Teresa Medeiros (42 page)

Lucy’s worst fears were confirmed. Gerard was only too willing to take by force what she would have given him freely in love. She clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late to muffle her small cry of anguish.

Gerard jerked his head up. Their gazes locked, his eyes reflecting surprise, regret, then a naked pain that mirrored her own. But he did not try to defend himself. The shards of her broken trust littered the cabin floor between them, making trespass impossible.

With a strangled sob, Lucy gathered her skirts and fled, knowing instinctively that he would not follow.

T
HE SUN HAD YET TO TINGE THE HORIZON with pink the next morning when Gerard found himself standing outside the door of Lucy’s cabin. Odd how he’d come to think of the cabin as hers, he thought. How would he bear reclaiming it when she had returned to her safe, tidy life in London? Would a hint of lemon verbena still cling to his counterpane and haunt his barren dreams?

He rubbed his beard with a weary hand, contemplating the door. He’d spent a sleepless night on deck, gazing at the winking lanterns of the
Argonaut
, but seeing only the wounded betrayal in Lucy’s eyes, hearing only her muffled sob of anguish in the moment she had turned away from him.

Gerard had known when he had dictated those terrible threats that he’d never be forced to carry them out. The Admiral might care less for Lucy’s well-being than she was willing to admit, but the man’s sterling reputation was of paramount importance to him. He
would not allow it to be tarnished by the scandalous downfall of his daughter.

Gerard knew only too well that society, in all of its perverse hypocrisy, would condemn Lucy, citing some inherent sensual weakness in her character that might provoke a pirate to ravish her. After all, they’d been blaming Eve ever since the spineless Adam had partaken of the apple she offered him.

By nightfall Lucy would be safely aboard the
Argonaut
, cradled once again in the blustering bosom of her father. A pain seized his heart, fierce and unexpected, but he willed it away with the same resolve that had enabled him to spend five years in darkness without going mad.

It wasn’t as if he had any choice in the matter. Regardless of how hardily she’d adapted since her kidnapping, a girl of Lucy’s delicate sensibilities could never be suited to life aboard a pirate ship. Snow’s confession and letter of marque might acquit him of past crimes, but they lacked the power to absolve him of present sins. He had nothing to offer Lucy beyond the vagabond life of an outlaw, always one fleet-footed step ahead of the hangman.

He gave the door a gentle rap, then waited, glancing ruefully at the ledger in his hand. He doubted that he’d fare any better with a bouquet of roses or a foil-wrapped box of chocolates. Lucy was not a woman to be charmed by vain and sentimental gestures.

When there was no response to his knock, he opened the door and eased his way into the unwelcoming silence. As he’d expected, the bed was empty, the blankets undisturbed as if its occupant had risen early or never retired at all.

Lucy stood at the porthole, her lithe figure once again garbed in Tarn’s castoffs, her silky hair caught in two precise braids. Her gaze was riveted on the stark
specter of the motionless
Argonaut
. There was no sign of the beautiful gown, no hint of the enchanting woman who had welcomed him with such warmth only last night. Gerard’s breath caught with an aching sense of loss.

He cleared his throat with more difficulty than he would have admitted. “I’ll have to confine you to quarters today. For your own well-being, of course.”

He might have been addressing a statue. Or an ice sculpture, he amended, fighting an unreasonable flare of irritation.

He tossed her mother’s diary on the table with less care than he’d shown since finding it. “I thought this might help you pass the hours. I found it in your father’s strongbox. I haven’t read it,” he added, knowing she probably wouldn’t believe him.

Her glacial contempt showed no sign of thawing. Gerard could almost feel his toes beginning to tingle with frostbite. He could not resist snapping off a mock salute at her unyielding back. “Good day, Miss Snow.”

He was almost to the door when her soft reply came. “And a good day to you … Captain.”

As he secured the bolt that would once again make Lucy his unwilling captive, Gerard only hoped he could bluff the Admiral half as well as he had bluffed the man’s daughter.

Lucy kept her weary body propped at the porthole long after Gerard had gone. She watched in numb misery as dawn unfurled its glimmering thread on the horizon, despising its seductive beauty.

The sea at dawn is a cathedral, Lucy
.

The smoky warmth of Gerard’s words stirred memories best left buried.

“Hypocrite,” she muttered.

If the sea were a cathedral, Gerard was only too
eager to sacrifice her on its altar. Her traitorous heart lurched as a launch drifted into sight at the corner of her vision. Surely Gerard wouldn’t be fool enough to deliver that damning missive himself.

Her heart steadied. With each rhythmic stroke of the oars, the newborn rays of the sun glinted off Digby’s balding pate. He swiveled to give the
Retribution
a jaunty wave and a gap-toothed grin. Lucy found herself half wishing she was abovedeck to cheer him on. The elderly gunner’s wiry arms propelled the sturdy craft with surprising strength, sending it cutting through the deepening blue of the water in a direct path to the
Argonaut
. A gull danced and dipped above his head, startling Lucy with the realization of just how near they must be to land.

When the tiny craft drew alongside the massive man-of-war to be engulfed by its shadow, Lucy turned away from the window, hugging back a frisson of dread.

The velvet-bound ledger on the table caught her restless eye. She hesitated, reluctant to approach Gerard’s offering with anything resembling enthusiasm. The book had landed where he’d tossed it with a resounding thump, dislodging several of its yellowed pages. If he’d found it in her father’s strongbox, it was probably nothing more than detailed notes on the Admiral’s career or perhaps an impromptu collection of newspaper clippings immortalizing his military victories. A rush of contempt for her father’s unrelenting vanity surprised her.

Her innate curiosity got the best of her. She brushed her fingers across the ledger’s mildewed cover. A faint tingle passed from her fingertips to lift the tiny hairs at her rape. She drew the nearest scattered page toward her. The date inscribed at the top of the page read 26 May 1780. Lucy frowned, intrigued
by the unabashed femininity of the flowing script, so unlike her own.

“ ‘I write this in English,’ ” she read aloud, “ ‘for it pleases him and pleasing him has become my one desire, my only yearning, the sole obsession of my poor, besotted heart.’ ”

The quaint words echoed in the deserted cabin. Once Lucy might have dismissed them as the trivial ramblings of a sentimental fool. But with her own heart so tender from its recent bruising, they resonated with the timelessness of truth, made all the more genuine by their girlish ardor.

She read on. “ ‘He is a hero, they tell me, a valiant warrior in his country’s navy. I care nothing for that, but only for those grave, gentle smiles he bestows on me with such rarity.’ ”

Lucy’s stomach twisted into a dull knot. She sank into a chair, thinking how ironic it was that she might have once written those very words herself. Her hands trembled with suppressed emotion as she gathered the delicate pages into a semblance of order, finally understanding that they were her last fragile link to the woman who had given her life, then left her to face it all alone.

The noon sun boiled down on the
Retribution’
s deck, its relentless heat undiluted by even the whisper of a breeze. The glassy surface of the sea hung in eerie calm, just one more irritant to Gerard’s frazzled temper. He paced the length of the quarterdeck for what seemed like the hundredth time, swiping away the sweat tickling his nape. His crew wisely stayed out of his path, knowing it wasn’t anger provoking his savage mood, but apprehension.

His explosion of wrath came as predictably as the
toll of the bell ringing the next watch. “I should have never let him go. I should have gone myself.”

Gerard knew Tarn would alert them from the lookout at foretop the instant the launch was sighted, but he couldn’t stop himself from snatching the spyglass from Kevin’s hand. Patience had never been a particular virtue of his and it was even less so after losing five years of his life to Snow’s treachery. He scowled at the undisturbed tranquility of the water between the
Argonaut
and the
Retribution
. There wasn’t so much as a whitecap in sight.

“You gave him until sunset, sir,” Apollo cautiously reminded him from his perch on the fo’c’sle.

Kevin’s face had lost all traces of its puckish humor. His narrowed green eyes reflected a bitterness beyond his years. “I’ve played with him before, remember? He’s bluffing, is all. Letting us stew in our own sweat. He’ll come around, I’ll wager. He hasn’t any choice if he wants his daughter.”

Gerard slowly lowered the spyglass. Kevin’s words only colored his urgency with despair. Snow couldn’t possibly want Lucy any more than he did, yet he’d be the one forced to surrender her when Digby returned with the Admiral’s reply.

If Digby returned …

Not even the pounding heat could alleviate a shiver of pure dread at the grim prospect of sending another of his trusting crew to their death. Gerard returned the spyglass to his brother, still nagged by the one question that had haunted him ever since the
Argonaut
had sailed into view and dropped anchor.

A man of Snow’s authority should have had the entire Channel Fleet at his disposal for a quest as exalted as rescuing his only daughter from a notorious criminal like Captain Doom. So why had the Admiral brought only one lone ship to their rendezvous?

Gerard steadied his sweating palms on the rail, praying his answer to that question wouldn’t come too late.