The Captain's Caress (16 page)

“Did you have a restful afternoon? The roses are back in your cheeks.” He brushed her face with his fingertips, and her initial resolution to strike his hand away was recast into a longing to press his smiling, self-assured face to her heart.

“You were a little worn down at midday. You shouldn’t have let us tire you so.”

The unmistakable sincerity in his voice caused Summer’s will to dissolve even further. Instead of telling him that the only things that tired her were his constant demands, she struggled to keep her determination from melting completely under the warmth of his gaze.

“I feel much better,” she said, favoring him with a mechanical smile. “Solitude is a wonderful restorative.”

“You’re likely to have a lot more of it soon,” he remarked offhand, as he led her to where the final foot race would begin. Why was he always throwing half-phrases and unexplained statements at her? They drove her crazy. She longed to ask what he meant, but there wasn’t time, even if she could have trusted him to give her a truthful answer.

This race would decide whether the captain or a short, compact member of his crew was the fastest. I hope that little man runs him into the ground, Summer thought rancorously. It’s time someone beat him.

“Watch Wells on the turns, Captain,” a voice called out. “With those little legs he can turn faster than a cornered Jaguar.”

“He looks like two crabs in a tangle,” contended another. “He’s fast enough, but the captain’ll eat him up in the last lap.”

The contestants ignored the good-natured banter, each concentrating on putting forth his utmost effort.

The shorter Wells, starting on the inside, bounded away from the starting line like a jackrabbit. Brent, larger and much stronger, started slower, but he gained quickly once he hit his stride. Before he could take advantage of his momentum, however, they reached the first turn. Wells barely seemed to slow down, but Brent had to come to a virtual stop and then accelerate all over again, giving Wells an advantage of several yards. Brent wasn’t as badly handicapped by the broader stern turn and he gained ground, but before he could pass Wells the sharp bow turn restored Wells’s advantage, enabling him to stay in the lead the second time around the deck.

The third circuit was the same, and it was obvious to all the spectators that Brent was furious at his inability to take advantage of his greater strength and speed. On the fourth and last circuit Brent was once more two yards behind, but he made up the whole distance down the backside. On the stern turn the spectators thought the captain was going to run up on Wells’s heels, but he came off the turn with only a yard disadvantage. In the final straight both men dug in, but Brent produced a burst of acceleration that left the crew with mouths agape. He shot past Wells and hit the upper deck in full stride. Realizing that he was beaten, Wells slowed down before reaching the finish.

To the surprise of the new recruits and the raucous delight of the veterans, Brent didn’t slow down in the least; with a tremendous leap, he dived over the rail, into the clear blue sea. A huge cheer sounded when he broke the surface and the crew rushed forward to pull up the rope ladder; everyone wanted to have a hand in helping their leader aboard.

At a distance from the press of cheering men, Summer clung to the rail for support, her heart pounding madly, her knees buckling under her. In spite of her vow, she had found herself cheering for Brent; when it had seemed his gallant effort would come to naught, she’d felt a stab of disappointment. And she had stood frozen with fear when he’d been running too fast to stop, horrified by the thought of his broken body being hurled back at them by the ironlike oak of the bow rail. A scream of pure terror escaped her when he vaulted into the sea.

Her cry was drowned amid the shouts and hoots of the crew who knew better what to expect of their captain. She rushed to the rail, hope that he was still alive in her breast. When he broke the surface of the water, wearing his usual arrogant grin and accepting the cheers of his men with the aplomb of a ruling monarch, Summer sagged against the rail, weak with relief but angry with him for causing her to undergo such fright. The two emotions warred within her, neither winning, and the conflict unnerved her so severely she began to shake.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” Smith inquired. Summer faltered badly, nearly losing her hold on the rail, and he reached out to support her. She tried to wave him way, but he persisted and she gave in, relieved to have someone to lean on, even if it was just for a moment.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, but she did not sound fine. “It’s just that I thought … when he fell over the edge … it was something of a shock.”

Smith rebuked himself. “It’s a pity I didn’t think to warn you. The captain has a habit of doing that. Rocks the pins out from under you the first time you see it, but he never comes to any harm.”

“He should,” she said, regaining a bit of her spirit. “I mean, he will if he keeps doing crazy things like that,” she corrected herself.

“The captain’s a very lucky man,” said Smith, guiding Summer to a seat on a pile of ropes so she would have an unobstructed view of Brent as he climbed aboard in triumph. “No matter what happens he comes through without a scratch. The men know he’s lucky and they’re sure it rubs off on them.”

As Summer watched Brent receive the adulation of his crew, she felt a tug at her heart and a quickening of her pulses. He was the most devastatingly gorgeous man she’d ever seen, and looking at him now, a natural smile on his face and friendly words on his lips, she forgot all the unpleasantness that lay between them. Conscious only of a surging desire to be near him, to share in the warmth of his friendliness, to claim some part of him as her own, she was jealous of his men, of their freedom to be near him, to enjoy his confidence and easy friendship without constraint.

“They really like him, don’t they?” she said more to herself than to Smith. “He seems so different with them.” There was an unmistakable wistfulness in her voice, and Smith felt compelled to respond to its plea.

“The captain is a very approachable man. The men feel free to take their problems to him, and they swear by his judgment.”

“Why don’t I feel like that? What makes him so different with me?”

“The captain is a very handsome man,” Smith spoke carefully. “Some women will do anything to attract his attention.”

“I’m sure of that,” she said, astringency back in her voice.

“They come too easily, so he doesn’t always value them as he ought.”

“If the way he has treated me is any example, they would
have
to come on their own. No woman could possibly interpret his manner as inviting.” She stood up to shake out her skirts and her mood changed. “We’d better go. I have a presentation to make, and if I’m late he’s bound to think it was on purpose.”

They go at each other all the time when I swear they mean to do just the opposite, Smith said to himself. I told the captain no good would come of having a woman aboard, and so it has turned out.

The group around Brent divided to make way for Summer. “I have to congratulate you, Captain, on a most spectacular finish,” she said stiffly. “I was certain you were going to be beaten this time.”

“Are you sure the right word isn’t
hoping?”
he asked. A slight tensing at one corner of his mouth belied the merry twinkle in his eyes.

“I always cheer for the captain,” she said, looking at him through her lashes and giving him a coquettish smile. She prayed the tinge of color in her cheeks would go unnoticed. “What else can a captive do?”

“Tell the truth,” laughed Brent, admitting that she had gotten the better of him. “Before you perjure yourself again, let’s go see if Nolan can lift as much weight as he claims. We still have three events before dinner.”

“I’ll never understand those two as long as I live.” Smith scratched his head as he watched them walk away together. “They argue over nothing and then make up when I’m expecting them to take up cudgels. It wouldn’t be worth it to me.”

Nolan lived up to his promise and they moved quickly through the toss to the final event, the short swim. Brent won easily, but not by the wide margin Summer expected. “He’s saving his strength for tomorrow,” Smith told Summer, who had become resigned to having Smith as her personal shadow.

“What for?”

“The distance swim and wrestling. He knows Lane is going to press him. Lane pretends to be lazy and uninterested in winning, but he’s just the opposite and the captain knows he’ll have to do his best if he wants to beat him. But what really has him worried is that he also has to wrestle twice during the morning. Nolan is favored to be his opponent.”

“Do you mean the man who won the weight lifting?” Summer looked to where a very large and brawny man of about thirty was moving full kegs as though they were empty. “But he’s even bigger than the captain. Brent will never be able to beat him.”

“He did last year, but then he didn’t have to swim against Lane, who was out with a sword wound.”

“Do you think he’ll win?” she asked, and her anxiety was apparent in her voice.

“I don’t know, milady, but if anyone can do it, the captain can. He doesn’t know what it means to give up. He always thinks of something that catches us by surprise.”

“Let’s hope his powers of invention don’t run out before tomorrow. In the meantime, all this excitement has made me ravenous. I think I could eat everything on the table.”

“If the persecuted looks his helpers are wearing are any indication, Jacques is preparing to serve up a truly royal banquet.”

Brent approached them. “As long as the food’s good, he has my permission to scare every boy in the kitchen out of his wits. You’d better get a move on, my girl. Dinner’s in less than an hour, and if you don’t start getting dressed soon, I’ll have to see that you do.”

Summer bridled instantly.

“I’d better get started as well,” Smith said, excusing himself. “I’ve got half an hour’s work to do yet.”

“I hope you pay him well,” declared Summer as she watched Smith retreat.

“Why?”

“Because he gets more done than any three people on this ship. And he puts up with your high-handed orders and cutting remarks without losing his temper or appearing to want to aim something hard and sharp at your head.”

“Unlike you?” Brent asked, helping her down the steep steps.

“Definitely not like me. If I were Smith, I’d walk off this ship so fast it’d make your head spin.”

“But Smith has one very valuable trait that can’t be bought,” Brent said, eying her with a nettled glance. “Loyalty. He wouldn’t leave for any other position on the sea.”

“Not even for his own ship?” Summer inquired, subduing a flash of anger in favor of curiosity.

“Not even for that.”

“But why?” she asked, passing into their cabin as Brent held the door for her. “I thought having a ship of his own was the great desire of every seaman.”

“It is, and Smith is no exemption, but he knows how much I value him.”

“How do you manage to garner all this loyalty? I can’t see what you do to earn it.”

“I’m sure you can’t, but in this case you have it backward.
I’m
the one who’s loyal to Smith.”

“You?” she exclaimed as though the thought were beyond comprehension.

“Yes, me. Don’t you think I can have any of those finer feelings you perceive in everyone else?”

“I don’t mean it like that,” she said, truly sorry for her choice of words. “It’s just that I can’t imagine why you’d feel that way.”

“There’s a great deal about me you don’t know,” he said as he stripped off his pants. “Smith was quartermaster of the first ship I signed on when I ran away from home. I didn’t know anything about being a sailor, and I probably wouldn’t have survived that first year if he hadn’t taken me under his wing and helped me avoid the mistakes so many boys make during their first time at sea.

“I was awfully stupid,” Brent confessed, smiling at the memory of hard times made softer by the passage of the years. “I didn’t know anything, was afraid of everything, and had been so petted and spoiled that I didn’t know what it was to take hard knocks and stand on my own two feet.” He hesitated over his choice of shirts.

“I don’t know why he didn’t despair of me, but he never did. I took up a lot of time he could ill spare, and brought him trouble from the sailors who considered it their privilege to tyrannize over new recruits. Smith is not a big man, and he has the appearance of a clerk, but of all the people I would hate to have as my enemy, Smith heads the list.”

“Smith?” said Summer, looking up from her mirror. “But he’s the nicest man on this ship.”

“Not when someone’s threatening him. Before the end of that voyage, there wasn’t a man aboard, except the captain and the first mate, who didn’t make it a point to stay out of his way.”

“I guess it was hard for you, not knowing what to expect.”

“I know you don’t think a great deal of me now, but you’d have turned up your nose in scorn at the poor fool who’d signed on thinking he’d come back in a few short months and reclaim his home.” Brent smiled, but the curve of his eyes didn’t hide his bottled-up bitterness. “I was even less prepared to do that than you are to be Gowan’s wife.” It was a shock to Summer to realize how thoroughly she’d forgotten her husband.