The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) (32 page)

O’ Devir smiled wearily. “Good night—and soon enough, good mornin’, Andrew. ’Tis been a pleasure.”

“
Get some sleep.
”

The door closed behind him.

Finally alone, Ruaidri stood there for a long moment leaning heavily against the door. He was so weak he felt sick to his stomach. The cabin was making a slow revolution both around and inside his head and he despaired of even making it back to his cot.
I should have told him
, he thought.
Should have told him what happened with Delight…and with Josiah Brown.

Should have told him….

But hadn’t he said he’d known? How much did he know?

Staying alert, staying on his feet, and staying focused during the arse-grilling he’d just been dealt had depleted him of what strength he’d had left. He opened his door to order Morgan to change course, staggered back toward the bunk, collapsed face-down across it…and knew no more.

* * *

“Ships don’t just vanish into thin air, Mr. Dewhurst,” said Captain Lawrence Hadley, scanning the southern horizon beyond
Happenstance
’s plunging jib-boom. He swung the glass starboard, desperately hoping for a bit of white above the horizon that would at least give him hope that his prize,
Tigershark
, had survived that brief, vicious squall.

“No sir, they don’t. But they do occasionally vanish beneath the surface of the sea, especially during storms like that one we just fought our way through.”

McPhee, whom he’d left in charge of the prize, was a competent seaman and a level-headed officer. It had blown hard all night and the American brig might’ve sprung a mast following the damage to her rigging, or simply got separated from them. He told himself that was all it was, and that her absence would be short-lived.

He could not contemplate the very real possibility that she’d gone down in the storm. Not with one, but two de Montforte siblings aboard. The blame would, of course, be laid on his doorstep for allowing the two aristocrats to stay aboard the brig when they’d have been so much safer on board a Royal Navy warship. But no fate that awaited him should that brig not turn up in London under McPhee’s command—and it very well might—would come close to what the Duke of Blackheath would do to him if he did not bring his brother and sister back safe and sound.

Cold sweat ran down his back.

They were alive and the ship was fine and would be waiting for them in London. He was worrying too much. Letting his imagination get the best of him.

“Even so, prepare to tack, Mr. Dewhurst. We’ll beat down to as close to the coast of France as we can get, do a few passes where we last saw
Tigershark
, and keep our eyes peeled for signs that she went down. Flotsam. Spars, canvas, and—and the like.”

He could not say “bodies.”

“Aye, sir.”

He was the picture of calm as he stood at the rail, but only he knew of the sudden burning in the pit of his stomach, the restless agony of his bowels as nerves began to get the better of him.

The American brig did not appear on any horizon.

She did, indeed, seem to have vanished.

And in England, both the lords of Admiralty and the Duke of Blackheath waited.

Chapter 24

Morning broke bright and clear, and as the day progressed with no sign of the British frigate HMS
Happenstance
, the brisk easterly was happy to stay in their good graces by speeding them out into the Channel. By the time the shadows were growing long across the deck, Nerissa, her fair complexion protected by a straw hat as she sat in the shade of the mainsail, had found plenty of time to contemplate the enormity of what she had done.

Given the chance, would she have sacrificed all that she had ever known and been and was, to save Ruaidri’s life all over again?

Of course she would have.

A hundred times over. Even if he was unrelenting in his mission to bring Andrew or the formula back to the Americans. He had his duty, she supposed. And from what Andrew had told her over a shared lunch of stewed beef and hardtack, her brother had no intention of abandoning her anyhow.

At least, not until she and Ruaidri were married.

Eventually, the British prisoners in the hold would find their way back to England, carrying the news of her betrayal with them, and that weighed heavily on her.

I will never see Blackheath Castle ever again. I’ll never see De Montforte House in London again. Maybe not even my brothers and my sisters-in-law. I will be in disgrace, a hunted fugitive, and my actions will cost my family as much as they will cost me. Perhaps even more.

Her gaze went to the closed door to Ruaidri’s cabin.

But
he
is alive and once again in command of this ship. He is alive because of those very actions of mine, and I would not take them back for all the birthplaces and comfortable memories and family pride in the world.

The brig cut swiftly through the swells, the water rushing beneath her keel and falling away in great sheets of foam. She was a good sailor, Lieutenant Morgan told her, constantly searching the horizon with a telescope (and he had two more men aloft, also keeping watch for Hadley’s frigate), and she had outrun a powerful British warship before. Though
Happenstance
did not appear on the horizon the distant sails of a man o’ war’s did, but the leviathan was beating to the northeast and by the time she could come about, the American brig, had the other ship even seen her, would have shown a fleet pair of heels and been long gone.

Night approached, and the shadows began to fade. Nerissa’s anxious gaze went aft, toward Ruaidri’s cabin. He had not emerged all day, though she’d seen young Joey going in and out a few times as well as Mr. Jeffcote, the surgeon. How she longed to go to him herself, but Andrew had already made it quite clear that he would tolerate no impropriety until they were safely married. Seeing Captain O’ Devir in possible dishabille, he said, would not do.

The evening meal was served. Nerissa dined on deck with Andrew, Lieutenant Morgan, Midshipman Cranton, and the new sailing master, who regaled them with exaggerated stories of mermaids, sea monsters, and where he was convinced the lost city of Atlantis lay. His voice droned on while the sky went from purple to black, the brig’s long jib-boom just visible far, far ahead against the stars. Nerissa stole another worried glance toward the stern cabin. Why had Ruaidri not come out all day? She longed to go to him, to check on him, to ensure that he had everything he needed, that he was not growing feverish or uncomfortable. Most of all, she just ached to touch him—and to be touched by him.

The stern lantern was lit, and
Tigershark
continued westward through the Channel. Morgan called for the main topgallant to be set, and the ship picked up speed through falling darkness. Someone far forward began to sing, and a few drunken voices joined the lone crooner.

It was a happy ship, once more.

“I’m going to bed,” Nerissa announced, and Andrew saw her to the cabin he’d insisted on for her and bid her goodnight. She waited for his footsteps to fade. Before ten minutes had passed, she was silently making her way topside through the darkness, and easing open the door to Ruaidri’s quarters.

All was quiet. A lantern swung from a hook, throwing a soft, shifting glow over the small space that drew shadows with the motion of the brig. Slowly, Nerissa turned to look toward the cot, expecting to find her captain asleep, fearful she might find him dead.

He was neither, but sitting up in bed, a book lying across his lap—and he was watching her with a knowing smile.

“I thought ye’d never come.”

“You put a lot of faith in my ability to sneak around this vessel undetected. I waited until it was dark.”

He put the book down and began to swing his legs off the bed, his face going suddenly gray with pain. He offered a weak smile and fell back, the smile spreading as Nerissa marched up to him, picked up his legs, and gently swung them back up into the cot.

“You’re staying right there, Captain O’ Devir,” she said sharply, if only to take her mind off what it had just felt like to touch his long, well-muscled legs and feel their heavy weight in her hands. “Don’t you even try to get up, do you hear me?”

“Got no reason to go anywhere, now that ye’re here.”

“How are you feeling?”

“As sick as a small hospital.” He patted the space beside him, invitingly. “I’m too sore to get up. Come sit with me, Sunshine.”

He must have fallen into bed exhausted, not even taking off the clothes she’d last seen him in. Now, her gaze went to his breeches, the left one hacked off above the knee and soaked with blood so dark it looked almost purple. The stocking was long-gone, the leg itself ghastly to behold. Raw bruising, swelling, and just peeping out from above the back of his knee, stitches, ugly black things that would leave a scar; he must have ripped off the bandage sometime during sleep which, judging by the look of him, had been restless and tormented. She shouldn’t be thinking about how fine a leg he had, the calf well-defined and long. She shouldn’t be gaping at the sparse black hairs that ran the length of that leg and wondering what they would feel like beneath her fingers. The man was hurt, in pain. She felt suddenly guilty.

He grinned knowingly. “When I’m stronger, ye’ll find yourself in more trouble than ye can handle, lass.”

She laughed. “Sometimes I wonder if you can read minds.”

“Not minds, just faces. And yers is an open book.”

He reached a hand out toward her. She moved close to the cot and took it in her own. For a long moment neither said a word, content to just be in each other’s presence.

“Still angry with me?”

“Of course I am.”

“We had a good talk, yer brother and I.”

“I was afraid of that. But since you’re both still alive, I’m assuming you emerged as something more than enemies.”

“Well, ye should know that I’ve made my intentions clear to him.”

“Intentions?”

“That I
intend
to take you as my wife.”

Her heart leapt within her breast and she moved away, suddenly flustered. “Was he holding a gun to your head, loaded with his new explosive?

Ruaidri smiled. “I’m sure he would have, had I not asked for ye.”

“Why
did
you ask for me?”

He pretended to look wounded. “Come now, lass. Why do you think?”

“Because you were grateful that I pretty much threw my life away in order to save yours?

His eyes grew sad, and this time, there was no pretense. “I wish ye wouldn’t have done that, Nerissa. I’m not worth it, though those who serve this ship certainly are. ’Twas a rash move on yer part and there’s no goin’ back.”

She sat down on the edge of the cot, her hips snugged comfortably against the outside of his thigh. “It was not a rash move. I thought long and hard about what I intended to do, and I did it knowing full well what the consequences would be.”

“Tell me why ye did it.”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“No!”

“Did ye do it because ye felt sorry for me?”

“No.”

“Did ye do it because ye wanted to thwart Hadley?”

“No.”

“Did ye do it because ye didn’t want to see young Cranton and the rest, die in a British jail or at the end of a British rope?”

“No.”

“Ye’ve said the word ‘no’ five times now, Nerissa. For yer next response, the answer had damn well better be ‘yes.’”

He looked steadily over at her, the lantern throwing the shadow of his long lashes across his irises. In the gloom, he was pale and waxen beneath his mariner’s tan, his face and the pillow against which he lay, a stark contrast to the darkness of his hair. He reached out and took her hand once more.

“Did ye do it because ye love me?”

Outside, the sea washed softly away as the brig cut through the long ocean swells. A warm breeze drifted through the open stern windows. Here in this small, private space, the world ceased to exist and there was only them.

She looked steadily into his waiting gaze.

“Yes.”

He shut his eyes and sank back into the pillow, and she realized that despite his teasing demands he had, at least figuratively speaking, been holding his breath as he’d awaited her answer. An answer, it seemed, that was very important to him.

His thumb stroked the back of her hand. “Say it, then. Say it so there’s no confusion and no doubt in either of our minds why ye did what ye did, and say it because there’s nothin’ on earth I’d rather hear, nothin’ on earth that would make me happier than yer response to the next question I’m goin’ to put to ye—and the response to that one had damn well better be
yes
, too, Nerissa.”

She knew what the question would be. Her blood firing with want, with need for this man, she twisted around and, pulling her hand from his own, gently laid her fingers and palm against the bristly black shadow that had come up to cloak his jaw.

“I love you, Ruaidri O’ Devir.”

He just looked at her, his eyes as deep as the sea beneath them.

“I love you,” she repeated, when he said nothing. “You are entirely wrong for me, not the man my brothers would have chosen for me, but you are my world and if I had to betray my country and those who serve it all over again to save your wretched Irish hide, Ruaidri O’ Devir, I would. Again and again and again.”