Man of My Dreams Boxed Set

by Minger, Miriam

  “Oh, God.” Sickened, Lindsay covered her mouth with her hand, wanting Jared to stop but sensing, as he began to pace in front of her, his face twisted in torment, that he would not, could not, as if her question had unleashed all the demons in his soul.

  “Ryland wanted to beget a son, an heir, using and abusing my sister until there was nothing left of her, four stillborn babes his only legacy. And all the while he and his mother, Sylvia, my uncle’s mistress, the bloody whore, entertained the ton at their lavish country parties and no one guessed, no one knew how Elise suffered. Ryland threatened he would kill her if she said a word to anyone, so she bore the horror of what her innocent romantic notions had brought her because I wasn’t there to protect her—I wasn’t there!”

  Lindsay sank onto the stool by Dag’s bunk, her knees grown so weak that she did not trust herself to stand.

  Struck dumb by the hoarse anguish in Jared’s voice, she had no heart to ask him how he could have abandoned his sister to return to India, and she no longer had any stomach left to hear it. She watched in agonized silence as he stopped his restless pacing near an oil lamp affixed to a bunk and stared blindly into the flame.

  “She wasn’t a great beauty, but she was so vivacious and full of life, so trusting—yet when I saw her again she was a broken shell. A ghost. There was nothing I could do to help her. She didn’t want to live. Ryland and Sylvia had fled, else I would have slain them at the foot of Elise’s bed if it might have saved her. All she begged of me before she died was that I avenge her, avenge our family—”

  “Oh, Jared, please, no more.” Her eyes fogged with tears, Lindsay heard his ragged sigh and almost wished she hadn’t asked about Elise, hadn’t opened up such an ugly wound.

  To think of the guilt he must bear—could such a terrible burden have driven him to the sea to become the dreaded Phoenix? She could never condone his traitorous actions, yet how, now, could she condemn him? And that wasn’t all which suddenly seemed so clear to her, so achingly clear.

  “It’s true. The lesson you wanted to teach me… you did it because I reminded you of Elise, didn’t you?”

  Heavy silence stretched for interminable moments, Lindsay’s heartbeat drumming in her ears, until Jared finally turned from the flickering lamp and met her eyes. His gaze was haunted, ravaged, yet his voice sounded cold and strangely hollow.

  “A lapse in judgment, I fear. If all had gone well, you would have hated me once I failed to appear at your aunt’s door and my lesson would have succeeded. You would have become far less trusting and more cautious in choosing a husband—not some impossible fantasy you concocted in your mind, but a man of flesh and blood… hopefully, for your sake, an honorable one.”

  “So all along you were thinking of my marrying someone else,” Lindsay said almost to herself, bleak acceptance settling over her, though some stubborn part of her would not allow her to believe it really was true. “Even when you kissed me, never once did you think of me for yourself. Never once.”

  Anticipating his harsh reply, she looked down numbly at her hands, but when no answer came, she lifted her gaze to find him staring at her, his expression inscrutable. And in that one heart-stopping moment as she rose from the stool, she was filled with such bald hope that there might yet be a chance for them that even the slow shake of his head could not daunt her.

  “Never once, Lindsay. I’ve no fit life to offer any woman.”

  His words sounding so final, she almost faltered as she walked over to him, but that same voice deep inside her insisted that his words couldn’t be true. He would have denounced her at once, and if she truly meant nothing to him, why would he have become so upset about the fair trading…?

  She stopped just in front of him, Elise’s tragic story still ringing in her mind as she realized just how unfairly she’d judged him. And here she had once shouted at him that he had no right to judge her and he had agreed, which was more than she—

  “Go on, woman, strike me if that will soothe my misleading you. Lord knows I’ve been slapped for less.”

  She blinked, warmth flooding her cheeks as chagrin filled her. “No, no, I wasn’t going to…” At the sudden wariness in his eyes, she murmured, “I wanted to apologize, actually, for slapping you the other day. I’ve never done anything like that before—and, well, I wanted to thank you. For thinking of me—your lesson, I mean. It was a kind thing—”

  “It was a bloody mistake.”

  With a low curse he turned to go, but Lindsay stayed him with a hand upon his arm, surprising herself at her brazenness. Surprised herself even more, her face aflame, as she stood on tiptoes and planted a kiss upon his cheek. Then she quickly stepped away, not sure how he might react, and stared at him almost sheepishly.

  “It was a kind thing, Jared, no matter what you say—oh!”

  The ship listing so suddenly beneath her feet threw her off-balance, and Lindsay would have careened into a stout support beam if Jared hadn’t caught her, both of them tumbling to the floor. Stunned, the next thing she knew, he was looking down at her, his hard, masculine body half covering hers, his hand swiping hair from her face.

  “Lindsay, are you all right?”

  She bobbed her head, his eyes so concerned that she was tempted to reach up and touch his face to reassure him. So concerned that she knew, no matter he was the Phoenix, no matter anything he might say or do, she could never think the worst of him again.

  Her pulse pounding, she stared up at him, their mouths only inches apart, his gaze searching hers, and she was certain as he lowered his head that he was going to kiss her. Wild elation swept her, her lips parting, aching for him; her breath caught, gone, fled…

  “Cap’n, we’ve a flagship of the British fleet at our stern, eighty-gunner! And three smaller cruisers in battle formation, the devil take ‘em! We just came ‘round Carnsore Point and there they were!” Jared had risen to his feet before Cowan had even finished, Lindsay’s head spinning because she’d been pulled up so suddenly beside him.

  “Stay below with Dag, Lindsay, and take care you hold tight onto something. There’ll be more of the same that just threw us to the floor.”

  She barely had a chance to nod and Jared was gone, the squat, flame-haired first mate lingering only to throw a worried glance in the direction of Dag’s bunk and then he disappeared, too. Her fingers pressed to her lips, Lindsay rushed over to check on the Norwegian, doing her best to stifle the giddy breathlessness that still gripped her.

  She could see that Dag had come close to being tossed to the floor as well, his massive chest and right shoulder jammed against the edge of the bunk. Flooded with concern, she spied a thick coil of rope beneath a row of swaying hammocks and spent the next several minutes rigging up a barrier to keep Dag safe and secure inside his berth.

  After propping extra pillows around his head, she knew there was little else she could do. Straightening, she grabbed onto the upper bunk just in time as the deck sharply tilted beneath her feet; a nervous excitement overwhelmed her as the Vengeance creaked and groaned and gradually righted herself.

  Danger seemed to snap and sizzle in the air. If Jared’s grim expression had been any guide, their predicament was precarious at best. And if that was the case, she wanted to be with him, not belowdecks where she couldn’t see a thing, forced to rely upon her imagination alone as to the peril they were facing.

  His lot suddenly became hers, Lindsay felt an allegiance surge within her breast stronger than she’d ever known for anyone, so strong it spurred her out into the narrow passageway, past sailors running for the lower gun deck. None paid her any heed, not even when she scrambled out of the hold to find the upper decks a blur of commotion. Men were scurrying up rope ladders to loose the top sails, while a shout went out to prime the cannon.

  Wind whipping at her hair, Lindsay dodged a pair of sailors jumping down from the rigging and ran to the starboard railing; cold salt spray lashed her face as the ship rose and fell on rolling, white-crested waves. But she b
arely felt the chill, her eyes widening in terrible awe at the sight of the quartet of ships looming behind them, the closest a formidable behemoth unlike anything she’d seen before.

  “Damnation, woman, I told you to stay below!”

  Chapter 21

  As Jared strode toward her, Lindsay didn’t wait but ran to him, her heart pounding in her breast at how magnificent he looked, his gait as strong and furious across the slanted deck as if they sailed a placid pond.

  “Don’t worry about Dag—I tied rope around his bunk so he wouldn’t fall out!” she cried above the wind, sputtering as a surging wave plastered her from head to toe with icy spray. “Oh, Jared, will we be able to outrun them?”

  If he hadn’t been so angered that she’d defied his order, he might have stopped stock still to gape at her. We? Not liking how much her unexpected choice of words had pleased him, he grabbed her arm and hauled her alongside him toward the hold.

  “Get back below! It’s not safe—”

  “No, I want to stay up here with you! If I’ve outwitted armed excisemen, surely a few British ships won’t frighten me.”

  “Frighten you, woman? Blow you to bits is more likely! Now go!”

  The stubborn shake of her head only vexing him further, he drew her against the capstan and out of the worst of the wind, his patience at an end.

  “Blast it, Lindsay, I’ve no time to quarrel with you—”

  “So let’s not quarrel. I promise I’ll stay out of the way.”

  Clenching his teeth, Jared glanced past the stern at the four vessels hot in pursuit, then back to her determined face.

  “Can’t you understand? I don’t want any spyglass to spot you! Your blond hair is like a beacon, impossible to forget. Why else do you think I refused prisoners these past two weeks on the chance you might escape from your cabin and someone remember you?”

  She broke away from him so suddenly, Jared could only curse, but when she grabbed a wool cap from a passing sailor’s head and shoved it down over her hair, waving her thanks to the startled man, he knew there would be no denying her. And he had no more time to argue with her as she darted back to his side.

  “See? No more beacon. And it was twelve days, Captain.”

  “As if I don’t bloody well remember,” he muttered, once more grabbing her arm and pulling her along with him. He raised his voice above the wind. “All right, you’ve won this time! But you’ll not leave the quarterdeck and you’ll content yourself with keeping your lovely head below the railing. Am I understood?”

  Her nod did little to reassure him as he made her scramble ahead of him up the companionway, treating him to a fetching view of her pert rump that did little to soothe his temper. Here they were, being dogged by a man-of-war under full sail and three cruisers, and he was thinking that women in breeches might not be such an unwelcome revolution after all?

  Scowling, he ignored Walker’s crooked grin and Cowan’s look of surprise and fisted his hand in the back of Lindsay’s shirt. He heard her gasp as he steered her to the aft railing, her eyes wide as saucers when he turned her around and plunked her down onto the deck, her legs sprawled wide.

  “Stay there! One move and I swear, woman—”

  “Cap’n, they’re firing on us!”

  Breathless from Jared’s rushing her across the deck, Lindsay winced as a series of explosions sounded in the distance, followed by loud splashes somewhere off to starboard, but Jared’s grim laugh only startled her more.

  “A waste of good shot, the fools. They’re too far back now to strike us. If the wind holds to our favor, we’ll outrun them, and even if it doesn’t, the dark will soon swallow us.”

  Indeed, it was growing dark, Lindsay realized, thick, heavy clouds scudding above them that portended rain. But she was already drenched from the salt spray, so what would that matter?

  Still secretly astonished that Jared had allowed her to stay, she drew her knees to her chest to keep warm and contented herself with holding her tongue and simply watching him. Another distant cannon thundered, but Jared moved around the quarterdeck with a complete absence of fear, Lindsay’s admiring gaze unable to leave him. A man of flesh and blood, not a hero, perhaps, yet…

  Almost as if seeing him for the first time, she marveled at his commanding presence and the rapport he possessed with his men—Walker, Cowan and all the others from helmsman to gunner following orders which he uttered with a cool certainty that bespoke years of experience upon the sea. The wind ruffling his dark blond hair, he seemed younger to her, too. No trace was left of the terrible anguish she’d witnessed belowdecks, Jared clearly thriving upon the dangerous exhilaration of the moment.

  She almost regretted the gathering darkness which would soon hide his handsome features from her view as well as his strong, lean form, her face growing hot as she remembered the stirring weight of his body upon hers when they had fallen to the cabin floor. Might he be thinking of her, too, lying beneath him, and how close their lips had come…?

  “That’s a first for us, Jared. Meeting a fleet of cruisers in Irish waters? It’s almost as if they expected—”

  “Maybe they did, but we’ve a record to break, remember?” came Jared’s brusque reply. Lindsay hugged her knees closer as she heard Walker’s low curse.

  “But if they’re after us, we’ll meet them again at daybreak. Four ships against one are odds not even you could favor. I say we take refuge somewhere, if only for a few days until they suspect we’ve headed out to open sea and give up the chase. It’s not worth the risk of battle, especially not now.”

  She craned her neck to hear Jared’s reply, but he and Walker had moved away, their voices in low conference. A shiver of fear coursed through her, not because those ships still lurked somewhere behind them in the descending gloom of night, but because the reward posted for Jared’s capture had jumped to the forefront of her mind.

  Might it be just as Walker had said? The Vengeance had been expected, anticipated? That would mean ships of the British fleet were actively looking for them, probably more determined than ever, given the sum of ten thousand pounds offered, to bring the Phoenix’s terrifying reign over these waters to an end. Oh, Lord, what were they going to do?

  The future suddenly bleaker than she wished to imagine, Lindsay nonetheless still told herself to be calm. If Jared had sailed as a privateer for three years, he had seen tight spots before. He would know what to do, surely. Yet what about the last thing Walker had said, something about their not risking battle, especially now? Had he meant because she was aboard?

  Her heart thudding faster, Lindsay recalled what Jared had told her about not bringing prisoners aboard—because he’d been thinking of her welfare. His words had warmed her more than she could say, yet right now she didn’t want him to think about her, but about what was best for himself and his crew!

  Lindsay jumped to her feet at the same moment she heard a curious crackling in the distance, but she gave it no thought as she ran over to where Jared still conversed with Walker.

  “Oh, please, don’t do anything because of me! If you think you must do battle, I won’t be afraid, I promise—”

  “Cap’n, did you hear? I believe they’re firing muskets at us,” Cowan, incredulous, interrupted her. “In the dark, the crazy devils, as if they thought they might hit—”

  “Dammit, Lindsay, get down!”

  She gasped, Jared lunging for her as another distant volley popped like muted fireworks, a searing pain dropping her to her knees before he had a chance to throw her to the deck. As he sank to his knees beside her, she laughed in disbelief, her right sleeve soaked in blood. Her blood.

  “Jared… ar-aren’t they too far away?”

  “Oh, God, Lindsay.

  She felt herself being scooped up in his arms, the pain so intense a wave of blackness threatened to overwhelm her.

  “Walker, get us the hell out of here! Anywhere!”

  Hearing the raw hoarseness in Jared’s voice, Lindsay tried to lift her he
ad to reassure him, but she couldn’t, her body gone strangely limp. With the side of her face pressed to his chest, she could hear his heartbeat like a rampant thundering in her ear; she could hear his breath coming fast and furious and sensed vaguely that they were no longer above deck.

  She heard other voices, too—Cooky’s?—and something about hot water and bandages and laudanum. Then she was gently laid upon her back, Jared hovering over her.

  “I have to cut away the sleeve, Lindsay. I don’t want to hurt you, but it might…”

  She saw the flash of a knife, her sharp intake of breath making him grimace as the bloody fabric was peeled away from her flesh. But at once his expression eased, his eyes moving to hers, a wetness in them that for a moment made her almost forget her pain.

  “You’re a lucky wench… only grazed. We’ll probably find the bullet stuck in the mainmast.”

  She smiled weakly, feeling chagrined as she realized that she’d most likely reacted more to the sight of her own blood than to the fact that she was wounded, although her right arm felt afire.

  “I-I’m sorry, Jared. I guess I’m not as stouthearted as I imagined.”

  His answering smile fading as quickly as it had come, he turned from the bed when a tentative knock came at the door. She seemed as unable to lift her head as before, but when Cowan stepped into the cabin, twisting his stubby hands nervously, she managed to throw him a small smile, too.

  “Miss Somerset’s… she’ll be all right, then, Cap’n? The men were wondering—”

  “She’ll mend, Cowan; give her a day or two. A flesh wound, nothing more.”

  “Oh, aye, that’s good to hear. And there’s been no more firing from the bastards, Cap’n. I think we’ve lost them.”

  “If we’re lucky.”

  Jared’s voice had suddenly grown harsh. Lindsay saw that his expression, too, had hardened as he wadded her severed sleeve and pressed it to the wound to stanch the bleeding. The difference in him was like day to night, and she wondered if perhaps she’d only imagined that she had seen emotion fogging his eyes moments before.