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Though she knew she shouldn’t, though
she knew it was incredibly inappropriate for him to speak of such
things in front of her, and she really shouldn’t encourage him lest
he become impossible, Jocelyn bent over and began to laugh.
Infectious, bubbling, belly hurting laughter that made her weak.
She thought of her own theory and how ridiculous it was and how Ava
had thrown up on her. Of the two Midshipmen who preened and
strutted but smelled bad and couldn’t keep their food in their
mouths. She thought of her father and the handsome captain who
giggled at their own jokes like children, and all of these things
conspired to render her an intelligible mass of chuckling snorts.
Damon seemed just as amused, if not more by the sounds she was
making and it was as she was gasping for breath that he leaned
forward and kissed her.

Soft, sweet, and achingly brief, his
lips were gone before she noticed their heat, leaving the salty
taste the ocean spray had blessed him with, to coat her tongue when
it darted out to lick where he’d been.

She looked up at him to find him
smiling down at her and something dangerous and irreplaceable
fluttered helplessly in her chest.

“Was your time with me more than
‘adequate’, Miss Holbrooke?”

Her lips quirked and she held out a
hand for him to lean over and kiss as she corrected him.

“You may call me Princess or Jocelyn,
just as you have been, Mr. Burleigh. There’s no point in standing
with formalities between us. And yes. I have to say my time with
you has been more than ‘adequate’.”

He blinked, surprised she’d noticed
that he’d been trying to drop the nickname, as well as his casual
use of her first name, since his loss of control last
night.

Then shaking his head he ran a hand
through his hair and winked at her.

“Well that’s a weight of my mind
Princess.”

“That’s good to know…Damon.”

* * * *

One day the call went out for
land.

Jocelyn was sitting with her back
against the mast, cool and comfortable from the sea breeze and the
shade the sails set up over her face and upper body. Her legs were
stretched out and her skirt bunched up around her knees. Not at all
ladylike, but she was too busy trying to figure out Damon and
Smithson, an old craggy sailor with more smiles in him than teeth,
were cheating, to care.

When she heard the rolling cadence of,
“LAND HO!” from above her head she glanced up at the rigging with
everyone else. Unlike everyone else though she didn’t suddenly
scramble to her feet to go get the ship ready to pull into port.
She looked around, surprised as sailors hurried this way and that,
pulling ropes she had no name for and setting up general chaos.
Strong hands gripped up under her arms and she looked up into
Damon’s face as he pulled her to her feet. Grabbing her hand he
gave her a little tug.

“Come on then. You and Ava best get
your things together. There’s no point in staying here when we’ll
just get in the way.”

She nodded, and pulling away from him,
she headed for the steps leading down to her and Ava’s room,
dodging overexcited men and ignoring the bellowing of the captain
as he gave orders.

Damon had gone to grab Ava who was
sitting at the prow of the boat and lazing about as a harried
little cabin boy kept up a constant stream of air and shade over
her lounging form. Whatever was in the powder Elaine had given him
had worked well. Almost too well.

In the weeks they’d been at sea the
little hellcat had caused enough problems on the ship to renew the
Sailors belief in that ridiculous superstition about women aboard a
boat being bad luck. She worked the Captain’s cabin boy harder than
the Captain himself and when Damon stood over her the boy sent him
such pleading eyes he felt bad for him.

“Ava.”

His voice made her twitch, but with a
rude sniff she turned her head away from him and into the cushion
of her seat. A chair that Damon could have sworn came from the
captain’s quarters.

Not wanting to question how or when
she’d commandeered it, he sighed. “Get on up Sugar, it’s time to
go. We’ll make land soon.”

“I heard him.”

His patience twanged a warning. “Then
go and get ready to go.”

“I don’t need to.”

“Why not?”

“Because Jocelyn will do it for
me.”

That sapped what little willpower he
had, and glancing around, he spotted the glass of water sitting
beside her chair, in easy reach of the cabin boy so that he could
hand it to her as soon as she needed a drink.

Gesturing for it, he waited until the
boy settled the ice cold glass in his hand. Then he turned and
dumped the contents, ice and all, over Ava’s pretty little
head.

She came up hissing, all nails and
teeth like a wildcat, and when she pushed the sodden curls from her
face and glared at him he gave her wide eyes that spoke of
innocence while the grin that stretched across his face whispered
another story entirely.

“Well I suppose you’ll be wanting to at
least change your clothes and fix your hair.” He said kindly,
“Since you don’t have to worry about packing your things and
all.”

Something unintelligible and full of
rage exploded out of her mouth but she was too ladylike to attack
him outright, not with so many grinning sailors openly staring. So,
straightening her gown with all the grace afforded her station, she
lifted her chin, a stubborn movement that reminded him of her
sister, turned on her heel and stalked away.

When she disappeared down into the
galley the soldiers whistled and clapped and Damon took a bow in
awareness of a job well done.

* * * *

They pulled into port that morning. It
had stormed in Barbados sometime over the last few days if the
churning seaside and soaked streets were any indication. Damon,
Ava, and Jocelyn left the Gentle Marie as sailors went about
unloading cargo, with the assurance that their luggage would be
kept safe and untouched while they searched for passage on another
ship that would take the girl’s on the last leg of their journey.
At least with him.

That he would miss them when they were
gone, even insufferable little Ava, he didn’t think about. He did
keep them close though, even when they instinctively stopped and
stared at the strange sights and sounds around them. Since the war
between the English and the Americans had begun Barbados, an island
that was used to getting its fare share of merchants and travelers,
was overflowing with an excess of people. Sailors who’s usual route
never took them anywhere near the Barbados were forced to come here
now just to settle their business and anyone from either England or
America had to come here if they wished to set up trade with one
another.

Quietly of course.

Damon was fond of the island. He’d been
there on occasion in his travels before he left India. In the
streets woman danced and shook their hips to the musical chimes
attached to their fingers, prostitutes plied their trade with no
shame to the men that passed them by. One woman, her breasts
swinging free over the bodice of her gown tried slipping a hand
along the front of his pants, and when he pushed her, gently but
firmly away, she turned to Ava and Jocelyn and grinned.

Wide eyed, unable to hide their
innocence from a woman who made a living by selling her own, the
prostitute lifted one weighty breast in her hand, bent her head and
swiped a tongue across her nipple.

Jocelyn made a noise and clapped her
hands over her eyes and Ava’s mouth dropped open, her eyes glinting
with a dangerous light that Damon believed boded ill for Clay’s
blood pressure when the little hoyden decided to go hunting for a
beau.

Cursing Damon stopped in the middle of
the street and went back, scooping up Jocelyn around the waist with
one arm, her hands still covering her eyes and her cheeks bright
red, he gripped the back of Ava’s neck with his free hand and towed
both girl’s away.

Behind them the woman laughed and
called out something in her native tongue.

Damon was just happy neither of his
charges understood what she’d said.

It wasn’t easy finding a ship that was
willing to take passengers as it headed back to English soil.
Especially a ship whose captain and crew had no particular
preference for the war.

Almost every Englishman he came into
contact with had some sort of stake or grudge against the
Americans. With each derogatory remark Jocelyn and Ava’s faces
slowly grew darker and darker in rage. He would have let them go
off somewhere, maybe to eat or to shop so that they wouldn’t have
to hear such things, but he’d seen more than one pickpocket
scurrying around. And worse than that, more than one man had
glanced at the sisters with an interest Damon didn’t like. There
were cutthroats and rapists here laughing alongside the dancing
girls and dancing in the streets with the old wrinkled musician
that strummed on his instrument. There was danger among the multi
colored parrots that aped their voices and sent them squealing as
well as the brightly dyed silks and satins that drug at their gaze
and his purse strings.

But they didn’t know that, and he
didn’t have the heart to tell them. So he kept them close and after
each rude Captain or sailor he made sure to pass something
interesting to take their minds off of the hurtful words they’d
heard about their country and people.

It was while they were perusing a booth
stacked with cosmetics and decadent perfumes that he found the man
he was looking for. The captain was a short man, only a bit taller
than Ava and he was bent over the stall and staring at the perfumes
in their different colored glass casings with a look of severe
concentration. Damon knew he was a seafaring man by the way he
spoke and rolled his hips as he walked, as if still on the deck of
a ship. He knew he was a captain by the way he clasped his hands
behind his back and then snapped to attention when Damon went over
to tap him on one shoulder.

“What’s her name?”

He looked down at the purple vial he
held in his hand and flushed.

“Susanna.”

“What did you do?”

He winced.

“Forget to tell her I was
married.”

Damon winced along with him and eyed
the vial. Then he shook his head.

“You’re going to need a hell of a lot
more than perfume.”

He didn’t deny it; in fact his
shoulders slumped further along with the spiked ends of his
mustache. As if his entire body had suddenly lost
strength.

“I would if I had a bit more money but
for now it’s what I can afford. And I can’t just buy for one of
them you see. I have to get something for them both.”

He seemed panicked at the
thought.

Damon smiled and held out a hand. The
Captain shook it automatically, his manners forbidding
otherwise.

“I think we can help each other
then.”

It was that simple.

The man’s name was Lincoln. He
captained a small ship called the Gorgon and he’d been in port for
about a week.

“I come for the trade you see. Mostly
in sugarcane. Barbados is such a tiny little island but it has an
amazing sugarcane crop. I buy huge shipments of it from the farmers
and then I bring it all back to England with me so that it can be
distilled and boiled down into pure sugar.”

They talked a bit more before Damon
turned to him and asked.

“What do you think of the
war?”

His face blanked for a moment before he
grimaced. “Nasty business. I never could work myself up enough to
convince myself that such senseless killing is right.” He smiled a
bit. “My father in law is quite put out with my attitude you see.
Says I’m a disgrace to Englishmen.” He laughed, a rip roaring sound
that was larger than his entire body and Damon couldn’t help but
smile back.

Lincoln was perfect.

He paid for their passage, slipping the
man a few extra coins in honor of his female trouble, and then they
went back to the Gentle Marie to have the girl’s things and Jet
moved to the other boat. The men who had the time were happy to do
so and before they all headed out again Jocelyn hugged them goodbye
while Ava curtsied prettily.

After that it was easier to keep them
by his side because now all the things their eyes had been
hungering over as he searched for their passage their hands could
explore. He took them shopping, watching with some amusement as
they moved from one stall to the next, excited and awed. Ava had
long forgiven him for the water incident, or she’d forgiven him
enough so that she could use his money without guilt. He didn’t
really mind.

Especially after seeing the smile
blossom across Jocelyn’s face when Ava picked out a vibrant green
scarf covered in butterflies that made her eyes seem to glow. He
watched them for a long time, following and carrying things when he
could. Lincoln would be leaving port by that evening so they had
plenty of time to eat and play as they wished. Jocelyn was oddly
silent, almost subdued. When he turned his head to question her on
it his eyes caught the flutter of the scarf she’d knotted
carelessly around her neck. As she walked beside him, scarf
trailing down her back to swing with the flow of her hips, his eyes
caressed and lingered and he had a sudden vivid memory of the heat
of her core pressed tight against his shaft back in the
stables.