Blue Velvet (7 page)

He found himself shaking her awake. “Those encyclopedias, Kate. What year were they published?”

“What?” she asked groggily.

“The year they were published,” he demanded.

“Oh, that,” she muttered, “1960.” Then she was once more asleep.

He slowly settled back down on the pillow, his
eyes staring blankly into the darkness. “Well, I’ll be damned!”

Jeffrey Brenden was leaning on the rail of the ship, his curly gray-streaked hair ruffled by the brisk morning breeze. In the oversized jeans and gray sweatshirt he’d obviously borrowed from a member of the crew his slight wiry frame appeared even more slender than it had last night. However, his brown eyes were shrewd and alert as he glanced up as Beau approached.

“Ah, my generous host, I assume.” He stretched out his hand, his grin warm and genial. “Julio tells me I have a great deal to thank you for.” He made a face. “I’m afraid I don’t remember. It seems I was more than a little sloshed last night.”

“More than a little,” Beau agreed dryly. He glanced around the empty deck. “Where’s your friend Rodriguez?”

“He and the captain are having breakfast with the crew.” Brenden’s lips twisted ruefully. “I wasn’t up to even staring a cup of coffee in the face this morning.” His eyes traveled wistfully
over the tall masts. “This is a beautiful ship, Mr. Lantry. I’ve always wanted to own a sailing ship.”

“Why didn’t you buy one?” Beau asked caustically. “According to Kate, it would have fit your image a hell of a lot better than a plane. She says you’re something of a modern Sir Francis Drake.”

“I’m a smuggler,” Brenden said simply. “Kate always lets me justify it with that romantic nonsense, but I know what I am.” He smiled a little sadly. “Lately it’s been difficult to ignore. Despard’s been rubbing my nose in it.”

“And Kate’s,” Beau said deliberately. “Do you think it’s fair to involve her in your illicit enterprises?”

“Kate’s never been involved,” Brenden said defensively. “I’ve always kept her out of it.”

“You might have difficulty in convincing the authorities of that. She could be considered an accomplice, you know.” His lips tightened. “And it’s obvious you’d have trouble keeping her from involving herself, if last night is anything to go by.”

There was a touch of fond pride mixed with
ruefulness in Brenden’s smile. “You’re right. She’s a determined little monkey when she makes up her mind to do something. She always plunges headlong into the fray and to hell with the consequences.” His eyes were full of memories. “I remember even when she was a child, she was like a little mother. She used to tell me, ‘Don’t worry, Jeffrey, it will all work out.
I’ll
make it work.’ ” He turned around, leaning his elbows on the rail. “And do you know something? Most of the time she’d actually do it.”

“You’ve known each other a long time,” Beau observed. “She said you were friends. How did you get together?”

“Her mother was an American showgirl in a nightclub in Rio de Janeiro.” He shrugged. “We lived together for a year or so. Then Sally decided to move on to greener pastures. She just packed up and left one day while I was in Santiago.” He paused. “She left Kate behind.”

“Charming,” Beau grated through clenched teeth. He felt the same surge of savagery he’d known last night when he’d seen that bastard hit Kate with the pistol. “She just forgot about her, I suppose. Like an old pair of shoes.”

“Sally wasn’t all that bad,” Brenden said quietly. “She just wasn’t the maternal type. She didn’t know how to cope with a seven-year-old.” He grimaced. “Neither did I.”

“So you didn’t bother,” Beau said grimly. “You just dragged her along with you over half the Southern Hemisphere into every dive and hellhole.”

“Would you rather I’d left her on her own in a foreign country?” Brenden asked. “At least she had a roof over her head.” He met Beau’s eyes steadily. “I never tried to be a father to her, but I did the best I could. We got along.”

“For God’s sake, you didn’t even send her to school!”

“There were reasons.” Brenden looked away evasively. “Kate’s sharp as a whip. She probably knows more than any of those fancy college graduates.”

“I don’t doubt it as long as the subject matter is pre-1960,” Beau bit out. “But what about everything that’s happened in her own lifetime? The space age, the Vietnam war, women’s lib, Kennedy’s assassination?”

“She picked up a lot of that on her own,”
Brenden said defensively. “And the rest isn’t all that important for her to know.”

“Did you tell her she didn’t miss much there either?” Beau laughed incredulously. “I bet you did. And what’s worse, she probably believed you.”

“I did the best I could,” the older man repeated stubbornly. His expression turned sulky. “And why the hell is it any of your business anyway? You did us a favor but that doesn’t make you Kate’s keeper.”

“She obviously needs one,” Beau said curtly. “You haven’t even asked where Kate is, or don’t you really give a damn?”

Brenden went still. “I give a damn.” His eyes narrowed on Beau’s face. “Where is Kate?”

“When I left her, she was curled up asleep.” Beau paused deliberately. “In my bed.”

There was a flicker on Brenden’s face that might have been pain and then it became totally impassive. “I see.”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?” Beau could feel the fury blazing up in him and made a futile effort to control it. “Is it such a common
occurrence that you don’t even raise an eyebrow? Aren’t you even going to ask if I enjoyed her?”

“No, I’m not going to ask you that,” Brenden said heavily, turning back to stare out to sea. “That’s between the two of you. It’s none of my business.”

“Funny, I thought it was very much your business. Kate was willing to throw herself into my bed to bail the three of you out of the mess you’d gotten yourselves into. Evidently that kind of commitment only goes one way.”

Brenden was silent, his gaze fixed on the horizon.

Beau drew a deep breath. “I don’t know what the devil I’m getting so hot about. If her so-called friends don’t care that she’s willing to make a prostitute of herself, why should I?” But he
did
care and the fact that it did matter made him even angrier.

Brenden’s glance was glacier cold. “Kate’s
not
a prostitute. Before you throw that first stone, you might consider you were willing enough to take advantage of her generosity yourself and no doubt will again at the next opportunity. Julio’s
been having a chat with the crew and what he heard about your way with women doesn’t make you sound like an angel.”

“I never claimed to be a celibate,” Beau said, his eyes smoldering. “But I’m no pimp either.”

“And neither am I,” Brenden snapped back, obviously stung. “If I’d been myself I would never have let her do it.”

“But you’re not rushing down to my cabin to pull her out of my lecherous clutches,” Beau said sarcastically. “You seem amazingly complacent about the whole business.”

“Not complacent,” Brenden said, his voice heavy with weariness. “But for once in my life I’m trying to be practical. What’s done is done. It’s up to Kate if she wants to stay where she is. If she doesn’t, I’ll find a way to help her.”

“It’s not likely she’d make that choice, once she’d made a bargain,” Beau said with a sardonic smile. “Even I know her well enough to know that and you sure as hell should.”

“Yes, I know that.” Brenden’s eyes met his. “And perhaps it’s just as well in the long run.”

“For you?”

Brenden shook his head. “For her.” He smiled
sadly. “You’ve just taken pains to tell me what a lousy protector I’ve been. Maybe it’s time I let somebody else have a shot at it.”

“You’re absolutely astonishing,” Beau said blankly. “You’ve never seen me before in your life, yet you’re willing to trust Kate to me. What’s to prevent me from using her any way I please and then kicking her off the ship at the next port?”

“Nothing,” Brenden said. “Except for the fact that since the minute you saw me, you’ve been reading me the riot act for treating her so badly. It doesn’t seem likely you’d do that and then go off and do the same thing yourself.” He shrugged. “And when you get tired of her, I think you’ll be generous. You’re obviously a very rich man from what Julio gathered. You’ll see she’s secure until she is able to take care of herself.”

“You’re speaking as if I’m some Regency buck offering an obliging mistress carte blanche.” Beau shook his head dazedly. “Kate was right. You’re something from the eighteenth century.”

“It takes one to know one.” Brenden’s brown eyes were narrowed and shrewd. “I think you
may be something of a throwback yourself, Mr. Lantry. There aren’t many men who wander around the Caribbean on a sailing ship entangling themselves in situations like the one at Alvarez’s last night.”

“Don’t depend on it.”

“I learned a long time ago not to depend on anything,” Brenden said. “But I still find it difficult not to hope.” He suddenly looked much older. “Particularly when it comes to Kate. She’s always given so much to everyone. I’d like to think that there’s justice somewhere in this god-awful world.” His hands closed tightly on the rail. “She sure won’t get it as long as she sticks with me. She could have gotten herself killed last night. Despard doesn’t play around, he goes straight for the jugular.”

Beau tried to hold on to his anger. Damn it, he would
not
be sorry for the appealing old reprobate. “I doubt if it’s the first time. Why this sudden attack of conscience?”

“Maybe I’m getting too old to fool myself anymore,” Brenden said. “Time has a way of fraying our illusions around the edges.” His lips twisted. “It has a habit of transforming dashing pirates
into shabby petty criminals. Anyway, I’ve decided to opt out of the dreams game,” he said gloomily. “I’m going to reform.”

Beau’s eyes narrowed suspiciously on the other man’s face. “Reform?”

Brenden nodded. “There’s a nice little widow who owns a coffee plantation on Santa Isabella, an island not too far from here. I’ve been keeping company with her off and on for the past five years.” His mouth curved in a rueful grin. “She doesn’t understand about pirates and smugglers either. A very practical lady, Marianna.” His face softened. “But loving, very loving. I think I’ll just have you drop me off at Santa Isabella and see if she’s still interested in a more permanent relationship.”

“And what about your friend Julio?”

He shook his head. “He’d never leave Kate. He puts up with me, but Kate makes his world go around. It’s been that way since she yanked him out of the guerrilla army four years ago in El Salvador.”

“Guerrilla army?” Beau asked. “She said he was eighteen now. That would have made him only fourteen.”

Brenden nodded. “The guerrillas raid the villages and round up all the able-bodied males and ‘draft’ them into the army.” His lips tightened grimly. “Some of them aren’t over eleven or twelve years old. The other side is almost as bad. Julio was a big strapping kid even then, so he was a prime candidate. He’d been running errands and doing the shopping and cooking for us for about three months and Kate took a real liking to him. She was almost wild when she heard what happened to him.”

“So she went after him.” It was a statement, not a question. It was the kind of impulsive action Kate would inevitably take.

“We went after him,” Brenden said. “And almost lost our scalps in the process. We ended up taking off in a hail of machine-gun bullets. Kate was afraid the civil authorities would try the same thing so she wouldn’t even let us stay in the country.” He shook his head. “Pity. I had to scratch the caper I was putting together.”

“How unfortunate,” Beau said ironically. “I imagine revolution-torn countries are very conducive to your line of work.”

“They are rather,” Brenden agreed. “All that
turmoil …” He trailed off and straightened briskly. “Well, I’d better hunt up Captain Seifert and ask him to set course for Santa Isabella. He says we’re just outside Castellano territorial waters so it shouldn’t take more than a few hours to reach there.” He arched an eyebrow. “With your permission, of course.”

Beau nodded curtly. “I said I’d take you wherever you wanted to go. It was part of the bargain.”

Brenden flushed. “Ah, yes, the bargain. Well, at least you appear to be a man who keeps his promises.” He started to walk away, then paused, his wistful gaze returning to the wild free beauty of the billowing sails. For a moment his expression once again revealed that he was full of the dreams he’d said he’d abandoned. “Did you know that John Hancock was rumored to be a smuggler, Mr. Lantry?”

K
ATE COULD FEEL
her eyes sting and burn with unshed tears but she blinked them determinedly away. Jeffrey looked so lonely despite the jaunty set of his shoulders as he jumped lightly out of the dinghy and strode rapidly up the pier away from them. She waited until he’d rounded the corner at the end of the dock before she turned to Beau, who was standing beside her at the rail of the
Searcher
. “He’s going to have problems, you know,” she said huskily. “He thinks he’s going to be able to settle down, but it’s going to chafe at him terribly.”

“You were talking to him a long time on the
way here,” Beau observed. “Don’t tell me you were trying to talk him out of his change of lifestyle?”

“Of course not,” Kate said, frowning. “Marianna’s a wonderful woman and she’ll take terrific care of Jeffrey. He should have done this years ago.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Jeffrey’s always been so independent.” She bit her lip worriedly. “He’s not going to like feeling he’s beholden to Marianna for an income.” Her chin squared determinedly. “I’m going to have to do something about that.”

“Why do I suddenly have a nasty chill down my spine?” Beau asked warily. “May I ask what you’re intending to do?”

“I just can’t let Jeffrey walk away without knowing he’s going to be happy.” How was she going to convince Beau? She’d thought that once he’d met Jeffrey he’d be more sympathetic toward her old friend. Most people liked Jeffrey even if they didn’t approve of him. Beau, however, had displayed a very puzzling coldness and resentment toward him. “He’s a very proud man.”