Patricia Potter (14 page)

He stood at her side as Adrian fielded dozens of questions with rapid, short answers, his gaze continually returning to her and his eyebrows furrowing as he saw Clay place his hand on her elbow and lean over to whisper an invitation to dance.

Lauren didn’t really want to dance. Her body felt like a mass of quivering nerves, anticipating, wanting, needing in ways she’d never imagined. She still felt extreme pleasure that he was safe, that his eyes had sought her out and lingered on her when there were other more attractive women in the room. She also knew hunger and guilt and anticipation and so many more warring emotions that her hand trembled when Clay took it and led her onto the middle of the floor where a reel was beginning.

Now she was grateful for the music, for the concentration required for the dance, for the need to flash a smile that had little meaning. She was both sorry and grateful when it ended, for she instinctively knew Captain Cabot would be standing there, waiting.

And he was. As Clay led her off the floor, his arm lightly around her waist, again in an almost annoyingly possessive way, they ended up in front of Adrian.

“Miss Bradley,” he said. “May I hope to have the next dancer’

There was an undercurrent of amusement in the question, as if his request was no request at all but a foregone conclusion, one that neither she nor Clay could deny.

It surprised her that she felt no resentment about the presumption, only a joyful jump of her senses. But Clay frowned slightly before saying evenly, “If the lady agrees.”

Lauren nodded. She’d been given a dance card, but Clay had deftly deflected all candidates and filled in each dance with his own name.

Adrian took her gloved hand, and she wondered at her reaction to his touch, and why only he caused a current of fire to rage through her. His hand, too, was gloved, and despite two layers of cloth, she knew once more the tingling of skin, the white-hot heat that moved up her arms to the core of her body.

The dance was a waltz, for which she was simultaneously grateful, because it brought him near to her, and fearful, because of the trembling his proximity caused. Although Clay had been a fine dancer, Adrian was even better, graceful and masterful, his light but sure movements taking her from earth to the sky, to dance in the heavens, stars as her companions.

She leaned back in his arms, feeling protected and secure as she looked at his distinctive face, at the eyes that smiled down at her. His fingers tightened ever so slightly on her hand as his other hand drew her closer to him. They dipped and swirled and marveled at the magic between them, a magic that hadn’t disappeared during his absence but had only grown stronger.

His eyes locked on hers, as if he, too, was trying to decipher what was happening between them, as if he also feared feelings so openly volatile.

Lauren forced words, to try to dispel some of the tension between them. “You returned early, Captain.”

“There was a very opportune fog, and, besides, I had a special incentive,” he replied, making it quite clear he meant her. “I didn’t expect you to be with Clay.”

There was a note of inquiry in his voice, and something else. Something like jealousy, or disappointment. Lauren didn’t know which, but the thought of the latter hurt.

Lauren met his eyes. “He thought I might enjoy it.”

“He thought
he
might enjoy it,” Adrian retorted.

Lauren lowered her gaze to his shoulders. She wished momentarily that she were better at flirting, but then she really didn’t want to flirt with him. They were, in some way, beyond that. She knew that. She also knew how dangerous that realization was.

“I’ve never been to a ball like this,” she said finally, feeling a bit guilty about having come with Clay although she knew she really had no reason to feel that way.

Adrian had been scowling ever so slightly, and now his expression lightened. “Then I’m sorry I wasn’t the first to bring you. You look exceedingly lovely, you know. Much too lovely for Clay.”

“Are you friends?”

“Once upon a time,” he answered, after a slight hesitation.

“And now?”

“I’m thinking about it,” he replied, with that amused smile that disguised what he was really thinking.

There was meaning in the words that Lauren didn’t want to probe. She changed the subject. “Was it a successful trip?”

“Yes,” he said, but Lauren felt him hesitate for the briefest moment.

Lauren felt a tightening inside, her emotions in conflict. She felt pleasure that he was safe, yet also an almost sickening sense of failure.

“When did you get in?”

“Two hours ago.”

“And you came right here?”

“I went to Jeremy’s first. I had this very odd compulsion to see a young lady.”

“Odd?”

“Odd,” he confirmed.

Lauren swallowed deeply, wanting her heart to slow its frantic pace. She wished the dance would end—and she wanted it to go on forever.

She wasn’t sure how she felt when the former wish was granted. The music stopped, and Adrian bowed regally to her. “Must I return you to Clay?”

“You must.” The voice came from behind her, and Lauren didn’t miss the edge of irritation in the usually soft, pleasant drawl of Clay Harding. “And congratulations. I take it you didn’t have any difficulties.”

“None going in. There was dense fog, and they obviously weren’t expecting anyone.”

“And coming out?”

He shrugged. The silence told Clay there had been trouble, but it wasn’t to be discussed in front of a lady.

Adrian gave them both a wry smile and excused himself. “I see some friends.”

Lauren’s gaze followed him as he strode over to several men in the corner and took a glass from a tray held by one of the many waiters. Despite his straight back, he looked tired, strained, and she wondered exactly how difficult the run had actually been.

The rest of the evening was a blur. Adrian departed the dance shortly after he’d joined the group of men, and with him went the enchantment of the evening. Lauren merely went through the motions of talking and smiling, every minute wishing she were with Adrian, yet knowing that such wishes were folly in the extreme.

Adrian walked to the Royal Victoria from Government House. He maintained rooms there, as did his first mate and pilot, on a permanent basis. Many of the other crew members used rooming houses around town.

He quickly changed clothes and berated himself for a fool for stopping at the ball. He had known about it for several weeks but had not planned to attend. Adrian usually hated such affairs, but when he had stopped by the Cases’ home and was told everyone was at the ball, he didn’t stop to think. He had—damn it—just wanted to see her. He hadn’t stopped to think she might be with another man—particularly Clay Harding.

Adrian remembered the bet and cursed himself for making it. If he hadn’t been so damned tired that day …

As he was now. But he wanted to stop by the hospital and see how Terrence was faring. On arrival in Nassau, he had seen to the man’s delivery to the small island hospital, and had heard the verdict: Terrence would probably lose his left leg. Adrian had comforted the man, who had been with him over a year, and had assured him that he would have enough money to establish a small tavern in England. It had been the man’s dream, and now it would become true, but at a terrible price.

He stopped at the hospital. Terrence had been given morphine and was asleep. Adrian stood by the man’s bed for several moments before cursing silently to himself. One of his fellow captains had once compared blockade running to riding the lightning. This time, the lightning had burned.

He left the hospital and strode to the
Specter
, which was tied to the wharf and was already being unloaded. New ships with cargo would arrive on the morrow: goods from England, France, Spain. All destined for a supply-hungry South. He wondered idly when the cannon would arrive.

The ship was alive with lights, and many of his crew members were still aboard. He stopped at his cabin and retrieved an irate Socrates, then found Wade.

“Terrence?” his first mate asked him.

“The doctor says he’ll probably lose that leg. I asked him to wait a few days, and he agreed, but at the first sign of infection, he’ll go ahead and amputate.”

“We’ll need two more men.”

“I know.”

“It shouldn’t be any problem. There’s not a sailor in Nassau who wouldn’t prefer to serve with you.”

“After getting one man killed and making another a cripple?” The question was bitter.

“Don’t blame yourself, Captain. It was just damned bad luck.”

“I shouldn’t have tried a run at this time.”

Moodily, Adrian leaned against the smokestack, and thought idly what an oddity it was. Designed specifically for blockade runners, the smokestack was retractable, just as the masts were short, to keep the ship’s silhouette as invisible as possible.

His glance swept over the rest of the cargo-laden ship, past the spots on deck that had been cleansed of blood to the splintered railings. They would be repaired in the next several days. But Terrence’s leg could not be so easily fixed, nor could John Green be brought back from the dead.

Wade remained silent. He had been with Adrian a long time, originally as second mate on the trader when Adrian was first mate. Then he’d followed Adrian to blockade running and had become his first officer. And he trusted Adrian as he trusted no other man. Perhaps, he thought as he looked at Adrian’s tortured face, because the captain cared about his men as no other captain he’d ever sailed with.

The captain was a strange one, though. He would allow people to get so close, and no further. The crew all liked him, and he often drank with them and kidded with individual members, but there was always a part of him that remained secret, a dark, brooding part that remained alone and separate.

As he was now.

And there was, Wade knew, nothing he could say to break that mood.

“I’ll start looking for new men tomorrow,” he said.

Adrian nodded.

“I’ll narrow them down to a few,” Wade continued. Adrian always made the final selection. It was imperative that the twenty-four-man crew be cohesive, that all members work easily together in those tense hours of running the blockade.

Adrian merely nodded again, and Wade left, knowing he could offer little comfort.

Minutes later, Wade watched as his captain, shoulders slightly slumped, and Socrates descended the gangplank. His captain, Wade reflected, had many friends, an easy manner, a way with people … and yet sometimes Adrian Cabot, Lord Ridgely, seemed like the most solitary man Wade had ever met.

Lauren felt curiously empty after Clay took her home from the dance.

The Cinderella feeling, like the carriage and gown in the fairy tale, had disappeared. While she had at first enjoyed the adventure and color of the event, she had been filled with desolation from the moment Adrian had left the ball.

There had been, she recalled, a certain disappointment in his eyes when he’d realized she had been with Clay Harding. She couldn’t help but feel he was disappointed in her, and that she had lost something important.

It was ridiculous, of course. He was her enemy. She was sent here to betray him. He had killed her brother. He was prolonging the war. He was a danger to everything in which she believed.

And yet her mind had separated the two so thoroughly—the handsome, enigmatic, sometimes gentle man who had possibly saved her life and certainly her virtue and the man Mr. Phillips had portrayed to her as an unprincipled war profiteer—that they no longer were the same person.

She had hated the latter. She had lost her heart to the former … in a matter of days. In a matter of hours on a crystalline beach that haunted her in its recurring images.

It made no sense, but both facts were true, and Adrian’s barely disguised disappointment in her hurt … and in a way that few other opinions ever had.

Larry. What should I do? What
can I
do?

But there was no answer. There would never be an answer again. There would never be a teasing pair of eyes regarding her fondly as he said, “Button, you’ll work it out. You always do.”

Clay Harding made the Case store one of his first calls the next day. He was not quite sure what had happened last night, but something sure as hell had, and he didn’t like thinking it might have been Adrian’s brief appearance. But some of Lauren Bradley’s brightness had faded after Adrian’s departure, and it hadn’t returned.

As he entered Jeremy’s store, he was delighted to see her there, rather than her uncle. But his delight faded when he failed to see the same light in her eyes that he’d noticed last night when she was dancing with Adrian.

Still, her voice was warmly pleasant as she asked how she could help him.

“Some cheroots,” he said, watching her move gracefully to a cabinet. She was wearing a modest gray dress, and her hair was gathered in a neat knot at the base of her neck. She looked subdued and … sad.

“And supper tonight?”

She looked up at the offer, her eyes meeting his. “I can help you with the first, but not the second,” she said. “Aunt Corinne is planning a tea this afternoon.”