Authors: Miranda Jarrett
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General
Sparhawk's Angel (6 page)
"Aye, I'll swear to that, and a good deal more." He sighed. "We can make it our secret, little Rose, between you and me alone, for I doubt there's another on board who would believe in Lily. Or in us."
Again she shook her head, and to Nick the silence that followed stretched endlessly between them. Damnation, he
knew
she'd felt Lily's presence! Why the devil wouldn't she accept it?
And why, too, did it matter so much to him that she would, this small, solemn girl who was the living shadow of her sister? It had been so long since he'd needed anything from anyone else that the intensity of it now frightened him. He'd spent the greater part of his life shying away from dependence of any kind, priding himself on how little he was bound to others. Was Rose Everard really such a link to his own sanity and self-respect that he'd let himself hang here while he waited on the favor of her reply, as tongue-tied and fearful as some landlocked plowboy?
Blast, he should never have been so familiar as to call her "little Rose," even if she was—
"There can be no confidences between us, Captain," she said, carefully keeping her eyes focused slightly below his chin. "You are my enemy, and you have caused a great affront to my father by capturing this ship and claiming me as your prisoner."
Strange how he'd almost forgotten that himself. "We were speaking of your sister, not your father," he said warmly. "Damnation, doesn't that mean anything to you?"
She lifted her gaze to his, and Nick wondered how he'd ever thought her plain. She'd taken the moonlight for her own, her pale skin luminous and her gray eyes bright, and if it had been for him to decide, she would never pin up her hair again, but leave it instead loose and wild about her shoulders as it was now, a dark, tangled cloud around her face.
"It means more than you can ever understand, Captain," she said softly, her words barely audible over the wind, "but I promise you I shall consider what you have said."
Eagerly Nick leaned closer to hear more, but instead she slipped both hands to his arm around her waist and gently eased herself free. She hesitated for a moment, her black skirts swirling around her as she clung to the rail for balance, then bowed her head, turned and made her way alone to the companionway.
And Nick let her go. His arms felt strangely empty without her in them, his body now chilled where she had warmed it, and absently he rubbed one hand across his chest as he stared out over the water.
By bringing her here, he'd found the answer he'd sought. What he hadn't counted on were all the new questions that came with it.
"I cannot believe you would do something so unspeakably cruel!" cried Lily as soon as Nick returned to his cabin. "Unconscionable and cruel!"
"Was it now?" Nick dropped heavily into his chair. He'd known Lily would be waiting for him, so much so that he'd half expected her to appear on the deck. But this time, after three hours of walking back and forth on the quarterdeck while he considered what next to do, he was ready.
"It was indeed, and you know perfectly well why!" The air in the cabin seemed to crackle around her with her fury as she paced back and forth, her wings twitching with little jerks of irritation.
Nick sighed and leaned back in his chair, purposefully stretching his legs out before him so she'd have to walk around him. Whatever force had sent an angel in the form of Lily to him had chosen well, for she was exactly the kind of woman he generally chose for himself—buxom, brazen lasses who knew how to please men. If any woman could influence him, living or dead, it would be one like Lily. So why, then, did his thoughts keep returning to her little sister, awash in moonlight?
"You left me no choice, Lily," he said. "If you'd but shown yourself to your sister, then I wouldn't have been reduced to that dumb show of taking her up to stand over your figurehead."
"I told you before that I can't do that!" She cracked open her fan, fluttering it rapidly before her face. "You are the only one among the living who can see me!"
"And because of that, the rest of the blessed living judge me completely mad. Except now, of course, your sister." He smiled slowly, thinking of Rose. "I'll wager whatever you please that she believes in you with all her heart, with or without your consent. The only marvel to me is what you've done for her to earn that sort of devotion."
"How else should it be?" sputtered Lily indignantly. "Mama died when we were little, and there was no one else for us to turn to but each other. I should have been equally bereft had she died first. But for you to play upon her grief as you did was shameless!"
Nick remembered the eager, wistful look on Rose's face when she'd first sensed Lily's presence, how her lips had parted breathlessly and her whole face had seemed to glow from within. He'd have had to be made from granite not to have been touched by that, or to wish it hadn't happened.
But it would make what he planned to say next come easier.
Nick slanted his gaze at her, warning enough to those who knew him well. "I'll play upon a good deal more of her, Lily," he said softly, "if you do not agree to leave me alone. As you said yourself, Rose is not as ill-favored as first I judged her. A mite small for my tastes, but fair enough for passing amusement."
Lily gasped, her face frozen in horror. "You wouldn't dare! You wouldn't
dare
! Rose is a sheltered innocent, without the slightest guile or defense against the traps of men like you!"
"Traps of men?" Nick scoffed. "That's a pleasant take on it. Remind me to put the ratsbane beneath my pillow."
"You know well enough what I mean, just as Rose would not!"
"Oh, I'll warrant she may know more than you think. As a younger sibling myself, I recall how desperate my elder brother was to keep me in leading strings beyond my time." He linked his hands behind his head. "Besides, she's agreed to wed this man Graham, hasn't she? Surely even some empty-headed lordling wouldn't offer for a woman without sampling her wares. Likely I'd be but widening Rose's…
experience
. That is, if it's your choice."
Lily practically spit her words. "You are a common and vulgar swine, sir, and if you believe what you say, I cannot begin to fathom how marriages are arranged in your country!"
"Neither can I," said Nick dryly, "for I've kept blessedly clear of the whole marriage carnival. Who would have me, anyway, seeing as I'm so common and vulgar? Not that it will matter with your sister. She doesn't seem to be so besotted with her intended that she'd be averse to my attentions. And marriage wasn't what I had in mind for your dear little Rose."
"You are not behaving at all the way I intended, not at all!" she sputtered. She slammed her fan down on the edge of the table, hard enough to shatter any earthly
brise
, and spun around with a swish of her skirts so that her back was to Nick. She stood there for a long moment, her wings heaving as she struggled to control her anger.
Nick waited, enjoying how he'd turned the tables on her. Lord knows he'd been furious enough at her that he could afford to be patient for once in turn.
"I'm sorry I've disappointed you, sweetheart," he called amicably. "But I have a long history of being contrary."
"Oh, a pox on your history!" she said irritably. "If you could but understand Rose's situation, then you would not even jest at such a thing."
But Nick wasn't jesting, not any longer. "The only situation I give a damn about is my own. You've made a shambles of my life, Lily, and I'd rather you'd have let me die than continue on like this, with my men all whispering about me behind my back and me wondering what mischief you've planned next. I have to be my own master, and with you fluttering about, I'm not. I don't want your help or your happiness or whatever other blessed name you give it. I want you gone."
She turned to face him with her hands outstretched, beseeching. "I cannot leave you, Nick," she said unhappily. "Not now, not yet, not until you've changed yourself for the better."
"So we're back to that, are we? Making me over into a better man?" Unmoved by her appeal, Nick shook his head. He hadn't expected her to call his bluff like this, but it wasn't in his nature to back down, and he wouldn't now. "Well, you wished to make me more contented, and few things content me more than a pretty little wench twisting and sighing with joy beneath me in my bunk. Your sister won't have cause for complaint, I promise you that."
"Seducing Rose wasn't part of the plan," said Lily with a clipped edginess. "I told you she needed a friend, not a—not a debauchee."
"Then you should have thought of that before you tossed her into my path." Nick leaned forward, his expression ruthless and his eyes glittering with anticipation. "I'm not a gentleman, Miss Everard, no matter how much you wish to pretend otherwise. If you want to play games with your sister's virtue as the stakes, then you're free to do so. But don't try to paint me the villain if I accept."
Resolutely Lily folded her arms across the front of her gown. "So that if, against your wishes, I remain in your life—which of course I am bound to do—then you will ruin my sister."
"Aye." Nick nodded. "That's the whole of it."
"So that if I continue trying to help you better yourself, you shall reward me instead by committing an act that can serve only to make you an even greater rogue and rascal." She sighed deeply, her full breasts quivering above the low-cut gown. "You aren't making this in the least manageable for me, are you?"
"I didn't intend to. You're a woman, and you're dead, and you might well be no more than a dream brought on by my being struck on the head. If I can't win against you, well then, I should cash it in now and be done." His smile was humorless. "Go on, heave all the water pitchers you please. But if you vanish now, this night, I give you my word that your sister will be delivered untouched to her bridegroom the moment her ransom is paid."
"As you wish then, my dear captain, though you are sadly misled if you believe a woman, alive or dead, is of no use as an adversary." With the air of a general preparing for battle, Lily tapped her folded fan against her shoulder once, twice, three times. "And I should warn you, too, that I'll have considerably more than water pitchers on my side."
The memory of what had happened to the
Angel Lily
's first captain flickered through Nick's mind, and swiftly he shoved it aside. His situation bore not the slightest resemblance to Fotherill's. He had an unbeatable trump in little Rose Everard, and if Lily forced his hand, he'd no compunction whatsoever about playing it.
Or at least that was what he told himself, and perhaps, at that moment, he believed it.
"You can try whatever you wish, Miss Lily," he said softly. "But mind that it's your choice. And mind, too, that when I play, I play to win."
G
ideon held on to the brim of his hat as he craned his head back to point at the top of the mainmast.
"That man there's the lookout," he explained as Rose, too, leaned back to squint upward into the sun. "His task is to scan the horizon for enemy ships. 'Course we hope he sights a slow, overburdened merchantman, but we want to know if he spots a frigate, too. Either way he'll bawl out the instant he spies a sail, and if we chase and close and take the vessel for a prize, then the cap'n awards him one hundred dollars for his trouble."
"One hundred dollars!" marveled Rose with open wonder too sarcastic to be genuine. "And does your captain take the money himself directly from the pockets of his poor captives, or must the same lookout man do that task, too?"
Gideon frowned. "It comes from his own pockets, Miss Everard," he declared soundly. "I've seen it a score of times myself. Besides, Nick—er, Cap'n Sparhawk goes as proper by the rules as he can. He doesn't countenance looting or helping himself the way some privateering masters do. He sends everything in to Charles Town to be auctioned and sold at the prize courts, and waits until then to claim his shares."
Rose nodded absently. She hadn't intended to be so sharp, but in the hour since she'd come on deck she'd heard nothing from Lieutenant Cole but the most overblown praise for his captain, and by now she half expected the man himself to come walking across the waves like the saintly paragon Cole was so eager to describe.
If, that is, Captain Sparhawk decided to show himself at all this morning. From the bells that rang to mark the changes of the watch, she guessed the hour must be close to noon, and he'd yet to come on deck. Though after what had passed between them last night, she still wasn't sure what she'd say to him if—or when—he did. As furtively as she could, she glanced around again toward the companionway that led to his cabin.
"If you're looking for the captain, you're likely to have a good long wait," said Gideon, reading her thoughts with such ease that she blushed. "Concerns of the ship kept him from his sleep until late, and I don't expect him to appear any time soon."
"I wouldn't think Captain Sparhawk would be so plagued," said Rose.
She
had managed to rise at a decent hour, she thought crossly, no matter how many sleepless hours he'd given her thanks to his foolishness about Lily. The least he could do was the same. "This ship seems to be run quite effortlessly without him."
That, at least, was true. Especially considering the
Angel Lily
had belonged to the Americans for such a short period of time, the ship and her crew appeared in perfect harmony. Every rope was coiled in exact loops, every unused sail furled with precision, and each sailor seemed almost to be able to anticipate the lieutenant's orders, so effortlessly did they move to execute his wishes. Beneath the cloudless sky the
Angel Lily
sliced through the waves with an easy assurance that Rose had never seen before.
"Thank you, miss." Gideon beamed and touched the front of his hat in acknowledgment.
" 'Tis one of the reasons the cap'n's been so successful. Twenty-two prizes, miss, more than any other Yankee captain."
"Twenty-two!" This time her amazement was real. From her father, she knew even the most successful English privateers in this war had captured no more than a half dozen American and French merchant ships.
"Twenty-two," said Gideon with obvious satisfaction. "Makes for a pretty piece of ciphering, figuring all those shares among two hundred men! When we finally pay out, he'll send every last jack home a rich man, and that makes for a happy crew. But that's only part of it. He had his pick of the best seamen on the coast, and he knows enough to treat them like the gems they are. Respect and tolerance, miss, that's his secret. Be firm, but treat every man in the crew like you'd want to be treated yourself. But coming from King George's England, you can't be expected to understand."
Automatically Rose opened her mouth to protest, only to swallow her defense unspoken. If the red-haired lieutenant had just set her down as she suspected, then she deserved it. He was right. She didn't understand the reasons behind this American war, and she dutifully parroted the views of her father and his friends. Respect and tolerance were supposed to be English virtues, too, but the men on board the
Commerce
had grumbled at their minuscule wages and cowered beneath their officers' discipline. Even on her launching day
the
Angel Lily
hadn't had this same spark and dash to her under Captain Fotherill that she so obviously had under Captain Sparhawk, and certainly none of the Americans' success.
"Does he—Captain Sparhawk, I mean—often have difficulty sleeping?" she asked tentatively. Insomnia seemed a far safer topic than politics. "I can suggest a receipt for a special powder given me by my aunt that's guaranteed efficacious."
"Ah, now, we'd best leave that to the surgeon," said Gideon. "But I thank you for your concern, Miss Everard. I do thank you for that."
Gently he took her arm, holding her by her elbow alone as lightly as if she were made of porcelain. He would never be as handsome as his captain, but there was a certain offhanded charm to his freckled face that made Rose forgive his forwardness when he brought his face close to hers to speak to her alone.
"You are a lady of breeding and sensibility, Miss Everard," he began nervously, "and I pray I can trust your confidence."
Curious, Rose nodded. She wasn't truly a well-bred lady, her father having been knighted only five years before, but she saw no reason to mention that now.
"Good, good." Warily the lieutenant glanced over his shoulder. "It's the captain, you see. I wish to heaven that whatever disturbs his sleep could be cured by ordinary potions or powders, but I fear it's something worse. He suffered a grave blow to his head in the engagement a fortnight ago, and ever since he has taken to talking to himself in his cabin. Whole arguments and quarrels and smashed crockery, yet he's alone the entire time. As an old friend, I fear for him, Miss Everard, indeed I do."
Our secret, little Rose, between you and me alone
: that was what Captain Sparhawk had asked for, and though Rose had refused to share his confidence, she now realized that simply by hearing it she'd been forced to agree. There'd been a desperation in his eyes and voice that had been as impossible to deny as his embrace, and in the long, sleepless night alone in her cabin she'd heard and felt him in her head over and over again. The too-brief moment of solace she'd had when she'd sensed Lily's presence had come with a steep price. Like it or not, Lily had become a secret she was bound to share with Captain Sparhawk.
Because, God help them both, Lily
was
here.
"As much as I admire your concern for your captain, Mr. Cole," she said slowly, hoping she kept the guilty flush from her cheeks, "I do wonder why you share it with me, a stranger and an enemy prisoner."
But to her surprise it was Gideon who colored more, deep beneath his freckles and weathered tan. "Ah, Miss Everard, forgive me, but I tell you because of who you are, not what. It's your sister, Miss Lily, this vessel's namesake, that Nick claims to converse with, and I wondered if he had mentioned to you—"
"Mentioned what, Gideon?"
Nick couldn't remember two such guilty faces as Rose's and Gideon's turned in unison toward him. Of course they'd been talking about him, and none of it good. The proof was painted across their miserable faces. These two, of any on board, he'd thought he could trust: his oldest friend in the world, and the woman who shared his secret.
But what did he expect? He should never have dragged her out on the foredeck last night, clinging to her like a dying man in clear sight of the men on watch. He should never have raved on like a lunatic before witnesses like that, witnesses who'd immediately carry the tattle back between decks where it would grow and blossom beyond his control. No wonder they'd been talking about him. He'd feel less vulnerable standing here naked with a score of British marines aiming their muskets at his chest than he did right now, and it took every last scrap of self-possession and courage not to turn tail and race back to his cabin.
Damnation, what was happening to him?
"Mentioned what, Gid?" he asked again, looking hard at his friend. "What exactly was I to be discussing with Miss Everard?"
But it was the girl, not Gideon, who stepped forward to speak. "Mr. Cole was telling me how many prizes you have taken. Twenty-two, he said, though when I asked if that included the
Angel Lily
, which I still maintain wasn't yours to take in the first place, he said only the captain would know the exact tally. Which, I suppose, you must?"
She was lying, of course. Her cheeks were as red as cherries, and she was twisting her hands so tightly into her skirts he marveled that the fabric didn't shred beneath her fingers. But her eyes told the rest of the story, begging him, pleading silently for him to accept the sorry little fib she'd offered on his behalf.
Dear Lord, could she really be lying to save
him
?
"Twenty-two or twenty-three, it's still a great sum," she continued, lifting her chin bravely. "I should be vastly impressed, Captain Sparhawk, if your accomplishments weren't such a grievous drain to my own country's resources."
She was lying, and because it was for him, he didn't care. She could have destroyed his entire pretense of sanity with a few short words before Gideon and the rest. But for whatever reason, she hadn't done it, and he felt a weight like lead lifting from his shoulders.
"Cole's wrong," he said. Even to his own ears his voice sounded almost normal, booming out across the quarterdeck as if nothing had changed. "It's twenty-three, including that old brig you were sailing in and
the Angel Lily
which, as I've told you, we captured fair by every law of sea and man."
He began to smile, from relief as much as anything, then frowned instead. Now that his first dread over her reaction had passed, he noticed that she wore the same sad mourning gown as yesterday, spattered with white salt stains and rusty around the hem. Considering how long and hard her voyage from England had been and that she had no maidservant to look after her, the gown was, he supposed, forgivable. But instead of a hat or bonnet she'd tied some sort of drab black kerchief around her head and under her chin, drawing the front far over her face into a hideous head-size tent. Her hair, all that richly glorious hair, was hidden beneath it, and she looked for all the world like some convent-bound French novitiate ready to take orders.
And here he'd taken special pains this morning with his own dress, choosing the best of his weekday coats, the green superfine with the darker green waistcoat embroidered in pale blue. He had fussed with his neck cloth and shot his cuffs more times than any Bath macaroni, all with the goal of impressing Miss Rose Everard. Lily had yet to appear to him this morning, but he didn't believe he'd be rid of her so easily, and when he remembered how sweetly Rose had filled his arms in the moonlight, he almost wished Lily back.
Self-consciously Rose patted at the kerchief, and only then did he realize he'd been scowling at it. "I've had to make do, you see," she explained apologetically. "I lost my last hat over the side yesterday, and even those few hours in the sun burned my nose to a quick."
"I'll wager we can do even better, Miss Everard, and save your poor nose in the bargain," he said, even as he mentally cursed himself for an insensitive brute. After all she'd just done for him, why the devil had he singled out her headgear like that? "We Yankees are known for being able to jury-rig anything. A lady's bonnet should be no challenge at all. Johnny!"
One of the ship's boys scurried over to stand before Nick.
"Johnny, fetch the straw tricorne from my cabin." As the boy ran down the companionway, Nick smiled at Rose, or at least at the top of the offending kerchief that was hiding her face. How much he longed to tear away that blasted scarf for himself and rediscover the girl he'd seen in the moonlight! "No milliner might claim it, true, but at least the brim's wide enough to keep the sun from your face. We can stuff that kerchief into the brim to make it fit you."
"That is most kind of you, Captain." She bobbed a lopsided curtsy, the best she could manage on the shifting deck. "Mr. Cole here was telling me himself how generous you are to your men, and now here's the proof that you're kind to your prisoners, too. Even an
English
prisoner."
There, thought Rose miserably, she'd done it again, spoken all wrong and muddled things worse than molasses. After last night she'd wanted to be civil to Captain Sparhawk for Lily's sake, and she'd tried, she'd really tried. She'd even covered for him before the red-haired lieutenant.
But she had no experience talking to men like this, and the more she'd babbled on, echoing her father's sentiments for lack of her own, the more stern and disapproving his handsome face had become. No wonder he'd sent below for another hat. She was a shabby, makeshift disgrace to his impeccable deck, a shameful excuse even for a prisoner. When she'd first turned to see him standing behind her, dauntingly perfect in the elegant green coat that turned his eyes to emerald, her heart had both twisted with hopeless admiration and plummeted with despair. She didn't miss the irony that it was Lily who was their single common bond, for, oh, how much more Lily would have made of the same opportunity!
She heard the boy's bare feet trotting back across the deck, and didn't bother to look. Of course she'd put on whatever hat Captain Sparhawk produced. He'd been right: most anything would be an improvement over the kerchief. She only wished he hadn't been the one to say so.
"I warranted this be what ye wanted, Cap'n Sparhawk." The boy's voice was full of doubt. "It bein' for
th' lady an' all. There weren't no other."
At that Rose turned to look, too curious not to, and gasped with wonder. In Captain Sparhawk's right hand was one of the hats from her trousseau that she'd believed was gone forever, her favorite, a Leghorn straw with the broad brim pinned up on three sides in cunning mimicry of a man's, and crowned with pink silk ribands and a dyed pheasant's feather. Miraculously the hat was as uncrushed and fresh as the day it had come from the milliner's, the ribands fluttering in the wind.
