I Married the Duke (6 page)

He reached up and pressed his fingertips into his right eye. A spark flashed, a tiny thread of lightning across the black, like his memories, fleeting yet devastating.

As the first stirrings of gray crept onto the horizon, Luc got to his feet and—carefully, as he did everything now—made his way to the companionway and below. The dawn crew had stowed their hammocks, and sailors cupped tins of tea and biscuits in their palms. They nodded. A few nostalgic fools even saluted as he walked by and entered his cabin. He drew open the door to his bedchamber.

In a chair propped against the wall, Gavin came awake with a start. He shook his head free of slumber. “How much brandy did ye give her, lad? She’s been out cold the nicht.”

Luc cupped his palm around the back of his stiff neck, remembering her distress at the tavern in Plymouth, knowing her sleeplessness on board. “I think it is entirely possible that she hadn’t slept in days before this.”

“Aye.” Gavin nodded. “So ye put her to sleep.”

“It seemed the swiftest solution.”

Gavin took up his satchel and patted Luc on the shoulder. It was a familiar gesture, banal, and yet Luc felt the affection as though it were the wool blanket that cocooned the woman in his bed.

“She’s no taken fever. Ye’ve done guid, lad. As ye always do.”

He stepped back to allow Gavin through the door. Then he entered his bed cabin and sought out her form in the dimness. Miles—the old mother hen—had wrapped her in his own favorite blue wool blanket and tucked it around her neck. Her breaths were deep, her mouth open slightly.

“When you examined her,” he said over his shoulder, “you touched her face.”

“Aye.”

“What did her skin feel like?”

The Scot’s grin rolled through his words. “Fancy the lass after all?”

“No, damn you.” The inevitable pause. “Yes.” He shrugged. “She took those children upon herself at no thought to her own disadvantage.” And she was a servant to society debutantes. So he, heir to a dukedom, might as well lose his head over her.

“Ye’ve got a weakness for a soft cheek, lad.”

“And you have a weakness for dancing girls. Hang me for my vice and choke on the rope, old friend.”

Gavin chortled and went across the day cabin. “Ye’ll have to dose her wi’ drink again to settle her belly. Take a dram yerself while yer at it, lad. Ye look like ye coud use it.”

Luc turned to the sleeping woman.

Wrapped in the fine wool, she barely made a dent in his cot. He knew she’d taken little to eat aboard; Miles and Joshua had both reported to him. But she looked like she hadn’t eaten well in weeks. In the dimness of dawn stealing in through the shutter, her lips were dry and pale, her cheeks slightly sunken, and her skin less silken than he had been fantasizing, rather more like sailcloth. When she awoke, those brilliant cornflowers would open wide with surprise, or flash with indignation or warm with feeling she could not entirely conceal. But for now only the triangle of orange hair at her brow relieved the severity of her face.

He acted next purely from desire and without hesitation: he reached over and tugged the linen head covering back.

A halo of satin fire hugged her skull like a knit cap. Not orange or red. Flame, burning hot toward white. Like polished copper.

He pulled the covering entirely off, freeing a length of fiery beauty that caught his breath in his throat with awe that sank straight to his groin. There was
so much of it
. It would reach to her waist when she stood. It was impossible not to imagine her above him, the shining tresses cascading over her bared shoulders and breasts and draped across his chest. Or spread upon white sheets, his hands tangled in her glory as he worked his way into her.

He stifled the groan rising in his chest. He should move away.

He went to his knees beside the cot and touched his fingertips to her brow. He had felt the satin before at the nape of her neck. Now he turned his knuckles against her skin, teasing himself only, and drew them through the straight, heavy strands, closing his eye and feeling the caress deep in his body, then deeper.

It felt good. “Dear God.”
Too good
.

Her breath stirred against his skin. “Praying, Captain?”

Chapter 4

The Servant

L
uc withdrew his hand and sat back on his heels. “Always, duchess. A man like me needs all the help he can muster.”

The summer blooms trained upon him were wary and rimmed with red. He stood, went into his day cabin and returned with a cup.

“You wish me to be drunk today too? Perhaps so that you can fondle my hair a bit more?”

He did not withhold his smile. A servant she might be, but she certainly didn’t seem to know it. “Water with a splash of brandy. Doctor’s orders.”

She frowned, but drew her arms free of the blanket and pushed herself up to sit. She accepted the cup. The gold and ruby ring winked against her skin where the blanket gaped. Her arm was like cream, untouched by sun and supple from shoulder to wrist.

“My physician says you have avoided taking fever.” He spoke to prevent himself from staring. The short, unadorned sleeve of her chemise showed at her shoulder. The gown she’d worn aboard was simple too. Her beauty and character demanded silk and lace. But on her, even the plainest linen seduced. “Congratulations, duchess, on possessing a hardy constitution.”

“Not hardy enough to retain my clothing, it seems. Where is it?”

“Oh, somewhere about.” He waved vaguely.

“Do not let my calm suggest to you, Captain, that I am comfortable sitting before you in this state,” she said with perfect composure. “I assure you, I am not.”

He withheld a grin. How this woman had been born into the servile class he could not fathom. “You mustn’t allow it to bother you,” he said. “Sailors routinely lose their garments to the elements. Or thieves. Brigands. Pirates. You know how it goes.”

She returned the empty cup to him. Her hair spilled down her back like a waterfall. “You have had your clothing taken too, I am to guess?”

“Only the eye.”

“You should not have done it.”

“I didn’t. The other fellow did.”

“You should not have gotten me drunk. A dram would have sufficed.”

He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms loosely. “Is it magical? Do you keep it bound up to preserve its mystical properties?”

“Foolishness again.” She turned her face away. “Don’t you mind being foolish?”

“Good God. The ladies used to call it charming. But I suppose Napoleon soured everyone on charm. Charm is so French, after all.”

“You said you would not take advantage of me,” she said quietly but firmly.

“Our terminologies are clearly not in accord. For I am most certain I would remember having taken advantage of you last night if I had.”

She did not respond but remained with her head bent and face averted.

“Samson,” he murmured.

“Samson what?” she replied.

“Wasn’t he the one with the hair that gave him strength? Or was that David? Forgive me, I forget my catechism at moments like this.”

“Moments like what?”

“Moments in which a beautiful woman reclines upon my bed and I find myself not reclining with her.”

She finally faced him again. Luc’s breath slid away. A single drop of moisture rested on her pale cheek, its trail like silver.

She lifted a hand and passed her fingertips beneath her eyes, but not to rub away the tear. It was as though she did not know it was there.

“Are there dark smudges?” she asked.

“Barely,” he managed to utter. “Beautiful, recall? I speak only truths, you know.”

“I told you, I don’t know anything about you.”

Which was nearly true, after all.

She took up the linen neck cloth and, as he sat entirely bemused and wholly aroused, she twisted the mass of spun copper into a knot and secured it beneath the covering.

“Have you regained your strength now, Lady Samson?”

“Have you tamed your piratical manners, Captain Andrew?”

“Is it vanity?”

“Your arrogance?” Her brow went up, a spark lighting her eyes again that he felt in his chest. “Most certainly, I imagine.”

He smiled. “If you don’t like it to be seen, why don’t you have it cut?”

“So that I can torment men like you with it, which I have also already told you. Really, you don’t pay attention to a word I say, do you?” She tucked final strands beneath the linen.

How much money would he be obliged to part with to convince her to loose all that hair again? Just once. Once so that he could run his fingers through it and feel the surge of pure, uncomplicated lust. He could make her an offer that would render her compensation from Reiner laughable.

The notion intrigued.

He would add a bonus if she agreed to wash it.

“Every word,” he murmured. “As though they were pearls.”

She cut him an inscrutable glance, then swung her legs over the side of the cot. The hem of her chemise poked out from the blanket, the dullest white linen without ornament. It was an astoundingly prim garment from which a glimpse of her calves and feet emerged. Luc’s mouth went dry.

“If I allow my ankles to dangle in your sight for a bit,” she said, “will you forget about my hair?”

“Probably not, despite how comely those ankles are.” Like the rest of her, a wrinkled and rumpled governess and none too clean yet still breathtaking. A beautiful servant on her way to his castle. “How will you travel to Saint-Reveé-des-Beaux, duchess?”

“I will hire a coach, though I hardly see how that is your concern.”

Rather, entirely his concern. “If I choose to follow you, will you call the
gendarmes
down upon me?”

Her delicate brow dipped, the cornflowers wary once more. “Why would you follow me?”

“My brother lives nearby.” In the chateau. He could tell her. He should tell her. “It is on my route.”

“If you remain at a distance, I don’t care if you follow me the length of the continent and back again.”

“That is a comfort to hear.” He stood and offered his hand.

Her shoulders stiffened. She climbed off the side of the cot without his assistance and pulled the blanket tight about her again. “I must find Mr. Miles and retrieve my clothes. When will we arrive at Saint-Nazaire?”

“Tomorrow if the wind holds. And Mr. Miles will bring your clothing when it is dry. Today you must remain here.”

“In your cabin?” Her cheeks flushed. “Your bed?”

He allowed himself a slight smile. “Yes, but alas, without me in it. I have work to do elsewhere today.”

Her quick breath of relief caught him. She had not expected to have a choice in the matter. A servant with her beauty . . .

He felt like a fool for teasing her. Worse, a scoundrel. He should have known. Other men did not always accept no as an answer.

Other men had not lived through the hell he had.

Luc reached for his hat hanging on a peg. “Last night you asked after the character of my men? Why? Has someone bothered you?”

“No. But there is one young man . . .” She chewed on the inside of her lip, a habit she had to which he was developing something of an addiction.

“Tell me,” he said. “Now.”

The cornflowers flashed anew. “You are remarkably autocratic.”

“It comes with the ship.” He allowed himself a moment’s satisfaction.
The duchess was back
. “Tell me.”

“The other day he visited Dr. Stewart’s infirmary and claimed a toothache, but he was lying.”

“How do you know he lied? Did Dr. Stewart suspect him?”

“No. But . . . I felt it. Whatever it is that sailor wishes from Dr. Stewart’s medicine chest, I believe he has ill intentions.” She spoke with confidence again, uncowed by his anger and unafraid of his authority. He had never known a woman of such beauty that was both modest and vulnerable, yet assured and resilient. She astounded him. He could not look away from her, but he could not speak.

“I felt it,” she repeated earnestly.

“How did you feel it, little duchess?” he said, and lifted a hand to her chin. “As you feel—”

She jerked away from his fingertips. “Don’t touch me again.”

Luc stepped back.

On his eleventh birthday, pointing a pistol with a shaking hand, he had said those words to Absalom Fletcher. So Fletcher had found another victim. A younger victim.

He turned to the door. “I will take your warning under advisement.”

He left her then to his bedchamber alone. Having stolen his peace and sanity, yet offering him nothing with which to remedy those losses, she did not protest his departure.

H
OWEVER MUCH SHE
needed the sleep, Arabella could not remain in his bed. Only one wicked temptation might have enticed her to linger: the opportunity to fill her senses with his scent that made her a little dizzy. But the bed linens bore only the mild scent of soap.

She had shared beds with her sisters enough to know that the scent of a person clung. She loved curling up in the sage-smelling warmth Eleanor left on the pillows when she rose at dawn to study and write. Ravenna’s spot in the bed was always tangled and crumpled, strands of wild, Gypsy-dark hair mingled with Beast’s silky black hairs and occasionally a mangled rope toy lost in the coverlets. Many times alone upon her plain cot in the servants’ quarters of whatever house she had served, Arabella had imagined being cuddled beneath the old four-poster with her sisters, keeping warm from the winter and laughing. Always laughing, even in the depths of poverty and want, for that was love.

She had slept in Captain Andrew’s bed, yet his scent was absent.

Mr. Miles served her breakfast in the day cabin but informed her that due to the rain her clothing was not yet dry. When he left, she bound herself up in the coat he had offered her the night before and carried her aching head to the infirmary. Sailors cast her curious glances as she went. She hurried by. They’d all no doubt seen considerably more than the hem of a woman’s chemise.
I am a sailor, Miss Caulfield
.

None of the sailors would bother her. The captain would not allow it.

Only he posed a threat. Everything he did and said made her feel confused and out of control. For the first time in years of determination and work, she was behaving recklessly, standing in the rain, drinking brandy, and sleeping in a man’s bed—and wanting to do it all.

She did not want him to touch her again. He was autocratic and arrogant and he made her uncomfortably hot all over when he looked at her. Always before, men’s attentions had repulsed her. But when she had awoken to his caress, she wanted to turn into his touch.

The cabin boy Joshua had left off his vigil, and she went alone down the companionway and along the orlop deck to the infirmary. The door was open a crack. She pushed it wide and halted.

The skinny youth from three days earlier stood above the medicine cabinet. The drawers were open. His hand was clutched around a brown bottle prominently marked with skull and crossbones.

She moved toward him. “What do you have there?”

He tucked the bottle into his pocket. “Begging your pardon, miss. Doc said I was to take this medicine—”

“He could not have meant for you to dispense it yourself, or for you to take that bottle in particular.”

The youth looked hard at her, his attention dropping to her chest.

The ring
. She had not thought to tuck it away. She had only been thinking of her ridiculous infatuation.

“Set down the bottle,” she said.

“Give me that ring, then, miss, and I’ll give you this bottle.” His attention darted to the door. No one had been on the orlop deck when she came, and the winds blew especially hard today. The ship creaked furiously and the animals in the hold were restless and noisy. If she screamed it was entirely possible no one would hear her.

“I’ll leave the bottle, I promise,” he said. “I don’t mean any harm, miss. Just gimme the ring.” His eyes looked wild above his sunken cheeks. Perhaps he was ill. Perhaps he was merely starving. Perhaps desperation drove him to this.

She understood desperation
.

“Return the bottle to the case and leave now,” she said, “and I will pretend you have not tried to bribe me.”

His eyes again skipped between the door and her ring.

She extended her hand. “Give me the bottle,” she said in her most authoritative governess voice.

The sailor slipped his hand into his pocket and withdrew a slender blade.

Her throat caught.

He grabbed her wrist and pushed her to the wall. His body was wiry but he was tall and surprisingly strong.

“If you won’t trade, I’ll have both.” The blade gleamed close to her face.

“What foolishness is this?” she managed to utter, nerves spinning through her. His grip bruised her arm and his hand holding the dirk grappled at her shirtfront. He could cut her even without intending to. “We are at sea. Your crime will be discovered immediately.”

He yanked. The ribbon sliced into her neck. She threw her weight into her leg and thrust up her knee between his thighs.

He staggered back, gasping for breaths. He opened his fist and the ring winked like blood in his palm. She dodged for the door. Face twisted, he staggered toward her.

“
T
HEY’RE DOING WHAT?”
Luc squinted across the whitecaps. Sunlight glinted off dozens of white sails three hundred yards portside, casting the nearby naval vessel in a glorious glow.

“Standin’ about with the sheep, Cap’n.” Joshua chewed on a straw, his little thumbs hooked into his suspenders like a farmer.

Across the water Luc could not clearly see faces yet, but he knew well the cocky stance of the man posed proudly atop the quarterdeck of the ship opposite. Tony Masinter had been the best of first lieutenants and of friends. Luc could not have wished for a finer man to take his place as the master of the
Victory
. But why in Hades his old ship was bearing down on his new one now was anyone’s guess.

“Cap’n?” Joshua said.

Luc glanced at the deck of his brig. It was peculiarly spare of sailors, given the company that had appeared on the horizon an hour earlier. It wasn’t every day a hundred-twelve-gun naval frigate escorted a humble merchant ship into port. But it seemed as though Tony intended to do just that.

“Twenty of the men, you say?”