by Ruth Owen
Once topside, Juliana hurried to the midship, steering clear of the signal lanterns hung at the corners of the decks. The masts, rigging lines, and lowered canvas provided ample cover, and she was easily able to crouch behind a moonsail under repair as the watch passed by. She glanced across the bow and saw the stern lights of one of the convoy ships straight ahead, barely a hundred feet off the port bow. Now that they were virtually at a standstill she could climb down the bowline and swim to the nearest ship. The water would be cold, but if she lowered herself into it slowly, she could endure it for that short distance, and the storm current would help drive her toward the convoy vessel. At least, she hoped it would.
Once she was on the ship, they could slip away in the fog and lay on sail before Connor realized they’d gone. By the time the sun rose, they’d be well on their way to Lisbon, too many hours ahead for him catch up with them before they reached the harbor and its naval fleet. Faced with the prospect of fighting English warships instead of unarmed merchant vessels, Juliana had no doubt that the Archangel would turn tail and run back to his frog masters.
All she had to do to foil Connor’s treasonous plot was to swim over to the nearest convoy ship. That—and one thing more.
Once again she waited for the watch to pass by. Then she scurried through the shadows and climbed through the hatch down to the lower deck. Tiptoeing through the narrow hallway, she paused in front of the door to the wardroom. Hardly daring to breathe, she gingerly slid back the door bolt and slipped inside.
After a moment, her eyes grew accustomed to the faint light gleaming through the porthole from the deck above. It wasn’t much—most of the room was in complete darkness—but it was enough to make out the shape of the cupboard, and of the small chest that rested on top.
Juliana snatched the chest from its perch and headed for the door. But her steps slowed. The evidence inside the chest would send Connor to the gallows if he were captured. She knew she should jump at the chance to send a traitor to his death. And yet the thought of Connor being put to death—and by her hand—filled her with an anguish so great that the pain of it nearly robbed her of breath.
A light flared in the darkness as the man in the room’s far corner lit a single candle. “Hello, Princess.”
“Connor. Wh … what are you doing here?”
His smile gleamed in the flickering light. “Waiting for you. I knew you’d try to escape tonight. Saw it in your eyes. And I knew that whatever you tried, you’d never leave the dispatches behind. Of course, I didn’t know you’d come for them in such a—now, how would your fashionable friends put it?” He paused as his gaze ran over her from head to toe. “Ah, I have it. In a such a topping rig.”
She swallowed, shamed by his mockery—and by the carnal heat that coursed through her. She clutched the chest of dispatches as if it were a shield. “You will not get away with this. I’ve … I’ve already signaled the nearest ship.”
“You’ve signaled no one,” he said, taking a step closer. “You would never risk their lives to save your own. Besides, you’ve been watched since you climbed that rope to the aft deck—which, by the way, was a damned fool thing to do. If I’d known you meant to pull such a cork-brained stunt, I’d have locked you up in irons for your own safety. The winds have kicked up hellish crosscurrents and that water’s cold as death. You might have been killed.”
“And deprived you of the pleasure of performing that task yourself,” she finished, her voice as brittle as corn husks.
He reached up and brushed his knuckles across her cheek so tenderly that she could barely suppress a quiver of desire. “I already told you—I will not harm you. How many times do I have to say it?”
“A thousand times would not be enough. I could never trust a man who could betray his country.”
“There are many kinds of betrayal.” He stroked her face, carving the path of his scar on her untouched cheek. “When your father banished me, you turned your back on me like all the rest of your class. I doubt you remembered me an hour after I was gone.”
An hour after he was gone, she was striding through the winter night after him. “ ’Tis not true,” she breathed in words barely above a whisper. “I loved you.”
He bent so close that she could feel the warm caress of his breath on her cheek. She wanted him—God, she ached for him! It would be so easy to take a step closer, and offer her lips to his caress. She remembered the kiss in Jolly’s office—the burning glory she’d become in his arms. It would be so easy to give in to the need throbbing within her. All it required was that she give up her family, her country, her honor.…
“Lie or no lie, you were my savior, Princess. Though all the dark days and darker nights, your memory was the one thing that kept me sane. I’ll never hurt you. Never.”
“Then let me go,” she pleaded.
He paused a heartbeat before repeating, “Never.”
He dropped his hand and stepped toward the door. “I shall have someone take you back to your cabin. At the moment I would not trust myself with that task.”
She closed her eyes, her cheeks blossoming with shame as she realized how close she had come to betraying her country for his caress. He had to be stopped, and she was the only one who could do it.
Taking a deep breath, she uttered what she hoped would sound like a come-hither sigh. “Connor, I would be pleased if you would accompany me to my cabin.”
His eyes widened.
“When I think that I shall never see you again, well, I—” She wiped away a tear that was not there.
He gave her a shrewd glance. “What are you up to, minx?”
Still holding the chest, she sidled closer. “If you cannot figure it out, then I am doing it wrong. I am only a woman, Connor,” she breathed as she lifted her lips to his.
His look was wary. Nevertheless, her offered mouth proved too much of temptation. “Dammit, Juliana, you don’t know how much I’ve wanted this. How I’ve dreamed of—”
She shoved the dispatch chest soundly into his unmentionables.
He bent double and cursed impossible combinations of anatomy. But before he drew a second breath Juliana had already sprinted down the hallway and up to the deck, with the chest securely tucked under her arm. She sped down the length of the ship, jumping ropes and canvas. She made for the forecastle, her gaze fixed on the distant light of the convoy ship and freedom—until at the last moment a hulking sailor stepped from behind the mainmast and blocked her path.
“Sorry, miss, but ya can’t pass,” Barnacle apologized. “I gots my orders.”
She turned to the left and found her way blocked by another sailor. Spinning around, she came face to face with a sympathetically smiling Raoul. She backed against the railing and stared at an unbreachable wall of sheepish but resolute sailors. Her horror increased as she caught sight of Jamie and the bosun on the forecastle, signaling the convoy ships to back away.
The wall of sailors parted and Connor stepped forward, his tender expression replaced by one of pure murder. “I’ve had enough of this, Juliana. You’ve taken your best shot. Several,” he admitted with a grimace. “But it’s over. Time to heave to and admit defeat. Come, give me your hand.”
“Never,” she cried. She heaved the chest into the sea, then she glared at Connor in triumph. “If you still want Napoleon’s gold, you’ll have to fish for it!”
“Only if Bonaparte wants our old larder bills,” Connor replied as he reached into his shirt and pulled out a thick packet of dispatches. “I switched them the day after you found the dispatches.”
The day after … and all this time she’d been planning to steal them. All this time she thought she’d had a chance. But Connor had already figured all her plans, and ruined every one. From the beginning the deck was stacked in his favor.
“Give me your hand, Juliana. I’ve won.”
She backed away until she pressed against the railing and she had to grip a shroud line to keep from falling. Connor had the dispatches. But if sh
e escaped there was still a chance she could let the Lisbon magistrate know of his plot. If she could just reach the convoy ship.
“You haven’t won. Not entirely.” Then she let go of the rigging line and plummeted backward into the sea.
The water hit her like a sledgehammer, driving nearly all the air from her lungs. It was freezing cold, like a thousand knives stabbing into every part of her body. Blackness stretched in all directions and she flailed wildly, unable to tell which way was up. A final kick sent her through the surface and she grabbed a lungful of air. Then she started to pull for the nearest convoy ship.
But the waves pushed her backward, the cold, rough water leaching the strength from her limbs. Try as she might, she was no match for the ocean. The cold drove through her, numbing her arms and legs. Waves battered her body, and the hungry water closed over her again.
She was going to die. Oddly, she felt no fear at the thought. Years ago when she’d almost drowned, she’d fought for life with all her strength. But years ago she hadn’t had her heart cut out by a man who’d used her love and trust to betray her country. She loved him and hated him, and the agony was more than she could endure. Growing still, she let herself sink deeper into to depths. No more pain. No more betrayal. She drifted down, her thoughts on the Connor she’d loved. Dear Lord, he was a good man once. Remember what he was, not what he’s become. And if you can, forgive him—
A hand grabbed her arm and yanked her painfully to the surface. The peace of death shattered—the agony of living returned. Sputtering and coughing she tried to wrench away from her rescuer.
“Lie still, idiot, or I’ll knock you senseless.”
She froze. Her rescuer was behind her, pulling her toward the ship with long strokes, but she didn’t need to see his face to know it would be creased by a livid scar. Salt tears mixed with salt water as she pleaded one last time. “Please, let me go.”
“Never,” he growled, his low words a promise and a threat. “You’re mine. Forever.”
“Is he gonna kill her?” Jamie asked quietly.
“C’est possible,” Raoul acknowledged with a shrug. It lacked an hour until dawn, and since Connor had brought the girl back on board they’d heard nothing but roars and curses coming from behind the closed door of the captain’s cabin. He knew Juliana was all right—at least, she had been all right when he’d wrapped her in thick wool blankets and carried her into the cabin. She’d been spent in body and spirit, but she’d still gifted him with a smile so luminous that it almost outshone Mademoiselle Evans’s—a smile that had turned to ash when Connor stormed into the room and ordered him out. “I must admit that I have never seen the captain looking quite so—how you say—bubbling.”
“Boiling,” the Barnacle supplied from the hatch, where he stood with a group of anxious tars. “The cap’n looked fair ready to spit the little lady for ‘is supper. But that might not be such a rum thing. My missus says a man can do with a bit a stirring up once in a while.”
Thoughtfully, Raoul twisted his mustache. “Your good wife must have a touch of French in her. But enough. We have a ship to sail, and the dawn will be here too soon. To your hammocks, my friends. Allons-y!”
As the men reluctantly shuffled away, Jamie tugged on Raoul’s sleeve. “But I should stay here. I’m her watch. What if she tries to escape again?”
“She will not escape tonight. Neither, I think, will our good captain.”
Jamie scratched his chin. “I don’t understand.”
“You will. In a few years.” He lifted the child in his arms and carried him down the hallway. Behind them another roar erupted from the room, but Raoul wasn’t concerned. Instead, his broad grin grew noticeably wider. “Multitudes of l’enfants, I think.”
For Connor, seeing Juliana fall into the black waves, knowing that the sea could swallow her in a heartbeat, had given a new meaning to terror. Having her alive—even if she despised him—was the only thing that made his own life worth living. The worst moments of his life had been the frantic, searching minutes when he’d thought he’d lost her forever. The best had been when he dragged her sputtering, kicking, furious body into the longboat and knew she was going to live.
Of course, since that treasured moment, he’d come close to throwing the ungrateful chit right back over the side.
“And another thing,” Connor bellowed as he paced the room. “A dozen of my best men jumped into the water to save you. A dozen! You put every one of those men’s lives in danger with your foolish act!”
From her strategic beachhead at the end of his bed, Juliana pulled one of the woolen blankets closer around her bare shoulders. In the lonely light of the room’s single candle, she gave Connor a murderous glare. “I’m sorry that I endangered your men,” she stated, clearly not at all sorry that she had endangered him. “But it was not a foolish act. I was trying to escape. As a prisoner it was my duty to—”
“To hell with duty. You could have been killed!”
Juliana raised her chin disdainfully, her aristocratic hauteur somewhat impaired by the fact that at the moment she closely resembled a bedraggled water rat. “ ’Twas my duty—something a blackguard like you knows nothing about.”
“Don’t talk to me of duty, lady. I spent years dutifully keeping your sweet little behind safe from harm—too many years to let you waste your life on an idiot attempt to reach one of the convoy ships. You must have seen they were out of range. God’s teeth, I thought you had more sense than that.”
“I thought you had better sense, sir. My drowning would have silenced my tongue and spared you a trip to the gallows.”
He stopped pacing. Hell, what was he doing? She was on the edge of exhaustion, and he could think of nothing to do but rant at her like an angry fishwife. He went to the bed and reached out to comfort her, stifling the pain that struck him as she shrank away from his touch. “I am not going to hurt you.”
Her unaristocratic sailor’s oath showed that she didn’t trust his veracity.
“I am not going to hurt you,” he repeated carefully, trying to school his voice into gentleness. ’Twas like trying to turn a hoary-hided humpback into an angelfish. “You’re chilled to the bone. I only want to remove these wet blankets so that you will not catch your death of cold.”
“ ’Tis your fault. You made me wet.”
He let out a long breath, knowing she couldn’t possibly understand the licentious images that statement brought to mind. Drawing on his nearly exhausted supply of decency, he clenched his teeth and continued. “I’m taking the blankets. That’s an order.”
Her suspicious glare showed that she doubted him entirely, but she did allow him to remove the blankets. Without the heavy wrap she looked impossibly fragile, with her still-damp shift plastered to her slender form. For a moment the years rolled back, and he saw her again as the child he’d rescued from the Thames, the lace-and-satin miracle whose green eyes had looked past his filthy appearance and made him remember that he was still a human being. He’d saved her life that day, but she’d saved his soul. She’d become his friend, his joy, his guiding star, and he’d worshiped her with all the fire in his young heart—
His memories disintegrated as his gaze skimmed her front and saw the dark nipple beneath her wet shift. She was no child. He was no innocent boy. And the fire seething in his gut wasn’t one of worship. With clumsy haste he tucked the bedsheets around her and practically bolted for the door. I will return her to her family untouched, even if I have to take a bath in the Arctic Ocean. Every day. Every hour.
“Connor.”
Sweet Lord, she could make him hard just by saying his name. He stopped, but did not turn around. “Aye?”
He heard her slip from the bed and felt her approach. Lust tore through him as he imagined her padding toward him with innocent, coltish grace. Arctic baths. Every minute.
She drew in a hesitant breath. “I know you have chosen … an ungallant path. I know you have chosen gold over honor. But I have seen the respect in
your men’s eyes, and I have watched your kindness toward Jamie. And you showed … well, surprisingly selfless bravery in rescuing me. There is still—there must be—some goodness in your heart.”
Her uncertain voice brushed like silk against his ruined soul. He gripped the door handle, sinking into a torture greater than any he’d experienced on the Absalom. “You are mistaken, my lady.”
He heard her huff of annoyance and could almost see her planting her hands on her hips. Despite his torture, the image brought a smile to his lips.
“You are monstrously pigheaded. Listen to me. It is not too late. There is still time for you to make amends. When we sail into Lisbon harbor you can hand the dispatches over to the magistrate. If you confess your crime and throw yourself on the mercy of the court, you might escape with your life.”
And the sea would lose its salt. “ ’Tis not likely. Laws are for the heavy funded or high friended. Who would stand for me in this Lisbon court?”
“I would.”
He wished he’d starved on the London docks. He wished he’d drowned with the Absalom. Anything would be better than this killing sweetness stabbing through his heart. Bitterness for what could never be rose in his throat. His words came out in shattered pieces. “I … thank you. But it is too late. It was too late years ago.”
He started to press down on the door handle, but stopped. He heard nothing, felt nothing, yet every instinct in his body went on alert. He spun around and raised his arm—and caught her wrist inches before she brought the last of his crystal glasses crashing down on his head. He easily twisted her arm, ignoring her cry of pain as the heavy glass thumped to the wooden floor and rolled into a corner. Then he yanked her ruthlessly against him so that he could stare down into her luminous, traitorous eyes. “So this is how you meant to stand up for me.”