Authors: Miranda Jarrett
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General
Sparhawk's Angel (4 page)
Trailing from beneath the locked lid was a long, torn length of white linen trimmed with lace, and unhappily Rose ran her fingers along the tattered scrap. She sat back on her heels and looked up at Nick and Gideon, her gray eyes flashing.
"Well, captain," she said to Nick. "You see the work your men have done."
Once again Gideon shifted uneasily from one leg to another. "I sent Mackenzie to stow her dunnage, Nick. I told him not to tarry, but he seems to have been a mite hasty."
"Hasty!" Rose held out the torn lace as testimony. "This is careless, not hasty, and now it's quite ruined, and I hadn't yet worn this—this—"
"Shift?" supplied Nick automatically. Besides his growing up among three sisters, his firsthand experience with a wide assortment of friendly barmaids and lonely widows had made him familiar enough with all the layers women wore beneath their gowns. "Underskirt? Petticoat? Or was it a nightrail?"
But Rose had had the disadvantage of neither brothers nor lovers, and her cheeks flamed with embarrassment. Never before had she heard a man say such words to her, and certainly not a dark, devilish man like this one, who could make the mildest nothingness seem indecent. Quickly she wadded the torn strip into her fist where Nick could no longer see it or comment on its nature.
The modest little gesture unsettled Nick. Before this he had thought of the girl only as a shrewish, inconvenient female, but to see her this way, crouched before that ridiculous monstrosity of a trunk with her cheeks on fire and her eyes wide with misery, changed everything. She seemed small and pitifully young, and shamefully innocent, too, if the mere mention of her shift could cause her such mortification. It wasn't as if he'd seen her wearing the wretched thing. Damnation, how
were
genteel females raised in England, anyway?
"You tell me the cost of the damage, miss," he said gruffly, "and I'll make it up to you."
"Oh, no!" Rose gasped again and shook her head violently. "I couldn't let you do that!"
"Of course you can. My man caused the damage, didn't he?"
"The damage isn't the question," she said, struggling to explain. "That is to say, I mean, that because you are a man, for me to let you pay for—for such personal effects would be most improper. I could not possibly accept such an offer from you without acknowledging a familiarity between us that certainly does not exist."
Nor ever would, thought Nick as he clasped and unclasped his hands behind his back. How could such an undersize chit of a girl have so blessed much to say for herself? She spoke in such overbred circles around him that he had to concentrate, really concentrate and not just listen, to understand what the hell she was trying to say.
Blast Lily for doing this to him!
"If you won't clear my reckoning, then will you accept my apology?" he said with more care than gallantry. "Lieutenant Cole should have let your maid look after your things, instead of having a ham-fisted oaf like Mackenzie—"
"He couldn't," she said abruptly. "He couldn't ask my maid for assistance because I don't have one."
"You're traveling alone?" Nick's surprise was genuine. No woman with any pretensions to being a lady would dream of doing such a thing. "Why'd that father of yours pack you off without a maidservant?"
"He didn't." Her dark head bent over her lap and her voice grew so muted that Nick had to strain to hear it. "My maid perished a fortnight after we'd left Portsmouth."
There was little else to say of the maid that Aunt Lucretia had chosen. She'd been mean-tempered even before she'd fallen ill, and though Rose knew it was unchristian of her, she'd been almost relieved when the woman died.
"But you're well enough yourself, Miss Everard?" he was asking. "Your own illness is past?"
Rose's head jerked up at the new gentleness in his voice. The galley stores on board the
Commerce
had dwindled during the overlong crossing and there hadn't been enough to eat, but he assumed instead that she'd been ill, too, because she was sallow and too thin. She didn't want his pity, wanted it even less than she wanted his contempt. She was what she was. Swiftly she rose to her feet, the length of torn lace from her shift fluttering from her fingers.
"I am perfectly well, Captain Sparhawk, thank you," she said, meeting his gaze as levelly as she could. She would be strong before him. She
must
. "Perfectly well."
He looked at her closely. "Perfectly?"
"Perfectly perfect." She raised her chin a fraction higher and prayed it wouldn't tremble. "As you see, I have lost my hat, and the brightness of the sun in these latitudes struck me for a moment. But I am quite well now. Quite."
"That's because you're English," he said with the hint of a smile that made his dark face briefly, alarmingly boyish. "You're not accustomed to much except fog and foul weather."
She could tell from his eyes that he didn't believe her, but that he wasn't going to bother quarreling about it. At least she could be grateful for that much, and to prove it she wouldn't jump to defend the English weather the way he expected.
Instead she glanced briefly over her shoulder to where she'd last seen the
Commerce
. "You will think me quite presumptuous, I know, but shouldn't we be sailing after them before we're left entirely behind?"
"We haven't been left behind, Miss Everard, because we're not trying to catch them." Restlessly he tapped his fingers on the hilt of his sword, looking past her toward the other ship. "They're bound for Charles Town, and we're not."
Rose gulped. Sweet heaven deliver her, she'd been kidnapped, and it was all her own fault. While she'd been fussing over that infernal trunk, this man with the black hair and the green eyes had carried her off just as he'd captured the
Angel Lily
.
And just like the brig, she was now his prize. No wonder he'd smiled at her like that.
She folded her hands in front of her to keep them from shaking. She told herself she wouldn't panic and she wouldn't weep, no matter how much she wanted to. She would be calm and reasonable and firm. That had always worked for her before. And what other choice, really, did she have?
"Then I must implore you, Captain," she said, her tangled hair blowing back from her face as she lifted her chin so she could meet his eye, "to please change your course to Charles Town, too, so I might join them."
Avoiding her gaze, Nick squinted up at the sails and the men working aloft. Why couldn't those big silver-gray eyes of hers look somewhere other than at him? It wasn't his fault that she'd been sick and unhappy, just as she could hardly blame him because she was the daughter of a wealthy Englishman with influence. She was the one who'd decided to go sailing into the middle of a war. All he'd done was capture the ship in which she'd been a passenger.
"You're my prisoner, Miss Everard," he said evenly, "and you're not going to Charles Town because you're staying here on board the
Angel Lily
with me. That's what you wanted in the first place, wasn't it?"
"But not like this!" Stunned, Rose dug her nails into her palms as she struggled against her panic. "I came to speak to you on my father's behalf, not to be—to be carried off!"
"And because of your father, you're too valuable a prisoner to lose," said Nick, still staring aloft. "You should be grateful that Gideon at least brought over your trunk, so you'll have your comforts."
Aghast, Rose shook her head. "But this is only one trunk! I had more with me in the
Commerce—
much more. What will become of all my other things, my belongings?"
"Enough, Miss Everard." Finally he lowered his gaze to meet hers, his expression as stern as he could make it. He had to end this now; he'd wasted entirely too much time on her as it was. "We are in the middle of a war, not some English country house party, and though I'll treat you as decently as I can, you are still my prisoner. A prisoner of war, mind? The
Commerce
will be condemned by the prize court in Charles Town, and she and all her contents will be sold at auction."
He thought she'd been pale before, but somehow the last bit of color managed to drain from her cheeks.
"Including my things?" she asked in a woefully small voice.
He nodded, though he'd give half his shares not to be having this conversation with her. "This is a war, miss," he repeated in his best stern captain's voice. "If you'd wanted to keep your gowns and bonnets safe, you should have left them snug in England."
"But I had no choice," she said miserably. "I am to be wed on St. Lucia, you see, where my—my intended resides. Everything I'd brought with me was for my new home, things that can't be replaced, like my mother's looking glass and her tea chest and the Chinese vases that have always, always stood on the mantelpiece in the dining room at home, and then the—"
She broke off abruptly, her hands twisting. "But you would not understand, would you, Captain Sparhawk," she said miserably, "just as I cannot understand your cursed rules of war. You'll never understand at all."
Yet Nick did understand, more than she'd guess and far more than he'd ever
dream of telling her. Fleetingly he thought of his own mother's looking glasses in the big house in Newport where he'd been born, now looted and gutted by the British, how he'd come too late to save his parents or his youngest sister—one more time he'd failed them when they'd needed him most.
Oh, aye, he understood.
But that was why he was here now, wasn't it? To harm and harass the enemy, to rob them just as they'd robbed his own family? Every chance he could, he willingly—no, eagerly—risked his life and the lives of his men to bring as much destruction as he could to British property and British ambitions, and no one had ever been able to question his bravery or his loyalty.
At least not until now.
He knew the girl was waiting for an answer, those enormous silver eyes brimming with reproach, and his jaw tightened. What was the matter with him, anyway? If he'd let himself turn all sentimental and soft over one little Britisher grieving over her lost Chinese pots, then he might as well turn in his commission now. He could always go back to Narragansett Bay and become, oh, a shepherd on Patience Island until the war was over.
Damn Lily's wings, this was all her fault, every bit of it!
He shoved his hat down lower on his head, wincing at the little stab of pain as it slid across the half-healed cut on his forehead. The bridge of the girl's nose was sunburned, the skin pink and shiny, and he focused on that instead of her eyes.
"I don't mean to keep you forever, you know," he said gruffly. "Only until your old papa comes up with the proper ransom."
She lowered her gaze to her hands. "Or until my friends from St. Lucia come after
you
."
"Not ruddy likely," scoffed Nick. "Those fat-bellied merchants from Cul de Sac Roseaux have been after me since summer last, and you can see how lucky they've been."
"The gentleman I am to wed, Captain Sparhawk, is no potbellied merchant." She was speaking quickly, her voice no more than a soft, breathy rush that Nick had to strain to hear. "He is Captain Lord Eliot Graham of His Majesty's frigate
Goliath
, and I do believe, Captain Sparhawk, that his guns will more than compensate for your luck."
Nick stared down at the top of her head with disgust and dismay. His luck, hell. His blessed
luck
would now have some titled jackass in a frigate out for his blood, all on account of the two Miss Everards. And there wasn't a single thing he could do about it.
Close to smothering from his own frustration and fury, Nick unleashed such a torrent of oaths on the British navy in general and the dubious ancestry of Captain Lord Eliot in particular that even Gideon turned to smile with admiration. The girl's expression didn't change, but her pallor vanished as her cheeks turned as red as the skin on her nose.
"Forgive me if I've offended you, Miss Everard," said Nick at last, feeling somewhat relieved and not the least bit contrite. "But until your honorable jackanapes can rescue you, you'll have to pardon our rough ways here on board."
For a long time she looked at him, simply looked, while to Nick it seemed those silver eyes turned to pure Sheffield steel.
"As you wish, Captain," she said with an evenness that made the back of his neck prickle. "I'll forgive you whatever sins you please. As long, of course, as you're willing to forgive mine in return."
Gathering her skirts in one hand she headed toward the companionway after the two sailors carrying her trunk, her back straight and her head held as high as if the
Angel Lily
still belonged to her father. With one last muttered oath for all infernal British women with flower names, Nick turned on his heel and stalked across the deck in the opposite direction.
He'd been fighting the British already for three long, hard years. So why, then, did it feel as if the war had just begun?
"A
ye, miss, this be your cabin." Hobb thumped the massive trunk down on the deck and slid it through the doorway. "Mr. Cole cleared out so's you could have a space all to yourself."
"That was very kind of Mr. Cole," said Rose faintly as she peered past Hobb's broad shoulder at her new quarters. "I must be sure to thank him "
Hobb shook his head vigorously. "Oh, nay, miss, 'tweren't Mr. Cole's notion. 'Twas the cap'n's orders that you have a cabin of your own, on account of you being a lady an' Sir Edmund's daughter an' all. It's the cap'n you should be thanking."
"Indeed." To Rose's mind,
cabin
seemed far too grand a word to describe this tiny, murky closet of a space, tucked in tight against the curved side of the ship. Built along one bulkhead was a bunk with a wool-stuffed mattress and a mottled looking glass beneath a single shelf, and that, it seemed, was the extent of the accommodations. The space was so small that with her trunk on the deck she had perhaps eight inches clear between it and the edge of the bunk. Longingly she remembered her cabin on board the
Commerce
, with a chair and a writing table and more than enough space for both Phoebe and her to turn around.
"Aye, miss, 'twas the cap'n's doing, no mistake." Hobb reached up to light the single oil lamp, a small brass lantern that swung from gimbals fastened to the bulkhead. He rested his hands on the wide belt at his waist, in no hurry to leave. "He's a good man, is the cap'n, an' a sight better mariner than that sorry rascal Fotherill, though I 'spect your father don't want to hear it."
"You're English, then?" asked Rose in disbelief.
Hobb nodded. "As English as any man, I 'spect."
"You signed on to sail on behalf of my father, and then when these rebel pirates killed Captain Fotherill, you joined them instead? You're a traitor, that's what you are, a traitor and a turncoat!"
"Aye, miss, and what of it?" Hobb shrugged carelessly. "What the king an' his fine, fancy ministers decide don't mean much to me, miss. The way I sees it, this war's no different from that of Cromwell's time, with Englishmen fighting with Englishmen, an' me, well now, I'll throw my lot with him that treats me best. An' that be Cap'n Sparhawk."
"Captain Sparhawk, Captain Sparhawk!" cried Rose irritably. "I am sick unto
death
of Captain Sparhawk!"
Hobb looked at her with surprise, clearly amazed that she didn't share his admiration. "He's a good master, miss," he said staunchly. "He has his share of temper, and he goes daft sometimes, but he's a good master, no mistake."
"Then I vow I must be the most mistaken woman in creation, for I can see none of the man's merits at all." Rose pressed her fingers to her temples. "Now if you will please leave me, I rather wish to be alone."
"Very well, miss." Hobb tugged at the front of his shapeless knitted cap and slammed shut the door with a rattling force, latching it from without.
With a sigh, Rose perched on the edge of the bunk and lifted the lid of her trunk. She'd been careless not to lock it, but on board the
Commerce
such precautions hadn't seemed necessary. One look at the trunk's contents now, though, showed her the price she'd paid for her trust. Everything from her other cabin had been thrown and squeezed into this single trunk, shoes on top of gowns on top of stockings and her hairbrush. The thought of these strangers pawing through her personal belongings sickened her, as if they'd touched and defiled her the same way, and again she felt tears sting her eyes when she remembered how cavalierly Captain Sparhawk had disposed of everything else.
She untangled the shift with the hem that had been shut into the lid and torn, the ragged strip hanging forlornly, dirty and damp, from the otherwise spotless linen. She closed her eyes and pressed the fabric to her cheek, smelling the faint fragrance of lavender that still clung to it, the scent that Lily had so favored. The shift had belonged to her sister, as had so many of the other garments and even the trunk itself, all of it ordered for the bride that Lily had planned so confidently to be.
And now, instead, the wedding clothes and the lace-trimmed linens belonged to Rose. It had been easy enough to alter the garments to fit her, but with a little shiver Rose wondered again if Lily's bridegroom would prove as accommodating.
With the shift still clutched in her hand, Rose curled on her side on the bunk, fighting the fear and misery that at last threatened to claim her now that her anger had cooled. Think of Lily, she ordered herself as she breathed the lavender scent on the torn linen. Think of what Lily would do. Lily would not be afraid; Lily hadn't been afraid of anything, especially anything male.
But then Lily wouldn't have insisted on being brought to this ship to speak to the captain, for Lily wouldn't have cared a fig if Papa had been robbed of every last ha'penny he owned.
And Lily most certainly wouldn't have quarreled with Captain Sparhawk. She would have tipped her chin, peeked up at him from beneath the brim of her hat—for she wouldn't have lost her hat, either—and charmed him so thoroughly that he might have given back the
Angel Lily
without a fight, just for the privilege of having her smile at him. Men had always given presents to Lily. Rose had never quite figured out why, but she was sure that it wasn't because she hit them in the jaw like an indignant fishwife.
Rose groaned at the memory of how she'd slapped the American captain. She was supposed to be the clever Everard sister, not that anyone would guess it from how she'd behaved with Captain Sparhawk. Ladies who were prisoners didn't hit their captors. True, she'd been shocked when he had seized her face and she'd reacted from pure instinct alone, but she was lucky that was all he'd done.
He certainly wasn't the first man who couldn't believe that she and Lily were sisters. That familiar startled look had been in his eyes the instant she'd turned and faced him, and there'd been moments when he hadn't even been able to meet her eye, he'd been so eager to look away.
Because Lily had loved her, she'd tried to convince Rose otherwise, but Rose knew the truth. There wasn't any help for it. She
was
plain and small and insignificant, and she always would be in the eyes of gentlemen. But it still hurt to be reminded.
Especially by a man like Nickerson Sparhawk, the handsomest man she'd ever seen. A traitor who'd stolen the ship with her sister's name and face, a lawless rogue who'd robbed her father and kidnapped her, a powerful, ruthless man from whom she'd somehow have to escape if she wanted to reach St. Lucia in time for her wedding and spare her poor father even more disgrace.
With a smothered sob Rose pressed her face into her sleeve, and wished to heaven she were the one who was dead instead of Lily.
"Lily!" roared Nick as he slammed the door to his cabin shut. "Damnation, woman, show yourself!"
"I should be the one to swear at you, sir, and not the other way around!" Lily's image sharpened into focus instantly, framed by the stern windows as she stood with her arms folded defiantly across her chest and her wings twitching with anger. "How dare you behave so barbarously toward my sister?"
"Oh, it's to be my fault now, is it?" Furiously Nick ripped off the belt with his sword and flung it onto the desk. "What kind of fool are you playing me for? All this claptrap about following your special course on the chart to an easy prize so I could salvage
my
pride and
my
crew's respect, when all you had in mind the entire time was finding
your
blessed sister!"
"And what's the harm of it?" demanded Lily. "Why couldn't both things be accomplished at once?"
"Because your sister is as great a nuisance as you are." He jerked his arms free of his coat and let it fall to the deck, and began unfastening the long row of buttons on his waistcoat with a quick, angry tug at each buttonhole. "Nay, make that a greater nuisance, since she's betrothed to some ruddy royal frigate captain who'll doubtless now dedicate all his days to chasing me!"
"Oh, pish!" Lily swept her hand through the air dismissively. "As if you'd be afraid of the likes of Eliot Graham!"
"What kind of idiot wouldn't be?" He glared at her as he let the waistcoat
fall onto his coat and began yanking his shirt free of his breeches. "Thanks to
you, I've stolen the man's bride out from under his nose. That should be insult
enough to rouse even some addlepated aristocrat to action, and to help get her back he has thirty-two guns and a crew of a hundred at his disposal."
"What of it?" she said impatiently as he pulled his shirt over his head. "You have the
Angel Lily
, don't you? That should be more than enough to even the match."
Nick grunted sourly as he poured water into the washbasin. He had hoped that by stripping to his breeches he'd offend her enough so she'd leave—he'd noticed before that she never appeared in the morning until he was fully dressed—but still she stayed, unperturbed and unimpressed by his bare chest.
He lowered his face over the bowl, sluicing the water over his head. Nay, it was worse than that, for
he
was the one who felt uncomfortable. Angel or not, she was still female, and he wasn't accustomed to females ignoring the splendid breadth of his chest or the width of his arms. It didn't seem natural.
"Besides," she continued behind him, "Eliot doesn't even know you have Rose."
"He'll know as soon as the
Commerce
reaches Charles Town with the prize crew," grumbled Nick. "The British spies—
your
spies—are remarkably efficient that way. Why the devil I listened to Gideon and didn't ship her off to Carolina when I had the chance is beyond me."
He recognized the familiar little crack of her fan being snapped open, and absently wondered why she needed one at all. Wouldn't a good flap of her wings accomplish the same thing?
"I still don't believe Eliot will bother you, Nick," she said. "He may be intent on marrying poor Rose, but he doesn't love her in the least."
"Understandable enough," said Nick as he splashed the water over his arms and shoulders. "Your sister's a small, shrewish, ill-favored article that would test any man's soul to—damnation!"
The desk chair caught him in the back of his leg, the turned maple slamming against him hard enough that he had to grab the bulkhead to keep his footing.
"You should be more careful, Captain," said Lily mildly. "With all your experience at sea, I would have thought you'd know to be wary of how furnishings can shift about in a high sea."
"The devil take your high sea! There's barely a ripple on the water today, and you know it. That was all your doing, you wicked little creature!" Nick rubbed his leg, feeling the knot of a bruise growing already. "And it
hurt
."
"It was supposed to." Lily smiled sweetly, and with a sinking feeling Nick remembered the exact same expression on Rose's face after she'd told him about her frigate captain.
"I won't have you speaking unkindly of my sister."
"I'll say whatever I damned well please!"
"Oh, I know, because you're the almighty captain and the master and goodness knows whatever else." She sighed dramatically and shook her head. "But I thought you were a gentleman, too, and a gentleman would never be so quick to judge a lady. Or didn't your mother teach you that?"
Nick grumbled to himself as he shook the water from his black hair like an oversize spaniel. His mother had in fact taught him exactly that about ladies, as well as a good many other things he'd tried equally hard to forget over the seventeen years since he'd left home. Twice now today he'd been reminded of his family and his past, jarring loose the memory of how he'd been born into a genteel family, with expectations of him that he'd never been able to fulfill. But why should he care? He liked the life he'd made for himself just fine.
At least he had before the Everard sisters had come careening into the middle of it.
"She didn't care for me any more than I did for her," he said defensively. "Nigh sliced my head off."
"What did you expect, bullying her the way you did? She's lost and frightened and grieving and lonely, and though she's betrothed to a man she's only met once, still she's determined to wed him to please Papa." She stepped closer, beseeching, her silk skirts rustling softly. "Rose needs a friend, Nick, not another enemy."
"Then she doesn't need me." He raised his jaw, wary of her intentions. "You're her sister, or leastways you were. If her life's such an all-fired disaster, then why don't you go and start arranging things for her and leave me alone?"
"Because I can't," said Lily sadly. "Since I always scoffed at her advice while I lived, she in turn will never be able to hear me now, or even see me. It's my—well, it's my punishment, I suppose, for being so headstrong. As much as Rose needs me, I can only change things for her through you."
Nick sighed. "So that's why you had me capture her? To brighten her cheerless life with a little gunfire and brimstone from Black Nick Sparhawk?"
"You needn't be flippant. It doesn't become you." She sighed, too, a breathy rush behind her fan. "All I ask is that you be civil to Rose while she's in your custody. You could invite her here to your cabin, say, for a light collation."
"
'Collation'
?" Nick cocked one scornful black brow. "Oh, aye, why not? Next you'll be expecting tea and currant scones with clotted cream. Your wretched little sister should consider herself fortunate if I ever invite her here for grilled onions and toasted cheese."
"Ah, my dear captain," said Lily, her smile beatific. "What a perfectly wondrous idea."
"The folded white paper shot beneath the cabin's door and across the deck, the messenger who'd brought it gone before Rose had lifted her head from the pillow. For a long moment she stared at the white square on the smooth-sanded planks. She knew no one on board who would write to her, and she could not imagine that these wild, rough Americans corresponded with their prisoners on white vellum.
She leaned off the bunk to reach the paper, lifting it carefully as if she feared it might somehow explode in her hand. She turned it over and traced her fingertips over the seal stamped into the frozen puddle of carmine wax that held the letter shut. An eagle with outstretched wings perched on a branch—a symbol, perhaps, of the American cause?
