Sea of Desire (16 page)

At least Monsieur Gerald turned his attention
toward the captain after her “joke.” Merideth drank her tea and
surveyed the room while the innkeeper questioned his guest about
the prizes he’d brought to port.

Most of the patrons spoke French, and spoke
it much too quickly for Merideth to follow their conversations.
Years ago, she had tried to teach herself the language in
anticipation of going with her father to Paris. But learning
without the aid of someone who spoke the language had been
difficult. Miss Alice, her governess, had not known French, and her
father had seen no need for a tutor.

Even when she’d proudly displayed her
hard-earned knowledge during one of his visits home, and he’d
laughed at her accent, he’d refused to hire a tutor.

“Someday I shall take you with me to France.
Then you can learn to speak the language,” he’d said before riding
off.

But, of course, they had never gone anywhere
together.

By the time the coach for Paris arrived,
Merideth concluded it was not a great deal cooler in the inn than
out in the sun. Still, she refused to slip the cloak from her
shoulders and display herself in the gaudy gown.

The coach was cramped, so much so that the
captain decided to rent a mount to ride alongside. And, Merideth
suspected, to allow himself a more comfortable trip. At any rate,
she was happy not to be subjected to his presence.

But after a day of traveling she had to admit
to feeling a little different. No one else packed into the coach
spoke more than a word or two of English. Though, to Merideth’s
disgust, every time they stopped to change horses and rest, her
traveling companions all seemed to flock around Captain
Blackstone.

“How do you know all these people?” she
finally asked as they were sharing an evening meal. Though he
seemed pleasant enough... for the captain... around the French, he
certainly wasn’t the gregarious type.

“I don’t know them.”

Merideth paused, a spoonful of beef soup
suspended in midair. “Well, they certainly seem to know you.” One
young lady, whose dress Merideth thought more revealing than her
own, had nearly swooned when she’d talked with the captain.

“Of me, perhaps.”

“
Of
you?” Merideth returned the spoon
to her bowl, untouched.

Jared shrugged, then leaned back against the
paneled wall. “I’m a privateer. We’re a popular lot in France for
now.”

Merideth sat very still for a moment. When
she met the captain’s gaze, her eyes were thoughtful. “I suppose
France will join the war on the colonists’ side.”

“I don’t think it’s been decided, though my
guess is yes. However”—Jared tossed his napkin aside and stood—“if
it’s secret information you’re after, I can’t help you. I’m only a
sea captain.”

“Information?” Merideth jerked her arm away
when he touched her elbow to help her rise. “I’m not trying to get
information from you. Of all the—”

“Perhaps we should continue this conversation
outside.” This time when Jared took her arm, he held her fast.
Already several patrons were watching them, and Jared didn’t wish
to make any explanations. He was able to laugh off her insistence
to the innkeeper in Morlaix that she’d been kidnapped, but Jared
didn’t want another such incident. The French might be fond of
American privateers, but they didn’t approve of abductions.

“What are you doing? Let go of me.”

“When you keep your voice down and cease
making a spectacle of yourself, I shall.” Jared steered them into
the rear courtyard. Ivy-covered walls enclosed them, throwing
shadows across the cobblestones. The area was secluded, the noise
from the inn a distant murmur.

“I am not making a spectacle of myself,
unless it’s by wearing this, this... gown.” Merideth flipped the
cloak off her shoulders, baring a good deal of her breasts to
Jared’s view in the process.

“Put the damn thing back on.” Jared scooped
up the garment, clenching his teeth and trying to ignore the ache
in his groin that hadn’t completely disappeared since she’d walked
into his cell.

“I shall not. I’m hot and weary and sick and
tired of wearing it.” Merideth couldn’t recall ever throwing a
tantrum before, but she was on the verge of one now. Her life,
while difficult when her father had been alive, was now bordering
on the impossible. Merideth tried to comfort herself with the idea
that when she got to Paris a change for the better was almost
certain. But it no longer helped.

Jared was in no better spirits as he flung
the cape around her, closing it with fists gripping the fabric.
“You will wear this,
and
do as I say.”

“Or what?” Eyes flashing in moonlight
filtered through the oak trees, Merideth faced him. “Will you kill
me as you did my father? Is that what is to happen to me?”

“If murder were to my liking, I would be
sorely tempted.” Jared tightened his fingers, pulling her closer to
him. “As it is, I shall have to console myself with seeing that you
follow my orders.”

“I will n—” Merideth’s words were cut off as
his hold on her tightened.

“Aye, Lady Merideth, you will. For if you
don’t keep yourself covered, I shall not feel obliged to rescue you
when one of your ‘admirers’ becomes too amorous. And I don’t
suppose even a woman such as you would welcome some of the men
you
would no doubt attract.”

“Let go of me, you disgusting... Whatever do
you mean, a woman such as I?” Merideth could feel his knuckles
against her breasts with each breath she took. It had such an
unsettling effect she needed to concentrate on his answer.

“Come now, Lady Merideth, you don’t think I
believe you limit your espionage technique to smiles and sweeps of
your big blue eyes?”

Those eyes widened. “You’re not suggesting
that I...?” Merideth clamped her mouth shut. “Never mind. You seem
to be convinced that I’m a... a...”

“A traitor? Someone willing to sell out their
countrymen for coin?” Jared loosened his grip, letting her shift
slightly away. But he could still smell her fragrance. And the
memory of her flesh against his fingers heated his blood.

“Whatever you think I’ve done, it can’t be as
bad as murder.”

“Ah, the murder of your fellow
conspirator.”

“You mean my father.”

Jared’s fingers splayed, pressing into the
creases of his cloak. At that moment he came close to apologizing
to her for his words. Whatever she might be, she loved her father.
In the frail dusting of light from the moon, he could see the
sorrow etched on her lovely face. His voice grew low. “I think we
both know I didn’t do that.”

“You’re forgetting I found you with his body,
a spent pistol in your hand.”

Hard proof indeed, she thought. Enough to
condemn. But as Merideth stood close to the man she accused of
murder, she found herself doubting the obvious. He said nothing
more, no heated denials, but she found the wall of her conviction
cracking.

They stood in the courtyard, surrounded by a
smattering of night sounds. The chirp of distant crickets, the
lonely hooting of an owl. It struck Merideth that if someone were
to happen upon them, they’d be looked on as lovers sharing an
embrace in the moonlight. Not as the adversaries, the captor and
captive, that they were, exchanging oft repeated accusations and
denials.

His gaze held hers, drew her like a
lodestone. Closer. Till the whisper of his breath brushed across
her face. His lips touched hers, softly at first as he and she
stood in the cocoon of night, then with a dark, demanding hunger
that Merideth could do naught but match.

His hands clutched the cloak, pulled her
toward him. Through the layers of silk and doeskin Merideth could
feel steely hardness, and she melted around him like hot wax.

Tongues met, mated, and mimicked the dance of
love as Merideth worked to free her hands from the confines of
billowy wool. To touch became her desire, and when she did, when
her fingers finally burrowed beneath his waistcoat, his
pleasure-drugged moan was her reward.

Hers followed as his mouth tore away, forcing
an erotic path under her jaw. He nibbled and caressed, his whiskers
scraping her soft skin, causing shivers of anticipation to course
through her body.

The cloak was torn open before his mouth met
the restraints of fabric. Now he was free to feast upon her flesh,
the warm, tingling skin of her breasts. He skimmed, he suckled.
When the lazy sweep of his tongue dipped between her breasts
Merideth thought she might swoon, so intense was her pleasure.

And all the while he nudged, his chin, then
his teeth, forcing the lace-trimmed edge of her décolletage lower.
The anticipation was exquisite torture, and Merideth, squirming in
the clasp of his large hands, nearly tore the offending fabric away
herself. Then it was gone, pulled below her nipples, offering the
torrid tips to his greedy mouth.

Her knees grew weak, and Merideth’s head fell
back, spilling moon-silvered curls down across the black cloak
still skimming her shoulders. This was intense pleasure, more
darkly satisfying than any fantasy. Merideth became swept up in it,
writhing and moaning as he feasted on first one and then the other
taut nipple.

Behind the brick wall the tavern door opened,
filling the night with raucous laughter. Merideth, her mind
passion-drenched, didn’t care until the moist heat of his mouth was
removed. She made a low sound of protest, startled when he grabbed
the cloak.

As suddenly as he had earlier yanked the
cape’s folds aside, the captain now forced the garment shut. He
removed from sight her pearl-toned breasts, their nipples
rose-tipped and wet, glistening from the touch of his tongue.

As he glanced toward the noise, a scowl
darkened the captain’s handsome features. He remained close, so
close Merideth could feel the heat radiating from his body. But a
gulf of embarrassment and shame slowly seeped between them. And it
grew wider with each vivid memory that flashed through her
head.

Merideth couldn’t believe it. Was it possible
that moments ago, nay, not even that long, she slid against him,
pressing her breasts into his mouth? Wanting. Aching.

Careful to avoid looking him in the eye,
Merideth tried to pull away, to get away. Anywhere that she
wouldn’t have to face the captain’s icy green stare. But he would
have none of it. He held on tight, wrapping her in the voluminous
depths of the cloak. The satin lining skimmed across her sensitive
nipples, a poor substitute for the sweet roughness of his mouth,
and Merideth longed to readjust her bodice.

But he allowed her no time as he hustled her
toward the inn. Once inside he guided her toward the steep stairs,
following so close behind as she climbed that she had no
choice.

They were headed toward the rooms he’d taken
earlier. One for him and one for her. Merideth remembered how
relieved she’d been when he’d requested them from the innkeeper.
The thoughts of sharing a room with him had seemed abhorrent
then.

What were they now?

Even the comparative glare of candlelight
hadn’t penetrated the hazy glow of arousal that clung to her. She
ached in places that instinct alone told her he could assuage. But
that would mean... Merideth could scarcely conceptualize what it
would mean, let alone attach words to it. Yet she knew she was
torn. Knowing what she should do, and knowing how opposite that was
from what she wanted.

At the top of-the stairs, he took her arm
from behind, the hallway being too narrow to walk by her side. The
key was out of his pocket and into the door before Merideth could
catch her breath from the rapid climb. The door creaked open.
Merideth was propelled inside and less than gently placed in the
one chair gracing the room.

A pair of brass sconces on either side of the
tiny window splashed light across the bare wood floor. Merideth
kept her eyes trained on the knothole blemishing one of the wide
planks. She could just see the toe of the captain’s boot, and she
could sense him looming over her. Merideth fought the urge to look
up until he spoke. Then she couldn’t help herself.

He appeared angry and as confused as she
felt, but his voice was firm. “I’ll see you in the morning,” was
all he said before turning on his heel and leaving her alone in the
room.

Merideth let out a breath she didn’t realize
she was holding as the lock clicked behind him. Then she sat in
stunned silence. Making sense of what had happened was her first
priority. She could accept her feelings if only she understood
them. But she couldn’t, and finally, exhausted from the day’s
journey and the evening’s encounter, Merideth prepared for bed.

She lay awake long into the night, disgusted
with her inability to sleep. The crowd below in the tavern had long
since departed when she finally drifted off. But even then her rest
was not peaceful. Her slumber was full of dark, dank caves and men
of the night, who taunted and teased, offering but a glimpse of a
dimpled grin.

Then there was but one man, coming toward her
through the darkness. She could hear him, his breathing, the
stealthy way he moved, all one with the shadows.

She didn’t want him. Merideth had decided she
was glad the captain had turned away from her. But he was here in
the room with her. His presence making her tense.

Slowly Merideth opened her eyes, focusing
into the darkness. Relief washed over her. Captain Blackstone
wasn’t in the room. She realized, with a sigh, it was only a
dream.

It wasn’t till her lashes started to drift
shut that she caught a glint of moonlight off the knife blade.