I Married the Duke (4 page)

T
HE SHIP GROANED
against a swell of the sea, drowning out the rasp of Arabella’s breathing. The mattress was like a board. Lying rigid on it, she felt every sway of the ship, every wave, every tilt. She should have accepted the offer of a hammock. The crewmen slept perfectly well despite the poor weather, while for four nights now she had barely dozed.

She had not returned to the top deck since she boarded the ship, and she had seen the captain only from afar. That was enough. The ocean terrified her and the captain was large, unpredictable, and a little bit dashing, and she needed only the service of his ship, not teasing or intense scrutiny that made her think about him whenever she wasn’t preoccupied by the constant roll and pitch that seemed to bother no one but her.

Instead she should be thinking of the royal family to whom she was traveling. She should be making plans for Princess Jacqueline’s debut in London society. Her mind should be bent on how to win the prince’s attention despite her servile status.

The ship leaned and she clutched the edge of the bunk. Wind howled. The wall creaked like it would snap.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She was exhausted. But this simply must be borne. She was a world away from comfort now. But soon,
hopefully,
all the canings and scoldings and groping hands and even this heaving ship would be pale memories of a distant past.

Then, she would bring her sisters with her into her fairy-tale life. Eleanor could quit translating texts for the Reverend by the putrid light of tallow candles, and Ravenna could set up her own stable or kennel or even a physician’s practice if she wished. They would be together again.

She missed them
. She missed the affection they shared, the secrets and confidences and embraces. She had lived too long among strangers, coming to know women barely younger than her only in order to set them out into the world as brides, then being sent off for another assignment, another debutante, another success.

She feared her turn would never come and that she was chasing moonbeams. A prince would be mad to look twice at a governess. Her journey to Saint-Reveé-des-Beaux would win her nothing but further distance from her family. She would be alone in a foreign world living among people who paid for her skills for the remainder of her life.

And she would never know the truth about who she was.

She turned onto her side, but her skirts tangled in the blanket. With no lock on the cabin door, she was afraid to undress for sleep. Her gown was a shambles. With an upturned nose Mr. Miles had offered to press it for her, but she had nothing else to wear in the meantime. And nothing else to wear to meet a prince. It was hopeless.

No
. This was fear and weariness speaking. She would not accept defeat.

Wide-awake, she sat up, banged her head on the top of the bed and groaned.

This was insupportable. She had not survived years of canings then scoldings then gropings only to cower in fear and doubt, not now when she had never been closer to her goal.

She crawled over the wooden side of the bed and for a moment stood still in the cramped space, bracing herself against another sway of the ship. Then she pulled her cloak tight about her and drew aside the curtain door.

All was quiet. The door to the captain’s quarters was closed. In the other direction sailors slumbered in hammocks strung up between the massive cannons in the dark. A single lantern at the closest stairway cast a wavering glow. All smelled of brine, unwashed men, and farm animals from the hold below. But the faintest whiff of rain touched the air.

It had fallen steadily for three days already. Few sailors would be atop now, she suspected. Dr. Stewart had said that no storm threatened. And she needed the activity.

More than that, she needed to be brave.

Holding tight to posts and cannons against the ship’s gentle roll, she stumbled to the stairs and gripped the rail. Raindrops fell onto her hands, but she put one foot on the glistening step, then the next.

She climbed the narrow stair with her heart trapped firmly between her molars, wind grabbing at her hood and skirts.

Water puddled across the top deck and the sky was a thick darkness from which fell a steady, light shower. Rigging clattered in the wind. Far toward the bow lit by two bright lanterns, a pair of sailors huddled. Arabella held onto the stairway railing with both hands and made herself look up at the sails. Only a half dozen of them were unfurled, and they were stretched with wind.

A strange eddy of calm crawled through her.

She released one hand from the rail.

She took a slow, deep breath and felt her feet solid beneath her. The ship rocked. She bent her knees into it.

She could do this.

Her other hand loosened on the rail, then released it.

She did not fly up into the sky and nothing propelled her abruptly from the center of the deck and into the sea. She felt light, giddy, almost weightless. She looked up again and rain pattered on her cheeks.

Pulling in another breath, she moved one foot. Then the other. Then the other. She did not look at the darkness of the water beyond the main rail, only at her feet, at a trio of barrels nearby, at a line stretching from the railing to a sail above, at anything but the sea.

Finally she came to the main railing that ran all the way around the deck. Her fingers curved around it. It was solid and reassuring. She looked into the darkness.

The Atlantic roiled, tossing up whitecaps beneath the starless sky. Only lantern light from either end of the ship lit its surface.

She stared, dizzy and clutching the railing. Twenty-two years ago this ocean had swallowed everyone aboard a ship traveling from the West Indies to England—everyone except three tiny girls. It was a miracle, the Cornish villagers had said. God had saved them.

But God had not seen fit to save their nanny. And their names meant nothing to the villagers, nor to the distant solicitor in London that the village aldermen reluctantly hired to find their father. So, plucked from the horrors of the sea, the three little beneficiaries of a miracle had been deposited in a foundling home where they then learned other sorts of horrors altogether.

The black water churned. Arabella’s hands were ice on the railing.

She must conquer this.
She would
.

She sucked in air, fresh and tinny. After the closeness of below, it was a little scent of heaven.

Drops pattered on her hood and shoulders. The sleeves of her gown clung damply to her arms. She shivered. But she was standing erect and stable on the deck of a ship. She could not go below yet. Not until the nightmares were truly and thoroughly bested.

She released the rail with one hand and then pulled the other away from safety.

Her breaths came short. Panic washed over her. The deck seemed to spin.

She grabbed the railing.

“It is unwise to drench oneself while at sea, Miss Caulfield,” rumbled the captain’s deep voice at her shoulder. “One might remain drenched for weeks if the sun fails to appear.”

She turned, clutching the railing hard with both hands behind her.

His stance was square, his face dark in the shroud of rain. His height and the breadth of his shoulders garbed in a coat that reached to his calves shaped an austere silhouette in the light from the front of the ship. In the dark he seemed even larger than before, and powerful and dangerous and . . .
mythic
.

She was ridiculous to think it. He was just a man. But her thoughts were muddled, and he looked so solid and strong.

“I had not considered it,” she said.

“Apparently.” He seemed to watch her. “Did you return the children to their father?”

She stared. “Children?”

“In Plymouth. You do recall that you missed your ship’s departure on account of three urchin children. Do you not?”

“Of course I do.” She only found it remarkable that he did. “Don’t be foolish.”

A crease appeared in his scarred cheek, deepening the shadow across his face. “You have a remarkably agile tongue for one in dire need of assistance, Miss Caulfield.”

“Alas, servitude has not taught me meekness.” The open sea yawned at her back like a hole that would swallow her up if she were to lean outward only the slightest bit. “But when one is teased in the dark by a large man who has previously threatened one, one is foolish to behave as a servant.”

“Did I threaten you?”

“If I remind you of it, will you make good on the threat?”

He smiled slightly.

“Captain Andrew, are all your crewmen men of good character?” The youth’s lie to the doctor in the infirmary bothered her.

In the silvery darkness, his eye glittered. “Would you have cause to expect otherwise, madam?”

“I don’t know. I know nothing about the crew of this ship. Or of its master.”

He took a step nearer. “The members of my crew are all men of fine character, Miss Caulfield. The very best, given their lot.” His attention settled upon her mouth. “Considerably better character than mine, I suspect.”

She should not have come out. Her fear aside, she should not have allowed this encounter with him. From the moment at the tavern when he touched her, she had known.

She made herself look directly at his scar. She peered at the puckered slash, angry red against the tan of his skin, and the strip of cloth that covered his eye, and she waited for a shiver of revulsion. None came. His body, so close to hers, seemed to radiate strength and vitality at odds with the disoriented desire in his gaze upon her lips.

Arabella was no stranger to men’s lust. She knew far more about it than she wished. And she knew this man was no longer teasing.

Chapter 3

Brandy

“W
ill you have your way with me here on deck, Captain? Or can you wait long enough to first drag me by the hair to your cabin? Don’t tell me you are the sort of man to throw a woman over your shoulder.” Her bright eyes challenged, then shifted to run along Luc’s shoulders. “Though I suppose it would barely require an effort.”

It had rarely ever required any effort whatsoever on his part to win a lady’s favors. He was Lucien Andrew Rallis Westfall, decorated commander in His Majesty’s Royal Navy, master of an enviable ship, not to mention a pretty little property in France, and heartbeats away from an English dukedom. Women had begged him to bed them, and wed them.

“From governess to jade in a mere five days.” He forced his feet to remain where they were planted, his hands to remain at his sides. She held the hood of her cloak close about her cheeks. He wanted to see her entire face, to draw away the wool and linen and touch her perfect skin. For five days he had been dreaming of it.

He had avoided her for precisely that reason.

“I had not expected this of you, Miss Caulfield,” he said.

“Then you are indeed foolish, Captain.”

“I have challenged men for offering me less insult.”

“Will it be swords or pistols, then? I haven’t any skill with either, so you may as well choose your favorite.”

A thread of amusement wound through him, and sanity. But with the rain sparkling in her eyes and bathing her skin in ethereal shadows, she was too lovely for him to be content with sanity.

“A man might look without intending to touch,” he said.

“A man might lie through his teeth convincingly if he practices the art of it often enough.” She spoke without bravado, but with warmth and the clearest, sharpest tongue he had ever heard from a woman so young.

“Do you know . . .” He bent his head, hoping to catch her scent of roses and lavender on the breeze. “I have been combing my memory to recall who it is that you remind me of, and I have just come upon it.”

“You have?” The cornflowers widened in a moment of candid surprise.

“In my youth I saw the Duchess of Hammershire. She was an old termagant, sharp-tongued, with an air of sublime confidence and utter indifference to her effect upon others.”

Her lashes flicked up and down once. Her knuckles were white about the railing. His words disconcerted her. Good. The more unsteady he made her, the better. Then they would be on the same footing.

“I am not indifferent to my effect upon others,” she said.

He laughed, and her eyes went wide. “You admit to sharp-tongued and sublimely confident, do you, my little duchess?”

A shiver shook her. “I—I am not your little anything.”

He allowed his gaze to drop to her lips, not raspberry now, but blue. Her quivers were not from fear.

“You are chilled.”

Her chin jutted up. “It is my only recourse to putting you off. I am in your power, recall.” She shivered again.

“I didn’t say chilly. I said chilled. Has the rain soaked you through?”

“I—” Her body trembled beneath the sodden cloak. “That is none of your business.”

“Woman, I have no patience with fools. How long have you been atop?”

“I . . .” Her delicate brow creased, her teeth clicking together.

“Half an hour, Cap’n,” the cabin boy’s voice piped from close by. “Been standin’ there still as a statue gettin’ soaked through.”

“Thank you, Joshua. What are you doing atop at this time of night?”

“Watchin’ the lady, just like you told me to, Cap’n.”

The cornflowers shot Luc a confused glance.
Blast the innocent ignorance of children
.

“My grandpa took a chill afore he up and croaked in my grandma’s one good bed,” the boy said, and his little jaw dropped open. “Is Miss goin’ to croak too, Cap’n?”

“I don’t believe she would allow that, Josh.”

“You mustn’t—” Her words ended on a hard shudder.

“Joshua, find Dr. Stewart. Bid him attend me in my day cabin.”

“Aye aye, Cap’n.” The boy scampered off.

“Truly, Captain, I shan’t—”

“You shan’t say another word until I say you may.” His hand came around her elbow through the fabric of her cloak. His grip was strong and very tight. “Now do allow me to escort you below, madam.”

She resisted, then released the rail and allowed him to lead her toward the stairway.

Joshua met them at the bottom. “Took me a few to suss him out, Cap’n, this bein’ such a prodigiously grand ship, a’course. But the doc’s on his way now.”

“Excellent.” They passed through the sleeping sailors and came to the cabins. “The lady is in good hands now, Joshua,” he said in a gentle hush. “Off to bed with you.”

“But, Cap’n—”

“If you wish to stand with the helmsman again on the quarterdeck tomorrow and assist him in steering the ship, you will climb into your hammock and go immediately to sleep. No. Not another word from you. Go now.”

The boy hurried into the darkness of the deck.

“Now, little duchess, do follow me.” He opened the door to his cabin.

Another shudder grabbed her and Arabella’s teeth clacked. “Y-You call me d-duchess yet you speak with greater respect to Joshua,” she mumbled.

“He complimented my ship.”

“If I w-waxed eloquent on the prodigious size of y-your . . .
ship
would you s-speak to me with deference too?”

“Jade. How is it that you can taunt me so indelicately while soaked and frozen? It is truly remarkable.” He pressed her into a chair.

She clutched her arms about her middle and clamped her eyes against a shudder. “I—I did not in-intend indelicacy.”

“Perhaps. I will for the present reserve judgment.” A blanket came over her back. She opened her eyes but, doubled over, she could only see his feet, quite well shod with silver buckles and trouser hems of a remarkably fine fabric.

“Are y-you certain you are not a s-smuggler?”

“Quite certain. Is there something written upon the floor that suggests I am?”

“The quality of your tr-trousers and sh-shoes. Men earned fortunes sm-smuggling during the war ag—” An agonizing shudder wracked her. “—against Napoleon,” she finished in a whisper.

“Did they? I suppose I chose the wrong profession, then. Ah, Dr. Stewart. You are in time to hear all about the fine quality of my footwear. Duchess, here is the sawbones to see to what ails you.”

“Step aside, Captain, an allow a man o’ science to come to the rescue.”

“You n-needn’t rescue m-me, Doctor.” Arabella raised her head and opened her eyes, but everything was a bit spotty. “I am w-well.”

“I can see yer perfectly hale, lass. But Captain, weel, he’s a hard man. He’ll make me walk the plank if I dinna take a look at ye.” He set a chair facing her and sat. “Nou, be a guid lass an’ give me yer hand.”

She unwound her arm from within the wet cloak and he grasped her wrist between his fingers. The captain had moved across the cabin and turned his back on them, but his shoulders were stiff and she thought he listened. Dr. Stewart grasped her chin and studied her eyes. His touch was impersonal, not like the shipmaster’s.

“Shall I bring another lamp, Gavin?” The captain’s voice was gruff, his back still to them.

“No. I’ve seen enough.” The doctor released her and placed his palms on his knees. “Lass, yer chilled through. Ye’ve got to get out o’ those wet clothes and a dash o’ liquid fire in ye or ye’ll take a fever.”

Arabella pressed her arms to her belly. “I have no other c-clothes.”

“Mr. Miles will find something to suit ye.”

The captain looked over his shoulder. “What on earth inspired you to wander atop in the rain and dark, duchess?”

“D-Don’t call me that.”

“ ’Tis no use, lass. He’ll no’ listen once he’s got an idea in his head. Niver has.”

The captain was looking at her, a frown marring his dramatically destroyed face. “He has the right of it. Now, Miss Caulfield, will you allow my steward to dress you in dry clothing and save you from a far worse fate, or will you foolishly destroy the respect I have developed for your courage and fortitude over the short course of our acquaintance?”

He respected her?
Hardly.

She nodded and cradled her arms to her.

Dr. Stewart patted her shoulder. “Good, lass.” He stood. “I’ll fetch Mr. Miles. With a dram o’ whiskey in ye, ye’ll be singing in chapel again come Saubeth.” He went out.

The captain sat back on the edge of his writing table, bracing his feet easily against the sway of the ship. He crossed his arms. He had removed his coat and wore now only a shirt and waistcoat. The clean white fabric pulled at his shoulders and arms. There was muscle beneath, quite a lot of it, the contours of which could not be hidden by mere linen. Looking at it, Arabella got an uncomfortably hot feeling inside her. It seemed to split up her insides, jolting against the cold.

She looked away from the muscles.

“I’ll wager you sing in church on Sundays, don’t you, duchess?”

“I d-don’t believe in G-God any longer.”

“That miserable, are you?”

She did not reply. She mustn’t care what he thought of her. The less he thought of her, the less likely he would be to worry about her and stand around her with his indecently oversized muscles.

The cabin door opened and the captain’s steward entered with an armful of clothing.

“Would the lady prefer to dress herself or to be dressed?” he said primly.

Grabbing the blanket about her, Arabella stood and took the clothing from him and went into the captain’s bedchamber on shaking legs.

Impotent frustration rattled in her while she peeled off all but her shift and wrapped her hair in the dry neck cloth in the pile of clothes. But she could not bring herself to don the sailor’s garb. She left it folded, bundled the blanket about her tightly and returned to the day cabin.

Mr. Miles greeted her on the other side of the door with an eager step. “I will be most happy to see to your garments, miss.”

She clutched her clothing to her. “Th-That will not—”

“Accept gracefully, Miss Caulfield,” the captain said in a low voice. “Or I shan’t be responsible for the pall his foul humor will subsequently cast over this entire ship.”

She offered the steward her wet gown and petticoat, with the stays and stockings tucked inside. “I will return with tea for your guest, Captain.” The steward marched to the day cabin door and closed it behind him, leaving her alone at night wearing only a chemise and blanket with the man she had been avoiding for five days so that she would not feel precisely this: weak and out of control.

She stepped back and bumped into a chair. He tilted his head, then gestured for her to sit.

She sat. Better than falling over.

“I continually disappoint Miles in offering him little of variety in my clothing,” he said. “The opportunity to manage yours has put him in alt.”

“He doesn’t c-care for that g-gown,” she mumbled.

“Did he tell you so? The knave.”

“N-Not in so many words.”

“Nevertheless, for offending you I shall have him strapped to the yardarm for a thorough lashing.”

“Y-You won’t.”

“I won’t, it’s true. How do you know that?”

She did not know how she knew, except that despite his arrogance and teasing, he could be solicitous and generous.

“Where is D-Doctor Stewart?”

“He’ll return.” He seemed to watch her steadily. She had often felt invaded by men’s predatory stares, but never caressed.

Now she felt caressed.

Which was impossible and foolish and proved that she was delirious. A shiver caught her hard and she jammed the blanket closer around her.

He went to a cupboard attached to the rear wall of the cabin, drew a key from his pocket, and unlocked the door. Out of it he pulled a bottle shaped like a large onion, with a broad base and a narrow neck, and two small glass tumblers, then moved before her and sat in the chair that Dr. Stewart had vacated. His legs were longer than the Scotsman’s and his knees brushed her thigh, but she could not care. She told herself she
did not
care.

He set the glasses on the table and uncorked the bottle.

“What are you d-doing?” she said.

With what seemed extraordinary care he filled one glass then the other, took up a tumbler and lifted it high.

“To your imminent comfort, duchess.” He emptied the glass in a swallow. He nodded. “Now it is your turn.”

When she did nothing, he reached forward, his fingertips sliding over her thigh. She flinched.

He grasped her hand and the blanket gaped open. She snatched it back. His brow lifted. But he said nothing about her dishabille, only reached again for her hand and pried her fingers loose from the blanket.

“I am not trying to take advantage of you, if that is what worries you,” he said in a conversational tone, and wrapped her palm around the tumbler. “Dr. Stewart will return shortly with possets and pills and what have you, and Mr. Miles with tea. But while Gavin might not quail, if Miles found me in the process of ravishing a drunken woman he would serve notice, and then where would I be? It is remarkably difficult to find an excellent cabin steward, you know.” He pressed the glass toward her mouth, his hand large and warm about her shaking fingers. “Barring a fire, which I am loath to light aboard my ship, this is the only route to warming your blood swiftly. One of two routes, that is, but we have just established that the other is not an option.”

“Cap—”

“Now, drink.”

Her outrage could not compete with her misery or the heat of his hand around hers. Liquor fumes curled up her nostrils. She coughed. “Wh-What is it?”

“Brandy. I regret that we are all out of champagne. But this will do the trick much quicker in any case.”

She peered into the glass. “I’ve n-never—”

“Yes, I know, you’ve never drunk spirits before.” He tilted her hand up, pressing the edge of the glass against her frozen lips. “Tell me another bedtime story, little governess wearing a king’s ransom around your neck.”

She did not bother correcting him. She drank. The brandy scalded her throat, and the base of her tongue crimped. But when the warmth spread through her chest she understood.