by Cheryl Howe
It infuriated her that he would be pompous enough to think he could use her so easily. He had in the past, but no more. “I haven’t made up my mind.”
Her words finally snagged Nolan’s full attention. Her husband turned, his gaze fiery. An instant later, he hid all emotion behind a scowl—a scowl the likes of which she hadn’t seen since their wedding day. Bellamy seemed satisfied with her answer, because his smile was unmistakably triumphant. “Don’t worry, girl, I won’t let this son of a whore leave without paying for dishonoring my daughter.”
Nolan gritted his teeth. “I’m responsible for her welfare, not you.”
Bellamy put his hands on his hips. “Ha! I don’t for one minute believe that wedding is legal. It was just a dirty trick to get my girl to be your strumpet without a fuss.”
Nolan took a step forward. Wayland put a hand on his and Bellamy’s chests, keeping them an arm’s length apart. “Don’t tell me it weren’t legal. I was there.”
Bellamy threw his head back and laughed, purposely tossing his long mane of hair. “I never thought you would succumb to his altar boy trickery. He’s just as self-serving as the rest of us. He just pretends to be righteous to get his way.”
Jewel trudged across the thick white sand to meet Nolan, all the while begging him with her gaze to deny her father’s taunt. “You said it was legal. Are we married or not?”
He gripped her shoulders, stared down into her face. His intensity tempted her to believe everything he said. “It’s legal. Don’t doubt that.”
Bellamy yanked them apart. Jewel stumbled back. “Don’t touch her. It ain’t legal. You’re a privateer without a letter of marque, and that makes you a pirate. Wayland told me. Captain or no, you ain’t got the authority to marry a couple of bilge rats.”
Nolan lunged for Bellamy. Both Jewel and Wayland reached them at the same time. Wayland restrained Bellamy, and Nolan backed off on his own as Jewel touched his arm. He wrapped her in his embrace, pulled her against him.
Wayland kept a firm grip on Bellamy’s shoulder. “Settle it with swords, ’cause words ain’t getting either of you anywhere. But first let’s find the treasure. That way, we can all divvy up both your shares after you two kill each other.”
Jewel wanted to pull away from Nolan. Her mind reeled with the knowledge she might not really be married. How was she going to save a marriage that didn’t even exist? Had Nolan intentionally deceived her, or had he believed they were wed?
She tried to wiggle from Nolan’s arms, but his grip was unmovable. He held her too tightly, like a possession he feared would be ripped away. His devotion might have given her hope for them if she didn’t fear he was purposely antagonizing her father. She braced her hand on his chest, trying to keep her balance. This seemed to reassure him, because he eased up slightly.
Nolan’s gaze flayed Bellamy. “I’ll get my letter of marque from the colonies soon enough, and the first thing I’ll do is make my marriage official. And if that doesn’t please you, I’ll marry her again, anywhere, anyplace.”
“Fine,” Bellamy spat back. “But until then, take your hands off her.”
The man rushed forward, leaving Wayland with the rest of his tattered shirt. Nolan shoved Jewel behind him, but she didn’t plan to stay there. She dashed in front of Nolan, her hands out to ward off her father. “Stop it! Both of you. If you two would stop arguing for a few seconds, I could tell you what I found.”
The words left her mouth before she’d realized what she intended to say. That she had temporarily forgotten such an important fact the moment she returned to the beach and found Nolan and Bellamy still at odds warned her that the treasure wouldn’t accomplish what she had always hoped. Riches alone wouldn’t buy her the acceptance she craved; neither did finding it mean what she’d thought it would.
Both Bellamy and Nolan, along with the entire crew, paused to stare. Everyone seemed as relieved at the break in the hostilities as she.
She let her arms fall to her side. “The treasure. I found the treasure.”
Nolan’s eyes widened. “Where is it?” His excitement was obvious in his posture and suddenly bright features. Perhaps only she heard the bitter tone in her voice.
“It’s under a waterfall. Come on, I’ll show you.” She turned and headed back toward the jungle.
Bellamy’s voice halted her. “Hold on one second. You two ain’t going traipsing in the jungle for a little fling. I’ve never seen any waterfall, and how in the hell do you know that’s where the treasure is?”
“If you knew your daughter better, you’d realize she has a sense about these things. She discovered the treasure was on this island. This tiny island. The very place you called home for the last five years,” Nolan sneered.
Bellamy abruptly froze and gave him a tight-jawed glare. Jewel might have been foolish where her father was concerned, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew what his uncharacteristic lapse into silence meant. He didn’t know about the waterfall because he hadn’t been on the island all this time. But the lie didn’t mean much; she still wanted to believe the best of him. She almost laughed out loud at her tenacious desire to still believe he hadn’t come back for her because he’d been stranded on this island. A door closed in her heart, and she realized all the false faith she’d had in Bellamy Leggett was vanishing forever.
She stepped forward and tugged Nolan’s sleeve. If she could distract them, perhaps the situation could be defused. She had no intention of continuing the argument about Bellamy’s location for the last five years. “Maybe I’m wrong about the treasure. But the waterfall is real enough.”
Bellamy waved his hand, dismissing her completely. “What if it is? It’s too bleeding hot to go stomping around this hellish place. Let’s see the map and use it to find the treasure, instead of listening to this slip of a girl.”
Jewel’s newly acquired insight into her father’s less than loving character didn’t stop his total disregard from wounding her. Her grip on Nolan involuntarily tightened.
Nolan slipped his palm under her hair and rested it on the back of her neck, something Jewel took as not only a protective gesture, but one of unconditional support. “You’ll never lay hands on the map again, or anything else that belongs to me,” he said.
Wayland went out of his way to shove past Bellamy and join ranks with Jewel and Nolan. “The map’s got its own secret language, you idiot. The chit’s the one who figured it out. If she says it’s at some waterfall, then I’ll gladly follow her. When you had the map, you couldn’t even find your arse.”
He turned and winked his brown eye at Jewel, and then offered her his arm when he reached her. She took it.
Nolan tightened his grip for only an instant before he let her head toward the jungle with Wayland. He continued to face Bellamy, and Jewel realized he wouldn’t turn his back on her father.
When they reached the end of the beach, she heard someone trudging up behind them. “I would have figured the bloody thing out eventually. Having a crew full of sots like you didn’t help my thinking any,” Bellamy muttered as he reached their side.
Jewel glanced over her shoulder to find the rest of the crew following, with Nolan at the rear. She relaxed, realizing she had staved off bloodshed between her husband and her father for the moment. But Nolan wasn’t her husband.
She would have stumbled if Wayland hadn’t tightened his grip. She looked over her shoulder again, searching for Nolan. His gaze was already on her, and he gestured with a slight nod of his head. She’d given up her hold on the tarnished image of her father, but she’d never give up on Nolan.
***
After several agonizing minutes, much longer than Jewel thought it humanly possible to hold your breath, Nolan broke the water’s surface. Jewel knelt by the side of the pool, panting as hard as he because she’d been unable to take a breath while he remained underwater. She reached for him.
He swam to the bank with a few efficient strokes. “Get back. I don’t want you falling in. It’s deep.
”
Jewel did as he asked, feeling rejected by his harsh words rather than reassured by his care for her safety. He hadn’t spoken or gotten near her since they’d left the beach.
With his palms braced on the bank, Nolan pulled himself from the pond. Droplets rippled down his heavily muscled shoulders and chest. He had stripped down to his breeches. It seemed like years since Jewel had last touched him, instead of only this morning. After today’s events, she wondered if she would ever get to hold him again. He seemed so powerful, coming up from the depths of the black pool like a myth. And just as elusive.
Parker moved to the pool’s bank. He had paced the side while Nolan remained underwater. He wanted to go down as well. “Did you find anything?”
Nolan opened his hand, palm up. Mud dribbled from his fingers. He shook the contents until more muck slithered down his wrist and several solid things clinked. Gold peeked through the black silt. Both Parker and Jewel leaned in to get a better look.
“What’s he got?” Bellamy stood, wiping dirt from his breeches. Even at his age, his slightest movement flexed well-toned muscles. The extra padding around his waist only served to make him appear more solid.
Jewel reached for a coin. She had the sudden desire to hide it from her father’s view. That he hadn’t been wasting away on the island was as apparent as the fact that he couldn’t be trusted.
Bellamy plucked it from her fingers. He bit it and spit out the mud. “It’s gold, all right.”
Wayland crowded behind her. “Is that all?”
Nolan held up his hand, offering Wayland the rest of the coins. “Can’t tell. It’s too dark to see. You have to feel with your hands.”
Bellamy slapped Nolan on the shoulder. “Guess you better develop some gills—aye, boy?”
Nolan glared a warning, and Bellamy removed his hand.
Jewel didn’t like the idea of Nolan going back down there. Her father’s obvious pleasure at the prospect scared her even more. “Why would your grandfather dump his treasure at the bottom of a pond, anyway? How was he going to get it if we can’t?”
Nolan pushed past the circle of men surrounding the pond. He shook the excess water from his long hair, stepped in a ray of sunlight piercing the jungle roof and turned to face them again. “He was desperate. Pirates don’t usually bury their treasure. They’re too busy spending it.”
“Why did he?” Jewel could see the gooseflesh on Nolan’s shoulders. She walked toward him but stopped short. She wanted to rub her hands along his arms, warming him. The distance in his eyes held her back.
“He hoped to use the treasure as leverage. He wanted a pardon. I figure the coins and whatever else is down there were in wooden crates or bags. The current from the waterfall broke it up over the years. Seventy years ago, the treasure would have been a lot easier to retrieve.”
Jewel wrapped her arms around herself, feeling cool from the shade and the mist from the falls. “They give pardons to pirates?”
Bellamy swaggered forward. “Nay, lass. Captain Kent started out as a privateer, but once he got a taste of the good life in Tortuga, he turned pure pirate. Same as what happened to Nolan, here. Did he ever tell you about Tortuga?”
Jewel stiffened. “I believe he mentioned that’s where you stole his map.”
Bellamy laughed. “You got spunk, I’ll give you that, girlie. Did he happen to tell you what he was doing when I secured his map for safekeeping?”
Wayland moved between them. “Kent was hanged ’cause some fancy aristocrat got greedy. He hadn’t gone on the account. They say he had passes from the vessels he plundered, proving he only attacked the ones sanctioned by his letter of marque.”
Jewel shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
Nolan folded his arms over his bare chest. “Bellamy wants you to know that I was entertaining a woman of questionable virtue on Tortuga, and I’m not quite sure what point Wayland is making.”
Wayland pointed at Nolan. “Your grandfather was unfairly hanged, is what I’m saying. He turned himself in after hiding his treasure. He gave the High Admiralty in New York his passes, proving his innocence, but they shipped him off to London to be hanged just the same.”
Nolan shifted. “How do you know this?”
Bellamy waved his hand in dismissal. “It’s just a rumor. You know how sea dogs like to talk.”
“It ain’t no rumor. I met someone who was locked up in Newgate with your grandfather. My friend got deported to Barbados, and Captain Kent got hanged when he should have been set free. The bloody lord who sponsored him just wanted his treasure.”
Jewel touched her chin. “Can they still do that? Hang a privateer to get his treasure?”
Nolan grinned. “That’s why we’re fighting a war. A monarch can do anything he wants. Old George is through using us to fatten his coffers.”
Jewel found it hard to breathe. “But will you be killed?”
Bellamy settled under a palm tree. “He ain’t no privateer. He’s a pirate. Always has been and always will be. He’s just like his grandpa.”
Nolan moved out of the sunlight to stand at the edge of the pond. “For once you’re right, Bellamy, and I’ll take the comparison as a compliment.”
Parker knelt beside Nolan at the water’s edge. “Do you want me to go down, Captain?”
Jewel came up behind them. Things had definitely changed in their relationship. She could sense it. Nolan had relaxed with his crew, and now they loved him as much as respected him. He commanded with easy self-assurance, no longer holding himself rigid, as if he were about to come apart at any moment. And Parker had changed as well. He no longer bothered to tie back his hair, and its sun-bleached tangle brushed the tops of his tanned shoulders. The dark stubble on his face, several shades darker than his hair, added a few years along with newly defined muscles that ran the length of his lanky body.
Nolan stood. “You’d better save your breath for tomorrow, Parker. It’s getting late, and we’ll need to spend the rest of the afternoon rigging something to haul the treasure up. We can’t do it by hand.”
“Baskets? We’ll need something that lets the water pass,” the lieutenant suggested.
“Excellent idea. You and I and the other strong swimmers will take the baskets under water and fill them with sediment from the bottom, and the rest of you will pull them to the surface.” Nolan turned to face the group. “The waterfall can hold you under if you get disoriented. It could be dangerous. All the divers will be volunteers.”
Bellamy leaned his head back on the palm tree with his eyes closed. “Good thing we have a big, strong captain to lead us.”
Nolan strolled over to him. “You’ll be the only forced diver. You’re a strong swimmer, but you’ve never been the type to volunteer for hard work.”
Bellamy opened his eyes. “Not when I have a young lad around fool enough to do it for me.”
Nolan shrugged. “The only problem with that is when the young fool gets old enough to shove you off your throne.”
Bellamy winked. “We’ll see about that, boy.”
Jewel shivered. She didn’t like the gleam in her father’s eye. He had given in to Nolan’s taunt too easily. Nolan strode back over to study the pool. She wished her father had refused to dive with them tomorrow. His easy agreement had to be a ruse.
Nolan glanced at her as he passed, and he grinned. It was the first time he had smiled since they had landed on the island. “Let’s get back to the ship and get to work on Captain Kent’s revenge. The British killed him for this treasure, so it’s our duty to get it back and use it to blow them out of the water.”
Nolan’s crewmen cheered. Jewel tried to smile in an attempt to hide the fact that a lump of dread had settled in her throat. She prayed Captain Kent’s grandson fared better than the luckless man himself.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nolan lay on his bunk, letting the damp night breeze cool his naked body. He rested his head on his curled forearm and counted the grooves between each
beam of the deck above. Today, he had found his fortune but lost his heart. With that thought, his mood plummeted even further.
Even the revelation that his notorious grandfather wasn’t the villain of legend and that Nolan’s father had portrayed him as, couldn’t dislodge his bleak state of mind. The fact that he wasn’t the spawn of some evil and depraved man only confirmed what Nolan already suspected. He and he alone had steered the disastrous course his relationship with Jewel had taken.
True enough that fate had thrown in some fairly serious obstacles, but Nolan had used those to build a fortress of misunderstanding and distrust. From the moment he withheld what had really happened to her father when he’d gone to retrieve the map, to the time he saw Bellamy Leggett on the beach and could only think of proving to his former mentor who was the better man, Nolan had locked Jewel out.
It hadn’t occurred to him that the better man might take his wife’s feelings into consideration and try not to strangle her father, no matter how much he deserved it. That was, until Nolan lay alone on his empty bunk. Jewel’s scent surrounded him, hardening his body with a surge of lust tainted by fierce longing.
He should have insisted Jewel come back to his ship. If he had, Bellamy and he would have come to blows. Again. They were both looking for any opportunity to act on the hatred between them. Nolan wanted to punch Bellamy right in his smirking mouth, and he could feel the same desire rolling off Bellamy in waves. To avoid an all-out war, Nolan had no choice but to concede to Bellamy’s insistence that his daughter stay on the beach with him rather than return to the Integrity.
Arguing with Bellamy wouldn’t help his relationship with Jewel. They had been fighting over her like two dogs over the same bone. Each tug tore her love apart. If Nolan weren’t careful, there would be nothing left.
His hatred of Bellamy had nothing to do with Jewel, anyway. She had to understand that. He couldn’t pretend Bellamy had changed just because he was her father. Bellamy had been dangerous before Nolan disbanded his crew. Nolan intended to make sure Bellamy didn’t get the chance to take up where he had left off. Financing his next sailing venture would be just as if Nolan wielded an evil sword himself. He couldn’t let Bellamy loose in the world with a share of this treasure.