiana blushed hotly, each swift intake of breath apace with her racing pulse. Vallé’s presence surrounded her, enveloped her, bound them together in a way that was both carnal and spiritual—and very nearly tangible, so strongly did she feel it. Here, in his arms, feeling the depth of his desire for her and knowing the exquisite joy they could bring each other, she couldn’t bear the thought that these past weeks might prove to be an interlude, that after Jamaica, she might be forced to return to her sterile existence.
She had done what she could to prevent it, had explained the logic behind her actions with pen and ink, since she was not free to speak. After tomorrow, Vallé and his crew would set sail. She would entrust the note to Caleb, with instructions to present it to his captain when they neared British waters. She’d have a head start—she would not wait until dawn to set sail—but she would need to spread every inch of canvas for the Bold Avenger to outrun the Principia. To rescue O’Malley and ensure Vallé’s safety, she must reach Jamaica first, and Vallé must be stopped from entering British waters.
Immediately after Vallé had left the house this morning, she’d gone into his library to compose the letter she would give to Caleb tomorrow. While searching for a pen knife to sharpen the quill point, she’d found the key that Bryce described but had paid it little heed. She was too busy trying to focus her thoughts, for they kept straying to the window, recalling the savagery of the recent storm and the thunderous passion it had inspired.
She managed to finish the message and seal it with wax before Mattie’s rap on the door announced lunch. The afternoon brought its own set of problems. She stabbed at her stitchery, ripping out mistakes, wondering why she even bothered to attempt to sew, when the warp and weft threads kept blurring through her tears. She thought of the letter, hidden upstairs beneath her mattress, wondering if she’d said enough—too much—praying that her trust in Caleb would not be misplaced and that O’Malley’s rescue would be fait accompli by the time Vallé read it. And after….
Christiana shook herself, refusing to worry about what the next few weeks would bring. There was only now, this moment, and she silently vowed to make it last. For all she knew, it might well have to last her a lifetime.
She placed a hand over one of Vallé’s, urging it off her shoulder. Because she stood on a step, she only had to look up a little to meet his gaze. “Tall man,” she said. “When my neck feels strained, you shall have to greet me on the stairs. But for now, come. Our dinner awaits.”
She tugged Vallé’s hand and led him into the dining room. He went in silence, voicing a question only when he saw that the table was set for the two of them, laden with food, but no servant was in sight.
“Mattie?” he asked.
Christiana slipped her hand free of his and circled her chair. “I released her. We’ve precious little time, and I’d rather we spend it alone.”
“Minx.” The word teased her ear as he helped her into her chair. She shivered at the tantalizing brush of his fingers on the nape of her neck before he seated himself.
Vallé looked at her, smiling with secret humor.
“What?” she asked, even though she knew his mind well enough to know the course his thoughts plotted.
“You see before you a starving man, ma belle.” He angled his
head and watched her for a long moment, before banking the heated intensity of his gaze with a tenderness that made her throat tighten with emotion. “But I ask: What need is there for food when I can feast on you?”
“A man cannot live on lovemaking alone.” She slanted a glance to the covered dishes, but not before he had seen the silent promise in her eyes. “I am no Delilah who wishes to see your strength diminished. Indeed, I would think it better if you appease this appetite, before you seek to slake another.”
Vallé indulged her, letting her serve them both, while he kept the conversation lively and the wine flowing freely. Christiana laughed at his stories of a misspent youth, when he lived to give his tutors fits, before one was hired who actually challenged him. He had discovered a love of ancient myth and legend, a talent for languages, and a gift for military and naval strategy that would serve him well as an adult.
Christiana did not want to remember her life before O’Malley and Vallé. She wished she could share humorous anecdotes of her childhood, but there was nothing she held dear from the squalor she’d survived, save the songs her mother knew.
“You tried to give me fits, too,” she remembered. “You would sing ‘Il était un petit navire’ and make me think I would be eaten if rations ran low.”
Vallé shook his head. “Non, ma belle. I am sorry, but you mistook my intentions. The song was to instruct, to strengthen your faith, when you blamed God for the ills that had befallen you. You had lost your mother, and I had hoped you might find comfort in the Blessed Virgin.”
Vallé hummed a bit of the tune. “Remember how the sailor boy climbs the mast and prays to the Holy Mother, and the miracle of the fishes saves him?” He shook his head, and his gold earring winked in the candlelight. “You were a climber. It frightened me,” he confessed, “to watch you. In some ways, it frightens me still.”
He was serious. “Oh? How so?”
“Because you dare to do anything. Christiana, just because you can do something, does not mean that you should.”
“You may still look for me in the crow’s nest,” she told him, “but I have promised not to stow away.”
“Oui.” Vallé smiled softly, curiously.
“Oh?” she asked, feigning umbrage. “Do you doubt my word?”
“Non.” He was forced to admit it. Still, he watched her with a strange fascination that was disquieting, like the riddle of a Sphinx or a mystery to be solved.
“You are so full of puzzles tonight.” She found a sudden interest in the decorative hem of her napkin. “I cannot untie your Gordian knot. Explain, please.”
Vallé chuckled. “I was just thinking,” he said, “that you remind me of ma mère. And that is not a comparison that most young women would welcome.”
She put down the napkin and looked at him, curious about the woman who had worn her ring, and wondering if perhaps, tonight, he might finally share its history. “I am like her? How so?”
“Ma mère,” he said, “was stronger than she looked. Gentle. Graceful. She possessed an artless beauty that proved irresistible to mon père.” He angled his head, lost for a moment in memories. “The men in my family, it seems, have forever had a weakness for pretty Irish lasses,” he explained.
Christiana blushed profusely at his compliment, feeling the warmth suffuse and spread from her cheeks to her heart. “And your father?” she asked, driven to know more about this man whom she understood so well in some ways, yet she knew so little of his past, his childhood, things that had shaped him and had made him the man he was. “What was he like?”
Justin’s gaze fell to his wine glass; the corner of his mouth pulled down. His father was a bastard in every sense of the word, but his upbringing—taught by his mother to respect his elders—held Justin’s tongue, rendering him unable to voice his sad, full appraisal of his father’s character. “He was handsome, cannily intelligent, and selfish to a fault,” he told her, running a finger around the crystal rim of his goblet. “A nobleman’s by-blow, spoiled by his sire’s good intentions. Knowing le comte had no legitimate male issue, only a gaggle of girls, he played on the old man’s emotions, first to sponsor his education, then to purchase his first ship. He had sailed the seas and made his own fortune by the time he visited Ireland. My mother’s beauty and virtue proved an irresistible challenge. He flirted with her. Courted her. Finally, he seduced her.”
Justin paused, remembering. “It might have stopped there,” he confessed, his words ringing with bitterness, “had his seed not fallen on fertile ground. I would like to think it was because he knew what bastardy was like, but maman was an heiress, with property and income. When he returned and learned that she was enceinte, he carried her off, married her aboard ship, and took her to his home.”
She watched him, listening, without judgment or condemnation in her eyes. Non, this was one woman who understood that he wanted neither pity nor words of consolation.
Instead she teased him, seeking to lighten his mood. “Another family trait. You carried me off,” she reminded him, “and we sailed away.”
Her ploy worked. “I did,” he admitted, sighing softly. Rather than think of her illness afterwards and relive those days when he thought he might lose her, he took another sip of wine and thanked God for her survival.
“Tell me more. Please?” For a moment, she sounded as eager as the child she’d once been, trailing in his wake, a clumsy, fawning boy, he’d thought, suffering from hero worship. “Where did you live? Where were you born?”
Seeing the same light of adoration in her eyes, Justin indulged her. “My mother was bedridden for much of her lying in and soon went home, to be cared for by her mother in the comfort of familiar surroundings. We returned to Havre after I was born,” he said. “My father kept apartments in the city, close to his work, but he had a country home. He had enough noble blood, and had the means, to take up their vices and habits. He lived two lives—one public, one private. He had, in fact, two families, and three natural children with his favorite mistress. As for his legal issue, the two of us who survived infancy were privately tutored. Our mother presided over his household, supervising servants and wielding the chatelaine keys worn at her waist, entertaining visitors by day and sewing altar cloths at night, while he hunted and gamed with his friends, visited his mistresses, tended to business, and increased his fortune.”
Justin blew out a sigh, dropping his gaze to focus on the ruby liquid in his glass, as if he could look into its depths and see his mother once more. “I fear I was a difficult birth. Les médecins warned her against conceiving again. She managed to have Bryce, but lost all the others, either in the womb or before their first year. She grew old before her time, turning a blind eye when her husband sought out other women. His behavior hardly endeared him to us. He ignored Bryce and only tolerated me, as his legal heir. Poor maman was helpless, forced to watch as a distance fell between her husband and sons, unable to stop it, either with gentle persuasion or heated insistence. But she refused to allow the same curtain of silence to separate her from Bryce and me.”
Justin smiled, remembering her efforts. “Sometimes, ma mère would dismiss the servants and serve dinner herself. Until you did the same tonight, I’d nearly forgotten.”
Vallé looked away, but not before Christiana saw the swift stab of regret. She felt it. Her every sense attuned to him, she swallowed the same thickness from her throat, saw his beloved features blur through her tears, but somehow managed to return a tremulous smile, silently promising that, given the chance, she would continue his mother’s tradition.
Clearly, Vallé had learned by example, had emulated the better parent and steeled himself against his father’s weaknesses, emerging from his childhood a strong yet sensitive man who tempered his strength with gentleness. “I wish I could have met her,” she said. If only to thank her for her son, both the appreciative, observant child he had been and the man he’d become due to her influence.
Vallé set his goblet aside and reached to take
her hand, enfolding it within his wide palms and callused fingers. “I also, ma belle. But she has gone to a place beyond tears—a thought in which I have tried to find peace and, alas, have failed.”
She had done the same when she lost her mother. But she’d had O’Malley, and Vallé, to hold her, to pat her head and tell her stories and dry her tears when they continued to fall in spite of their best efforts. Had anyone comforted Vallé? she wondered. In all the months since his mother’s death, had anyone cared enough to try? Or was she the first he’d let close enough to sense the emptiness, let alone try to fill it?
Christiana looked at him, her heart wrenching, her eyes burning with unshed tears. In another moment, she was on his lap, pressing kisses along the line of his jaw, the corded column of his neck, her fingers stroking his face, his hair, a wordless offering of comfort that he seemed humbled to accept.
Vallé cupped her face and welcomed her caresses. His body’s response was natural, and unmistakable. For a moment, she thought he would take her in his arms and carry her upstairs. Instead he petted her, played with her, made her want him even as he made her wait. His breath was dragon’s fire on her neck when he finally turned her in his lap, so that both of them faced the table. He held her hips and pulled her against him, letting her feel him hot and full beneath her. He refused to rush, despite her urgency, heightened by the knowledge this would be their last night together until after Jamaica and O’Malley.
She wanted him, and made no secret of it.
“Please,” she whispered. Reaching behind her, she placed her palm against his lower ribs, slid her hand down to the waistband of his breeches, and dared to slip her fingers inside to test his steel.
Vallé sucked in a harsh breath. “Vixen,” he growled, stilling the movement of her hand. “You would take me where I sit.”
Touch the Wind: Touch the Wind Book 1 Page 22