DARE THE WILD WIND (52 page)

"Don't you have any mercy?" he asked in a voice that told her he was already awake.  "How do you expect a man to sleep, sniffing like a kitten at his chest?"

Brenna raised herself on one elbow.  "How can you expect me to sleep with my pillow heaving up under my head?"     

Drake's mouth crooked in a smile.  "So it's really a pillow you want?" he asked, a finger twining in the cascading hair that tumbled over her shoulders to brush his skin. 

"For now," Brenna told him with a teasing look.  "I doubt you have energy left for more at the moment."

He drew her down against him again with a mock growl of wrath.  "You know very little of Englishmen if you think we're such a sorry lot."

"I don't know nearly enough," Brenna said shamelessly.  "But I don't want the blame if we fail to sail on the tide."

Drake laughed, and propping his shoulders against the carved headboard of the bed, he pulled her up alongside him. 

"I leave seamanship to Captain Sebastian, but I don't think the tide will turn before the sun is well up."

His arm around her, he caressed the bare curve of her arm with strong gentle fingers. 

"We should make better speed on the return voyage.  With luck, we'll be in
London before the winter storms set in."

Bartholomew Fletcher had told Brenna the prevailing westerlies out of
Havana often made the passage back to England swifter than the great circle on the trade winds to the Caribbean.  And suddenly she realized Drake couldn't have embarked on the
Trident
immediately after the
Red Witch
sailed from Penherion.

She looked up at him.  "How did you catch us so quickly?"

"The prisoners we took said you sailed by way of
Africa.  Trevor Sebastian had no inkling of that, but he did have a good idea the
Red Witch
was based in Saint Domingue.  We made directly for the Caribbean, and we had fair winds in the bargain."

Brenna was more grateful than he knew that they had.  But she was aware she would find scant welcome when they did return to
England.

"Have you thought how I'll be received by your friends in
London, that I'll very likely be snubbed at court?"

"They'll receive you with fitting dignity," Drake said shortly.  "I won't allow any man to say a word against you."

"It's not the men I'm worried about," Brenna told him.  "Are you certain you won't find me a millstone around your neck?"

He didn't try to make light of her question.

"I've never tried to climb at court," he said quietly.  "If I've performed occasional services for the King, I haven't done it in the hope of gain or power.  I don't care greatly for politics.  I'd far rather spend my time at Wellingbroke."

Brenna was painfully conscious he could spend more time at Wellingbroke than he wanted because of her. 

"Wellingbroke could be an exile for you with me by your side," she said in a soft voice. 

His arm tightened around her.  "Anywhere I go is exile without you by my side."

The conviction in his words shamed her.  Why had it taken her so long to know she was lost without him?     

"All I want is to be with you," she told him.  "I'm only afraid you'll never have any peace because of me."

"Is it Theodora?" he asked.  "Do you really think she can harm you?"

Brenna shook her head.  Whatever risk there might be, she couldn't turn Drake against his own grandmother.  "She's only old, and set on having her way.  But she may always despise me, Drake, and I've given her enough reason."

He let out a sound that sounded suspiciously like a snort.

"Theodora has taken up residence in
Italy, where the climate is kinder to her health.  I doubt it will mellow her disposition, but it may do wonders for mine."

Brenna drew back to look at him.  "You sent her away?"

He shook his head with a dry smile.  "She flounced off in high dudgeon to pack her
trunks.  Something to do with my telling her I'd be bringing you back to England."

Brenna was torn between relief and pity for the dowager countess.  And deeply grateful that Drake had never intended anything but bringing her home again. 

And
England was home to her now.  As long as she was with Drake.  One day all too soon she would have to journey to Scotland again.  But only briefly.  Long enough to see that the people at Lochmarnoch fared better than they must at present, with the Duke of Cumberland's conquering army still ravaging the land.

But not without Drake beside her.  Never again without Drake to hold her as he had held her in the night, as he held her now.

"I'll try to make amends to her, Drake.  I don't want her to feel she can't come home again."

Drake looked down at her with a teasing, insatiable smile.  "I suggest we let Theodora take care of herself for the present.  I can think of more diverting pastimes just now."

A sweet warmth stole through Brenna as he turned her toward him.  His tongue flicked to delirious effect in her ear, and she shivered to her very core.

"Now that you mention it, so can I."

The End

When h
er guardian plots to trap her in an unwanted marriage, Eden MacFarland takes flight to a position as a governess on the Caribbean island of Martinique, only to be snared in an even more dangerous trap.  Her only escape leaves her caught between two men tied by blood who are mortal enemies, and in the path of a volcanic eruption that threatens to sweep them all from a tropical paradise into the sea.

East of Jamaica

by

Kaye Wilson Klem

Copyright 1979, 2011 by Kaye Wilson Klem

All Rights Reserved.

Chapter On
e 

“Blake, I don’t know what to say.”

He gave her his most engaging smile. 

“You'll say yes,
Eden. I know that.”

He stood below her on the curbstone, reaching out to help her from the carriage. His thick, curling hair had been ruffled by the wind, and it fell loose and golden over his forehead, lending a boyish charm to his even features.
 

He had good looks and even better manners, but from the first, some part of
Eden had balked at so much perfection. Now she turned away instinctively from what he had just asked her to do.

“I really can't, Blake. We'd both be wrong to think of it.”

His smile faltered, but only for a second.

“I won't believe that.”

Before
Eden guessed what he intended, he scooped her from the seat of the carriage and crushed her in a tight embrace. Her toes dangled, barely brushing the sidewalk. Off guard and off balance, Eden reached her arms around his neck for support, and her eyes closed by some reflex even she didn't understand as he kissed her. His mouth was unexpectedly warm and insistent.

Then she heard something that sounded unpleasantly like a laugh. Her eyes flew open and she pulled free in alarm.

The laugh came again, from the direction of the front gate.
Eden whirled to look into a pair of deep blue eyes, startling in a darkly tanned face. A man stood by the stone post of the gate, and now he leaned against it with an almost animal grace. Despite the expensive cut of his clothes, his shoulders were as wide as a longshoreman's, and he was giving Eden the sort of look she might have expected on the docks.

             
“It seems I arrived early,” the newcomer said. “Or is it late? If this is an example of the evening's entertainment, I'm sorry I couldn't arrange to be here sooner.”

             
Eden felt her face flame in anger and embarrassment. She longed to slap his face, but now Blake had recovered enough to reply.

             
“Sir, you have the advantage of us.”

             
The formal words were totally inadequate, and the man by the gate grinned at Blake's reaction.

             
“I should say the advantage is entirely yours. And I'd advise you to pick a thicker hedge the next time.”

             
Eden's temper overcame her embarrassment

             
“Do you always peer through hedges?”

             
His eyes came back to her face.

             
“Not when I can see around them. You may not be visible from inside the gate, but anyone outside it could see you for a city block.”

             
Eden flushed anew, and her smoky eyes went dark below the bright halo of her hair. Its rich copper was struck to fire by the sun, and against her milk-and-rose complexion, her eyes seemed as darkly dangerous as a Gypsy's.

             
“A gentleman would have gone another way,” she said.

             
His smile for Eden was mocking, and when he spoke, she was aware it was with a slight indefinable accent.

             
"I'm not accountable for interesting sights I find in my path. I’m an invited guest, if I have the right address, and I couldn't mistake the directions they gave me at the station.”

             
Something inside Eden sank. Her uncle was expecting guests for dinner, and she had a terrible premonition this rude stranger was one of them. He had spied on her and laughed at her, and in a few hours she would have to make polite conversation with him over china and silver.

             
But that didn't mean she had to show him any courtesy now. She reached for the latch.

             
“I didn't invite you, and I can't think why I should stand here talking to you.”

             
She brushed past him and through the gate, but before she had the satisfaction of slamming it in his face, Blake called out to her.

             
“Eden, I’ll speak to you again about what we've discussed.”

             
She turned back, but only for a second.

             
“I wish you wouldn't, Blake. I really won't change my mind.”

             
She let the gate swing shut behind her. Her uncle's guest caught it and held out an arm to her with counterfeit courtesy.

             
“Surely you’ll show me into the house. Under the circumstances, going in separately is a little awkward.”

             
Eden nearly choked at his gall. Before she could form a response, the door to the house opened and her uncle stood framed below the crown of stiff wooden icicles decorating the porch. His face, usually as cold as the starchy portraits of Eden's New England ancestors, arranged itself into a semblance of a welcoming smile.

             
“You must be the gentleman I'm expecting.”

             
He came down the steps, his hand extended to the man beside Eden.

             
“I'm Hollis MacFarland, and you must be Ross Duval.”

             
They shook hands, and her uncle's guest smiled a slight apology.

             
“I'm afraid I arrived early. The trolley from Hartford doesn't run late on a Saturday.”              “A man can never be too early when it comes to business.”

             
Her uncle's voice was full of a hearty good will Eden seldom heard in private. He was half turned toward the house before he remembered her presence.

             
“Have you met my ward?”

             
“Only by chance. We arrived at your gate at the same time, and we didn't have the chance for introductions.”

             
Eden could hear the wheels of Blake's carriage roll away from the curb, and the hint of mockery in Duval's smile told Eden he heard it as well.

             
“Eden, allow me to present Ross Duval. He'll be our guest at dinner and then stay overnight.”

             
Eden glanced at her uncle in surprise, as he turned to complete the introduction.

             
“My niece and hostess, Eden MacFarland.”

             
Ross Duval bent over her hand with just the correct touch of a bow. When Eden withdrew her hand a shade too quickly, one corner of his mouth twitched in amusement.

             
“I hadn't hoped for such a charming hostess. Or one who'd wait for me at the gate.”