This Perfect Kiss (6 page)

“You have no bloody idea, Christel. You do not know anything.”

“I understand more than you think—”

He braced a palm against the wall, trapping her, his jaw tense. They matched stares for several long seconds before his eyes narrowed slightly. He was behaving poorly and he knew it: she read it in the heavy weight of his gaze, felt it in the shift of his stance and the hard muscles of his chest as he moved his lips to her ear. Only his oilskin touched her, barely a brush against her arm, but it might as well have been his hand for the whisper of heat that warned her.

“Why have you really come back?” he demanded. “You have left your entire life in Virginia to travel across the world, and I doubt it was to be governess to my child.”

“What do you mean?” She whispered the words.

“No one does anything unless something is in it for him or for her. Or she is running away.”

“And you are not?” she accused him, feeling cornered by her emotions, daring him to defy the accusation, angry that he could turn this conversation back on her. He pushed himself away from the wall. Before he walked two steps toward the door, she said, “Do you have so little faith in humankind then that you could judge us all so harshly? What did Saundra do that no priest would say words over her, that you would threaten to tear down the village kirk stone by stone if she was not buried in the cemetery beside her mother?”

He wheeled around, but it was not anger she glimpsed on his face as he scraped back the hood of his oilskin with the sweep of his hand. “Where did you hear that?”

“Your daughter.”

His eyes closed and he shook his head as he mouthed something that sounded like an oath. Suddenly beset by a terrible urge to touch him, she forced her hands into a fist. His defensive posture told her he would never have allowed it. “Please tell me what happened. I need to know. You were there.”

He looked up at the rafter, his jaw tight. “Saundra climbed the stairs to the light tower overlooking the cliffs,” he said in a colorless voice. “And then she jumped into the sea. We found her body the next morning washed onto the rocks.”

Christel searched his face in utter shock. “I . . . I do not believe it. How can you be so sure she did not fall? How?”

“You have not been in the old light tower or you would not ask me that question. No one
falls
from up there unless they first climb out on the ledge.”

Christel's eyes burned. “I . . . I am so sorry.”

“Why?” she heard him rasp.

For assuming the worst of him. For not returning sooner. For staying gone too long.

“She has been dead almost two years, Christel,” he said without inflection.

His hand suddenly came up, warm beneath her chin, turning her face into the light and returning her gaze to his. She had not expected his touch, much less to feel the gentleness behind it.

Another wave burst over the ship. Seawater dripped beneath the door seals into the corridor. He pulled away, then withdrew his gloves from beneath his slicker. He was not looking at her, and his unexpected vulnerability struck her.

“If you need anything, ask Harry. He will be down periodically to check on you throughout the night.”

He shoved a shoulder against the door. It slammed shut behind him against an icy wind and a storm still lingering inside her that should have died long ago.

Chapter 3

D
rawing in a deep breath, Christel set aside the remains of the blue-and-white striped feather ticking from Lord Carrick's bed and finished gathering up the last of the blankets in the master cabin. She had aired them and only needed to fold them. This she would do in the smaller cabin away from Mrs. Gables's stern eye.

Since Christel was the only other woman on board, she was duty bound out of common charity to assist Mrs. Gables, who continued to suffer bouts of seasickness. Christel hoped that by exchanging cabins, the light would help Anna's nurse recover. When Christel had returned to make up the bed earlier, Mrs. Gables had been sitting in a plush chair in Lord Carrick's cabin, her strength improved, if her curiosity about Christel and want of conversation had been any proof.

Christel welcomed the conversation if only because it gave her a chance to be with Anna. Mrs. Gables was not a completely unpleasant woman, and not without an interesting story. She had traveled extensively in her youth, and she'd borne and lost several children while serving with her husband in India. But, like most British, she had an acute dislike for the Irish, which meant she did not get along with Lord Carrick's steward, for no apparent reason other than the fact that his cooking was wretched. Typically English to her core, much like one of those vexing types for whom Christel used to sew.

She was a woman who belonged to a circle of close-minded individuals set in their ways, perfectly oblivious to new situations or experiences, not because they did not know how to adapt but because they chose not to. Such persons could travel the world and be tolerant of nothing else outside their perfectly formed sphere.

Christel's dog fell outside that sphere. It was hairy and shed, lacked pedigree, tore up expensive feather ticks and enjoyed licking Anna's face. The dog had to be banished to the hold.

Even as Christel had listened to a steady barrage of gentle commands directed at Lord Carrick's daughter.
Don't gobble your food, Lady Anna
.
Hands in your lap when you sit at the table. Back straight. Sit pretty, dear.

Anna seemed to take the instruction in stride. When not listening to her nurse, she kept herself occupied, diligently learning from Christel how to make a bonnet for her doll. She seemed like a practical girl, interested in the world about her, but content to remain on its fringes. In many ways, she reminded Christel of herself at that age. Perhaps that was why she felt drawn to the child.

Upon entering Mrs. Gables's former cabin, Christel did not at first note that she was not alone until she heard the creak of leather and looked over the tops of the blankets bunched in her arms.

Lord Carrick sat at the small table, his legs outstretched in front of him, a study of casual nautical sophistication. He wore a heavy dark blue seaman's sweater and woolen breeches tucked into jackboots that hugged his calves. Though he'd clubbed back his dark hair, strands had pulled loose in the wind.

She had not seen him below, and for some reason she almost tripped. “What are you doing here?” she asked, feeling ridiculous the instant the words spilled out.

He cocked his brow as if his thoughts mirrored hers. This was his ship; he could go where he chose. “Red Harry told me you had changed cabins.”

She dropped the blankets on the berth and proceeded to fold them, not believing for one moment he'd come to see to her welfare. “There is no reason I should have remained in the master's chambers alone.”

“You have an aversion to sleeping alone?”

She whirled to face him. But he was not even looking at her. He was looking at the comforter on the top berth.

“Tell me you are not planning to re-stuff that thing,” he asked.

Her startled gaze swung to the berth where she had laid the tick, suddenly worried he might order it tossed overboard simply because it lacked perfection. She had salvaged the tick and most of the feathers. “And if I do?”

Smoothing her fingers over the fabric one last time, she carefully folded and placed it at the foot of the berth. Indeed, she had created a wedding gown less costly than this bed covering. But that wasn't why she wanted to save it.

“I would tell you 'tis not necessary, Christel.”

Sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, he made no other comment, as if unwilling to argue the point, because either it was unimportant to him, or he sensed its importance to her. She was responsible for its destruction. She would see it repaired. She paid her debts. She would keep it that way.

“Do you have a place to stay once we are in Ayr?” he asked after a moment. “Have you been in contact with your grandmother?”

“You need not worry about my accommodations,” she said. “I am returning to Seastone Cottage.” The place where she had been born. Where she had lived for twelve years before her mother had died and Papa had sent her to stay with Grams at Rosecliffe. “I know the family my uncle hired to care for the place.” Without looking at Lord Carrick, she said, “I am not returning to Virginia. My decision was made before I left Boston.”

“Your uncle has been dead a year. Have you considered that you will owe taxes?”

She did not argue his point. His conclusion was true. Accepting employment with Lord Carrick had been as much a matter of economics as any other reason she had for returning to Scotland, but this too remained unsaid. Lord Carrick had wanted answers as to why she would accept a position as a governess for his daughter. He was intelligent enough to discern that her motivations were monetary without making her demean herself by spelling it out. Except now that she had met the child, even that point was no longer accurate. Anna was Saundra's daughter. Christel wanted to know her.

“I have no intention of remaining at Blackthorn Castle,” he said. “Any governess I hire will have to accompany me back to London.”

“I am sure you will find one in London to suit your needs, my lord. My home is Seastone Cottage.”

He unfurled from the chair, his size shrinking the room by half in her mind. A wayward perception that she immediately decided was incongruous, for he was no taller or broader of shoulder than other men in her life had been.

She returned to folding blankets, listening as he walked past her to the port window, touching a hand to the washbasin as he bent at the waist and peered outside at the pewter sky. A quick glance and he continued his examination of the room, his restless pacing beginning to wear as her senses followed his movement to the cupboard. She could hear a limp in his step and caught the faint scent of liniment.

“Your hair is short,” he said from behind her, giving her a start.

She shrugged a shoulder, indifferent as to whether her hair was short or long, and set the last blanket on the bed. “I sold the length to a wigmaker before leaving Boston. Better to salvage the coin than waste it on louse. Hair grows back . . .”
Unlike limbs,
she had started to say and had stopped herself, realizing at once that the thought had also been his. Just as quickly, she regretted the implication that her silence implied pity for him.

“You needn't fear speaking the truth around me, Miss Douglas. I am not made of eggshells.”

“But neither are you forged from iron.”

“Nor are you, Christel.”

Dropping the blanket in her hands, she turned and placed her hands on her hips. “Is it to be Christel or Miss Douglas?” she queried. “Clearly, you cannot seem to decide.”

“Which would you prefer?”

“That depends. Perhaps we should clarify our relationship to each of our satisfactions so that we can stop skipping about the other as if we are total strangers. For Anna's sake, we can certainly find a way to be friends. Can we not?” She smiled, aware that she was nervous, even more aware that he could sense it.

After everything that he had told her, she remained unsure of her place and of how much leeway he would give her. “Which means that I give you leave to call me Christel,” she said decidedly. “I am family, after all. Indirectly, of course.”

Folding his arms, he leaned a shoulder against the berth. She waited for him to invite her to call him by his Christian name. He didn't. He was still studying her, clearly unsure what to make of her.

“Though even if you gave me leave to call you Camden or St. Giles, I would not feel comfortable reciprocating,” she prattled on. “To that point, I should speak my mind on another matter.”

“By all means. Do. To remain silent or docile in the face of adversity only leaves the problem to confront another day.”

“Well spoken,” she agreed, even though she sensed amusement in his tone. “You shared a lot with me last night. Words are not adequate to state—”

“Then do not try. Some things are best left unsaid.”

She nodded.

He remained silent. She drew in breath. “I also know that you have a certain noblesse oblige ingrained in you. You were born with it in your blood and you will feel obligated to protect me once we are in Ayr no matter what has happened in the past that might color your—”

“Are you
trying
to irritate me, Christel?”

“Who would dare, my lord?”

“Certainly not you.”

Despite herself, she felt the corners of her mouth lift. “I only wanted to stress that I am quite capable of taking care of myself. I do not want you to think that you have to worry about me or think that you need to take care of me. When we get to Scotland, I do not expect charity from you. I do not expect, nor do I want, anything.”

He returned to the porthole and stared outside, his seeming lack of attention to her allowing her to observe him unhindered.

The shadow of a beard marked the angular plains of his handsome face. He'd stepped from the persona once owned by the blue and white uniform of his naval rank into something inherently more predatory, always on guard, like a hawk that had suffered a broken wing, never to recover well enough to soar again. He wore his past like an unyielding mantle of iron. It weighed against him, and written deep into his posture was an inherent distrust of the world. Such men were dangerous and unpredictable, if only because they lived on the fringes of life and would defend their territory to the death. She thought of his daughter and wondered what it would be like to own that kind of love.

She had wanted it once. Not anymore.

Lifting her gaze, she realized too late that while she'd been assessing him, he'd also been assessing her, but far less subtly.

She looked into eyes the shade of the pewter sky churning behind him. Yet there was something else in his gaze.

Something that was not cold at all. She had thought the attraction between them gone.

She turned away from those penetrating eyes, aware of the burn in her cheeks as she resumed folding in an effort to pretend composure. She wished he would go now. She didn't understand his presence, especially after their conversation last night. He'd done his duty by her, had reassured himself that she had a place to go once in Scotland. There was nothing else to say. She had meant it when she'd said she wanted nothing from him.

“Why are you not married?” he asked.

It was an impertinent question and he clearly knew it. She presented him an offhand reply. “No man will have me, my lord. I have been quite happily on the shelf for years and intend to remain that way.”

His mouth crooked slightly and his teeth shone white against the dark bristle on his face. “And what exactly is the age one is considered
on the shelf
these days?”

“When a woman learns how to use a saber as well as a man.”

He looked mildly amused. “I should have guessed no mere colonial would have the bollocks to properly manage you.”

“Pah! No mere Englishman had the bollocks to try, my lord. In fact, was I to pit the two factions 'twould probably end much like the war.”

He surprised her by laughing. “A colonial to the core.”

“I am half Scots.” Her mouth curved up in a smug smile. “So are you, my lord.”

Taking a step toward her, he stopped so near that she could feel his breath stir her hair. He smelled of wind and salt and an icy sea.

“Now that we have finally found common ground between us to both our satisfactions”—plucking something from her hair, he presented her with a feather—“I should return to my duties.”

She took a casual step backward. “I could not agree more, my lord.”

After he left, she shut the door behind him and leaned against it for solid support. She could credit that while she disliked her reaction to him, she could not deny the stir of long-suppressed awareness coming to life any more than she could deny his beauty, his height and heat that seemed to emanate from him.

She reminded herself to be more cautious. He had been Saundra's husband. Not hers. She thought she knew him. She did not.

But for now, they seemed to have struck a fragile truce.

“T
here she is again, my lord,” Bentwell said over the lashing wind. “She's flying the revenue ensign and commission pennant.”

Camden raised the brass telescope to his eye to see for himself. She was canted over steeply to starboard, every inch of canvas spread, giving him a full view of her profile against the churning sky. “The same ship just outside Dover?”

“Aye, my lord. She's been weatherin' on us. Dangerous at best in these winds. The captain is a fool to risk his ship in such a manner. But at that pace he will cross our path in the next hour.”

There was only one reason a ship would weather on another, to maneuver into a superior position just before one initiated an engagement.

“Flying the signal flags of a revenue cruiser could be a ruse,” Bentwell said.

“She's clench built. Typical British lines for a revenue cruiser. Probably constructed in Liverpool.” Camden snapped the spyglass shut. “I would prefer she be French.”