The Captain's Pearl (17 page)

“But he won't believe that I can run the company.” Rising, she said, “That sounded mercenary. I didn't mean it that way. I don't want the Shadow Line. I want my father alive and well.” She wrung her hands. “Bryce, I'd do almost anything to thank him for the love he's given me.”

“I'm sure you would.” He took her hand and drew her down next to him on the sofa. Not releasing her fingers, he slipped his arm around her waist.

When she put up her hands to halt him, he shifted so they pressed to the front of his sweaty shirt. His green eyes sought within her, daring her to reveal things she had hidden even from herself. As she stroked his chest, she yearned to tangle her fingers in his dark hair and tip his mouth over hers.

Standing, she said, “I must see to my father. If you'll excuse me …”

Bryce took her hand. “I'll go with you, blue eyes.”

“All right.” Had he guessed that she was using going to see her father partly as an excuse to escape from Bryce's unspoken invitation to rapture?

When they met Hyett in the upper hallway, the butler smiled. “Captain Catherwood is resting, Miss Lianne. I sent his valet downstairs with the wet clothes so they don't cool the room.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course, Miss Lianne.”

Hearing the hesitation in his answer, she followed his gaze to where her fingers were laced through Bryce's. She did not fault the butler for being confused. She was baffled as well, but she needed Bryce's strength now. Maybe together he and her father could explain this connection they had to their ships. She wanted to understand it. Then she might understand Bryce … and her own heart, which ached for him.

When they reached her father's closed door, Lianne said, “I still think taking my father out there was incredibly foolhardy.”

His easy grin twisted her heart in a strange direction. “Listen to the captain. Then, if you want to chide me, I'll try to heed you.”

“Try?”

“I can't promise more.” His fingers stroked her hand before slipping along her arm. When she quivered, he murmured, “Let's go in and talk to the captain. Then you and I have something to talk about.” He pushed the door open.

Lianne forced her feet to a serene walk as she went to the bed. Taking her father's hand in hers, she said, “Father, if I had done something this foolish, you would have tipped me over your knee.”

His voice was a mere whisper. “I had to go out to the harbor one last time, my beloved child. Try to understand.”

“She can't, Captain.” Bryce kept his hand on the back of her waist. When she looked up at him, he grinned. “I don't know if she will ever understand sailors and their obsession with the sea.”

She frowned at Bryce, but said, “I will try to, Father. Now you should rest, and we—” Her voice broke as she put her hand in front of her father's open mouth. “No!”

She heard Bryce speak, but ignored him as she sought a pulse on her father's neck. Nothing.

With a sob, she threw herself into Bryce's arms. Somehow Father must have known that his last hours had come. That was why he insisted Bryce take him out in the small boat. Her dear father was dead, and … she did not know what would happen now.

Twelve

Lianne sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the table holding her father's flower-bedecked coffin. In her lap, she cradled the last connection she had with her mother—the thousand stories box. She ran her fingers over the clipper ship on its cover. She was no longer angry—not at her father who had strained his weak heart for one more trip on the sea, certainly not at Bryce who had made her father's last wish come true.

Tears spotted the silk she wore, but she paid no attention. This had been her first chance to mourn since the hour of her father's death.

Great-Aunt Tildy was shattered and had spent the past day sitting in the back parlor and weeping. Finally, with the help of a bit of brandy in her tea, she was asleep.

Tomorrow Father would be buried. Tonight was Lianne's only chance to mourn for him as Mother had taught. She would not have the proper 49 days to mourn him, because that was not the way of Americans, but she could have tonight. With the windows and pocket doors closed, she burned incense. She prayed to Mother's Father to welcome Father into the next world. How the two men would enjoy each other's company! They had shared a shrewd business sense and, so much more importantly, a love for her.

She prayed that tomorrow, before the coffin lid was closed, no one would notice the small package she had placed beside her father. In it was a piece of his favorite chocolate cake and the locket he had given her only a few weeks ago. She wanted him to have it to remember her.

The creak of the doors from the front hall sliding open startled Lianne. She leapt to her feet and stared at Bryce, who was wearing a navy pea jacket over his salt-stained denim trousers. This could have been the very same outfit he had worn the night Mother took her to meet Davis Catherwood.

“Bryce, I didn't think you were coming. I mean—” She was not sure how he would react if she told him that she had waited all evening for him to come to the house.

When he started to speak, he glanced at the coffin. Pain raced across his face. Quietly he said, “I've come to pay my respects.”

“The wake was earlier.” It seemed easier to whisper as she gazed up at his face, softened by smoke from the ginger incense.

“I know.” He walked back to the doors and drew them closed. “I didn't want to say my final farewell to the captain in the midst of a crowd.”

“If you wish to be alone, I'll go.”

“Stay, Lianne.”

At his startling entreaty, she put her hand on his brawny arm. “No one believes this is your fault.”

“It wasn't.” A wry smile fled across his face so quickly she wondered if she had seen it. “He died as he wished. He was a man of the sea.”

She pulled her eyes from his green gaze to look at her father's face which was no longer lined with pain. Perhaps Bryce was correct. Father's last words had been filled with contentment.

“A
ch 'eÅ­ng shaam
?” Bryce asked. “Are you Chinese again tonight?”

“I am not sure what I am. What I once was, I cannot be any longer.” She turned away, unable to face his sudden honesty and her own. Setting her thousand stories box on the table by the coffin, she said, “I don't mean a prostitute in a brothel.”

Her arm was gripped. “If you still are looking for an apology for what happened that night—”

“From someone else, perhaps, but not from you.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Whatever you wish. I am simply speaking the truth.”

He smiled coldly. “I thought, by now, you would understand.”

“What is there to understand? You come storming into my life whenever the winds blow you into port. Then you go and leave me to deal with the pain.”

“That may change.”

At his terse answer, the cold finger of unease grazed her nape. “What do you mean?”

“Read this. Your father gave it to me in the jolly boat, but told me not to read it until I returned to the
China Shadow
.” Looking at the coffin, he mused, “How do you think he knew his time was coming so soon?”

She took the crumpled page. That surprised her, for every report Bryce had brought to the house about the
China Shadow
had been folded neatly and placed in a packet to protect it.

When she opened the letter, she recognized her father's spidery handwriting.

Bryce
,

Lianne has ended her engagement to Weston Newberry. That pleases me, but I know she is sad. I can do nothing to ease her aching heart, because my days remaining are few. Because of that, I must think of the future of my child and my Shadow line. My friend, take them both, for it is as I wished from the beginning. Only when I thought you were lost did I allow Lianne to accept Dr. Newberry's proposal. He is not the man to run the Shadow Line, but I believed I had no choice until you returned to Stormhaven
.

Lianne has learned well the skills to oversee the Shadow Line, and if she were my son, I would not be in this quandary. But she is not my son, she is my daughter, a woman in a man's world. I have seen how you watch my beautiful daughter. Take her and help her make the Shadow Line the powerful dynasty it should be
.

I remain

Your friend
,

Samuel Catherwood

Lianne stared at the coffin. Bryce had asked her if she was Chinese or American. She knew the answer, for, in her heart, she still clung to the ways she had learned from her mother. She must honor her father's dying request.

“Lianne?”

“Yes?” She raised her gaze, but could not look beyond Bryce's lips which would soon have the right to claim all of her. That thought sent a shiver of anticipation and uncertainty rushing through her.

“I expected some sort of response,” he said.

“If you aren't displeased with my father's request, I will marry you.”

When he stared at her in amazement, she turned away. There was nothing else to say. She understood why her father had chosen him to have the Shadow Line, for Bryce was skilled in handling his ship and crew and respected by the other captains.

When his fingers lingered on her cheek, she looked back at him. His voice was thick with the desires burning in his eyes. “Lianne, you realize what you are agreeing to, don't you?”

“Yes, to be your business partner and your wife.”

“You realize as well that this would not be a marriage of appearances? You read your father's request for a dynasty to oversee the Shadow Line.”

“I understand.”

He shook his head. “But I don't. You have every reason to hate me. Why are you agreeing to this?”

Lianne smiled sadly. “How often have you been to China, Bryce?”

“Almost ten times now.”

“Yet you know nothing of the ways there. My father requested that I marry you. Can I do less than satisfy his dying wish?”

“And can I have you for my wife and not share your bed?”

“If I am to be your wife, I understand what my obligations are.”

“Obligations? Dammit, blue eyes! Don't you have any feeling?”

“What do you expect? For me to speak of undying love?” Her voice caught in her throat. “Father did what he must to see me provided for after his death.”

“And that's that?”

“Unless you prefer not to marry me.” She crossed her arms over the front of her
ch 'eÅ­ng shaam
. “Of course, I doubt you would be that foolish. Even if you have to be burdened with me, you are even more eager than Weston was to possess the Shadow Line.”

He took her hand and led her through the connecting doors into the back parlor. Only the light from the hearth cut through the warm darkness. Closing the doors, he said, “Sit down.”

“You are wasting no time making yourself master of the Catherwood house,” she said as she sat.

When he pulled a chair close to hers, he sat but did not touch her. “Don't be waspish, blue eyes, when you need to consider this with a cool head. I want the Shadow Line,” he said tightly. “I'd be mad not to want it. What I'm not so sure of—”

“Is if you want me to clutter up your life.” A cold smile edged her lips. “Don't think I shall be a clinging wife, angry when you come home warm from your mistresses' beds.”

He gripped her arms and pulled her to him. “You little fool!” He abruptly grinned. “How many times have I called you that?”

She peeled his fingers from her arm. “I am not your little fool any longer. I'm a woman who is honoring her father's last request.”

At her serene reply, he surged to his feet and brought her into his arms. Everything she had intended to say disappeared as his hand slipped along her back to cradle her head beneath his lips.

“It's been a hell of a long time, Lianne,” he whispered as his fingers combed through her hair.

“A long time?” she repeated, unable to create a clear thought when she stood in his arms.

“Since the first time I held you.” He bent and kissed her right cheek. “I've never forgotten how soft you were beneath me, blue eyes.”

Even as she savored the delight of his lips against her left cheek, she said, “You took advantage of the circumstances that night.”

“You're damned right!” He chuckled. “I
did
take advantage of circumstances that night, and I intend to take full advantage of these now.”

His mouth found hers with the ease of lovers who have spent a thousand nights in each other's arms. With a gentleness she had glimpsed so seldom, he enticed her to surrender to this passion. Although she knew the danger, she raised her hands to his wide shoulders. All her senses whirled into a frenzy as she pressed to him, wanting to touch, to be touched, to taste his rum-flavored breath.

When she gasped as he stroked her, his tongue sought the shadowed secrets of her mouth. His fingers sifted through her loose hair. Every inch of her wanted him. As her breath became shallow and fast, his lips sought its source along the curve of her neck.

She caressed him as brazenly, rediscovering the hard muscles across his back. When he drew her down on the settee, he leaned her back as he hooked a finger in her high collar and drew it away. As he teased her with gentle nibbles, she sighed his name.

“I'm glad you don't call me ‘Captain Trevarian' any longer. How aloof you were when the
China Shadow
returned!” He grinned down at her, as her eyes widened when he spoke in Cantonese. “I knew my fiery Lian was still here somewhere.”

“So sure, were you?” She quivered as his hand brushed her breast. She caught his face between her hands and guided his mouth back to hers. This ecstasy was too wondrous not to be shared. A flurry of kisses left her breathless.