An Improper Proposal (23 page)

And even if they’d been willing to look beyond that—even if he managed to convince them that a man who bragged about his trysts with prostitutes would never talk that way about his wife—hadn’t they all, only just a few weeks ago, been best men at Drake’s wedding to someone else? True, that marriage hadn’t exactly been consummated—in either sense of the word—but the fact remained, the union had been announced in The Times. If he lived to return to England, it would only be to great scandal: after all, he was returning without his bride.

No. There was nothing else for it. Payton Dixon had to marry someone, and right quick.

Maybe, if he lived through this, Drake might even get to like the fellow.

Right.

As the hours stretched into days, and the days into weeks, Drake tried to keep his body active, so it would not atrophy to the extent his mind obviously had. He couldn’t walk far in his chains, but he could take three steps forward, and three to either side of the rings to which he was chained. As far as prisons went, this was not the worst in which he’d spent time. He had plenty of clean straw, and two meals a day. The food was pitiful, it was true, but it was at least edible. In addition to these luxuries, he was given a bucket of salt water every morning. He tried to keep himself as clean as he could, since cleanliness was next to godliness, or some such balderdash.

He was slowly losing his mind. He was sure of it.

And the morning the door to his cell opened, and, instead of the enormous man who normally brought his meals, Payton Dixon came in, he knew he had gone completely round the bend.

It wasn’t Payton Dixon. It couldn’t be. Payton Dixon was hundreds of miles away, back in England. But no matter how hard Drake blinked, the image before him didn’t change. It looked exactly like Payton Dixon, as she used to look on board her brothers’ ships, dressed in boys’ clothes. There was dirt on her face, and her short hair was covered with a knit cap, but it was very clearly Payton Dixon.

He was hallucinating, he knew. It irritated him, this hallucination. Why couldn’t he have hallucinated a Payton Dixon in that ballgown she’d been wearing the night before his wedding? Or better yet, naked?

Then the hallucination spoke.

“We’re headed for Nassau.” Payton bent down and placed a tin cup of fresh water and a bowl of mash beside him. Her back to the guard, who was peering in at them without much interest, she spoke softly and swiftly. He could hardly hear her.

“I haven’t figured out why, yet, or what they plan on doing with you. Miss Whitby’s on board, and she’s all right, but I’m afraid it turns out she’s Lucien La Fond’s mistress. The baby’s his, not yours. I hope you aren’t too disappointed.”

And then she lifted the empty cup and bowl that had contained his water and mash from the night before, and left. The guard slammed the door behind her, and locked it.

And that was all.

That was all. Except that in a single heartbeat, his world had turned inside out. Payton Dixon, whom he’d thought safely back in England, attending balls and tea parties like any other girl her age, was actually on board this ship—had apparently been aboard this ship all along. She was quite obviously in disguise—Payton had never been one for hats, unless it was cold. Besides, she was meticulous about keeping clean. That dirt on her face had been put there deliberately. She was actually trying to pass herself off as a boy.

Was she insane?

Where had she come from? What did she think she was doing? What was she doing on board this ship?

Tentacles of fear, cold and sharp, wrapped around his heart. Whereas before, he hadn’t exactly been happy, sitting there day after day, chained to a wall, at least he hadn’t particularly had any worries, other than the obvious one, that he was about to be killed. Now he had another, and very much more disturbing worry: that he was going to have to watch Payton Dixon die, right before he himself was killed.

While death did not trouble Connor Drake—why should it?—the thought of watching Payton Dixon die troubled him very, very much. So much that, for a whole hour after she’d delivered his midday meal, he raged against his chains, cursing and shouting, and in general making a nuisance of himself. When the guard opened the door and told him to shut up, Drake threw his bowl of mash at him.

This earned him a very hard knock on the head. Drake was grateful for the pain. It gave him something else to think about, besides Payton Dixon.

All afternoon, he slumped against the wall, blood trickling from the wound on his forehead, and listened for her. He had never thought to do so before, not having had the slightest suspicion she might be somewhere nearby. He strained his ears listening, but did not hear her voice at all. Where was she? Had she been on board all along? How had she gotten there? And what were those clodhopping brothers of hers thinking, letting her put herself in such a dangerous position?

All day, he sat and alternately worried and raged about her presence on the ship. When the light in his cell had finally begun to fade, he heard keys scrape in the look. He scrambled hastily to his feet. Would she come again? Had that morning’s visit been a one-time fluke? Had he imagined the whole thing?

No. He would never have imagined Becky Whitby being Lucien La Fond’s mistress. Payton Dixon he’d imagine, yes. But not the part about Miss Whitby.

The door opened, and there she was again. Their gazes collided, and this time, he saw her take a quick step backward, as if she was frightened by what she saw on his face. Good. She should be. Because if La Fond didn’t kill her, he most certainly was going to, just as soon as someone let him out of these chains.

“Go on, ’Ill” the guard growled, placing a hand in the center of her back and pushing her forward. “And be quick about it.”

Drake dragged his murderous gaze from Payton’s face and fastened it instead on the guard’s. Now he was going to have to kill him, too, for touching her.

No sooner had he broken eye contact with her than Payton hurried forward with his evening meal. Another tin of water, another bowl of mash. She squatted down to place it on the floor near his feet. Drake, watching her, felt the blood drain from his face. When she squatted, the seat of her trousers, which were baggy enough to have accommodated someone twice her size, tightened, revealing all too clearly her heart-shaped backside. No boy in the history of the world ever had a derriere like that.

Swallowing hard, Drake glanced in the guard’s direction, certain he could not have failed to notice the roundness of “Hill”’s hips. But even as he looked, an explosion sounded nearby—not a loud one, like a cannon, but not a small one, like far-off thunder, either—followed by a bellow that sounded as if it had come from a bull.

The guard looked quickly over his shoulder, in the direction of the explosion, and whatever it was he saw, he started running toward it … letting the door to Drake’s cell swing shut, looking in both the prisoner and his attendant.

Payton looked up, and he saw that there was a smile playing on her lips. It was a shy smile. She was still a little put off by the way he’d glared at her when she’d come in.

“I created a diversion,” she explained, straightening. “We should have a little while before Tito remembers I’m in here with you, and comes back. I tried to lift the keys to your wrist shackles, but I couldn’t quite get them. They’re on his belt, and he’s so damned tall. Sorry.”

Drake stared down at her. He felt a sudden compulsion to grab her and shake her until her neck snapped. He even reached out and placed a hand, made all the heavier by the iron around his wrists, on either of her shoulders, gripping her, hard, with his fingers.

But when she looked up at him, there was something in those glowing hazel eyes that made it impossible for him to do anything but pull her—not very gently—against him, and bury his face in the graceful curve that showed through the open collar of her shirt, where her neck met her collarbone.

“Payton,” he breathed, inhaling the sweet scent of her. “What are you doing here? How did you get here?”

She flattened her hands against his chest. When she spoke, her voice was muffled against what was left of his shirt. “Drake,” she murmured. “Drake.”

He wrapped his arms around her, straining her closer to him. “You’ve lost your mind, you know that, don’t you?” he said, into her hair. “They’re going to kill us both.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

He almost started laughing at that; it was such a genuinely Payton-like response. She clearly cared about him enough to risk her life for him, yet she called him an ass. He’d been treated a lot more respectfully by many a woman who had loved him less.

Then all urge to laugh left him as it occurred to him that maybe Becky Whitby had been right. Maybe it wasn’t him she’d set out to rescue at all, but something else she loved ….

Abruptly, he pushed her away from him—keeping hold of her shoulders, however.

“You listen to me, you little idiot.” Now he did shake her, hard enough to send her head snapping forward on her slender neck. “The
Constant
‘s gone, do you hear? They blew her away. Out of the water. I saw it with my own eyes. What did you think you were accomplishing, coming after her like this?”

Payton lifted her head to stare up at him, no comprehension whatsoever in her hazel eyes. “W-what?” she stammered.

“Besides, even if she isn’t resting on the bottom of the ocean floor, she’s mine, you understand? You’ll never get command of that ship, not while I’ve got breath left in my body. The sea is no place for a woman. If we live through this, and I ever hear you’ve gotten command of a ship—any ship—I’ll track you down and wring your neck, do you hear me?”

She blinked. “I hear you. I think you’ve lost your mind, but I hear you.”

“The minute we get anywhere near land—I don’t care where—you wait until night, and then you lower a longboat and you row toward it. Understand? And then you wait on land until a Dixon ship pulls into port. Do you hear me, Payton? Do you understand?”

There was no confusion in her gaze now. She fixed him with an irritated glare. “Why don’t you say it a little louder, Drake? I don’t think the whole ship heard you.”

“I mean it, Payton.” He punctuated each of his syllables with a shake. “This is not a game. These men are vicious, vicious criminals. If they find out who you are—”

“God.” She reached up and pulled down on either side of her hat, which had come loose from all the shaking. “So far I’ve been a lot safer with them than I have with you. None of them have laid a hand on me—”

“The minute they suss out you’re a woman, they’ll lay a lot more than a hand on you, sweetheart, I can guarantee that.” Just saying it, he felt as if someone had kicked him in the chest. He gripped her as tightly as fear gripped him. “I want you off this ship, Payton. I want you off this ship just as soon as you can get off.”

“I thought I told you”—she swung up both her arms and, bringing them around beneath his, neatly broke his hold on her by ramming his forearms, hard, with her own. Then, to avoid being captured again, she danced out of his reach—”not to be such an ass.”

“Payton.” He tugged furiously on his chains, trying to get hold of her. “I mean it. I want you to do as I say.”

“What happened to your head?” Payton asked, staring at him curiously.

He reached up and touched the place where the guard had struck him, earlier that day. It was tacky with blood.

“Nothing,” he said, bringing his hand down. “Payton. Where are your brothers? How in hell did they let you out of their sight?”

“My brothers, for all I know, are still trying to get the
Virago
‘s cannons out from under the mainsail that collapsed on top of them. That’s what they were doing last time I saw them, and I haven’t seen a sign of them since. I walked over from the
Virago
.” She explained it so matter-of-factly, as though it wasn’t at all an extraordinary thing to have done. “It collided with the
Mary B
, which was the ship that attacked the
Constant
. I’ve been working here in the kitchens ever since … but that’s not important. What’s important is, we have to figure out a way off this wreck, and before we get to Nassau.” She studied him with those incandescently hazel eyes. “Were you very upset about Miss Whitby?”

He frowned. “Miss Whitby? What about her?”

Payton looked heavenward—or in this case, toward the leaky ceiling. “I told you. She’s carrying Lucien La Fond’s ba—”

“Oh, right, right.” His head started to throb all of a sudden, and he put his hand back up to the wound. “I heard you the first time. Payton, I want you to promise me that the minute land comes in sight, you’ll make for it. Promise me you’ll do as I say.”

She shook her head. “No. Why should I? You can’t order me around. You’re not my captain.”

It was a good thing she was standing so far from his reach. His fingers fairly itched to curl around that neck.

“Payton.” He was convinced he was in hell. That was it. He wasn’t actually being held captive by Lucien La Fond. He was actually dead, and this was hell. It had to be. There couldn’t possibly be anything worse than this. He took a deep breath, striving for patience. “The
Constant
is gone, I’m telling you. I saw it with my own eyes. It was on fire. I don’t know what you think you’re doing here—”

“Uh,” Payton said. “I would think that would be obvious. I’m here to rescue you.”

“Payton.” He told himself to breathe. Deep, even breaths. It was like diving. Talking to Payton was like deep-sea diving. In between dives, you had to keep breathing, deep and even. “You can’t rescue me. My God, honey, you can’t even begin to realize what you’re up against—”

“Oh, I see,” Payton said. She was examining the sleeves of her shirt where he’d held on to her so tightly, the material was actually damp. “Because I’m just a woman, I suppose.”

“Payton. That’s not what I meant.”

“You know, I’m surprised, Drake. Really. Because you certainly never noticed I was a woman before now.”

“What are you talking about? Of course I—”

“Oh, sure. That night in the garden you noticed, all right. But before that, nothing. No acknowledgment whatsoever.”