My Runaway Heart (20 page)

"You needn't worry, Captain. I'm not going to take
a running leap into the Channel. I tried that already and it didn't succeed."

"We're not in the Channel."

She stopped, glancing out to sea before darting her
gaze back to his face. "Then where—?"

"The Atlantic. We cleared Land's End early this
morning, so if you did jump, it would be a very long swim to Cornwall. But I
suspect that's not where you want to be, anyway."

"What are you saying? Of course I wouldn't mind
Cornwall if it freed me from you!" Desperation seizing her, she scanned
the horizon, but the only thin strip of land she could see was far to the east.
England.

"But what of your stepmother, Olympia? From what
little you've mentioned of her, she sounds unpleasant enough. She's in
Cornwall—"

"I know she is and I hate her! But that doesn't
mean I'd rather stay aboard this bloody ship!"

Jared almost released Lindsay's arm, he was so
surprised at her vehemence, her lovely eyes filled with turmoil and passion. He
glanced up to see that many of his men were watching them, but one dark look
and they quickly fell back to their work, while he drew Lindsay into the shadow
of the mainmast.

"Easy, Lindsay, we don't have to talk about the
witch. I take it she is a witch?"

Lindsay turned her face away, her chin trembling,
which, oddly, made Jared want to press her further. He wasn't sure why, but her
outburst that he didn't know a thing about her had moved him more deeply than
he cared to admit.

"She must have treated you quite badly to make you
feel the way you do."

"It wasn't so much me but my father,"
came
her small voice, though Lindsay still would not look at
him. "He married her five months after my mother died, and everything
changed. He changed, our plans changed . . ."

A tear trickling down her cheek made Jared's throat
tighten. "What plans?"

"Our grand tour. Papa had promised my mother for
years we would go—it's what she always wanted. She'd never left Cornwall
herself, but she'd always dreamed of faraway places. She'd read me books. . ."

A ragged sigh escaped her, her trembling fingers
swiping away tears from her flushed cheeks. Flushed cheeks that Jared suddenly
wanted to touch but didn't, waiting.

"A fever struck the village,
Corie's
mother, my mother. She made my father promise, right before she died, that he'd
still take me to the Continent, even if she couldn't be with us. I heard him
promise—I was hiding behind the door. But he married Olympia and she wouldn't
hear of any grand tour. Only this year, when she thought it was time I found a
husband, did she allow me to finally go to London. A husband to suit
her
, not me. Someone she could bully
like my father, not a bold adventurer who'd stand up to her. But you wouldn't
have suited her at all—"

Lindsay froze before Jared's eyes as if realizing how
much she had revealed, yet in the next instant she faced him and grabbed his
hands, her gaze pleading.

"Oh, Jared, please take me back to England. I
promise I won't say a word to anyone about you—I swear it! And if you did, I might
still have a chance to find— Oh, please!"

He stared into her beautiful, tear-filled eyes, feeling
so close to relenting at that moment, even though his gut was telling him he
could not.

He could not take the risk of trusting her; he had his
men's lives to consider, and his own mission was still so far from being done.
He had only to think of his parents and Elise . . . and of Sylvia and Ryland
Potter's treachery, damn their souls to hell, to know it wasn't possible.
Slowly he shook his head.

"I can't let you go, Lindsay. I'm sorry."

Chapter 18

Lindsay almost couldn't believe her ears, she'd felt so
sure, so full of hope that he might find it in his heart to—
The
blackguard! And she was such a fool!

It happened so fast, the ringing sound of a slap echoing
around them even before she realized she'd struck him. Her gaze widened in
horror at the bright red handprint on Jared's face. But what seemed worse was
the unearthly quiet that had settled over the ship. Lindsay glanced wildly
around her to see that all eyes were upon them, Jared's men as stunned as he
looked.

Until his grim astonishment suddenly faded to fury.
Lindsay stumbled backward when he reached out to grab her.

"Merchantman approaching from the north,
Cap'n
!"

She gasped; he stiffened, his narrowed gaze looking
past her to scan the sea. It was her
turn to be astonished
when she saw a smile of such dark intent touch
his lips that she felt a
chill. Before her eyes, Jared had suddenly become both pirate and predator. And
never had she thought him
so
frighteningly dangerous
as when his cold gaze once more settled upon her.

"You must forgive us, Miss Somerset, but we've a
hunt to commence. You'll have to finish your promenade another time."

He caught her and swept her off her feet so abruptly
that Lindsay didn't have time to shriek. Nor did she think to fight him as he
carried her to the hold, his fearsome expression alone paralyzing her in his
arms, his roared commands deafening her.

"Every man to his station! Cowan, raise our
colors!"

As the entire deck exploded in commotion, Lindsay
caught a glimpse of the flag being hoisted above the quarterdeck just before
Jared dropped with her into the hold.

A huge white flag with a resplendent golden bird at its
center, wings outspread, the yellow silk flashing brilliantly in the sun.

But what made her heart pound was the blood dripping
from its beak and claws, the emblem enough to strike fear into the soul of any
beholder. As Jared strode with her into the deserted crew's quarters, she
wondered if the sailors aboard the hapless merchantman had yet sighted the
Vengeance
; she could already envision
their panic.

"Dag, wake up. I need you to guard the prisoner
until I send another man to replace you."

The
groggy
Norwegian unfolded
himself from his bunk with a quickness that belied his size. Lindsay winced
when Jared set her down roughly and began pushing her along in front of him.
She had never felt more wretchedly a prisoner than at that moment, relief
filling her when they reached Jared's quarters.

She ran inside and took refuge behind the chair, but he
didn't step past the threshold. Her face grew hot as he gave a short laugh upon
seeing the books she'd arranged neatly atop the desk, the pillow plumped on the
bed, a pretty Indian shawl, in which she'd found wrapped two volumes of poetry,
draped over the sea chest—her valiant attempt to make the cabin more livable.

"Good. At least you're keeping yourself amused."

Bristling, she would have thrown a book at him if he
hadn't slammed the door shut with a finality that sounded like he had thrown
away the key.

***

Almost two weeks later, Lindsay was convinced Jared had
thrown away the key and forgotten about her entirely.

She stared bleakly out the porthole at the smoldering
debris adrift on the waves, all that was left of the Phoenix's latest victim,
the twelfth ship in as many days. The longboats carrying the unfortunate
merchantman's crew,
officers
and a few dazed
passengers were no longer even specks on the horizon; for some reason Jared had
ceased taking prisoners aboard the
Vengeance
after that first vessel was sunk.

And she had ceased to wonder about it when she realized
to her deepening dismay that she had become a prisoner in every sense of the
word, with no chance for reprieve in sight.

Her requests to be granted a chance for fresh air had
fallen on deaf ears;
Cooky
hadn't spoken to her or
even cracked a smile since that morning she'd first gone above deck. The old
sailor had simply seen to her needs in stony silence, bringing her meals and
taking away the half-touched trays, providing her with occasional basins of hot
water to bathe and tending to the chamber pot.

Even Dag hadn't granted her more than a glance whenever
he served as her guard and stood watch at the door during
Cooky's
short visits, although his eyes had remained troubled. As for her other guards,
they had met her with the same grim silence and equally grim expressions, which
had led her to sense that these men must surely have lost any shred of sympathy
for her.

And she knew why.

She hadn't forgotten the stunned faces when she'd
slapped Jared; she now knew the depth of the crew's loyalty to their captain.
Her striking him had been an offense against them all and she hadn't forgotten,
either, how deeply it had angered Jared.

Sighing, Lindsay left the porthole and the glimpse it
had offered of the most recent fiery devastation, her heart sinking into her
slippers when she felt the ship suddenly list beneath her feet.

Lord
help
any luckless vessels
that might stray into their path; Jared's search for fresh prey had begun
again.

He never lingered very long at the scene of his latest
treasonous attack. His relentless pursuit of his next victim had horrified her
almost more than watching each ship burn.

Most vessels had surrendered without a fight, but a few
had resisted. The porthole had granted her a view of savage, uncompromising
maneuvers by the
Vengeance
to
brings
its reluctant prey to its knees. At those times she
could imagine Jared's chilling smile as if she were standing once more in front
of him and not confined to a cabin that seemed to be growing ever smaller with
each passing day. She didn't know which was worse.

Lindsay dropped onto the bed and thumbed absently
through Shakespeare's
Hamlet
, a play
she believed she was close to memorizing for how many times she'd read it. Add
to that
Romeo and Juliet
,
Othello
and
Antony and Cleopatra
, all tragic tales
of vengeance, loss and sorrow, which hadn't helped to lift her mood.

They had left her wondering, too, how Jared's ship
might have come to be called the
Vengeance
,
although she had told herself firmly that she didn't want to know and surely
didn't care. Yet he had to have chosen his treacherous path for some dark
reason, and the immense amount of time she had on her hands allowed unbidden
thoughts to plague her.

Why had he grown so furious that she'd called him a
traitor? He was a traitor, that was clear, yet strangely, he hadn't seemed to
think so.

And if the Phoenix had been harrying British ships for
three years, as that outraged gentleman had claimed at the Oglethorpe ball,
then surely that must coincide somehow with when Jared had returned to England
from India. Hadn't Aunt Winifred said three years as well? Yes, Lindsay was
certain she had. So what could have happened in that exotic faraway land to
turn Jared into a pirate? Yet if he had so ruthlessly abandoned his uncle and
younger sister, maybe his character alone was enough . . .

Lindsay shoved the book away and flipped over onto her
back, her head beginning to ache. It always did when her thoughts centered too
much
around
Jared, which seemed to be most of the
time.

He was such a study in contradictions, the charming
gentleman she'd met in London nothing like the coldhearted master of this ship.
But was he truly coldhearted? Not when it came to looking after Dag. And what
about the lengths he had gone to warm her after her misguided plunge into the
Channel?

Lindsay felt a blush race to her scalp, a strange
breathlessness overwhelming her when she reminded herself that Jared had seen
her naked, had seen every inch of her, her breasts, her

"And you're a ridiculous fool to feel as giddy
about it as you do," she groused as she rolled onto her side and swept a
sheaf of silken hair off her face. "You'd think, Lindsay Somerset, that
you might have wanted him to touch you!"

She closed her eyes, it becoming no uncommon thing for
her to be talking to herself. Anything to relieve the oppressiveness of her
enforced solitude. Yet once more her thoughts seemed to jump right back to
Jared and how he hadn't touched her, or so he had said.

Just as he hadn't seduced her in London, which made her
wonder anew about his supposed ruthless character. She had certainly presented
him with enough ripe opportunities; she flushed to her toes at the memory of
their heated encounter at the Boar's Head tavern. And of the carriage ride back
to Piccadilly when she'd been thrown willy-nilly onto his lap and he'd kissed
her so thoroughly—Oh, Lord.

Her lips suddenly burning, Lindsay rose from the bed,
pondering again why he had resolved to teach her a lesson. Given what she knew
of him now, it made so little sense, unless . . . She went to the desk and
picked up a slim volume of medieval romantic poetry, truly one of the few
things that had given her pleasure these past days, although she could already
hear Jared deriding her.

But if such poetry had been enjoyed by his sister, then
she certainly wasn't going to think less of herself for reading it. The second
volume was a lovely collection of poems by the Scots poet Robert Burns, but she
preferred the other, she knew, because of the graceful handwriting in the
margins that so intrigued her.

She settled into the chair and let the pages fall open
to a thirteenth-century poem by Wolfram von
Eschenbach
:

Your
love and my love keep each other company—

that
is why I am so joyful.

That
your heart is constant in its love for mine