Virgin Star (45 page)

"Are you much afraid?"

"Of what I will hear? Aye. Of what will happen to me? Nay. Not with you, Seanessy."

Grinning at this, pleased, he kissed her lips before taking her hand. "Come, my dear. Let me introduce you to your husband."

They emerged on deck hand in hand. The ship was well lit. Oly was tied up and mad about it, barking like all get out. She first saw the duke's back silhouetted against the darkened sky. The same bearing that had seemed majestic, regal in London now looked only, well... hot. He wore an expensive cape over formal black dress clothes, as did all the men with him. They were all formally dressed in the tropical heat.

Not so Seanessy's men. The crew wore belted cotton breeches, these cut off at the knees, and most were bare-chested, though many, like Seanessy, sported shoulder harnesses. Nearly all were barefoot or wearing those Indian moccasins his men favored.

All she could think those few moments she stared at the duke was that she did not know him. He was a stranger! How could she possibly have been married to him?

Kyler had been engaging the duke as best he could with information about the ship's outfitting, but the duke showed signs of increasing discomfort as he was made to wait and wait some more. The silence alerted him first, then Kyler motioned with his head.

The duke turned and beheld her. "Isabel!"

The nobleman rushed toward her, and before she could think of what to do, his arms came around her. She stiffened, the familiar scent of his tobacco crashing with dizzying familiarity into her mind as she started to take a step back.

Too late. Seanessy's pistole dug hard into the man's back. "The next time you touch her will be your last."

An unnerving quiet followed, the silence scaring even Oly, who crouched on his haunches and looked about with alert animal eyes. The gentle lapping of the sea alongside the ship sounded loud against the quieter cocking of pistoles. More than one pistole followed Seanessy's to the four men who had accompanied the duke.

"Shalyn."

Her name was a command. She stepped to Seanessy's side. The duke watched this with a lift of brow before, in French, he commanded his men to stand at ease. Reluctantly, they lowered their pistoles. The duke turned to face Seanessy, though his eyes never left Shalyn.

Cherry Joe let Oly loose.

"We have an extraordinary situation between us Captain." The duke spoke slowly, cautiously, and yet his voice held the imperial air of authority. "If you can just imagine these last months of my worry, of my certainty that Isabel had died or worse, then perhaps you would see your—"

Oly sniffed the duke, nuzzling his crotch with a wet nose. The men chuckled as the duke backed up. "Will you get this damn dog away from me!"

Oly barked and went to stand next to Seanessy.

The duke straightened, attempting to recapture his bruised dignity. "Perhaps you would allow me this moment of unimaginable joy upon seeing her here—"

"As I said," Seanessy smoothly interrupted, granting the man no measure. "The next time you touch her will be your last." His grin did not reach his eyes. "I just want this one point perfectly clear."

The duke's face remained expressionless, though his eyes blazed with emotion. Shalyn watched as this emotion disappeared and he seemed to relax suddenly, as if accepting Seanessy's ultimatum. She breathed a sigh of relief. Until his hand reached up to smooth the fine point of his goatee and his fine dark eyes narrowed just a bit. She realized he saw it as a challenge.

Shalyn could hardly believe this man was her husband! He seemed so strange to her! The only thing familiar about him was-the scent of his tobacco and the fear he inspired. The way he stared! Dear Lord, 'twas much worse than anything she had imagined. An old English nursery rhyme sounded in her mind
: I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,/ the reason why I cannot tell;/ But this I know, and know full well,/ I do not like thee, Doctor Fell ...

"Isabel." He beckoned to her, willfully ignoring Seanessy now. "Monsieur Kyler has told me you do not remember our life together after suffering the tragic head injury that stole your memory. I can hardly believe it! Do you remember nothing?"

"I do not know you!" She slowly shook her head. "I saw you in London that night with Seanessy. I would have sworn 'twas the first time I had ever seen you. I remember my life up until my mother and her sad death, then Ti Yao and Gschu, no more."

"Your father, Isabel? Do you remember nothing of your father?"

"Of my father, I remember ... little. I do not even remember his surname. And you, sir, are a stranger to me."

The last words were not without impact. "I can hardly believe it! Isabel, how can you have forgotten our marriage, and our subsequent life here on the island? I was so hoping that seeing me again would spark your memory."

"Ah, well." Seanessy shrugged. "Beggar's luck."

Amazingly undaunted, the duke dismissed this with nothing more than irritation, his every movement and manner composed and authoritative. He swung off his cape, causing one of his men to leap forward to take it. "I have consulted with three doctors on the subject," he told her, continuing. "The very best doctors. Each one offered only the possibility that you would remember me, our marriage, and our life again. There is a chance you never will remember." With emotion he said, "How this fear strikes at my heart!" He turned to Seanessy and said, "Just as surely as the fear that you will remember must strike at the captain's."

Seanessy groaned, "Oh, please!" He rolled his eyes as he spun the pistole around a finger with an ease and nonchalance that startled. "Spare me these theatrics, all this drama. I am not half as afraid she will remember your marriage as you might think I am. As a matter of fact..." He stopped the pistole, its barrel aimed straight at the duke's head, and he smiled. "I am anxious as all hell to discover the missing pieces of the puzzle made of Shalyn's life.” He motioned with the pistole toward his quarters. "Shall we? Or would you care for a wider theater audience?"

The duke stared, for a long moment he stared, letting the silence stretch as he considered his nemesis. Yet he had no choice. He had to endure the captain's baiting if he were to talk to Isabel, if he had any chance with her at all.

Seanessy opened the door.

The duke passed quick orders to his men before following Butcher, Kyler, and Shalyn inside. His fine dark gaze surveyed the room with dispassion, and yet he refused to hide his disdain for the sheer size and unconventionality of what he saw. The captain's quarters on most ships of this size comprised three, sometimes even four rooms—sleeping and dressing apartment, navigation room, and dining room—all of which connected by hall to the galley and mess hall. Not so here. The room was isolated from the rest of the ship. A tapestry added color to the polished wood walls where the captain dined, dressed, and slept all in one room.

Seanessy watched as the duke's gaze came uneasily to the bed and to Shalyn's trunk nearby—before he turned to see Butcher guide Shalyn to the cushion of pillows set around the table. Kyler sat on Shalyn's other side.

Seanessy stood over the party, as the orchestrator of the proceeding. The duke was staring hard. Shalyn's hand nervously toyed with the virgin star. Seanessy followed his gaze. "Ah, the virgin star. One of the few things Shalyn owned before she was dropped on my doorstep."

"It was my wedding gift," he said. "Once upon a time my grandmother's."

"A grand duchess with a fondness for uncut rocks? Well, I suppose I've heard of stranger things," Seanessy said as he motioned to the low-lying table, surrounded by colorful embroidered pillows. "I am quite certain I will be hearing of stranger things."

Butcher at least was fascinated with the man's steely, lordly character. He had never before met anyone who could remain composed when being struck by the well-armed barbs of Sean's antipathy. No one. Not even the King. Yet here he was sitting at the low table, acting as if Sean weren't standing over him waiting for the excuse to start shooting.

"Well," Butcher said. "Let's get on with it. Let's hear this fabulous story."

The duke withdrew one of his cigars as Prescott entered with a tray of port. "Really, Captain," he said as he hit the tip of the cigar on the table to, pack its tobacco. "I do not understand why you refused the extension of my hospitality after such a long voyage—"

"Not such a long voyage," Seanessy said, adding meaningfully as his gaze found Shalyn. "I rather enjoyed it. As to why I did not feel inclined to accept your hospitality, well"—he grinned, a smile that did not touch his eyes."I do not trust you. As the tired cliché explicates, not as I can spit."

"So I see," the duke replied, and even offered a slight smile as he stared at the two men on either side of Shalyn. He turned to Seanessy. "You seem to think I've already lost, Captain, but you are wrong. Once Isabel's memories return she will come back. To me."

Shalyn's gaze met the duke's. She felt her already hot cheeks flush more. They way he stared at her! Penetrating, unnerving, as if ... as if he owned her.

Not at all like Seanessy's brass stares, stares that were so boldly, unashamedly full of lust.

Butcher slipped his hand in Shalyn's, who could hardly hear, her heart pounded so loudly. She clutched Butcher's hand tightly, as if it were a lifeline. Prescott set crystal goblets full of a sweet port on the table. He was still smiling as he had just seen an amusing scene: Toothless, that sly devil, was speaking surprisingly silky French as he treated the duke's men to a special concoction he had worked up. Once done, Prescott left the room. Seanessy was not drinking, standing above the table, as watchful as a mother cat.

"...no sluttish inebriation in my house!" The words echoed in Shalyn's mind as she studied the duke. 'Twas his voice! She had been in his house. The words repeated in her mind, pricking her anger. She reached her hand around her glass. She lifted it to her lips, drained it, and set it down, watching his response.

Dark brows drew together with alarm. The duke tried to hide his horror and said instead, "But I understand you, Captain. You have good reason not to trust me. In truth, I do not know how far I would go to have Isabel returned to me as she left, a loving and very much loved wife."

Shalyn drew a sharp breath and released it all at once. This whole thing was like a nightmare. There was something wrong here, something wrong with him. Her heart pounded so loud—

"So!" Seanessy said in that way he had, the way that caught everyone's attention like a clap of thunder before he directed them to his agenda. “Let us start at the beginning. Where did you meet Shalyn?"

"I met your father first, Isabel. He was a first officer, a skilled surgeon aboard the King Edward. He was also long ago my friend." The duke spoke directly to her, ignoring Seanessy.

Seanessy abruptly straightened. This was not what he had been expecting. Kyler had made no mention of a liaison with Shalyn's father. One look at Kyler's face told him this was the first time Kyler had heard about it as well.

"We met during the bloodbath in Trafalgar that ended Napoleonic, and of course French, domination—the bloodiest battle the world has ever seen. I served my nation as an admiral on board the Sovereign Prince." With a hint of bitterness, he said, "Three British men-of-war blew the ship to hell. I and a handful of my men were sifting through the debris in a lifeboat, searching for survivors, all the while trying to row to a French camp set up on the Moroccan coast. Most of my men were suffering terrible injuries. At last we came across your father, Isabel, First Officer Henry Slakes—"

"Slakes?" The name sounded strange on her tongue; she did not remember this as her name. "My father's name was Henry Slakes?"

"Yes," the duke replied, his mind on his story, quite forgetting the cigar in his hand.

"He was drifting on a mast—it was all that was left of his ship. Because he wore the British colors, one of my men removed his pistole, meaning to shoot him. It was obvious to me that there had been enough killing, that the great war was over, the very course of history forever changed. One more death—nay, a hundred more deaths—would not change the fact, and so I stopped him. My foresight was returned twofold when at last we reached the camp. Your father saw no nationalities in the men he treated and, God knows, there were hundreds of wounded and dying at this camp. He alone was responsible for saving dozens of lives. Dozens, Isabel," he repeated with feeling. "I assisted him through these long months, months where our friendship grew. Throughout it all, he never spoke of his family, or of anything personal. I suppose I thought he was a bachelor." He shook his head distractedly. "Still I came to know your father through his actions. And he was one of the noblest men it has ever been my fortune to know."