The Diamond King (45 page)

She heard an elated shout, then another, and looked back at the pursuing ship. The shrinking figures had abandoned the cannon as the ship came to a complete stop. Even from the distance, she heard a crashing sound as the ship hit a reef and foundered.

Alex looked down at her and released an indrawn breath. Then he leaned down and kissed her.

His arms tightened as if he would never let her go as their small craft lumbered to safety.

Alex felt a heave of relief as its tall masts of the
Ami
came into sight, the ship anchored in a protected harbor on the leeward side of a large island.

Sailors were lined on deck and when they saw him, they waved and shouted. Robin and Meg had huge grins on their faces, and his heart raced. It really was a good feeling to be missed. Claude and Hamish both saluted.

He assisted Jenna aboard and watched as she gave both children huge hugs. Even Robin submitted to it with an abashed smile. “I missed you both,” she said in a voice that left no question of her sincerity. The children beamed.

Then she turned to Celia, who had been watching with a wary expression until she saw the hugs and the smile on Jenna’s face. She visibly relaxed and, in turn, received a big hug.

Alex watched the tableau with bemusement. They all belonged together. They were a family. Jenna and Meg and Robin. Even Celia.

Then the children broke away and came over to him. Robin put out a hand in a gentlemanly fashion. “I am pleased you are safe, sir.”

Meg stood before him. “Me, too.”

But there was not the exuberance of their greeting with Jenna. There was affection, to be sure, probably even love, but also a reserve. That reserve hurt.

And yet he knew he had cultivated it. He had instilled it in them, afraid of his own feelings, of an involvement of the heart.

He stooped down and put an arm around Meg. “Your hair is growing out,” he said, damning himself for thinking of nothing better to say.

It seemed sufficient to Meg, though. She broke out in a wide smile and hugged him hard. It was the first time she had done that, and he felt as if he had just grown two feet taller, as if his heart had opened for the first time.

Then he put an arm around Rob, saw the surprise followed by delight in the boy’s eyes.

Two sets of arms wound around him, and he had never felt so whole.

He finally untangled himself, understanding for the first time that he had been a coward, afraid to love or accept love, and perhaps the latter was the most difficult of all. He had thought he was being strong, when he was really being weak. It would continue to be difficult for him. One did not change overnight.

He stood and greeted the others, particularly Claude who had waited so faithfully. Then he asked Claude for some coins. The small craft was still bobbing alongside the
Ami
, but obviously ready to leave. He asked them to wait until Claude returned with a small pouch of coins. Alex then climbed back down to the fishing boat. He clasped hands with the fishermen who had risked their lives for him and rewarded them with gold coins from the cabin.

They grinned at the unexpected bonus, nodded their heads, and took his outstretched hand as he said good-bye to them.

Once he climbed back aboard, the sails were unfurled and the ship slid from its anchorage on a course they hoped would let them evade the British and the Portuguese. He felt immense relief as well as the exhilaration as he always felt at sea.

The children—and Jenna—watched with him at the railing until the small boat disappeared.

Then Jenna looked down at herself, the soiled clothing, the hair tied back but knotted and dirty. “I think I will wash my hair and change clothes.” She turned and fled down the hatchway, Celia trailing behind her.

Alex waited until they had clear seas, then went down to the first mate’s cabin he was sharing with Claude. He too needed to do something about his current state. Burke appeared and Alex asked him to take some water to Jenna, then to bring some to him. Burke, he added wryly, might want to do the same.

Burke grimaced and disappeared. Alex wondered whether they would exhaust the water supply among the lot of them.

Alex was in the officers’ mess, playing with a deck of cards, when Jenna appeared.

“I’m hungry,” she said, surprised to see him there. She had expected him to be on deck. She, in the meantime, was hungry for anything that was available.

He rose. He had shaved and the good side of his face looked incredibly handsome. He was wearing a white flowing shirt tucked into a pair of trousers that hung more loosely than usual around his long legs. Her own dress, one she’d brought from London, was equally as loose.

She felt dowdy with a dress that no longer fit and wet, albeit clean, hair that she had braided.

But when he looked at her, she knew immediately he saw another Jenna, a Jenna that was pretty and desired.

“Cards?” she asked as she looked down at his hands.

“Aye. A deck my brother-in-law gave me.”

There was a peculiar look in his eyes. One she had never seen before. He seemed to be working out a puzzle in his own mind.

He turned away from her. He placed a card faceup. A jack of spades.

He smiled in a strange way. “Does that mean anything to you?”

“Aye,” she said. “The Black Knave legend. The man who saved Jacobites and tormented the British. He disappeared, but then returned.” Then her eyes widened. “Not you... ?”

“Nay. I was recuperating from wounds. But I knew of him.”

“My father feared him.”

“Like my brother-in-law, he fought with Cumberland and was sickened by it. He later married a Jacobite.”

“He still lives?”

“Aye.”

“Where?”

“In America.”

“I thought he had been killed.”

“That is what he wanted everyone to believe.”

The fact that he told her that much showed a trust she’d not felt before. She wanted to ask more. She wanted to ask why and how he knew what he did. She sensed there was far more to the story than he’d said, but there was also a reason he was telling her this now.

She held her breath.

“I’ll always be a fugitive.”

“I know.”

“I have a restless streak.”

“I know.”

“I like the sea.”

“So do I.”

He was arguing with himself, but something had happened on the deck of the fishing boat earlier. When he had clasped her, protecting her against iron cannonballs, his reserve had melted. He’d told her then—wordlessly—that she meant far more to him than he’d ever wanted her to know.

She had felt it in the way his lips pressed against her hair, in the grip with which he held her.

“I do not know if I can ever stay in one place.”

“Then I will go with you.”

“I have killed people.”

“I know.” She touched his hands. “But always in a good cause.”

“Nay. There was a time I just wanted to kill.”

She stepped closer to him. Her fingers touched his coal black hair, then ran down the scar. “Do you know how much you have given me?” she asked.

“Trouble. Fear. Danger.”

“Belief in myself. And that is far more important than anything else.”

She saw a muscle throb in his throat.

“Let me make my own decisions,” she whispered. “Until now, everyone has made them for me. The greatest thing you can do for me is let me make this one.”

He turned over the heart queen. “That was what my brother-in-law called my sister.”

Heart queen
. It was oddly whimsical. Another story?

One day she might hear it all. But now all she wanted was a happy ending to her own story. She still wasn’t sure she had one.

She took the deck from him and thumbed through it. She finally placed the diamond king faceup.

“My sister called me that,” he said.

“I think I would like her.”

“You would. You both have heart.” He rose to his feet. “I would not like to harm that heart.”

“You can do that only by ignoring it.”

He looked down at her. The heart under discussion started beating rapidly.

He had looked at her with passion, with longing, with lust. He had never looked at her quite like this before. With love he did not try to disguise.

“I can promise you little, except that I will try.”

“That is all anyone can promise.”

He chuckled. “You always surprise me, Lady Jenna.”

“I’m not a lady any longer. I do not want to be.”

“You are always a lady, Jenna. Even when you dress in trousers and are half-drowned. The problem is I’m no gentleman.”

“I always thought gentlemen were overrated.”

His arm went around her and she leaned against him, her head against his heart. She thought it might be beating as loud as her own.

“I might be very bad for you.”

He was still arguing with himself. But at least he was doing that. It was promising.

She looked up at him, and his lips met hers. They were gentle at first, then demanding, and she met his kiss with all the passion and love and need that had been building during these months. She opened her mouth to his breath and it became hers. She listened to his heart and it beat in tandem with her own.

She felt his surrender.

Or was it his triumph?

The
Ami
neared New Orleans. It had taken nearly two weeks, but they had avoided the major shipping lanes.

As they neared the Mississippi and started up its mouth, Alex wrapped his arm around Jenna. Meg peered ahead while Robin helped with trimming the sails. “We can sell the
Ami
here, buy a smaller trading ship for the Portuguese trips,” he said. “The Comte de Rochemont should be pleased with his diamonds. I should have enough from my share to buy property and start a shipping company.”

He had mentioned New Orleans before, but he had not actually made a decision. He’d wanted these days with her.

He’d wanted to make sure that once imminent danger was gone, she would feel the same.

That he would feel the same, that he could really give her a life, that his own fears would not destroy her.

But he’d let something go that afternoon when he’d looked at the cards. Other men had experienced the same demons he had, and had made something exceptional of their lives. Perhaps he could, too. At least, he could give it a chance. For both of them.

First, though, he would have to fulfill his obligation to Etienne, who had given him an opportunity to forge a life of his own. He would propose a partnership of sorts—a shipping company for trade between France and New Orleans with perhaps a few stops along the Brazilian coast. Claude had already said he would continue the smuggling. He, too, had developed a sense of adventure, and in a few trips, he could be a very wealthy man.

Alex’s share of their privateering and the diamonds would give him enough to build a company.

During the journey to New Orleans, he’d wondered whether he could be happy in one place. He hadn’t been even when Scotland was at peace before the ill-fated rebellion. But then perhaps he had been looking for what he had now found. A family.

It had taken him time to get used to the idea. He had given it up long ago, and it had taken that moment on the fishing boat when a cannon had nearly killed Jenna yet again that he realized love was worth taking the chance of loss. She had taken so many risks for him. How could he do less?

He wanted to protect her. He had to protect her. He loved her with every fiber of his being.

The Forbes cousins—Rory and Neil—had taken the gamble. They had risked everything to save others, then were still able to love and build futures. Had he less courage than them? Had he been wrong in depriving Jenna of deciding her own life?

Jenna looked up at him. It was the first of October and the air was cool and crisp. The wide river was lined with trees. No alligators or huge snakes anywhere.

His gaze met hers, saw the questions. They had made love the first night at sea again, the night after he had stared at the bloody cards for hours.

It had been even more glorious, more passionate, more magical than the night in Martinique. Knowledge added a new depth of intimacy. The relief of certain safety after weeks of terror and anxiety had removed the desperation, giving them time to learn about each other in the sharing of love.

They had touched with wonder, and trembled with the depth of their need. He had not been able to slow his movements, not when she welcomed him so completely.

But the next time, it had been seductively slow and easy, their bodies moving together in a sensuous dance as they explored each other, and kissed lazily, and then exploded with passion.

From then on, they’d shared the same bed....

And now she felt natural in his arms. She was his refuge.

His home.

She looked up at him with the excitement he’d come to recognize. She was ready to embrace this new life as much as she had embraced him in the night. Her face was rosy with the sun, her sea-colored eyes brimming with vitality, her body braced against the wind and any troubles that might confront her.

By the saints, but he loved her.

More wondrous still, she loved him.

“Will you marry me when we reach New Orleans?” he asked. “Meg and Robin need a family.”

“And you? Do you need a family?”

“Aye.”

“Is that all?”

He smiled slowly. “You are going to make me say it, aren’t you, lass?”

She waited, her brows raised in challenge.

He touched a curl that was blowing in the wind, then his fingers moved to her cheek.

“Nay, that is not all, lass. I love you. I love all that you are. I have for a long time. I just—”

She raised up on her toes and halted the sentence with her lips.

And answered him.

New Orleans,

Nine Years Later

Her heart swelling, Jenna waited at the altar as Meg came down the aisle of the Catholic church, to stand beside her, then clasp hands with Robin.

Robin looked incredibly handsome in his wedding clothes with a tender yet beaming smile spread across his face.