The Pirate and the Puritan (8 page)

A glimpse at the sky showed a
patch of illuminated gray passing overhead, but black beasts were on its tail.
Drew strode to the protection of the mainmast. Felicity could gulp a few
lungfuls of fresh air before she’d have to be trapped below for God knows how
long. He eased her down the length of his body until her feet touched the deck.
Her stiff demeanor had tricked him into believing her more solidly built, but
her dead weight hardly caused him to strain.

She leaned against him, drowning
in the heavy black material of her dress as much as the rain. Though she
clenched her fist around his shirt, she’d have sunk to her knees if his arm
wasn’t wrapped securely around her waist. With his free hand, he pulled the
wild strands of hair plastered across her face out of her eyes. Before he
leaned down to kiss the top of her head, he caught himself.

He shook off the foolish impulse,
questioning his sanity. To remind himself who she was, he lifted her chin so he
could look into her face. Purple circles ringed her dark eyes. The rush of
empathy that had almost prompted a kiss returned.

“This will pass, love. Is the air
helping at all?”

“I don’t feel well,” she croaked.

Drew swallowed a chuckle but
didn’t bother to hide his grin. “That’s obvious.” Never could he have imagined
Felicity Kendall at a loss for words so blatantly apparent.

“No”—she paused to gasp for
breath before she could finish the sentence she seemed desperate to get out—“I
don’t feel well right now.”

Her words prompted Drew into
immediate action. He pried her fingers off his shirt and lowered her to her
knees, then kneeled behind her, holding her steady, while she braced herself on
all fours. Having her lean over the side of the ship would have gotten them
both washed overboard. Between the miserable dry coughs that sliced through the
pounding waves, he heard her soft sobs. Both tore at his hardened heart.

Drew reached for the thick rope
of hair that hung across her face and spilled onto the deck. He held the mass
out of her way with one hand. With his other arm, he circled her waist and held
her rump steadfastly against his hip. His knees planted firmly on the deck
absorbed the continued rolls of the ship and anchored both their weights.

When her heavy breathing was the
only sound that could be heard above the rain and wind, he realized the
awkwardness of their positions. Of course he’d been in similar positions with
women before, but never in his wildest dreams had he pictured Felicity and
himself in such circumstances. And never had the women been getting sick.

A nasty wave crawled over the
deck and forced him to flex his thighs to maintain their balance. Despite the
storm that howled its return, his traitorous body interpreted the movement as
something else entirely. With his blood eagerly rushing to places it had no
business being, he reached underneath Felicity’s arms and pulled her up with
him as he stood. “Your stomach is empty, love, so I’m going to have to take you
below.”

He lifted her in his arms, and
she sagged against his chest like a broken doll, succumbing to his will without
an ounce of protest. The drastic change in her personality worried Drew all
over again. Once he entered the protected deck below, he studied her closed
eyes and gave into his earlier urge. He placed an almost invisible kiss on the
top of her head.

Drew returned to the luxurious
great cabin, the only chamber on the
Sea Mistress
furnished for the
needs of a woman. He planned on getting rid of the ship after this voyage. Too
much attention had been attracted to it and to his true identity. He laid
Felicity on the silk comforter, realizing she would have put all the clues
together, anyway. Her unscheduled trip on the
Sea Mistress
had only
hastened the process.

Her docile demeanor wouldn’t
last, but that didn’t stop Drew’s desire to hasten her recovery. He hated
seeing her so weak. A dark halo spread around her as the ivory bedding absorbed
the water from her drenched clothing and hair. Drew sat beside her, unbuttoning
the high neck of her heavy gown. Her lack of protest when he began to undress
her sounded an alarm. He touched her cheeks, finding her skin chilled.
Banishing his guilt and ignoring his slight glee, he peeled off the black
casing Felicity used to shield herself from the world.

He dropped the gown to the floor
and attacked the fastening of her stiff corset. His hands stilled as he stared
at the lushness he uncovered. Apparently no one had ever instructed Felicity in
the wearing of the things. The feminine undergarment concealed, almost
strangled, what it should have accentuated. Miss Kendall had a figure to rival
Venus. Her breasts were full, large and appeared enticingly firm. Her white
cotton chemise escaped the drenching of her dress, keeping her somewhat
concealed and teasing his imagination with what lay beneath. He tore his gaze
away before he burned a hole in the cotton. If he wanted to adhere to the
integrity of his role as nursemaid, he’d better move on to a less challenging
duty.

Underskirts entwined around
Felicity’s legs, hiding those appendages from the world. Drew reached down to
remove the black boots peeking out beneath. Even with his gaze focused on
nothing but the laces of her shoes, he felt like a lecher taking advantage of a
helpless female.

Fortifying himself with the
innocence of his intent and ignoring his not so virtuous urges, he pulled off
layers of muslin petticoats, refusing to touch the knee-length chemise. He
brushed his fingers along Felicity’s calf. Her stockings remained thankfully
dry. Reaching under her chemise to remove them would have sorely tested his
endurance.

He got up from the bed to search
for something to dry her hair. When she regained her strength, something he
assured himself would happen, she’d be livid to find he of all people had
undressed her. He doubted she’d be satisfied with the fact that he’d had no
choice, or appeased by the knowledge that his skill in the area of undressing
women allowed him to do so quickly. Yet having a crewmember do the job was out
of the question. His men were self-confessed cutthroats, not gentlemen who
would respect a lady—no matter how angelic she might look at the moment. He
pulled his hot gaze away from where her light cotton chemise clung to the apex
of her thighs. He wasn’t much better.

When he turned to the armoire,
hoping to find a towel, he noticed the wooden box that had spilled out with
Felicity. Seeing the tattered remnants of his life scattered across the floor
confirmed his worst suspicions. The little witch had been spying on him.

And worse yet, she no doubt
thought she found what she was looking for. Two bills of sale bearing his real
name lay face up on the carpet. She’d have no trouble figuring out Drew
Crawford and Lord Christian Andrews were one and the same. Good. Let her think
the worst of him.

He neatly folded the documents
and returned them to the box, before gathering the fragile items he’d sworn to
toss overboard a dozen times. A yellowed, returned and unopened letter his
mother had written to his father lay among the pile. Drew had never had the
courage to read the last letter his mother had written, and the thought of Felicity
doing so irritated Drew enough to chide himself for his compassion. That she’d
peered into his past bothered him more than her discovery of the papers which
she would interpret as his involvement in the slave trade. If he’d decided to
strip her naked and tie her to the bed until the storm passed instead of taking
such precious care with her, he’d be justified.

He scooped up the sprig of purple
lilac, a few more of whose tiny petals had fallen off. He sniffed it, though he
knew the fragrance was long gone. He should just throw it away. Instead, he
gently returned the letter and the sprig to the security of the tattered wooden
box, the only baggage he’d brought with him from England.

With the heirloom tucked under
his arm, he stalked over to the bed. He searched the features of the tranquil
figure in white for the conniving shrew who’d broken onto his ship and
ransacked his meager belongings.

After he studied her still face
to assure himself her extreme condition wasn’t a ploy, he placed his palm
against the side of her cheek and traced her lips with his thumb. With his
other hand, he brushed her hair away from her face. He let his fingers stray
until they were enveloped in the golden brown torrent spilling over the pillow.
Her placid features tightened in pain when his caress found a lump the size of
an egg protruding from the back of her skull. He gingerly removed his hands
from her hair and reached for the box. No new scratch marred the sturdy wood to
discern whether she had found the heavy object or it found her.

Whether she’d managed to examine
the contents of the box before it hit her on the head mattered not. Felicity
Kendall was finally at his mercy. She would answer his many questions, not the
other way around. God help them both.

***

Felicity shook herself from a
deep sleep. Even before she could pry open her eyes, she knew
he
was
gone. How long she’d drifted in and out of an endless nightmare of pain, her
head throbbing, her stomach pitching, provided as great a mystery as who he
was. Strong fingers massaging her temples and a deep voice coaxing her from her
misery remained the only tangible evidence that her savior had been flesh and
blood instead of a figment of her desperate imagination.

She blinked, trying to clear her
vision. Instead of the whitewashed ceiling of her bedroom, uniform planks,
varnished and shiny, loomed over her head. The splashing of water and her
nausea brought her back to the nightmare of her voyage to Barbados. But another
ship’s name loomed in the back of her mind.

Sunlight filled the room with a
hazy afternoon glow. She must be seriously ill to sleep so far past dawn.
Idleness was a sin. Though not serious enough to earn a fine or physical
punishment, a reprimand in front of the congregation would be in order. She let
her eyes drift shut again, relishing her last moments of decadence. As
miserable as she felt, lying abed until late morning felt oh, so good. No
wonder it was a sin.

Reluctantly, she stretched, and
discovered her stockings glided over what had to be silk. Not that she had much
experience with the expensive material. The most she’d ever seen had been…

Tattered glimpses of how she’d
come to be lying between silk sheets on a moving ship trickled to the forefront
of her thinking like an unwanted fever. After her father had gone to bed, she
had discovered the name of Lord Christian’s vessel in the New England Company’s
ledgers. Sneaking from her father’s house and finding the ship had gone so
smoothly. Her mission had been a resounding success until she had hidden in the
armoire after hearing someone board the
Sea Mistress
and soon discovered
she couldn’t let herself out. Her imprisonment had turned from a slight
inconvenience to the incarnation of hell as she woke to the mad pitching of the
ship.

She took a deep, shuddering
breath, grateful to be alive, and realized her gown had been removed, along
with her corset. How she’d come to be without them presented another mystery
she must solve. She flung out her hand and groped for a pillow to cover her
face. If she could just go back to sleep until the throbbing in her head
subsided, she could figure out her predicament later.

The feather-stuffed silk shut out
the light but didn’t squelch the rapid flood of her returning memory. She was
on Lord Christian Andrews’s ship. Under full sail no less.

She removed the pillow and
listened. The motion of the ship had steadied and waves lapped against the hull
instead of beating the sides like fists. No one else seemed to be in the cabin
she occupied. To be sure of that, she forced herself to sit up. As soon as she
lifted her heavy head off the pillow, splintering pain tossed bright fragments
of light in front of her eyes. She squeezed her eyelids shut against the
explosion.

Just as a sob tightened her
throat, a loud screech announced the opening of the portal. The sound delivered
another unbearable slice of pain. Knowing someone entered the room forced
Felicity to open her eyes in a squint. For the first time, she caught a clear
glimpse of the man who had played her nurse. She quickly darted her gaze away
before she had to meet his eyes. Good lord, he'd undressed her.

Even with her focus firmly fixed
on the silk coverlet, his image burned into her mind’s eye. He bore a tray in
his hands, but that didn’t hinder his swagger in the least. His hair fell in
thick brown waves just past his broad shoulders and stood starkly against the
white cambric shirt he’d not bothered to lace. His close-fitting black breeches
tapered into scuffed boots that began below his knees. A blush crept to Felicity’s
cheeks as she remembered her first glimpse of those boots and the powerful legs
attached to them.

“I owe you heartfelt thanks, sir,
and my apologies,” she whispered, cringing against the sound of her own voice.

She closed her eyes briefly,
struggling with the reality of her flesh-and-blood rescuer. He appeared to be
pure muscle under his rumpled clothes. It was hard to believe he was the same
man who had touched her with such gentleness.

Images of his body pressed
intimately against hers came back with enough force to turn her cheeks hot.
Though she believed his actions innocent and her condition kept her from any
say in the matter, his unexpected virility washed her in guilt, as if they had
intentionally participated in some type of lascivious behavior. When his boots
echoed across the wooden floor, then drifted onto the carpet, she yanked the
bedcovers to her neck.

His weight sagged the mattress as
he brazenly sank down next to her. Maybe if she pretended she was asleep, he’d
go away. Usually she wasn’t so cowardly, but usually she wasn’t practically
naked in the company of a stranger—a stranger she was forced to rely upon.