Come the Dawn (33 page)

But they met only hot skin.

“No,” she cried, even as desire crept through her blood. “Not for you.”

“For another man then?”

“Yes, and he is a perfect gentleman. Usually. Sometimes at least.”

His laughter echoed. His callused hand slid around her hips and locked them together, hardness to heat, male to female.

His fingers massaged the tensed muscles at her spine and India shivered in spite of herself, knotted muscles turning soft at his knowing ministrations. How many woman had he touched to know such dark skill?

“And what of these other
imbéciles
with hands like hooves. Do you stop them? Do you cry your pleasure sounds for them, when they touch you just so?” His hand slid lower, molded to the swell of her hips.

“No,” she rasped.

“Me, I do not understand. No, you do not stop them or no, you do not cry out with pleasure for your English lovers?”

“Neither, you pig. You abject, depraved, infuriating goat carcass.”

Soft laughter teased her skin, heated air playing through her hair. “How glad I am to hear it,
sauvage.
For it must be only for me,
comprends-tu?
Only us together like this, one dawn to the next.”

“You are mad! When my father and brothers find what you’ve done, they’ll murder you. But first they’ll tie you up and strip away your skin, the way the dacoits do in India. Then they’ll take hot coals and—”

She was stopped by the pressure of his hard body, squarely atop her, driving her down onto the bed. He clicked his tongue softly. “Your tongue is like a whip. You must scare away many men this way,
non?”

His barb hit her with shocking force, because it was far too true. She had always had to guard her tongue, to hide her temper and her adventurous nature. Otherwise, there was constant censure and tittering, along with the endless, draining gossip that London society seemed to thrive upon.

“So it is true,
enfin.”

Damn the man, did he miss nothing? The words hurt though she had never admitted that to anyone, even to herself. “No, it’s not true, curse your villainous reptile heart!” India struggled furiously, trying to dislodge his powerful body, but it was pointless. He only gave slightly, moving with easy power.

“I think you must make up your mind. Either I am a goat carcass or I have the heart of a reptile. Even me, who is ignorant of science, knows I cannot be both, my beauty.”

India twisted wildly, but the effort only drove her into the heated length of him, where straining muscle could no longer be mistaken.

Her breath caught.

“But I have given you your answer. You read it in my body, which already rises hot and hard for you.
Enfin,
you are a woman in every sense desirable.”

India caught back an angry cry and wrenched one hand free, then drove it straight to his chin, where it landed with an angry crack. When he pulled away, she scrambled wildly to her feet.

“Very beautiful, you are,” he whispered. But now there was a hint of danger in the words.

India followed his gaze and blushed furious crimson to see that her shirt had worked free in her struggles. Now the pearl buttons gaped open over the creamy sweep of her breast, where one rose-pink nipple rose taut and bold.

“And judging by the look of that lovely bloom, your blood has been just as fired as mine.”

She jerked the shirt closed and backed toward the door. “With fury. With contempt. Nothing more, on my honor.”

In the cold gray light of dawn, his eye patch lay black as the road to Waterloo, black as the cannonballs lined up in the carts rattling to the front. His voice hardened. “Honor? Now there is a strange word to hear on a woman’s lips. Have you honor, my
anglaise
? Do you keep your vows sworn in honor?”

“Always!”

“Ah.” His fingers quivered faintly. “And when you give your vow to the man you will one day marry, you will make your answer with honor?”

“Yes,” India said flatly. “I will. Why do you stare at me like that?”

“Because you will not find joy in the arms of any proper English lord. There is too much fire in you, too much need. He will never make you cry out in passion. If you marry such a man, you will soon make him a cuckold.”

“Never. When I marry, it will be out of love. I will be honest and faithful, and, oh, the most
dutiful
sort of wife!”

He gave a hard laugh. “But a man does not want
duty
in his bed.”

“Have you no decency?”

He looked very thoughtful, then shook his head. “No, I think I have not. It vanished when I left my country and tried to learn your cold, hard English ways.” There was bitterness in his voice. Then he shrugged, a most Gallic, philosophical gesture. “Decency, she does not fill my stomach. Nor does she warm my bed. Not like you,
sauvage.
No, we will speak no more of decency. Perhaps not even of
honneur
will we speak. We will speak only of heat and blindness. Of the
coup de foudre,
for the thunderbolt is what I felt when I first saw you, wild and splendid on that great white horse you stole.”

“I didn’t steal—”

The Frenchman laughed darkly. “Yes, I forgot. You simply removed that which was yours from the duke’s stable.”

“You can’t hold me here! And I won’t have you as you want me. Never! Not if you were the last living man on earth.”

“Par Dieu,
such a tongue. But soon I will feel a different lash of its soft velvet.”

“Never! And if you don’t open this door right now—”

“Captain! Open up!” Rough hands banged at the cabin door. At the same time boots hammered across the deck.

Scowling, the Frenchman crossed the room and threw open the door. “Well?”

His first mate stood in the hallway, frowning. “It’s those scum from downstream, Cap’n. They decided it was time to drive you out of their territory once and for all. Must be fifty of them, and every one armed.”

The Frenchman cursed. He took the saber Perkins held out and strode toward the companionway.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Captain?”

“What?”

“The boy. The boy what
ain’t
a boy,” he added quietly.

The Frenchman turned.

But it was too late. India Delamere flew through the door, rammed the first mate and sent him stumbling sideways, then hammered up the stairs toward the
Gypsy’s
noisy deck.

The deck was covered with clouds of smoke. Cannons boomed from the rival vessel. Through the smoke and chaos of fighting bodies the Frenchman finally made out his captive’s slender figure running toward the starboard railing. Mid-deck she was waylaid, but she twisted away from her attacker, kicked him in the groin, and wrenched his pistol from his hand. This she tossed to her companion and then the two of them started toward the side of the boat. When another man attempted to stop her, she waved the gun until he retreated.

The Frenchman watched in horror as four more men began to circle her slowly. Now there was only one way to reach her in time.

Grabbing a cable, he launched into the air, swung wide and dropped onto the deck. In the process he knocked out two cursing sailors and kicked a pistol from the hands of a third.

But he was too late. His captive was already perched nervously on the edge of the Gypsy’s aft railing, waving wildly to her companion back on the deck.

“Jump, Froggett! Jump now!” And then her slen
der form went hurtling toward the foam-streaked waves below.

By the time the Frenchman reached the railing, she was a small figure bobbing up and down in the water.

Her friend was standing white-faced at the rail. “I can’t swim. Never learned how.” He looked pleadingly at the captain. “You have to understand. You can’t hurt her. She’s—”

Perkins grabbed his arm. “Quiet, now.” His voice fell. “The captain will have a care for the woman.”

The Frenchman only hoped he could. Wincing, he touched his shoulder, feeling pain gnaw at the joint. Hardly an auspicious start. Grimly, he tossed his pistol to his first mate. “See that they don’t destroy my ship while I’m gone, Perkins.”

And then he sailed down into the river after her.

The force of the impact slammed through him, yanking his breath away. When his head broke from the waves, the
Gypsy’s
captain saw the woman already had twenty yards on him. He watched her cut through the water with sure, fast strokes and maneuver past three more rowdy sailors looking for a fight.

The fool was lucky to be alive, he thought, grimly closing the distance until she was mere yards before him. But when he had almost reached her, she spun about and aimed a punishing blow with her right heel on his shoulder.

He fought a wave of pain, gulping water and going under. When he came up, his jaw was hard. She was going to
pay
for that.

Of course, that was if he could ever manage to use his arm again. At that moment, the bone felt as if it were being pulled from its joint.

It had been a stupid idea to swing across the deck. Clearly, he wasn’t the man he had once been, the Frenchman thought bitterly. Meanwhile, he had a captive to catch and she was halfway to the shore, while he was gasping for air.

He put the pain out of his mind and cut a straight path toward the rocky cove. Years of practice had made him a strong swimmer, so the Englishwoman was barely working her way along the top of the bank when the pirate heaved himself out of the water.

With a running dive he shot forward, tackling her not ten feet up the bank. In the process she slammed into his chest and he was thrown shoulder first onto a row of rocks.

This time the pain was blinding. He closed his eyes, white-faced and sweating, unable to move.

“You’re hurt!”

She sounded surprised.

But her face showed no triumph. She was shivering and her eyes were anxious.

A strange ache invaded his heart. “Why did you run away?”

“I had to go.”

He eyed her shivering, bedraggled figure, auburn hair slicked to her neck. “As you say. But we cannot stay here and argue while you freeze to death. And we can’t go back to the ship. One look at you in that wet shirt and every man in my crew will know you are no boy.”

India’s head slanted down toward the soft cambric. After her swim it lay damp, molded to her chest like a second skin. She flushed red.

He shook his head, muttering. “Let’s
go.”

She followed him through a line of trees that bordered a stream. Beyond stood an old stone cottage, covered by wild brambles. The green vines hung lush with berries, red against the weathered stone. Together they managed to clear away the overgrown foliage and push open the front door. “I keep this cottage for safety, in case things grow too difficult aboard the
Gypsy,”
he explained. “There’s wood over here.” He winced as he bent toward the grate. “I’ll make up a fire.”

“No,
I’ll
make the fire.” India was studying his arm, frowning.

Without giving him time to protest, she expertly stacked logs in the fireplace, then struck the flint she had found on the dusty mantel overhead. Soon the fire gave a comforting crackle and heat began to fill the room.

The Frenchman closed his eyes and eased his long body against a pile of grain sacks. Yes, it had been amazingly stupid to swing across the deck. His only excuse was that he had been worried about her, surrounded by grinning sea vermin. “Where did you learn to lay a fire so well?” he asked.

“Egypt, India, Greece.” She smiled faintly. “A small schooner pitching in a very rough sea off the coast of the Hebrides.”

“You’ve led a busy life,
anglaise.
Busier than I, it seems. But leave the rest of those logs. I’ll tend to them.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m
supposed
to.”

“Who said?”

“Nature says. Society says.
I said.”
He turned slightly, cupping his shoulder. “I am the man, after all.”

Her eyes were thoughtful as she studied the planes of muscle where his shirt had billowed open. “But you’ re hurt. I’m probably better at making fires anyway.” After setting a final log on the snapping fire, she sat down nearby. “In my family we all help each other. It is the Delamere way.” Her eyes darkened with challenge. “And we help each other
equally,
male or female.”

“Then you’re … very lucky,
sauvage.”
The Frenchman’s jaw hardened. “I would be a fool to argue. But you must be freezing.” He patted the sack next to him. “Come and sit here.” When India moved carefully beside him, he tugged an old cloak around her shoulders.

It was dangerous to be here with her like this, but the room was quiet except for the crackling of the fire and the heat left him increasingly drowsy. He was only half awake when her hand moved over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

Her fingers traced an old, jagged scar, copper in the firelight. “Looking.” Her voice was husky. “How did this happen?”

He shrugged. “It was … a long time ago.” He rubbed his beard, which had begun to itch from the saltwater.

“Don’t you want to talk about it?”

“No.” Flat. Unrelenting.

“When?” She turned to study the hard lines of his chest as he stripped off his wet shirt and tossed it over a wooden crate before the fire to dry.

He sighed. “Later,
anglaise.
And you should take off those damp things too.”

There was an odd intensity to her face. “Should I?” she asked softly. “When I’m alone with a pirate and a stranger? Would that — give you pleasure, Captain?”

“If I wanted to have my barbaric way with you,
anglaise,
I could have done it long before this,” the Frenchman said roughly.

“Yes, you could have. And that’s exactly what bothers me.” India’s fingers slid over the warm planes of his chest. “Do you like this?”

The Frenchman frowned. “I might.”

“And do you like this?” She teased the hard ridge of his stomach, until heat gnawed at his groin. “No,” he lied.

“Indeed.” Smiling, India raised her hands to the dark strands of his beard.

And then she jerked sharply.

The Frenchman sat up with a shout.
“Mille diables!
What in the name of all that’s sacred was
that
for?”

India barely heard him. Her body was tense and her fingers were locked tight.

“That was for lying to me,” she rasped as her palm opened to reveal a strand of thick black hair. “You bloody, bloody fool!” she cried.

To the man whose false beard had begun to dissipate in the saltwater. To the man whose shoulder still pained him, as Alexis had said.

To her
husband.

India fought waves of anger and shock. “Did you think you could hide your identity from
me?
I remember every inch of your body and always will. “ Her voice broke. “Now I want the truth. Every word of it!”