The beating made him angry. She was a beautiful, complex woman, like a piece of art, and Worthing didn’t value her. James didn’t like the idea of the man touching her again, marriage be damned.
But Worthing hadn’t broken her. Lady Worthing was a bright blade — gleaming, sharp, strong but not brittle. In all his travels, James didn’t think he’d met a woman like her.
She had fire in her, but she suppressed it, as though she thought she had to, at all costs. James wanted to show her how to stir the fire, how to let herself burn without pain.
“Come with me,” he repeated.
“As what?” Her expression showed she was troubled, not insulted. “Your mistress?”
“Why not? It’s a long voyage to Charleston, hopefully a calm one. You can go your own way once we reach the city, if you want.” James leaned closer. “But what’s in between can be slow and good.”
Again her chest rose and fell, her cheekbones staining red. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?” James closed his hand around hers. “Let me show you some of the world. You know what I am, now that you’ve gone through my belongings.”
“I don’t know you at all,” Diana said, confusion in her eyes. “I read your brother’s journal, not yours.”
“What happened to him made me what I am.” James tightened his grip. “Come with me, Diana. We’ll leave England behind. I saw you looking at the stars when I came to get you tonight. You want to.”
Her look told him he was right. “That doesn’t matter. I still can’t.”
“Yes you can. Let your husband rage. Come with me, and he’ll never hit you again.”
She only sat still, her brows drawn, her breath coming fast. “No, I . . . can’t.”
“God’s balls, woman. You want to go back to him?”
She shook her head, tendrils of hair brushing her cheeks. “If I run away with you it could ruin my daughter. She already has a hard enough time of it.”
“Bring her with you.”
Diana looked surprised. “Bring her?”
“Why not? You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but my second lieutenant, O’Malley, makes a good nanny.”
She didn’t laugh. “But she isn’t . . . Isabeau isn’t like other children.” She drew a breath. “You can’t understand, because you do whatever you like, and hang the consequences. It’s a bit different for me. You tell me I’d enjoy sailing to America with you, and I would, but it would be the last thing I ever enjoyed. Once we parted ways, I’d be a woman who abandoned her husband for a rogue and an outlaw. I could be arrested, I could go to the stocks for it. Edward could take Isabeau from me and never let her see me again. You’re saying I should risk that — for a few weeks with you?”
“They’d be glorious weeks.”
“Worth my life?”
“You have an argument for every one of mine, don’t you?”
“Why should this surprise you? Does no one ever argue with you?”
He let out a laugh. “Not more than once.”
Diana pressed her hands flat on the table. “I will not go with you, Captain Ardmore. That’s my final answer.”
“Sure about that?”
She looked up in anger. “You are the most confounding man I’ve ever met! You abducted me, you are trying to pry the whereabouts of Haven from me, and now you tell me I should be happy to abandon my home and family for you.”
“Because you would, you stubborn woman.”
“How do I know you’re not exactly like my husband? I’ve been given a taste of what you do to get what you want. How do I know I’d be safe from you?”
“You would be. Now eat. I have no intention of standing here trying to convince you all night.”
She eyed him in suspicion. “Then you’ll take my answer as final.”
“No, I’m saving my breath. If you say no, I’ll just abduct you again.”
“You arrogant . . .” She stopped, her lips parted, her deepening flush making her eyes sparkle. “But no, all this talk about what a joy it will be to sail off with you is flummery, isn’t it? What you want is for me to tell you where Haven is, isn’t it?” Hurt mixed with her anger. “You’re a ruthless man, Captain Ardmore.”
“Damn you, woman, can’t you believe I simply want to spend time with you?”
“I believe you’re a man who’ll stop at nothing to get what you want.”
He leaned down to her again, the fragrance of her making him insane. He brushed back a lock of her hair. “Let me convince you,” he said. Her breath warmed his fingertips. “Let me spend all night convincing you. The bed is plenty big, as I said.”
She stared at him, frozen like an animal caught, her red lips parted. James touched the soft pad of her lower lip. “Let me,” he said in a whisper.
She wanted to. James saw it in her. Her desire had stirred to life, and wouldn’t be quenched no matter how hard she tried.
Finally, Diana jerked away, tears forming in her eyes. “Stop it, Captain.” She picked up her roll again, pretending to be haughty. “Go back to the swamp you crawled out of, and leave me alone.”
“Now, don’t try to insult me, Lady Worthing. Swamps are fine places.”
“For snakes, like you. Bringing me here, cutting me off from even Mr. Henderson and Mr. Kinnaird . . . I am completely in your power, aren’t I?”
“You are. Nothing you can do about that.”
Her rage made her beautiful. Her color was high, her eyes shining, even as she snatched up the ladle from the soup tureen and flung a wild arc of soup at him.
James sidestepped, but the soup spattered the side of his coat. Diana followed this with the hunk of bread she’d buttered, and reached for another before James got his hands around hers and dragged her out of the chair.
Diana landed against him, her hair hanging, her blue eyes wild. James jerked her close and covered her mouth in a hard kiss.
The world stopped. The rushing in James’s ears drowned the wild laughter below — all he heard was her breathing. She stilled against him, fists that fought him coming to rest on his dark blue coat and bare chest beneath.
Diana kissed him back with blatant hunger, her mouth opening for his, lips seeking, needing. James swept his tongue in to taste her, finding more wildness. He braced his arm across her back, bringing up his hand to cup her face, her fiery hair falling over his fingers like warm satin.
Want.
She was surrendering to him, softening, despite her fury, her conviction that he was using her. At the same time, the fire in her was high, her spirit matching his own.
Diana’s breasts were firm against his chest, the thin bodice and stays little barrier. James could easily tear the fabric with his fingers, or maybe his teeth, and feast on the goodness inside her. She wasn’t a virgin — she’d not need to be taught and coaxed. James could feel her arousal in the heat of her mouth and the firm nipples that pressed through the silk.
She smelled of fire and the night, and he was hard with need. If he skimmed his hand under her skirts, James knew he’d find her wet and ready, a woman craving a man.
James broke the kiss to press his forehead against hers. “I swear to you, we’d be so good together. We’d tear up the world.”
Lady Worthing drew a long breath, which caught in her throat. She’d say yes. James’s heart leapt. She was going to say yes, and he’d spend weeks in bliss, lying in bed with her, her hair tangled around him, bathing his senses in her scent and taste.
Diana jerked herself away from him so quickly that James let her go in surprise. She fled all the way across the room and half turned to the far wall, her hands on it as though trying to hide herself behind it.
“No,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?” James anger thundered through him, throbbing like his hard-on.
“Because I can’t hurt Isabeau.” Her daughter’s name seemed to give her strength. Diana wiped her eyes and straightened up, no longer needing the wall to s
upport her. “No,” she said again. “I won’t.”
James heard the refusal as final. The disappointment of it struck him harder than he’d thought it would. He should say “Ah, well,” not care, and return to his original purpose — finding out where the island of Haven lay.
For that second, James didn’t give a damn about Haven. He’d have to examine that feeling later, but for now, he had to wait for the lump in his throat to recede before he trusted himself to speak again.
“Fine,” he said. “But sit down and eat the damned soup. You’re shaking.”
Diana wiped her eyes again, her chest rising with her long breath. She walked back to the table, never looking at him, sat down, took up her spoon, and sipped the soup that had to be cold by now.
James watched her a few moments, then he turned away, made for the door, and went downstairs. He told the publican to give him the strongest brandy could possibly scrounge for him, downed it, then took up a vigil near the door to make sure that no one in this pub went up the stairs past him. He had to down several more brandies, though, to keep from climbing those stairs back to her himself.
*** *** ***
Captain Ardmore didn’t return to the room that night. Diana forced down the food and climbed into the bed in her clothes. She hadn’t thought she’d sleep, but exhaustion claimed her, and she woke to sunshine and the publican’s wife bringing her water to wash.
She’d assumed that Ardmore had gone back to his ship, despite his assertion that she wouldn’t be safe without him, but he was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when she descended. He’d sent a runner, he said, to Southampton, to her father, who would be coming for her soon.
“Thank you,” Diana said.
No more talk of abducting, or of asking her to run off with him, or of forcing information out of her. Ardmore had closed himself to her. His green eyes were like jade again, cool and opaque.
“It’s safe to leave you, now,” he said. “Best I’m gone before your rescue party arrives.”
He touched her face with blunt fingers, his eyes still unreadable, and he turned abruptly and quit the house.
Diana watched his broad back for a moment, then something like panic ripped through her. Her feet moved before she told them to, and she found herself hurrying through the inn’s yard, running after him into a lane shielded by thick trees.
“Captain!”
Ardmore turned. Diana took a few more swift steps, then she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.
His answering kiss held all the passion of the night before, his mouth a place of heat. We’d tear up the world. His voice had cracked, but his Southern drawl had warmed her.
James’s hands on her arms kept her from falling. He kissed her hard, and then he gentled his lips, brushing over her mouth one last time.
Tears wet her cheeks. “Goodbye,” she said.
Ardmore looked at her for a long time, then he released her, turned away in silence, and walked on.
Diana watched him as long as she could. Too soon, the mist under the trees swallowed him. His dark blue coat and black, flyaway hair were patches in the fog, and then they were gone.
*** *** ***
When Diana reached her father’s house and her daughter’s comforting arms that afternoon, Diana thought she’d found refuge. But by the next afternoon she realized the entire ugliness of what the incident had become.
Edward arrived at Admiral Lockwood’s house with Admiral Burgess in tow. It was supposed, since Diana’s disappearance coincided with that of Mr. Kinnaird, that Diana had eloped with Kinnaird. Diana was home now because after Kinnaird seduced her, he’d abandoned her.
Diana angrily told both Edward and Admiral Burgess that they wronged Mr. Kinnaird, who’d never been anything but a gentleman to her. But she refused to explain what had really happened.
She couldn’t. She thought of Captain Ardmore, with his hard green eyes, his sardonic, Southern drawl, and the grief she’d read in his brother’s diary. She thought of the Argonaut, a vessel as proud and arrogant as Ardmore himself, and the bespectacled Mr. Henderson, and Mr. Kinnaird, who was indeed a gentleman, despite being a spy.
She could not let loose the English navy on the small Argonaut. Let them reach Charleston in safety, let Ardmore him go home to his crisp and businesslike sister.
Admiral Burgess had been furious at Diana’s behavior, and Edward did not get his promotion. Edward had raged at her until Diana had told Edward that perhaps if she’d slept with the admiral instead of getting herself abducted, Edward might have been made commodore.
Edward had struck her, as she’d expected he would, but this time, his beating didn’t cow her. Diana was finished being afraid of her husband.
Soon after that, Diana’s father made ready to leave for Haven. Diana took Isabeau and accompanied him, seeking peace.
*** *** ***
March 1812
James opened his eyes the morning after the shipwreck to find himself facedown on the rocky, sandy beach that was the island of Haven. He took in the stretch of beach, the sharp black rocks covered with colorful succulents, the rambling house built into the cliffs, and started to laugh.
Chapter Five
James lay with his arms outstretched as though he’d tried to climb the pale beach at the last desperate moment. Sun warmed his hair, his coat was drenched, and his boots were full of water.
He knew damn well where he was, and his brain was telling him it was riotously funny that a shipwreck had to take him the last leg of his journey. His body, though, wouldn’t move. James lay still for a long time, willing his muscles to do something. A finger twitched, and that was all.
A seagull landed next to him and cocked its head, studying him eye to eye. They stared at each other with the mild curiosity of strangers, until the seagull, bored, turned and waddled away.
James at last gained the strength to lift his head. He saw another body, a man limp on the sand not five feet away. The man had hair the golden color of batter-fried chicken and wore the uniform of an English naval lieutenant.
The lieutenant had brown eyes, James knew, though the man’s face was turned away from him. James knew because the lieutenant had loosened his chains on the English naval frigate when it had started to go down, giving James a fighting chance. In return, James had pulled the lieutenant onto the piece of longboat when he’d floated by. The man had been barely conscious then, and he might be dead now.
The effort of scanning his surroundings exhausted him. James found his cheek on the grating sand again, his eyes closing. He hated to sleep, because even in this remote place, someone might simply stick a knife between his ribs and rid the world of Captain James Ardmore. Although the cutlass wound across his abdomen might already have done just that.
When James opened his eyes again, the sun had moved higher. Two tiny boots under a crinkled skirt stopped in front of him, and a little girl stooped to look him in the face, just as the seagull had. She was about eight or nine, had round, pink cheeks, inquisitive blue eyes, and flyaway hair of bright red.
Another pair of feet stopped beside the girl’s, but these feet and ankles belonged to a woman. A shapely woman who smelled of fresh wind and soap.
James could see up under her skirt, and that was no bad thing. Leather breeches and soft boots molded to long, fine legs that stretched to eternity. If she’d been his woman, he’d have told her not to bother with the skirt, so he could watch her walk around with those breeches cupping her backside.
She had an oval face tanned by the sun, her hair the same fiery red as the child’s. Gray-blue eyes widened, and James felt impossible joy.
“Good Lord,” she said in shock, even as she competently turned him over and studied the wound that had sliced him to the bone. “James Ardmore. What the devil are you doing here?”
James started to laugh again. His voice sounded wrong, all scratched and broken.
But he couldn’t stop laughing. Blackness rushed at him, and he drifted away, s
till laughing, hearing Lady Worthing’s beautiful voice ringing across the beach.
*** *** ***
The next time James opened his eyes, he lay in a narrow bed in bright daylight, in a tiny, whitewashed room. The low ceiling's beams were dark with age, bowing toward him like the ribs of a ship. Fresh wind and sunshine poured through small open window, not disturbing the small black insect that was crawling languidly along a crack in the wall. All was quiet, unhurried. Even the insect behaved with the decorum of a Southern lady strolling off to tea.
So this was Haven, the island home of Admiral Lockwood, sixty miles southwest of England. He’d arrived at last.
James’s glee faded. He was here, yes, but wounded and without his crew.
His tired hand moved to his abdomen, where he found the swath of bandages. He remembered the flash of the sword wielded by the frigate’s captain, and the bright pain in his stomach. Pain seared through him just thinking about it.
He closed his eyes against it, and immediately saw a wall of black water rushing at him, heard the screams of men washed along in front of it. Ironically, James’s chains had at first saved him, holding him in place while the deadly waves had swept sailors and officers past him in a hideous heap. The water filled his ears, its roar drowning all other sound, all thought. All was darkness, down to death.
He gasped and snapped his eyes open.
He heard light footsteps stop beside him and turned his head. The girl child he’d seen on the beach stood next to his bed, staring at him again. She was a pretty little thing.
James tried a smile. “Hey,” he croaked.
The girl stared at him a moment longer, before she spun away and scuttled out the door. James sank back into the pillows, and his eyes drifted closed again.