Secrets of Midnight (39 page)

"I'm not jumpy!"

Oliver grunted again, louder this time. "No? Then
what was that testy outburst? A hiccough? I don't blame 'ee now, given 'ee must
be worried sick for your sisters, but you'd best get some rest an' maybe help
yourself to a dram of rum too. I've offered my cabin to 'ee, it's yours and
your husband's for the night—"

"And what of you?"

"Ha! If I get tired, I'll sleep up here under the
stars. An' I've a crew taking shifts who'll help me, so don't think 'ee have to
stay here to keep me awake. Now go below an' join that fine husband of yours!
He's as worried about the girls as you, Corie, in case 'ee haven't noticed."

"Of course I know he's worried!" Corisande
blurted out, not liking the censure in Oliver's tone. "Why would you say—
"

"Just popped to my tongue, is all. He offered to
pay me a king's ransom to sail back to Roscoff, did 'ee know that too?"

Corisande shook her head, chewing her lower lip.

"I thanked him kindly an' turned down his money.
You're like family to me after all, but oh, ais, he's worried just the same as
you—"

"All right, all right!" Corisande left him,
not because she wanted to join Donovan but because she'd had quite enough of
Oliver's lecturing. There wasn't anything left to see anyway; the lights of
Porthleven were already swallowed up by darkness as the
Fair Betty
headed out of Mount's Bay and southward into the Channel
on a journey that would get them to the Brittany port well before dawn.

Yet as she stormed below deck, she swore she could hear
a faint chuckle trailing after her. Her face growing red, she burst into Oliver's
cabin, coming up short at the sight of Donovan sitting on the bed with his back
against the wall, one arm resting on a raised knee and a near-empty glass of
rum in his hand.

"Ah, so gracious of you to join me finally, wife."

As much stung as startled by his sarcasm—she hadn't
heard it in days—Corisande wondered nervously if she should maybe leave the
door open. But Donovan took that decision out of her hands as he rose and came
toward her. Corisande sidestepped him and then whirled around with a gasp as he
slammed the door shut.

Yet when he turned upon her, his expression to her
surprise wasn't angry or sarcastic, just very serious. That unnerved her even
more than she would have thought, and she edged backward, coming up with a
start against the bed.

"Sit down."

She did, his low voice brooking no argument, although
she bristled, glaring at him. He seemed not to notice, moving to Oliver's
mahogany desk to pour himself another glass of rum; the ship's rolling motion
apparently wasn't bothering him either, for he stood so squarely, his lean,
muscled legs planted so firmly, that he looked as if he had been born to the
sea.

"Captain Trelawny has done quite well for
himself—I've seen few cabins so well appointed. A crystal decanter, glasses,
brass fittings, polished wood—"

"Yes, he's done well, and I'm grateful it wasn't
all lost to him today, no thanks to you."

Corisande heard the glancing ring of the decanter
hitting a glass, but Donovan didn't look at her although she could see that he
had visibly tensed. He seemed so tense that she began to feel quite unsettled
again; the cabin suddenly felt quite small and close around her as she quickly
sought to change the subject.

"Were things very bad at the mine? The flooding?"

"Bad enough, but the pumps did the job. Do you
want some rum?"

As Donovan's brusque voice sent nervous chills
plummeting down her spine, she gave a slight shake of her head. "No, no,
thank you." But now her heart began to pound fiercely when he finally
turned from the desk, his eyes jet-black in the lamplight and trained full upon
her.

"Henry Gilbert is well, too, in case you were
wondering. A bit shaken from having a pistol pointed at his gut, but he'll
live. You never cease to amaze me, Corie—"

"So you've often said."

The biting words were out before she had even realized
she'd spoken them and she wished she hadn't when a look of such pain crossed
Donovan's face that she felt it almost as strongly as if it were her own. And
what his pain could mean, ah, Lord, she didn't even want to think of it!

With a strangled cry, she flew across the cabin to the
door, but Donovan was already there, catching her in his arms and hauling her
against him. She struggled wildly but in vain, even in her desperation her
strength no match for his. Within an instant he had pinned her flailing arms
behind her with one hand, his other thrust through her hair to pull her head
back to face him, holding her so tightly her scalp stung.

"We're going to talk, Corie,
now
,
here
, and have this
thing out!"

"No, I've nothing to say to you!" she cried,
her only escape to sink deeper and deeper into lies. "You're an informer
and I despise you! I don't know why you're here—my sisters' welfare has nothing
to do with you! What do you care if they come to harm? Why put yourself in
danger? Once you have your bloody inheritance, you'll be gone from our lives
forever!"

"I've already won my inheritance, woman, and I've
not left you! God help me, I've not left you!"

Chapter 35

Corisande went still, staring into Donovan's anguished
eyes.

"As for your sisters, I know what it's like to
have someone you love taken from you. I've a young daughter, Corie, only two
years old, and I don't know if she's alive or dead! I've been searching for
Paloma for months—her mother, Nina, was murdered by French troops, and I was so
far away fighting near Madrid that it was weeks before I found out. By the time
I returned to the village where they'd lived, a nursemaid had long since taken
my daughter and fled. No one could tell me where. That's why I needed my
inheritance! If not for Paloma, I would have told Nigel to hell with my father's
will. But I couldn't. I needed the money—"

"Needed the money . . ." Corisande echoed in
a whisper, stunned by everything he'd just told her.

"Yes, to pay the men I hired at the start to help
me search. They'd risked their lives time and again to cross enemy lines with
me, and I couldn't reward them generously enough. Yet it didn't take long for
what money I had to be gone."

"So that's why you tricked me into marrying you,"
she said almost under her breath as Donovan looked at her in confusion. "I
overheard you talking with Morton Robberts —you were already going to help the
tinners, you'd already fired Jack Pascoe, and then I came along looking for
Henry—"

"Would you have helped me if I'd told you the
truth, given who I was, given what you thought of me? I doubted you'd believe
anything I said—maybe still don't believe . . ."

His embrace had tightened once more, though he'd loosed
his fingers from her hair to cradle her face, his thumb softly stroking her
cheek. "Corie, I didn't tell you that Nigel had brought word of my
inheritance because I didn't want you to leave me—especially when you were in
such danger. I wanted more time to try to find out who was attacking you. And
this morning—"

"This morning your true nature came through!"
Corisande cut him off, desperately trying to close her ears and her heart to
what she sensed he was about to say. "You're right! I don't believe
anything you—
Oh
!"

Donovan had jerked her against him so abruptly that she
felt she couldn't breathe. He held her so tight, his dark eyes burning into
hers. "No, I think you do believe me, Corie. Just as you believed me last
night when I said I wouldn't hurt you, when I asked that you trust me. If you
hadn't, you wouldn't have let me touch you, you wouldn't have given yourself to
me so completely, wouldn't have kissed me as you did—"

"And I told you that you seduced me!"

"Seduced, woman? Am I seducing you now?"

She gasped as his mouth captured hers, his kiss so
wildly possessive, so hot,
so
hungry that she felt
herself rise on tiptoes to be closer to him, her hands suddenly clutching at
his shirt.

"Am I enticing you against your will, Corie?"
she heard him demand raggedly against her lips just before his tongue plunged
into her mouth, his deepening kiss arousing a response in her that was nothing
less than carnal, her own tongue swirling and playing with his. She heard him
groan, felt him dragging her skirt above her thighs and lifting her,
then
suddenly she was the one with her back to the door, her
legs hoisted around his waist.

"Tell me you want me to stop," Donovan
taunted her as he kissed her eyelids, her lips, her throat, his rum-scented
breath like a scorching heat upon her skin. "If I'm seducing you, tell me
you want me to stop!"

His lips found hers at the same moment she felt his
fingers slide into her body, and when he pressed against that soft aching place
with his palm, she gave no more thought to making him stop than even
remembering what he had said. Suddenly it was just Donovan kissing her and his
fingers moving inside her, slipping out only to enter again while she began to
moan brokenly against his lips.

But he silenced her cries, filling her mouth with his
tongue as he withdrew his fingers to fill her with his body—not slowly but
fiercely, Corisande gripping at his massive shoulders as he thrust deep, deep
inside her. She began to shake and writhe against him, her release coming as
fast and as furiously as a wave crashing over her head, and she was drowning in
the wildness of it, the incredible wonder of it, her blood surging in her ears.

From some distant place she felt Donovan crush her
against him, felt his body quake and shudder and then collapse against her, but
she had no fear that she would fall. He held her as close to him as if they
were one, so close that she could feel his heart pounding against her breast .
. . then gradually it slowed, long moments passing before she had the strength
to lift her head from his shoulder.

And when she did, Donovan was staring into her eyes as
he eased his body from hers, his hand going between them to his breeches as her
dress fell back around her ankles. Yet still he kept her backed up firmly
against the door, their bodies still pressed so closely together that she could
feel the heat of him through her clothes. But that couldn't match the heat in
his eyes, not carnal, but something so much deeper burning there.

"I love you, Corie. I didn't want to, I fought
it—
God knows I never wanted marriage, never wanted a wife.
But I love you! I've never said that to any woman before."

"Not even the one who gave you a child?"

Corisande scarcely realized she'd asked him such a
thing before Donovan was shaking his head, his voice almost a whisper.

"Nina was my mistress for a time, but she didn't
love me, or I her. I'm holding the only woman I've ever loved and all I ask
from you, Corie, is that you tell me you believe me. It would be enough . . .
for now. Please tell me that you believe me."

She believed, ah, she believed—could see it in his
eyes, hear it in his voice, feel it in how he held her. Just as she felt a
terrible anguish welling inside her, too, ice-cold fear swallowing her joy. He
had a daughter, and he would surely go back to Spain to find her, which was
only right, but behind enemy lines—he had said so! And if she gave herself over
to him now and something should happen—oh, God . . .

"No, no, you ask too much of me!" she cried
out hoarsely, pushing against him, trying to wrest herself free. "I—I can't
give you what you want! I could never give you what you want! I'm sorry! I'm
sorry! Please let me go! Please!"

She nearly fell when Donovan suddenly moved away from
her, her eyes so blinded with tears as she clutched wildly at the wall to
regain her balance that she didn't see him open the door. But she heard it slam
and she knew she was alone.

Wretchedly, utterly alone.

***

"Ais, now, the tavern where that bastard said 'ee
could leave word for him is straight down the dock. The White
Hart,
isn't that what the letter said, my lord?"

Donovan nodded, while Oliver tugged worriedly at his
beard.

"Lord, I want to have me an' my men come with 'ee,
I don't like that the two of 'ee are going there alone, but I can't help
thinking if the man sees the whole lot of us, he might panic an' do God knows
what—"

"I agree, it's best this way," Donovan
interrupted, anxious to be on their way. It was still a few hours before dawn,
but the dock was already coming to life, and they were on French soil. The only
good thing was that Roscoff was a well-known smuggling port, and their arrival
had caused little stir; two dozen or more ships of all sizes lay berthed along
the wharf.

Most of them were probably English, Donovan thought
darkly with a glance in Corisande's direction. She wasn't looking at him but at
Oliver as the captain made her lift her hood over her hair.

"There's nothing down here but whores an' tavern
wenches, an' I'll not have 'ee drawing attention to
yourself
with that pretty auburn hair, Corie. Now stay good and close to your husband."

Stay good and close? Donovan swallowed hard at Oliver's
low command but steeled himself grimly against thinking about anything other
than the task that lay ahead. Yet it was almost impossible when Corisande moved
next to him, though she'd remained silent. He hadn't heard her speak at all
since last— Hell and damnation, enough!

"We'll be waiting here if you've need of us,"
Oliver said to him, thankfully distracting Donovan's thoughts. "One shot
into the air an' we'll come a-running to help, my lord, our pistols at the
ready."