Dreaming (17 page)

“It might be worth it.” After a moment’s pause he asked, “If he’s going to bite me, then how do you propose I ‘save’ him?”

“I hadn’t thought about that. I mean, he was drowning and we had to do something. It was one of those instinctive reactions that just happens. And besides, you wouldn’t let me save him, so naturally of the two of us that left only you to do it.”

Treading water, he scowled up at her.

“You know, Richard, doing something heroic cannot possibly harm you. I have always known that you have a heroic nature beneath all that cynicism. You just needed me to come along and help you discover it.

“I keep telling you that, but you don’t believe me. Saving Gus, especially considering how you feel about him, was definitely a heroic act. Heroes act instinctively. Without thinking, just like you did. I will always hold the memory of this close to my heart.” She paused, waiting for his response. Nothing. “Richard? You’re not saying anything.”

“I’m freezing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” She leaned over the rail again. “There’s something else we forgot.”

“What?”

“How are you going to get back on board the ship?”

“There’s a ladder.”

“Oh. Good.” She scanned the deck, then thought of something and turned back. “Is there one tall enough on board?”

“What?”

“I said, is there a ladder that’s tall enough on board?”

He didn’t respond.

“How would one know the length of the ladder they’d need if they don’t know how deep the water is? That doesn’t make sense.”

“It hangs off the side of the railing,
Letty
.”

“Oh.”

“The water is freezing. Toss the ladder over the side!”

She searched the deck again. “I don’t see any ladder.”

“There should be a ladder near the windlass!”

“What’s a windlass?” she shouted.

“It’s a hoist with a crank handle!” he shouted back She found the hoist and crank, but there wasn’t anything resembling a ladder.

“I don’t see any ladder!”

“It’s made of rope!”

She chewed her lip, a sinking feeling of dread running through her. “Was it tied to the windlass?”

“Yes!”

“Did it have big knots in it?”

“Yes!”

She just stood there, a little helpless.

“
Letty
!”

“I’m still here.”

“Then throw the blasted ladder over the side!” Richard shouted.

“Uh . . . I already did.”

An hour and a half later, Richard sat inside a small cabin, huddled in a thin blanket, shivering and looking blue. His hands were blue. He stared at his feet, which looked blue. He looked out the porthole at the Channel water, which was blue. He’d just spent over an hour in it, which would tend to turn one blue.

He shivered, in spite of the thin scrap of blue wool that served as a poor excuse for a blanket. At that moment he’d have given almost anything to see the blue-hot flames of a fire. But there was no fire, no coal brazier, nothing but the barren cabin of a smuggling
lugger
, which was, as he recalled, painted bloody blue.

He had never been so cold in his life. He was cold in places he hadn’t known could be cold. Even his throat was cold. Probably from cursing the air blue when he realized the hellion had tossed the ladder into the deep blue sea.

He looked at her, sitting quietly in a corner, her blue dress spread out so the hellhound could sleep on it. Her head leaned sleepily to one side.

In the last few minutes her blue eyes had drifted closed. Two pink smudges marred her cheeks, remnants of the sharp Channel winds, and her curly hair formed a tangled cloak about her.

Ironically, she wore the most peaceful expression.

It had been too long since he’d felt anything even close to peace. But he’d never been a peaceful sort. He looked away, scanning the small dingy cabin in search of a little blue ruin, the quickest method he knew to warm up and find a little peace.

No bottles around. No port. No brandy barrel.

For some inexplicable reason, he found himself staring at the hellion. She had asked him why he drank, the look on her face telling him she could never understand.

His life wasn’t dreams and fairy tales. It was past deeds and mistakes. It was years of fighting to not conform to what his father wanted.

It was a world where nothing mattered because no one was left. It was empty, devoid of anything but the memories of every damn mistake he’d made. And all the pretending in the world wouldn’t change the past.

He indulged because . . . He paused a moment, truthfully asking himself if it was habit borne from the need to defy his father or from guilt. He came to the conclusion that, of late, the world was more livable through a haze of spirits.

But as he regarded her, he realized that here was one thing that looked better through clear eyes. The hellion.

Letitia
Hornsby was no longer the pudgy, wide-eyed imp that had ridden a cow across a bridge and right into him. Time had changed her.

His sense said look away, but he didn’t. He stared at her as she slept, strangely compelled to do so, and felt like a voyeur.

She was a woman with all of a woman’s assets, white skin that was smooth and scented, a softness that seemed to hover about her, making him aware for the first time of her every feature: the full lips of youth, a small ear, the heart-shaped face a man could cup in one hand if he wanted to kiss her gently and with finesse.

There had been no finesse in the way he had kissed her earlier. He relived a twinge of shame and was surprised. ’
Twould
seem he did have a conscience.

Odd that she of all people could strike such a chord in him. The thought intrigued him, he who was interested in little and bored by much.

Her chest rose and fell slowly with each breath she took. From the edge of her dirt- and ash-smudged gown he could see the dark shadowed crease where her breasts met. He remembered the fullness of her in his hand, and his mind flashed with the memory of a glimpse of her cream-colored thighs as she tied her garters.

He felt a twinge of something much more elemental than intrigue. So much for his bout of conscience.

She shifted slightly, sliding her arms around that hellhound and resting her head on its neck. He was struck by the image they made: a big lumbering brown beast and a young woman who lived in a fog of idealism, who years before had childishly given her heart to an unprincipled rakehell she imagined to be some fairy-tale hero.

For the first time, instead of thinking of her as a nuisance, he thought of what her life must have been like with no friends, no place in society. She had always looked up at him as if he were her whole world. And it never ceased to annoy him.

It was little wonder that she thought of her beast of a dog the only friend she had. Perhaps he was. She clung to that dog in her sleep as if she were afraid to let go. It crossed his mind that she must have had some devastating loss to cling so desperately to that which she loved.

He clung to nothing but his own stubbornness. Yet clinging to nothing, needing nothing, didn’t protect one either. He closed his eyes because that was the only way he could really see himself.

He supposed he did cling to something. He clung to bottles and bitter memories: a career that never was, an older brother he had worshiped, and a father who demanded things Richard could never give or be. All were gone now, as was any remnant of youthful idealism he may have had.

He forced his eyes open. Her face was the first thing he saw. Perhaps it was the way she held on to that blasted dog, perhaps it was the failures he knew she’d suffered, perhaps it was something he sensed in her, but there was an overwhelming aura of sadness about her.

Pity wasn’t what he was feeling; quite the contrary. He didn’t think she would want to be pitied, and for some reason he respected that. But when he looked at her asleep on Gus, her vulnerability was all he saw. She was a young woman who had nothing but a dog for a friend.

The thought was somewhat grounding. And here he was, a man who thought he’d witnessed every kind of human pain. He shook his head to rid himself of any feelings even remotely benevolent.

Not that there was anything benevolent about him. Thank God.

Still, he sat there, staring at nothing, thinking nothing, until he finally looked up. Odd, how his gaze was drawn to her once again.

Then seconds went into minutes with him just looking at her. He no longer counted the measure of time. Instead, he watched her sleep, realizing for the first time that he shared something kindred with the hellion.

Loneliness, it seemed, touched both of them.

Chapter 10

The first cannon blast woke them both.

The second woke Gus, who, after sniffing the air and bunking once, began to howl to the whine of soaring cannonballs.

“Hush, Gus!”
Letty
started to stand up, but another blast shook the ship and she stumbled.

Cannon and dog continued in cacophony, and a second later a blue blanket sailed through the air and landed on Gus, who stopped in mid-howl.

Frowning at Richard,
Letty
reached for the surprisingly still blanket.

He answered her frown with a hard look. “You touch that blanket and I’ll tie you in it.”

“But—”

Another cannon blasted, and seconds later the ball hit close water. The ship, already barely seaworthy, rocked in unsteady cadence, creaking loud enough to be heard over the thunder of the running crew and the blast of return
cannonfire
.

Letty
fell backward and Richard grabbed the bunk. “We need to get out of here. Now!” He shoved off the bunk and crossed the cabin.

The ship lurched again. He jerked at the door.

It wouldn’t budge.

He spun around and scanned the room. “See if you can find something, anything, to pry open this door!” Then he stood back and kicked the door soundly.

The ship shook from another blast. There was a muffled howl. A loose-lipped brown snout wriggled out from beneath one edge of the blanket.

Gus sniffed the air, then sat, the blanket hanging from his big head like a wimple. He looked at
Letty
, grinning as if this were a delightful game. His tail responded in joyful thumps, making the blanket bounce. With the whistle of
cannonfire
he stuck his muzzle in the air and bayed once more.

“
Shhhh
!”
Letty
warned him, then turned and began to quickly search the cabin for anything that would help Richard. She moved from door to cabinet door, but there was nothing. She opened the last cabinet and found nothing inside but a piece of old rotten rope.

“Move, you son of a—” came a gritted voice.

“Woof!”

She spun around.

Gus sat blocking the door, his tail wagging as he nipped playfully at Richard’s raised boot.

“Gus!”