Teresa Medeiros (39 page)

L
UCY’S ASTOUNDED GAZE TRAVELED BETWEEN the two men.

Gerard was leaning against the aft rail, his casual stance belied by the dangerous tension coiled in his folded arms. The other man loomed over her, his unrepentant grin slashing a devilish dimple in his left cheek.

Horrified anew, she pounded his shoulder with her fist. “Get off me, you lecher! How dare you take such liberties?”

“Don’t be so hasty, Lucy,” Gerard chided. “You did appear to be enjoying yourself.”

“But that’s because I thought—” Lucy bit her traitorous tongue. What she’d thought was even more damning than kissing a stranger. She wasn’t about to gratify Gerard’s infuriating smugness by confessing that she’d been dreaming about kissing him.

His brother gracefully disengaged himself from her supine form. She sat up and tucked her knees beneath her, trying vainly to rearrange her disheveled hair.

“I’m fully prepared to shoulder the blame, brother,” he offered gallantly. “I never could resist a pretty girl in the moonlight.”

Gerard’s eyes narrowed. “You never could resist any girl in any light. Do I have to remind you that this particular beauty can now identify you to the authorities as Captain Doom’s temporary replacement? Why do you think I locked the door of the dungeon when I left?”

“You know as well as I that they haven’t invented a lock I couldn’t pick. If they had, you’d still be rotting away in Santo Domingo.”

“And some jealous husband would have shot you dead by now,” Gerard retorted.

Their verbal sparring suggested a contest of long standing. Lucy’s gaze bounced between the two men, still trying to absorb the shock of her discovery.

Now that they were both on their feet, the differences between them became far more evident. Gerard’s strength was of the compact variety while his taller brother reminded her of a lanky, loose-limbed colt. His hair was a shade lighter than Gerard’s and his eyes more green than hazel. From the absence of crinkles around them, she judged him to be nearly a decade younger than his brother.

“Does he have a name?” she interjected when they both paused for breath.

Gerard turned his excoriating sarcasm on her. “You might have thought to ask that
before
you swooned so blissfully in his arms.”

Before she could retort, her hand was snatched up and pressed to a pair of eager lips. “Kevin …” He hesitated, shooting his brother a panicked glance.

“Doom?” Lucy offered dryly.

“Claremont,” Gerard barked.

“Kevin Claremont, my love, at your undying service.”

Lucy might have been flattered had she not suspected he greeted every female with the same fervent ardor. Behind him, she could see Gerard mouthing her reply with uncanny accuracy. “Lucinda Snow. My friends call me Lucy, but you may call me …” Seized by inspiration, she bestowed a dazzling smile on the younger Mr. Claremont before crooning, “Lucy.”

Gerard glared at her over Kevin’s shoulder, his gaze sharp enough to cut diamonds.

Kevin’s lush lips tightened to a pout. “Damned unsporting of you to sneak this beauty aboard after you were so cruel as to kick off my actress friend in Dover that time.”

“She wasn’t an actress. She was a prostitute,” Gerard shot back. “You didn’t honestly expect me to believe she was your cabin boy, did you?”

Lucy climbed to her feet, peering curiously at the sandy hair caught in a queue at Kevin’s nape. “It’s very odd, sir, but I feel as if I know you.”

Gerard snorted. “As well you should. You clipped his absurd feats of derring-do from the papers the entire time I was stuck at Ionia. I’m damned lucky I had a ship to come back to.”

“Cap’n Doom!” Lucy exclaimed. “You’re the one from the Howells’ masquerade. The one with the atrocious costume.”

Kevin clapped a hand over his heart. “You wound me, fair lady. I thought I was quite dashing.”

“Subtlety has never been my little brother’s strong suit. Equipping my ship with a fully functional torture chamber was his idea too.”

Before Lucy could object, Kevin linked an arm through hers and drew her close to his side. “Hospitality has never been my
elder
brother’s strong suit. I hear
he’s been woefully neglecting you.” He cast his brother a reproachful look. “Sometimes it’s difficult for those who are rapidly leaving behind the pleasures of youth to remember how easily bored we are.”

Gerard opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. He clenched his teeth in an acidic smile. “If you’ll excuse me, I tire easily in my dotage. I believe I’ll leave you children to your”—his gaze dropped briefly to Lucy’s lips, which still felt moist and swollen from his brother’s uninvited kiss—“pleasures.” His shoulders set at a painfully rigid angle, he melted into the shadows.

Lucy wiggled in Kevin’s grasp, intent on going after him. “Let me go. I—”

“Don’t,” Kevin whispered sharply. “He never took me seriously until I stopped trotting at his heels. The crew gives him enough adoration. He needs something entirely different from you and me.”

Lucy ceased her squirming, startled by the wry note in her captor’s voice. As she met his sparkling green eyes, she had the distinct impression that she’d just found a long-lost friend she’d never known was missing.

The foretop lookout was no longer a safe refuge for Gerard. Watching Lucy cavort about the ship alone had been a vicarious torment. Watching her cavort about the ship with his brother filled him with a nameless agony. To see their fair heads together. To hear their carefree laughter ringing on the wind as if they shared a joke incomprehensible to the rest of the world.

He’d never been so conscious of his thirty-one years or so keenly regretted the time that had been lost to him. Not lost, he reminded himself bitterly. Stolen.

During that time, the plump, awkward, worshipful
little brother he’d left behind had shed his baby fat and honed his skills as a reprobate. Using the money Gerard had so painstakingly stashed away for his education, he drank, gambled, and cajoled his way into the company of some of the richest and most notorious rakes in London. With his uncanny knack for numbers and his flawless memory for cards, Kevin had fleeced the more reckless of them of their fortunes, just waiting for the night when destiny would place him across the table from some drunken braggart who might know the fate of his older brother.

After three years of living in such debauchery, destiny had delivered Lucien Snow into his hands. It hadn’t taken the sharp-eared Kevin long to make the connection between his missing brother and the man’s boasts about swindling “Captain Doom” out of a veritable king’s ransom.

Gerard knew Kevin had been tempted to call Snow out on the spot, but he feared the Admiral had the power to have Gerard moved to another prison or killed if he scented a rescue attempt. So he’d simply excused himself, gathered his winnings, and sailed off to Santo Domingo to find his brother.

Gerard had little memory of those first dark days after the rescue. He remembered Kevin’s gentle but relentless hands pouring water down his throat, his brother’s voice, familiar, but much deeper than it should have been, coaxing him to open his mouth so a spoonful of broth could be dribbled inside. Kevin had forced the wasted wreck of a man that he’d become to survive until Gerard’s consuming desire for revenge gave him a reason to live.

Which made it doubly difficult to go strolling on the quarterdeck late one evening to find Lucy holding court with his brother as her crown prince.

All lanterns were to be extinguished after eight, but
a misty orb of a moon bathed the deck in a silvery glow. Lucy sat in a circle of men, flanked by Kevin and Tarn, their laughter and teasing underscored by the sporadic clatter of dice.

Gerard approached with the fleet grace for which he was notorious, pausing in the shadows just outside their circle of merriment. It had been bad enough to feel excluded from Lucy’s life in London, but on his own ship, the sensation was almost unbearable. It quickened his temper to the point of danger. Made him want to grab her by those ridiculous braids, drag her back to his cabin, and remind her in the most potent way possible just who was master of this ship.

“Here, Lucy,” Tarn called out, passing her a battered mug, “p’raps a bit of rumfustian will change yer luck.”

Lucy took an obedient sip. Her grimace elicited a burst of laughter from Digby and Fidget. “Good heavens, Tarn. What’s in this stuff? Hemlock?”

Tarn ticked off the ingredients on his fingers. “Gin. Sherry. Rum. Spices …”

“D-d-don’t forget the raw eggs,” Pudge shyly offered.

Lucy coughed and sputtered. “Not much chance of that.”

When the laughter had subsided, Kevin leaned over and folded the dice into her palm. “Sixes are the main. A kiss for luck, darling.”

Gerard’s hands clenched into fists. He held his breath, fearing what he would do should Lucy tilt her lips to Kevin’s handsome face for a kiss. In twenty-two years, he’d never lifted a hand to his brother in anger; now he wanted to fasten them both around the tanned column of Kevin’s throat and strangle him.

His captive breath escaped as Lucy brought her cupped hand to her lips and gently bestowed a kiss
upon its contents. Even that innocent gesture made the blood pool, hot and heavy, in Gerard’s loins.

He stepped forward, no longer content to hover in the shadows. “What a charming pet you’ve made of our little hostage. I’ve heard of vessels keeping a trained dog to amuse them. Or even a pig. But never an admiral’s daughter.”

Gerard’s unexpected broadside jolted Lucy to the core. Her fingers went icy, then numb. The dice tumbled from her hand, rewarding her clumsiness with two sixes. After an instant of stunned silence, the men sent up a halfhearted cheer.

Their captain’s slow, sarcastic applause silenced them. His mood had been less than predictable lately. “Cursed with the devil’s own luck, isn’t she? Or perhaps just her father’s.”

Lucy’s nerves had been stretched taut by the effort of forcing a gaiety she did not feel. At the unprovoked attack, she sprang to her feet to face him.

Tarn’s hand snaked to his breeches to check the security of his pistol. Pudge inched backward. Fidget’s cheek twitched and Digby began to swear softly, but fluently, beneath his breath. Kevin gazed at the fallen dice as if able to divine the future in their inscrutable dots.

“You’ve a lot of nerve condemning my father for gambling, Captain,” Lucy said, stabbing a finger at Gerard’s chest. “What do you think you’re doing? Isn’t there any risk in sailing in circles just waiting for the Royal Navy to find you? Isn’t there any hazard in trying to outwit ships with bigger guns, bigger crews, and more brilliant strategists than you could ever hope to be? Why, you’re more of a gambler than my father ever was! Only you gamble for keeps. You gamble with these men as your dice. Their lives and their futures
are all your stakes and you don’t give a damn about any of them as long as you win in the end.”

He gazed down at her for a long moment, his unassailable dignity more infuriating than any outburst. “Perhaps we should reconsider getting that pig,” he said quietly before turning on his heel and leaving her to mop up her own mess.

The men crept off, one by one, refusing to look at her. She turned her burning eyes on Kevin, expecting him to cheer her show of spirit. His expression was oddly reproving. She sank down and rested her cheek on her folded knees. She’d be damned if she was going to cry again, she thought sullenly. She’d shed enough tears for Gerard Claremont to replenish the sea.

When it finally came, Kevin’s rebuke was all the more potent for its gentleness. “Curse him for his stubbornness, Lucy. Damn him for his ambition to succeed, no matter what the cost. But don’t undermine his competence in front of his men.”

Lucy sniffed, despising the telltale thickness of her voice. “I should have known you’d defend him. The wretch
is
your brother.”

“And the only father I’m ever likely to know. He brought me into this world and buried our ma when the job was done. Instead of abandoning me when he went to sea, he found a captain with a wife who would raise me as her own. They hadn’t much money, but they had a comfortable cottage in the country—much more than he’d ever had. He might have left me then and not looked back, but he didn’t. He was gone for months at a time, but he never returned without some exotic present for his baby brother. Until the day came when he didn’t return at all.”

Lucy turned her face away, but Kevin squatted in front of her, ruthless in his quest to make her understand. “Gerard’s father had the grace to marry our
mother before he was lost at sea. She took to the streets after that. My own father could have been any one of a dozen men. I’m a bastard, Lucy, but whatever Gerard’s name might be at any given moment, he always shares it with me.”

Lucy lifted her head. The breeze snatched at the bitter tears she had vowed not to cry. “Then you should consider yourself fortunate, for that’s more than he’ll ever share with me.”