An Improper Proposal (26 page)

“Well, I’m sorry,” Payton said, sounding a good deal more indignant than apologetic, “but I’ve never done anything like this before—”

“1 should sincerely hope not,” he interrupted, horrified.

“And so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to act,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I wish I could be vulnerable and feminine like Miss Whitby, but—”

“You’re not supposed to act like anything but yourself,’’ he ground out. “And certainly not like Becky Whitby.”

“Well.” She sniffed missishly. “It took you long enough to realize that.”

Now his teeth were gritted with impatience. “Payton. If we live through this—”

“What do you mean, if?” She looked up at him in astonishment, as if he had suddenly slipped into the early stages of dementia. “Don’t worry, Drake. We’ve been in much worse spots. This is nothing. I’ll get us out of this.”

She said it with such casual assurance that for a moment, the actual meaning of the words escaped him. When it finally did sink in, he was gripped by a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the air outside his cell, which had actually been daily growing warmer.

“No,” he said, reaching up to lay a hand upon either side of her face. “No, Payton, listen to me.”

He’d been a fool, he realized. He’d been a fool ever to kiss her in the first place. He ought to have done everything he could—everything he had been doing, before he’d let those lips of hers go to his head—to frighten her away, to convince her that he didn’t care for her. Maybe then she’d have done the sensible thing. Maybe then she’d have left this infernally damned ship …

But he’d let himself be distracted by the shape of that damned mouth of hers. Fool that he was.

“Payton, you’ve got to promise me that just as soon as an opportunity to get off this boat presents itself, you’ll take it. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself—”

She snorted at that. “Oh, and you’ve done an exemplary job so far.”

He tightened his grip on her face. “I mean it, Payton. It’s only dumb, blind luck that you haven’t been found out yet. How much longer do you think you can keep up this charade?”

She shrugged. “Indefinitely. Even Becky Whitby hasn’t recognized me. I don’t see why anyone else on board should—”

Incredible. He could not fathom how anyone could look at her and not see that she was a woman, in every sense of the word. The very thought of what would happen to her when someone finally did—and it was inevitable that someone would—made his blood run cold.

“Payton, you’ve got to—”

“Yes, yes.” She rolled her eyes. “I heard you the first time, Drake. Let’s get back to what you were saying before, when you were talking about how you used to think about us making love.”

“No. Payton, you’ve got to promise me—”

But before he could get another word out, footsteps sounded outside Drake’s cell. She stiffened at once. “Tito’s coming back,” she said. “Let me go.”

He didn’t loosen his hold. “Promise me you’ll leave. Promise.”

She started squirming again. He noticed that this time, she was careful not to look him in the eye. “Drake—”

His fingers sank through the linen of her shirt, into the soft flesh of her upper arms. “Promise me.”

“God, all right, I promise. Now, let go—”

Tito opened the door just as Drake released her. Payton scrambled to her feet, adjusting her loosened clothing. Fortunately, the guard had eyes only for the greasy-looking fistful of food he held.

“Eh, ’Ill,” he said, between bites. “Cook wants ye.”

Hill—Jeremiah Hill—was the name Payton had told her fellow seamen she went by. In response to it, she reached down and lifted the empty cup and bowl left over from the first time she’d visited him. “I’m coming,” she said, to the toes of her shoes.

“Better ’urry.” The giant was still chewing laconically. “Stove exploded. One o’ them bastards from the
Mary B
musta thrown some gunpowder in it. Never seen anythin’ like it. Dunderfunk all over the galley.” He swallowed, then lifted the wad of food in his hand, and bit into it again. Grease ran down his beard. “If you’re wantin’ any supper, you better get there soon, or it’ll be gone in no time.”

“Right. Thanks, Tito.” Payton rose, and without looking at Drake again, left the room.

Watching her walk away, Drake wondered how anyone could ever mistake her for a boy, even dressed in those baggy trousers. To him, it seemed as if her every movement screamed her femininity. The fact that that femininity had always been there, and he himself hadn’t noticed it until recently only served to rankle him further. All he could think about was what was going to happen when—and he knew it was a matter of when, not if—her true identity was discovered. He didn’t think he could bear it. Never had he felt so helpless, so ineffectual.

Helplessness was not an emotion Connor Drake was used to feeling. In fact, it was quite alien to him. As he sat slumped in his cell the rest of that night, however, he realized helplessness was something he was going to have to get used to. At least so long as he was chained to this wall.

And at least as long as Payton Dixon remained on board this ship.

Well, damn him, anyway. Who did he think he was? Just who did he think he was, ordering her about as if she were his bosun?

Payton, scouring the galley floor the next morning, was almost glad the explosion she’d triggered had sent hardtack crusting nearly every surface in the forecastle. She needed something to do to keep her mind off Drake.

Not that it was working. As she scrubbed, she couldn’t help going over and over yesterday’s alarming events.

Did he think it had been easy for her, any of it? It hadn’t. Especially convincing Clarence to let her start bringing the prisoner his meals. She badgered him quite literally for weeks. In the end, it had not been any effort on Payton’s part that changed the cook’s mind, but the simple fact that, the
Rebecca
having taken on the crew of the
Mary B
when the
Virago
‘s cannons destroyed the ship, food was in such short supply that Clarence no longer dared leave the galley, for fear of every edible morsel within it being stolen. Payton now had to deliver the captain’s meals under armed escort, while the rest of the crew stared, licking their lips, at the platters she held.

Of the three of them—Drake, Becky Whitby, and Payton—Payton considered her lot the hardest. After all, Drake was nice and snug, looked in a little room all by himself. Becky Whitby was living in luxurious comfort in the after house, as Payton had seen with her own eyes the very first morning she’d delivered the captain his breakfast.

No, it was Payton who was the most unfortunate of the three of them, Payton who’d been slaving away since her arrival, peeling potatoes and chopping celery and boiling pig parts.

Was she to be blamed, then, for grasping that tiny share of happiness she’d found in Drake’s lap?

She didn’t understand why he was so upset. It was extremely unlikely she was going to be found out. In fact, up until that afternoon, her sojourn upon the
Rebecca
had been no different from her stay on any of her brothers’ ships—with the exception of the fact that her duties on board the
Rebecca
were significantly more manual—no boxing the compass for her here—and there was no bed reserved for her in the after house. There was no bed for her anywhere, in fact, since the crew of the
Mary B
was crowded into the
Rebecca
‘s forecastle. Payton had taken to snagging a blanket and stationing herself below, as close as she could get to the room in which Drake was looked. She wasn’t able to speak to him through the thick walls, but it comforted her to know he was there, just a few feet away.

So what was he so worried about? She didn’t know. But then, what did she understand about men? Not a whole hell of a lot, she was realizing.

Why, for instance, would a man be willing to marry a woman he’d thought his dead brother had impregnated? Drake had spoken of duty, but Payton suspected that had Becky Whitby been unattractive, he’d probably have found some other way to satisfy his sense of duty toward his dead brother’s child, other than marrying its mother.

And his jibe that had Payton ever bothered to act like a woman herself, he might not have fallen so easily under Miss Whitby’s charm had hurt more than he would ever know. Why hadn’t he been able to see that the rough-and-tumble ways taught to Payton by her brothers were not her true nature? For close to twenty years, she had mimicked the behavior she saw all around her, only realizing that behavior was inappropriate for someone of her sex when one of her brothers finally married, and an undeniably feminine influence began to be exerted in Payton’s direction.

Still, that didn’t explain Drake’s behavior, back in his cell. Payton was beginning to think there was no rational explanation for that.

Men. What was wrong with them?

Take that ridiculous promise he’d forced her to make. Good Lord, he couldn’t possibly think she intended to keep that one. Leave the ship, without him? Not bloody likely.

It was all well and good for him to tell her to abandon ship. Maybe if she felt a little less for him, she would. Then again, maybe not. Only a lily-livered coward would leave behind a fellow crew member, and save himself. Was Drake asking her to be a coward? Because she wouldn’t do it. She was a Dixon. She had a name to live up to. She would never leave anyone behind, not the lowliest cabin boy, not the scurviest dog of a swabbie.

Not even Becky Whitby.

Or at least that’s what she’d told herself, before she’d known the true nature of Miss Whitby’s relationship with Captain La Fond. Payton remembered that first morning she’d brought the captain his breakfast, how nervous she’d been about what she’d find behind the door of the after house. She had seen Becky Whitby conveyed there, and she had not seen Becky Whitby come out. Would that door open to reveal the girl’s bloodied corpse?

But when the door had been flung open at her tentative knock, she’d been relieved. No Becky Whitby in sight, and the man who’d stood before her hadn’t looked particularly fearful.

This was the infamous pirate captain Lucien La Fond? she
’
d thought to herself, at the time. The Frenchman, whose very name, mentioned in Kingston or Havana, made men reach for their swords? Certainly he looked the part. He was tall enough, she supposed, to intimidate those of average or less stature on his crew. And he was certainly dressed as foppishly as any pirate she’d ever seen, fashion sense being something the mercenaries she’d met had generally seemed to lack. His coat was velvet and a rather shocking shade of turquoise, while his fingers were quite heavily ringed, and the lace on his shirt cuffs so long, they reached almost to his knuckles.

But he was by no means fearsome-looking, as the most famous pirate captain of all, Blackbeard, was rumored to have been. In fact, the Frenchman was rather good-looking, with a full head of black hair, tied back in a ponytail, and a rather dashing black mustache. Just then, however, his facial muscles were tight with worry. He was obviously concerned about something, and kept pacing back and forth in front of a closed door that Payton assumed led to his private sitting room.

She’d wondered what he had done with Becky Whitby. Had he, as she most certainly would have done, thrown the odious Miss Whitby overboard, after having been forced to listen to her weep night after night? Or had she barricaded herself fearfully behind that door? Pirates were a frightful lot, thinking nothing of raping any woman they could get their hands on, but Lucien La Fond looked like the sort who might try, at least, to pass himself off as a gentleman. And his concern for whoever was behind that door appeared quite genuine. When the ship surgeon arrived moments after Payton, the captain accosted him immediately.

“Isn’t there anything you can do to make her more comfortable?” he’d asked, his voice, with only the slightest trace of a French accent, sounding a bit desperate. “What about laudanum?”

“But, sir, think of the babe,” the surgeon had cried.

“Blast the babe!” the captain had exploded. “I can’t stand to see her suffering so!”

The surgeon had shaken his head. “Sir, you cannot mean that. Surely you don’t want me to risk the life of your child simply because its mother is suffering from a little bout of seasickness—”

“Lucien?” The voice that had come from behind the silk-padded door was weak, but it seemed to have an electrifying effect on the pirate captain. He threw himself upon it at once, and heaved it open.

“Yes, my love?”

Payton had caught a glimpse of the heart-shaped face as it lifted weakly from the arm of a satin-covered couch. “Is that Mr. Jenkins?” that all-too familiar voice had asked.

“Yes, madam.” The surgeon had hurried in after the Frenchman, and then Payton had been unable to see the distressed lady anymore, since her view was blocked by broad, masculine backs.

She hadn’t, however, needed to see the woman again. She’d seen enough by then to know who it was. She knew the voice almost as well as she knew her own. The bright red hair that had been streaming over the arm of the sofa only confirmed it.

Only then had it hit her. She was on board the
Rebecca
. Of course.

It had been there all along, staring her in the face, and she hadn’t realized it. Had she always been this stupid, or had it only been since she’d fallen so head over heels in love with Connor Drake?

Becky Whitby, whom she’d seen with Sir Marcus Tyler on the morning of her wedding to Drake, was mistress to the pirate Lucien La Fond, whose nautical attacks on Dixon ships had long been rumored to be funded by their chief competitor, Tyler and Tyler Shipping.

That story Becky had told in the vicar’s study, about Sir Marcus wanting to get his hands on Drake’s map—Payton had put that story down as unmitigated bunk. But what if it were true? Not the part about Becky being an innocent pawn in the whole thing—that she knew was a lie. But the part about Sir Marcus being desperate to get his hands on that map—that part might be true. And it would explain why Drake was still locked up below, instead of having been sliced into shark bait long ago, which would surely have been the Frenchman’s first inclination.