Savannah Heat (8 page)

The seas were still dark and a bit frothy, but the last of the storm had passed. It took a moment for her legs to adjust to the pitch and roll; she steadied herself against a deck box that held wet-weather gear. Around her, sailors in duck pants and homespun shirts mended line, or scrubbed the deck, or hauled away on the great white sails that snapped in the wind above her head. They glanced at her only briefly; obviously the major had warned them against stepping out of line.

Morgan Trask stood near the bow, looking out to sea. He seemed even taller out here among the crew, his shoulders far broader, his legs long and lean. The sun gleamed brightly on his wavy dark blond hair, a pleasant accompaniment to the golden brown color of his skin. When he turned in her direction, she caught his look of concentration and then the flash of a smile.

It took her breath away.

Morgan strode the deck toward her, reaching her side almost too soon. She needed time to steel herself, to calm her rapid heartbeat and restore her mask of control.

“Good morning, Miss Jones.”

“Good morning, Major.”

“Feeling better?”

The wind whipped strands of her hair. She caught them and shoved them behind an ear. “I’d forgotten what it’s like to be at sea.”

“Then you like to sail.”

“Not in steerage, the way I left Katonga, but on a ship like this one, yes.”

Morgan’s green eyes turned dark. “You traveled to Georgia belowdecks?”

Silver shrugged her shoulders in a gesture of nonchalance. “I had no choice.”

But Morgan’s look said he knew exactly what she had suffered traveling that way. Passengers were jammed four or five to a two-berth room; what little food existed was almost inedible; and modesty, even for the most intimate functions, was nearly impossible. Steerage passengers weren’t allowed on deck. When the seas grew rough, the smell of vomit had stifled the air until she could barely breathe.

Unconsciously Silver shivered.

“Are you cold?” Morgan stepped closer. “I can get you a coat from below.”

“I’m fine. It’s really very nice out here.” Besides, she’d found a warm black knit shawl on the table in the salon that someone had set out for her. She pulled it closer around her shoulders. “Thank you for the shawl.”

“One of the men had purchased it as a gift. He brought it to me this morning for you to use instead.”

“Thank him for me, will you?”

“Of course.” They walked the deck in silence. When the ship pitched harder than she expected, Silver stumbled against Morgan and his arm went around her protectively.

“I guess I haven’t got my sea legs yet.”

“You will. You’re probably still a little bit weak.”

Morgan led her to the wheelhouse, where the young lieutenant she had threatened at gunpoint stood beside a brawny dark-haired sailor Trask called Gordon, who gripped the huge teak wheel with beefy, calloused hands. The lieutenant moved away from the man and walked toward them.

“This is Lieutenant Hamilton Riley,” Morgan said by way of introduction, as if they had never set eyes on each other before. A smile of amusement played on finely carved lips she knew could look cruel but now appeared sensuous. “I believe you remember Miss Jones,” he said to Riley, whose boyish face turned crimson.

He knew her all right, and he obviously hadn’t forgotten what a fool she had made of him.

Silver’s chin came up, and she straightened her spine. “How do you do,” she greeted him as if this were truly the proper introduction Morgan’s words implied.

“Miss Jones.” Riley’s finger touched his forehead, where his hat might have been if the wind had permitted. He was dressed in the same dark blue uniform he had worn the day before, while Morgan looked casual, and far more attractive, in his snug brown breeches and snowy linen shirt.

Morgan spoke briefly to Riley, then escorted Silver down the ladder in the forecastle that led down to the galley, where Jordy worked beside a short, stout sailor with thick gray hair.

“This is Grandison Aimes,” Morgan said. “We call him Cookie. And you know Jordan Little.”

“Yes.”

“Mornin’, ma’am,” Cookie said a little gruffly, barely nodding in her direction.

“He’s just as tough as he looks,” Morgan said, then went on to tell her he had met the weathered little seaman at a noisy cantina in Spain. It seemed he was quite a scrapper, siding with Morgan when the odds were against him.

“We made a good team then,” Cookie said a bit wistfully.

“We still do,” Morgan agreed, and the older man seemed pleased.

Whistling a sea shantie all three men seemed to find amusing, Cookie turned back to the wooden counter where he worked, picked up a heavy steel meat cleaver, and brought it down on a leg of mutton with a ringing blow. On the big iron stove nearby, a huge black kettle boiled, and steam rolled upward, filling the room with the delicious smell of the small white beans that simmered away.

Jordy’s attention swung from Cookie to Silver. “You kin—can—sure swim, Miss Jones,” Jordy said, and this time it was Silver who flushed. “I thought for a while there you was—were—gonna make it.”

Silver smiled forlornly. “For a while I thought so, too.” She felt Morgan’s hand on her arm, his grip a little tighter than necessary.

“That’ll do, Jordy,” he warned. “Let’s go back up on deck,” he said to Silver, turning her firmly toward the ladder and leaving her no other choice. Silver climbed the stairs, and Morgan followed.

“Jordy’s young and easily influenced,” he said when they reached the deck. “I hope to hell your behavior doesn’t give him any ideas.”

Silver bristled. “My behavior, Major, is neither his business nor yours.”

“As long as you’re aboard this ship, everything you do is my business.”

Silver’s mouth tightened, but she didn’t argue. She had to win the major over, and arguing with him hadn’t worked so far. When Morgan released her arm, she moved closer to the rail, using the moments before he joined her to bring her temper under control.

Overhead, the sun came out from behind a cloud, and both sky and sea appeared an azure shade of blue. Sea gulls winged and screeched, and the mast creaked pleasingly, soothing her a little. Silver forced a smile. “Jordy says he’s known you five years.”

“More or less.”

“He thinks a lot of you.”

Morgan’s stiff posture relaxed a little. He leaned indolently against the rail, looking down at her through eyes as bright as her mother’s emerald necklace she had worn once back home.

“Five years ago he stowed away aboard my ship
Sea Gypsy
. He was an eight-year-old orphan with no place to go and nobody who gave a damn one way or the other.”

“So you helped raise him?”

“Life aboard ship is hard. Jordy pretty much raised himself.”

“He seems like a good boy.”

“Jordy’s had his problems,” Morgan told her, “but I think he’s finally growing up.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that for a while I was worried about him. He got involved with a couple of unsavory characters off the docks in New Orleans. Men in the crew who were setting him some pretty bad examples. He started fighting whenever we were in port, started thieving, picking on people who couldn’t defend themselves.”

“What happened?”

“We … came to an understanding.”

This time Silver’s smile was genuine. “I believe he may have mentioned that.”

Morgan smiled, too. “Sometimes being a captain takes a lot more than sailing a ship.”

She liked it when his mouth curved up that way. It softened his features though he would never have the too-handsome face some women found attractive. Her eyes fixed on the dark blond chest hair that curled above the open front of his white linen shirt, and her fingers tingled at the memory of how the stiff strands had felt against her skin.

“Are you the one who is helping him improve his speech?”

Morgan nodded. “About a year ago he came to see me—wanted to talk ‘man to man,’ he said. He told me he wanted to command his own ship one day. Asked me what he would have to do, and I told him. He’s been studying hard, working on his reading and ciphering. He’s got a long way to go, but I think he just might make it.”

“I hope so.”

Morgan looked at her with eyes that missed nothing. Was it so hard to believe she might care about a young boy’s future? Morgan cared, for Jordy and the rest of the people around him. Silver envied that caring, she realized, then worked to force the notion away.

Morgan’s eyes held hers, and beneath that penetrating gaze, Silver’s heart began to pound. “I’m beginning to feel a little tired,” she lied. “I’d better go back down to the cabin.”

Morgan followed her across the deck and helped her descend the ladder to the salon. “Supper’s at seven,” he said. “We’ll dine with Lieutenant Riley and Wilson Demming, my acting first mate.”

“Acting? That means temporary, doesn’t it?”

He nodded. “Once we reach Barbados, a big, burly Frenchman named Hypolyte Jacques Bouillard will take over. He’s sailed with me for years.”

Silver thought of the detour from Katonga she hoped Trask would make and tried to look disappointed. “I’m sorry I won’t be able to meet him.”

Morgan caught Silver’s expression, and his easy manner fled, replaced by a shot of anger he welcomed. He hadn’t missed her less than subtle attempt at manipulation. If arguing didn’t work, she was set to try sweetness and honey. He thought of her soft, alluring curves, those velvet brown eyes. Sweetness from Silver was the last thing he wanted.

“Maybe I should change course,” he said sarcastically, “head for Barbados instead. Then you could meet Jacques, maybe convince him to help you. How would that suit you?”

Silver stiffened, but her smile remained in place. “I was only being polite.”

“Polite is not in your vocabulary, Miss Jones.”

Go to hell
, she thought. “You might be surprised, Major Trask.”

“Nothing you could do would surprise me.”

Damn him! Could he read her so easily? “Thank you for the tour; Major. I look forward to this evening.”

Trask left her alone, and Silver headed for his cabin. Once she closed the door, she slammed her fist against the bulkhead and silently seethed. Damn him to hell! The man was an arrogant, insolent bastard! Handsome, yes, masculine, yes, at times he could even be charming, but he was also dominating and utterly infuriating. She thought of his earlier words, and her temper burned brighter. He hoped she wasn’t a bad influence. A bad influence! She had wanted to choke him. Still, she had guarded her temper well, and she hoped Morgan hadn’t noticed how close she had come to losing control.

At least now she wouldn’t feel guilty. Tonight her plan would go forward, though she couldn’t move too fast. Morgan was far too smart to believe she had changed overnight, and she didn’t want to rouse his suspicions. Yet there was no time to lose either.

She wished she knew just exactly how to proceed in this game of seduction. Though she’d had the best tutors money could buy, been schooled on everything a proper lady should know, she had rarely had a chance to test her feminine wiles. Her father invited few visitors to Heritage and only occasionally traveled himself.

Once he had taken her to a ball at a friend’s plantation on nearby St. Vincent. The young men had seemed interested, and she had actually gotten to dance. She discovered she liked it and was enjoying herself immensely, until she and Michael Browning walked out onto the terrace for a breath of fresh air.

“You are more lovely than all the stars in the heavens, Lady Salena,” Michael had said. It was trite, and no doubt well used, but still, they were the first courtly words from a handsome young man that Silver had ever heard.

“Thank you, Michael.” A little self-conscious, she tugged at the bodice of her dark green satin ball gown, exactly the color of the emeralds her father had insisted she wear. Though the dress was hardly daring, with Michael’s eyes fixed on the portion of her bosom swelling above the neckline, somehow it seemed so.

“Only one thing could make this night more perfect,” he whispered.

With that he leaned down to kiss her, and Silver decided to let him. She wanted to know what the mystery was, wanted to know what a man’s lips felt like. Michael’s arms went around her, pulling her against him. His mouth felt soft and warm; she could smell his musky cologne. Then her father’s voice, heavy with outrage, sliced through the damp summer air.

“I should have known better than to trust you. The first time I take you somewhere, and you embarrass me in front of my friends.”

In his fury he called her every vile name he could think of, ranting and raving until a terrified Michael Browning was nearly forced to call him out. Thank God he hadn’t. William Hardwick-Jones would have killed him.

Instead her father dragged her home in disgrace, setting tongues wagging all over the island and all the way back to Katonga. She had never ventured into society again.

Nor tried her feminine wiles on another man.

Silver sank down on Morgan’s wide berth. All of a
sudden she really did feel tired. Tired and uncertain. She thought of the time she had spent at the tavern. At the White Horse Inn she had seen a far different approach to attracting a man. The lusty tavern wenches she had worked with were blatant and bold and shameless, urging their customers to take liberties Silver would never have dreamed of. More than once she’d come upon one of them in a darkened corner of the tavern, skirts hiked up, some man rutting drunkenly between the woman’s legs.

If that was what it took to convince Morgan Trask to help her, he could go straight to hell!

Still, there must be something she could do without degrading herself that way. If only she had one of the lovely silk gowns that hung in her carved rosewood armoire back home. At home she had hated to wear them. Here they would heighten her appearance and lull Morgan Trask into seeing her as a woman alone who desperately needed his help—which, in fact, she was.

The evening went smoothly, though far from the way Silver had planned. Both Wilson Demming and Hamilton Riley were pleasant, but Morgan remained reserved. When the meal ended and she asked if one of the gentlemen might escort her up on deck, the major declined, saying he had some work to finish. He asked—no, ordered—Lieutenant Riley to go in his stead, which Riley seemed loath to do.