Nicole Jordan (9 page)

Philip’s knife. Philip had used it to occupy himself during the interminable hours before battle, whittling objects out of wood—roughly detailed figures of men, soldiers, horses. Not as intricate as the toy soldiers they’d played with as boys, yet somehow more real. Philip had carried the knife with him always, including that final, terrible day.

And Max had kept it so he would never forget his friend’s sacrifice.

In the intervening years, he’d developed a strange habit that helped soothe him when he couldn’t sleep. Throwing the knife repetitiously, over and over again. The monotony sometimes gave him respite from his bleak thoughts.

Silently, Max dressed in the darkness. Then unsheathing the knife, he left the cabin to go above deck, where he could breathe.

Chapter

Four

Caro awakened slowly from her restless dream, wondering what had disturbed her. The hushed closing of a cabin door? The quieter sound of footsteps in the corridor?

She lay there a moment, listening to the wind in the sails, comforted by the usual creaking sway of the ship. The fiery ache aroused by her dream of Max still lingered, yet she couldn’t shake the sense that something was wrong.

Climbing out of the narrow bunk, she fumbled for her half boots, then flung a cloak over her nightdress before slipping from her cabin.

The corridor was dark, as was the ladder leading above decks. But when she ascended into the open air, a crescent moon cast a silvery light over the schooner, making the billowing sails appear stark white overhead.

Caro paused to let her eyes adjust and heard a familiar muted thud to her right. Turning, she saw a man near the stern of the ship, silhouetted against the night sky.

The powerful set of his shoulders told her clearly his identity. She had clung to those same hard-muscled shoulders in her erotic dreams a few moments ago. She knew the masculine contours of his body; every line and plane of flesh and sinew had etched itself into her memory more than a year ago.

When she heard another quiet thud coming from his direction, she moved closer, drawn by an inexorable force.

She paused in the shadows to watch Max hurl his knife, but then he suddenly halted his throw, his head sharply turning in her direction, as if he sensed her presence.

“Max, it’s Caro,” she identified herself, not wanting to become his target should he mistake her for a threat.

Even in the dim light she could see his fingers flex on the knife handle.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Caro added. “I thought something might be wrong. I will leave you now—”

“You needn’t go.”

She felt his gaze rake over her, taking in her disheveled appearance, her hair spilling down around her shoulders, and heard him draw a steadying breath. “I would like your company.”

She hesitated, glancing at the knife he held.

Max seemed to force a smile as he lowered the blade. “I’m not dangerous.”

Are you not?
Caro thought to herself. She considered this man supremely dangerous. She should know better than to be alone with him on a moonlit night. He didn’t look in the mood for company, either; a dark stubble shadowed his jaw, and his raven hair was wild, as if he’d raked his hand through it countless times.

And yet he had asked her to stay.

He gestured politely toward the cask that he’d been using as a target. “Come, join me.”

Crossing the deck, she settled gingerly on the cask. To her surprise, Max moved a slight distance away, as if he thought her dangerous as well.

Yet his tone was genial enough when he spoke. “So what lured you from your nice, hard bunk, sweeting?”

Determined to keep their conversation light, Caro answered in the same vein. “My nice, hard bunk, no doubt. And you? Were you having trouble sleeping again? If it is insomnia, Max, there are medical remedies.”

His expression was inscrutable, but she sensed his grimness. “There is no cure for my kind of sleeplessness.”

She frowned at his reply, wondering what he wasn’t saying, wondering just how serious his suffering was. In London she hadn’t thought Max in pain. Certainly nothing like the torment of a year ago. Yet his emotional wounds might have cut so deeply, they’d only had time to scar over on the surface. Perhaps his torment, while diminished, hadn’t subsided altogether. She had heard of cases where soldiers recovering from battle took years to resume normalcy.

Perhaps she should leave him alone, Caro told herself, but the words seemed to be dredged from her. “Why can’t you sleep, Max? Because of your memories of war?”

He laughed softly. “You might say that.” She could hear his anger, his frustration. Shoving the knife in his pocket, he raised his head to stare out at the dark sea. “Does a soldier ever forget what he’s seen?”

She could only imagine what he had seen. The horrors that went beyond the soul’s ability to understand.

Her heart went out to him, just as it had more than a year ago. The stark, haunting beauty of his face, too, reminded her of that night.

“I wish I could help,” she said softly.

He turned to look at her, his voice low when he replied. “You did help, angel. More than you know. That night at the ruins…” He took a shuddering breath but held her gaze intently. “My memories of you sustained me through that final grueling year of the war. If not for you, I’m not certain I could have gone on.”

Her eyes widening, Caro could only regard him with incomprehension.

His lips curved in a faint smile. “It’s true. You gave me the strength to carry on the battle. I have little doubt you are the reason I returned from the war alive.”

Perhaps she had contributed in part to restoring his fortitude, Caro conceded. Max had been seasoned in hell, and for a brief while she might have made him forget his demons. Yet she found it hard to credit that she had saved his life.

He seemed entirely serious, though, as his gaze delved into hers. “From that night on I began to think of you as my guardian angel.”

Astonished by his revelations, she regarded him mutely, her thoughts an unwieldy jumble of emotion.

Max had called her his guardian angel, yet he couldn’t know she truly was a
Guardian
. Still, his admission undermined all her defenses. It was strangely seductive to be told she had meant so much to him. Enticing to think she had held that much importance in his life.

As she returned his intense gaze, yearning sprang up in her, so sudden and sharp, it frightened her.

Her feelings, however, were far less important just now than his. Perhaps getting him to talk about his memories would ease his burden further. After a moment, she asked another question. “Was it very terrible, what you experienced?”

She had struck a raw nerve, she could tell at once. For a score of heartbeats Caro watched the emotions war on his face. She could see the desperation and the desolation there, a torment in his eyes that wrenched her heart.

“There is one nightmare that won’t end,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“What nightmare?”

“My closest friend—” He broke off, shutting his eyes.

Caro couldn’t bear to see him like this. She longed to make that terrible shadow go away.

“I want to help,” she said again softly.

He drew another steadying breath, clearly struggling for control. “There is nothing you can do.”

But perhaps there was.

She sat there a moment longer, battling the feelings that fought and tangled inside her—her own desire, her fierce need to comfort him.

Rising slowly then, she went to him, knowing she would do anything to take that look of anguish from his eyes. Reaching up, she set her hand against Max’s cheek, flush against his warm skin.

“Caro…” The word was rough, a warning.

She saw heat and deep hunger in his eyes, felt the hard pressure of his fingers as they clutched her upper arms, yet she could see the battle he was waging with himself.

His hands moved to her hair then, twisting in the unruly tresses.

Staring down at her upturned face, at her skin bathed in moonlight, Max struggled against his deepest urges. He wanted nothing more than to take what Caro offered, yet he couldn’t trust himself when he was this raw, this vulnerable. If he let his mouth cover hers, he knew he wouldn’t stop until he was buried deep within her body. He would haul her into his arms and carry her to his cabin where he would sate his primal desire for the rest of the night.

Max clenched his jaw, striving to rein in his savage need. If Caro’s surrender was all he wanted, he knew he would succeed. He recognized the desire in her eyes, the unmistakable yearning. She was his for the taking.

But he wanted more than her seduction. More than her compassion. He wanted her
passion
, complete and unequivocal. Not just her comforting solace as she tried to heal him.

He fought down the urge to take her right now.

“You need to go,” his ground out, his voice gruff. Abruptly he gripped her shoulders to set her away from him.

Caro remained staring at him, searching his face in confusion.

Max retreated a half-dozen steps, shuttering his expression. “I don’t want your comfort, sweetheart. I don’t need it.”

That was entirely debatable, Caro thought darkly, torn between humiliation at his brusque dismissal and mounting anger. But she didn’t intend to stand there arguing with him.

“Very well. I will leave you to your own scintillating company.”

Stiffening her spine, she turned sharply and made her way across the deck and through the hatch to the ladder.

By the time she negotiated the dark corridor and reached her cabin, Caro was furious at herself. She had practically thrown herself at Max again! And this time he had rebuffed her in no uncertain terms.

Caro flung herself on her bunk facedown, cursing herself and him both. In another instant, she drew back her fist and punched her pillow violently. How could she have behaved like such a witless fool again?

She was
glad
Max hadn’t wanted her comfort. Glad she hadn’t made the same idiotic mistake she’d made a year ago—giving him her body in an effort to heal him. She should have learned her lesson the first time.

From now on, however, she intended to crush every soft, feminine feeling she’d ever felt for Max. Every ounce of compassion. Every trace of desire. Every fragment of lust.

Ruthlessly.

She would conquer her damnable attraction for him or die trying.

Max stood at the ship’s railing in the brilliant light of day, remembering his regrettable encounter with Caro last night. Despite his harshness in sending her away, his intent at least had been laudable. It would have been indefensible to take advantage of her compassion for wounded creatures. He’d wanted her more than his next breath—but not on those terms.

He hadn’t wanted her probing his secrets, either. Didn’t want her knowing how many nights he woke in a cold sweat, fighting a clawing sense of suffocation, shaking with recollections of Philip’s death. As it was, Max reflected, he’d said too damned much last night. Revealed too much of himself.

Still, just a taste of Caro’s tenderness had banished some of the chill that gripped him.

It wasn’t the first time. Since making love to her at the ruins, he’d felt an invisible bond between them. She was his guardian angel, the loving spirit who stood watch over him.

He’d lost count of the many times she had coaxed him through the darkest hours of night. Sometimes she called his name softly, waking him from the nightmare. Sometimes she sang his name, soothing him into sleep. Sometimes he even had long imaginary conversations with her.

Always he deliberately conjured her lovely image in his mind, purposely dreaming of her to keep the visions at bay.

That last year he might have gone mad if not for her.

Perhaps he was still a little mad. He couldn’t forget what had happened on that battlefield at Talavera. Couldn’t forgive himself.

How can you live with yourself when your best friend sacrificed his life for you?

Max stared out at the brilliant sea as golden-bright sunlight glinted off blue water. If not for him, Philip would never even have entered the army. Philip Hurst had been heir to an earldom, and eldest sons of the nobility weren’t destined for use as cannon fodder. But he’d needed little persuasion to follow Max off to war.

They had both been so eager then, so bloody idealistic. They’d shipped out for the Peninsula, laughing and jesting about how many Frogs they would rout. They’d learned soon enough the gruesome realities of war.

Max’s jaw tightened at the memory. He’d always refused to speak of his friend’s death to anyone. Even now he couldn’t bring himself to bare his grief, his guilt. Not even to Caro. But he could have been more gentle in his rebuff of her.

He did want her comfort. Needed it. There was something profoundly healing in her touch. But even more, he wanted her passion.

Squinting against the glare, Max turned and braced his back against the railing. He’d positioned himself so he would know the moment Caro emerged from belowdecks.

He wanted her badly. The fire they’d kindled at the ruins still blazed between them—merely touching her was proof enough of that. But after last night he would have to convince Caro of his desire.

He had deliberately driven her away then, but now he intended to remedy his mistake.

He meant to make very clear that his anguish over his friend’s death had nothing to do with his feelings for her.

She saw Max the moment she came up on deck. Caro’s step faltered, a flush suffusing her face when she recalled her brazenness last night. Even after a restless sleep, she still felt the sting of his rejection.

When he made his way across the deck toward her, she squared her shoulders and stood her ground. His raven hair was windblown, though, and an errant lock had fallen onto his forehead, making him look younger and a bit vulnerable. She fisted her fingers to prevent them from reaching up and smoothing it back from his face.