“May I, Papa?”
“It’s yours, Corie. Yours and your sisters’—”
He choked on the words, and Corisande’s heart went out to him; she knew they couldn’t tarry, Donovan already having risen to his feet and thrown on his coat. But she had to see…it looked like a portrait…
She slowly drew in her breath as she lifted with trembling fingers a diamond-framed miniature of a woman wearing large pearl-drop earrings—the same lustrous earrings she could see gleaming in the chest—and with rich auburn hair…a gently smiling young woman who looked much like her.
“Véronique,” came her father’s hoarse voice. “Your mother was holding that medallion when she died.”
“She was lovely,” Corisande murmured almost to herself, tracing a finger over the portrait.
“Like you, Corie. Just as I’ve always said.”
She glanced up to find Donovan staring at her with such intensity that she quickly dropped her gaze again, her hands trembling even worse now as she replaced the miniature and closed the lid. “We—we should go…see about a ship, I mean.”
She rose to her feet, ignoring Donovan’s proffered hand and hoping her father hadn’t noticed. But he was occupied with the chest, although it was clear he barely had the strength left to lift it. As Donovan went at once to help him, irrational anger filled her to see that her father could trust him so.
The man was a bloody informer! she ranted to herself as they walked back to the house, Donovan carrying the chest tucked under one arm while supporting her father with the other. He’d brought the king’s excisemen down upon Oliver and the Fair Betty, she was certain of it!
Yet even as she nursed her mutinous thoughts, she knew they rang as false as the glaring lie she’d told herself earlier, which only made her hold on to them all the more desperately.
Donovan helped her father to a chair and then set the chest upon the kitchen table. Her father broke down and began to sob, the strain of the past two weeks, the strain of painful memories aroused, finally proving too much for him. She could only kneel beside him and clutch his hands. Her father had become once again the wretched shell he had been since her mother died…his misery making her throat tighten and cold, paralyzing fear burrow all the deeper into her heart.
“I’ll fetch the doctor and see what we can do about finding a ship,” Donovan told her, but she refused to look at him, his low curse lost to the anguished sobs echoing in the room.
***
“Ais, Corie, ‘ee can imagine my Rebecca was none too pleased to see me heading back to sea. But when Lord Donovan found me at the inn an’ told me what had happened to your poor family, I was ready to sail in a blink. Now all we must do is keep a good look out for that damned revenue cruiser, but it’s so dark I’d wager a pocketful of guineas they’ve gone home to their fires. Ais, gone home to their fires and to cry into their beer that the Fair Betty was clean as virgin snow, not a barrel of brandy on her!”
As Oliver Trelawny’s delighted laughter swelled around her, Corisande couldn’t help smiling either, more than relieved that he and his ship had survived their close call. Survived it and triumphed, apparently, in only ten minutes’ time, the disgruntled excisemen heading back to their cruiser after a fruitless search that was done before darkness had fully fallen.
Yet her smile quickly faded as she thought of Donovan below deck in Oliver’s cabin, where the captain had told him he could help himself to a bracing bit of rum brought aboard to bolster them all during the long Channel crossing. And she had no plans whatsoever to go near that cabin but to stay aft with Oliver
“Lord, Corie, I’m sorry to be laughing at such a terrible time for ‘ee.” The captain’s gruff apology broke into her thoughts. “You say Dr. Philcup had a good look at your father an’ Frances?”
“Yes, they’ll be fine. It was hard to make my father stay in bed—he wanted to come with us to Roscoff—but the doctor said it would be too much of a strain for him. He’ll be staying there through the night to keep an eye on them both.”
“Ais, good man, Philcup. Charges a mite too high a price if ‘ee ask me, but a competent fellow all the same.” Oliver gave a grunt, searching Corisande’s face in the lantern light. “As for feeling well or not feeling well, why don’t you go join your husband? You’re looking pale, Corie, agitated, jumpy as a cat—”
“I’m not jumpy!”
Oliver grunted again, louder this time. “No? Then what was that testy outburst? A hiccough? I don’t blame ‘ee now, given ‘ee must be worried sick for your sisters, but you’d best get some rest an’ maybe help yourself to a dram of rum too. I’ve offered my cabin to ‘ee, it’s yours and your husband’s for the night—”
“And what of you?”
“Ha! If I get tired, I’ll sleep up here under the stars. An’ I’ve a crew taking shifts who’ll help me, so don’t think ‘ee have to stay here to keep me awake. Now go below an’ join that fine husband of yours! He’s as worried about the girls as you, Corie, in case ‘ee haven’t noticed.”
“Of course I know he’s worried!” Corisande blurted out, not liking the censure in Oliver’s tone. “Why would you say—”
“Just popped to my tongue, is all. He offered to pay me a king’s ransom to sail back to Roscoff, did ‘ee know that too?”
Corisande shook her head, chewing her lower lip.
“I thanked him kindly an’ turned down his money. You’re like family to me after all, but oh, ais, he’s worried just the same as you—”
“All right, all right!” Corisande left him, not because she wanted to join Donovan but because she’d had quite enough of Oliver’s lecturing. There wasn’t anything left to see anyway; the lights of Porthleven were already swallowed up by darkness as the Fair Betty headed out of Mount’s Bay and southward into the Channel on a journey that would get them to the Brittany port well before dawn.
Yet as she stormed below deck, she swore she could hear a faint chuckle trailing after her. Her face growing red, she burst into Oliver’s cabin, coming up short at the sight of Donovan sitting on the bed with his back against the wall, one arm resting on a raised knee and a near-empty glass of rum in his hand.
“Ah, so gracious of you to join me finally, wife.”
As much stung as startled by his sarcasm—she hadn’t heard it in days—Corisande wondered nervously if she should maybe leave the door open. But Donovan took that decision out of her hands as he rose and came toward her. Corisande sidestepped him and then whirled around with a gasp as he slammed the door shut.
Yet when he turned upon her, his expression to her surprise wasn’t angry or sarcastic, just very serious. That unnerved her even more than she would have thought, and she edged backward, coming up with a start against the bed.
“Sit down.”
She did, his low voice brooking no argument, although she bristled, glaring at him. He seemed not to notice, moving to Oliver’s mahogany desk to pour himself another glass of rum; the ship’s rolling motion apparently wasn’t bothering him either, for he stood so squarely, his lean, muscled legs planted so firmly, that he looked as if he had been born to the sea.
“Captain Trelawny has done quite well for himself—I’ve seen few cabins so well appointed. A crystal decanter, glasses, brass fittings, polished wood—”
“Yes, he’s done well, and I’m grateful it wasn’t all lost to him today, no thanks to you.”
Corisande heard the glancing ring of the decanter hitting a glass, but Donovan didn’t look at her although she could see that he had visibly tensed. He seemed so tense that she began to feel quite unsettled again; the cabin suddenly felt quite small and close around her as she quickly sought to change the subject.
“Were things very bad at the mine? The flooding?”
“Bad enough, but the pumps did the job. Do you want some rum?”
As Donovan’s brusque voice sent nervous chills plummeting down her spine, she gave a slight shake of her head. “No, no, thank you.” But now her h
eart began to pound fiercely when he finally turned from the desk, his eyes jet-black in the lamplight and trained full upon her.
“Henry Gilbert is well, too, in case you were wondering. A bit shaken from having a pistol pointed at his gut, but he’ll live. You never cease to amaze me, Corie—”
“So you’ve often said.”
The biting words were out before she had even realized she’d spoken them and she wished she hadn’t when a look of such pain crossed Donovan’s face that she felt it almost as strongly as if it were her own. And what his pain could mean, ah, Lord, she didn’t even want to think of it!
With a strangled cry, she flew across the cabin to the door, but Donovan was already there, catching her in his arms and hauling her against him. She struggled wildly but in vain, even in her desperation her strength no match for his. Within an instant he had pinned her flailing arms behind her with one hand, his other thrust through her hair to pull her head back to face him, holding her so tightly her scalp stung.
“We’re going to talk, Corie, now, here, and have this thing out!”
“No, I’ve nothing to say to you!” she cried, her only escape to sink deeper and deeper into lies. “You’re an informer and I despise you! I don’t know why you’re here—my sisters’ welfare has nothing to do with you! What do you care if they come to harm? Why put yourself in danger? Once you have your bloody inheritance, you’ll be gone from our lives forever!”
“I’ve already won my inheritance, woman, and I’ve not left you! God help me, I’ve not left you!”
Chapter 35
Corisande went still, staring into Donovan’s anguished eyes.
“As for your sisters, I know what it’s like to have someone you love taken from you. I’ve a young daughter, Corie, only two years old, and I don’t know if she’s alive or dead! I’ve been searching for Paloma for months—her mother, Nina, was murdered by French troops, and I was so far away fighting near Madrid that it was weeks before I found out. By the time I returned to the village where they’d lived, a nursemaid had long since taken my daughter and fled. No one could tell me where. That’s why I needed my inheritance! If not for Paloma, I would have told Nigel to hell with my father’s will. But I couldn’t. I needed the money—”
“Needed the money…” Corisande echoed in a whisper, stunned by everything he’d just told her.
“Yes, to pay the men I hired at the start to help me search. They’d risked their lives time and again to cross enemy lines with me, and I couldn’t reward them generously enough. Yet it didn’t take long for what money I had to be gone.”
“So that’s why you tricked me into marrying you,” she said almost under her breath as Donovan looked at her in confusion. “I overheard you talking with Morton Robberts —you were already going to help the tinners, you’d already fired Jack Pascoe, and then I came along looking for Henry—”
“Would you have helped me if I’d told you the truth, given who I was, given what you thought of me? I doubted you’d believe anything I said—maybe still don’t believe…”
His embrace had tightened once more, though he’d loosed his fingers from her hair to cradle her face, his thumb softly stroking her cheek. “Corie, I didn’t tell you that Nigel had brought word of my inheritance because I didn’t want you to leave me—especially when you were in such danger. I wanted more time to try to find out who was attacking you. And this morning—”
“This morning your true nature came through!” Corisande cut him off, desperately trying to close her ears and her heart to what she sensed he was about to say. “You’re right! I don’t believe anything you— Oh!”
Donovan had jerked her against him so abruptly that she felt she couldn’t breathe. He held her so tight, his dark eyes burning into hers. “No, I think you do believe me, Corie. Just as you believed me last night when I said I wouldn’t hurt you, when I asked that you trust me. If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have let me touch you, you wouldn’t have given yourself to me so completely, wouldn’t have kissed me as you did—”
“And I told you that you seduced me!”
“Seduced, woman? Am I seducing you now?”
She gasped as his mouth captured hers, his kiss so wildly possessive, so hot, so hungry that she felt herself rise on tiptoes to be closer to him, her hands suddenly clutching at his shirt.
“Am I enticing you against your will, Corie?” she heard him demand raggedly against her lips just before his tongue plunged into her mouth, his deepening kiss arousing a response in her that was nothing less than carnal, her own tongue swirling and playing with his. She heard him groan, felt him dragging her skirt above her thighs and lifting her, then suddenly she was the one with her back to the door, her legs hoisted around his waist.
“Tell me you want me to stop,” Donovan taunted her as he kissed her eyelids, her lips, her throat, his rum-scented breath like a scorching heat upon her skin. “If I’m seducing you, tell me you want me to stop!”
His lips found hers at the same moment she felt his fingers slide into her body, and when he pressed against that soft aching place with his palm, she gave no more thought to making him stop than even remembering what he had said. Suddenly it was just Donovan kissing her and his fingers moving inside her, slipping out only to enter again while she began to moan brokenly against his lips.
But he silenced her cries, filling her mouth with his tongue as he withdrew his fingers to fill her with his body—not slowly but fiercely, Corisande gripping at his massive shoulders as he thrust deep, deep inside her. She began to shake and writhe against him, her release coming as fast and as furiously as a wave crashing over her head, and she was drowning in the wildness of it, the incredible wonder of it, her blood surging in her ears.
From some distant place she felt Donovan crush her against him, felt his body quake and shudder and then collapse against her, but she had no fear that she would fall. He held her as close to him as if they were one, so close that she could feel his heart pounding against her breast…then gradually it slowed, long moments passing before she had the strength to lift her head from his shoulder.
And when she did, Donovan was staring into her eyes as he eased his body from hers, his hand going between them to his breeches as her dress fell back around her ankles. Yet still he kept her backed up firmly against the door, their bodies still pressed so closely together that she could feel the heat of him through her clothes. But that couldn’t match the heat in his eyes, not carnal, but something so much deeper burning there.
“I love you, Corie. I didn’t want to, I fought it—God knows I never wanted marriage, never wanted a wife. But I love you! I’ve never said that to any woman before.”
“Not even the one who gave you a child?”
Corisande scarcely realized she’d asked him such a thing before Donovan was shaking his head, his voice almost a whisper.
“Nina was my mistress for a time, but she didn’t love me, or I her. I’m holding the only woman I’ve ever loved and all I ask from you, Corie, is that you tell me you believe me. It would be enough…for now. Please tell me that you believe me.”
She believed, ah, she believed—could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice, feel it in how he held her. Just as she felt a terrible anguish welling inside her, too, ice-cold fear swallowing her joy. He had a daughter, and he would surely go back to Spain to find her, which was only right, but behind enemy lines—he had said so! And if she gave herself over to him now and something should happen—oh, God…
“No, no, you ask too much of me!” she cried out hoarsely, pushing against him, trying to wrest herself free. “I—I can’t give you what you want! I could never give you what you want! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please let me go! Please!”
She nearly fell when Donovan suddenly moved away from her, her eyes so blinded with tears as she clutched wildly at the wall to regain her balance that she didn’t see him open the door. But she heard it slam and she knew she was alone.
Wretchedly, utterly al
one.
***
“Ais, now, the tavern where that bastard said ‘ee could leave word for him is straight down the dock. The White Hart, isn’t that what the letter said, my lord?”
Donovan nodded, while Oliver tugged worriedly at his beard.
“Lord, I want to have me an’ my men come with ‘ee, I don’t like that the two of ‘ee are going there alone, but I can’t help thinking if the man sees the whole lot of us, he might panic an’ do God knows what—”
“I agree, it’s best this way,” Donovan interrupted, anxious to be on their way. It was still a few hours before dawn, but the dock was already coming to life, and they were on French soil. The only good thing was that Roscoff was a well-known smuggling port, and their arrival had caused little stir; two dozen or more ships of all sizes lay berthed along the wharf.
Most of them were probably English, Donovan thought darkly with a glance in Corisande’s direction. She wasn’t looking at him but at Oliver as the captain made her lift her hood over her hair.
“There’s nothing down here but whores an’ tavern wenches, an’ I’ll not have ‘ee drawing attention to yourself with that pretty auburn hair, Corie. Now stay good and close to your husband.”
Stay good and close? Donovan swallowed hard at Oliver’s low command but steeled himself grimly against thinking about anything other than the task that lay ahead. Yet it was almost impossible when Corisande moved next to him, though she’d remained silent. He hadn’t heard her speak at all since last— Hell and damnation, enough!
“We’ll be waiting here if you’ve need of us,” Oliver said to him, thankfully distracting Donovan’s thoughts. “One shot into the air an’ we’ll come a-running to help, my lord, our pistols at the ready.”
Donovan nodded again, ensuring that his own pistol was tucked securely in his belt and yet hidden under his coat. Oliver Trelawny left them and headed back to the large rowboat where ten of his crew sat silent and armed, the Fair Betty anchored farther out in the harbor. Which left Donovan and Corisande standing alone on the wharf, well, not fully alone as a bedraggled pair of sailors reeled drunkenly past them, one of the men casting a bleary-eyed glance at Corisande.
Man of My Dreams Boxed Set Page 29