Windswept (23 page)

She watched him go and waited until he’d closed the door. Then she investigated the little chamber at the top of the stairs.

A small window near the ceiling provided enough illumination to see without lighting the gas lamp on the wall. She latched the door and looked at the smooth oak seat over a porcelain chamber pot. The facilities were quite adequate, actually. Much nicer than the accommodations she’d had on the
Southern Star
.

Nora smiled at her purely feminine reaction to the water closet. Women could be in the most dire of circumstances, and Nora supposed she was, here in the middle of an ocean with a man who treated her abominably, but one nice little turn of events could make even the gloomiest situation a bit more sunny.

“You can stop grinning any time, Willy,” Jacob said.

The first mate pulled his leg up over his knee and sat back on the wooden bench that flanked the other side of the galley table. His green eyes glittered with foolhardy mirth that seemed a perfect match for the cocky angle he’d set his old British naval cap. To his credit, he did try to straighten his lips into a semblance of seriousness.

“That’s better. You do realize we’re in a hell of a mess here, don’t you?”

“One of us is, maybe," Will said, "but it ain’t me. I’m just a mate. I don’t have to make any decisions. I can just sit back and watch the goin’s on.” He pushed the cap back an inch. “That’s the way I like it.”

“I can’t have her on this ship.”

“‘pears she already is, Jacob.”

“Well she’s got to get off, and the only way I can think for her to do that is to take her back to Key West to her papa. If we’re lucky we won’t encounter a search and rescue fleet from the U.S. Navy on our way there. It’ll put us a couple of days late, but it’s better to be late than contend with the judge’s revenge if he suspects where his daughter is.”

Willy shrugged. “We’re not likely to meet the navy or anyone else for that matter if we head northwest now, Jacob.”

“Why’s that?”

Willy cast him a bemused expression. “I know your mind’s been elsewhere lately, but surely you noticed warning flags on the ships we passed the last half day or so.”

A fine captain he was. For the second time in minutes Jacob felt the unfamiliar flush of mortification. The truth was, he hadn’t noticed a single flag and Willy knew it. In fact he couldn’t even remember seeing another ship since they left Key West. He’d obviously spent too much time brooding in his quarters and not enough on deck. He leaned forward and stared at his first mate, trying to regain the authority he’d let slip away. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Will. Get to your point.”

“There’s a storm to the north. If we turn back now we’ll head right into the center of it. We’ll very likely end up shipwrecked ourselves on one of the reefs. Goin’ back to Key West isn’t an option.”

Jacob threw up his hands in frustration. “Well taking Miss Nora Seabrook to Belle Isle isn’t an option either! You know that.”

“I don’t know any such thing, but I believe that you believe it. I told you once before, Jacob, she seems like an understandin’ girl. I don’t think you give her enough credit. She might be just the one to accept what she’d find there.”

Jacob turned away Willy’s comments with a burst of pent up air. “Bah! She’d be more likely to accept the Borgia family if you ask me." He paced. "No, she definitely can’t go to Belle Isle.”

“Suit yourself, but what else are you goin’ to do with her?”

Jacob pondered the nearly impossible situation for several moments and then smiled when he came up with the perfect solution. “I’ve got it. We’ll keep heading south, but we’ll put Nora on the first ship we recognize that’s heading north, one that’s going around the tip of Key West. We’ll ask the skipper to drop her off at the harbor. She’ll be home in a few days at most, delivered unharmed into the judge’s arms.”

He waited for Willy’s agreeable reaction, and when it wasn’t delivered, Jacob tried to pry it out of him. “What’s wrong with you? It’s the perfect plan.”

“It’s a plan all right. Whether it’s perfect or not, only time will tell.”

“I should know never to tell you anything. You’re a hard man to convince, Will.”

It was the ideal solution, and Jacob knew it. He turned away from his mate and shouted to the
Dover Cloud’s
cook. “Quigley, haven’t you got that plate ready yet?”

“Aye, Captain.” The portly cook brought a platter to the table. It was piled with slices of ham and steaming boiled potatoes.

“Bloody hell, man! You’re not feeding a regiment of infantry. She’s just one little woman.”

“I know that, Captain, but she’s such a shadow of a thing. I’ve got less than a week to put some meat on her. And my good wife on Belle Isle would never forgive me if I brought that skin-and-bones lass to the island looking like she does.”

“For the last time…that skin-and-bones lass is not going to Belle Isle!” Jacob cringed. Already Nora Seabrook had disrupted the normal flow of activities on the
Dover Cloud
. If she were on the ship for seven days, think what feminine maneuvers would take place. Jacob was glad he’d thought of his fool proof plan to see her onto a ship in the next day or two at most.

“All right, then,” he said to the cook. “Take her the plate, but don’t stand by and spoon feed it to her. She’s not as weak as she looks.”

Despite his size, and balancing the heavy platter in one hand, the cook darted quickly through the low galley entrance. “Aye, Captain.”

Jacob stood, went to the single window in the gloomy room and looked out on the water. Clasping his hands behind his back he said, “I guess I’ve got to come up with a place for her to sleep, at least for tonight, if we don’t encounter another ship before dark.”

“She can have my quarters,” Willy offered.

“That’s perfect. We’ve got four extra beds in the crews’ cabin so you can bunk there.”

“I didn’t mean necessarily that I’d move out,” Will said with a grin in his voice.

Jacob turned to face him and answered with a smile of his own. As always, their time-ripened friendship had returned to normal. “Now Will, there’s no woman on earth as understanding as all that.”

Will went on deck, and for the next hour, Jacob sat in the galley and waited for Quigley to return. Eventually a lively tune warbled in the cook’s familiar whistle announced his presence seconds before he entered the room. He squeezed his bulk through the narrow doorway and set the half empty platter on the table.

“You still here, Captain?” he said, stating the obvious.

“It took all this time for Miss Seabrook to eat?” Jacob responded impatiently.

“It did, sir. She’s got a hearty appetite which pleased and surprised me. And a gift of gab as well.”

How well I know
. “So glad you enjoyed yourself,” Jacob grumbled.

Oblivious to the sarcasm, Quigley shook his head and chuckled. “Indeed I did, Captain.”

“Then I think I’ll visit the lady myself,” Jacob said. “We have a little unfinished business.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go just now, Captain.”

Jacob stopped at the doorway and spun around to stare at his cook. “You wouldn’t? Why not?”

“She’s not properly attired, sir. She gave some of her delicates and her dress to Mr. Skeet. He’s taken them to the hold for a bit of a wash. They were smudged with flour you see. I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed it.”

It was happening. His crew was turning into a bevy of ladies in waiting. “I noticed it, Quigley. I simply didn’t feel like acting as Miss Seabrook’s personal laundress.”

Unaffected by Jacob’s outburst, the cook busied himself at a scarred wood counter top and gave a few scraps of ham to the lackadaisical hound that always sailed with him on the
Dover Cloud
. “Still, Captain, I’d wait a while before disturbing our guest.”

Our guest
! Wait before
disturbing
our guest
who sat as cozy as a hen in his own quarters! Jacob hardly gave credence to that notion. No matter how it happened, Nora Seabrook was still a stowaway, and she deserved to be disturbed. She owed him answers, and Jacob was determined to get them. The crew of the
Dover Cloud
may be smitten with the idea of having the beautiful Nora aboard for the seven day sail, but Jacob certainly wasn’t.

Even as he said all this to himself, he berated his fickle mind for thinking of her in such positive terms. Remember why you left Key West in the first place, Jacob, he thought. It matters not that she’s beautiful. Pursuing her would only result in a match made at the devil’s altar and would lead to the ruination of the poor girl’s life. Nora Seabrook was like the sirens were to Ulysses, and if Jacob didn’t keep his mind on his original purpose, he’d be as tempted toward his own demon rocks as surely as the Greek was his mythical ones.

With any luck, he’d only have to face her one more time. He’d tell her of his plan to send her home and take her to her quarters in Willy’s cabin. Then he’d let his fawning crew see to her every whim while he set about the very real business of guiding his ship to its destination.

Jacob strode from the galley with renewed purpose in his step that matched the determination of his mission. He climbed the stairs to the main deck, crossed to his cabin, and knocked on the door. “Nora, I want to talk to you now!”

In seconds the door opened and Nora stood framed in the entrance. At her back, the sun from the one window cast her in a gilded halo. She was all gleaming white and shimmering gold with a crest of silken ebony spilling over her shoulders. She was an angel to a man who had never believed in them, and Jacob’s purpose dimmed in her presence.

“Of course, Jacob, come in,” she said softly.

She stepped back and he crossed the threshold never taking his gaze from her. The last of his bravado was swept away on the same breeze that rippled his white shirt around her body. The tails reached almost to her knees, and the ivory translucence of his garment revealed a hint of the mysteries hidden now under soft cambric.

Her hair, the color and texture of refined coal, tumbled in thick waves to her breasts. The straps of her camisole were visible under the shirt as was the delicate lace covering her chest. He detected the swell of her bosom above a ribbon tied at the bodice. The ties, narrow shadows under the placket of his shirt, ran down to her waist like rivulets of water.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I had nothing to wear, but as soon as my dress is dry…”

He cleared his throat and pulled his gaze away. “You do what you have to do. We’ll all make allowances for the short time you’re here.”

“The short time? Then the voyage we’re taking is to a close destination?” Her voice sounded small, hopeful.

He went to his desk and searched for something to look at on its uncluttered surface. Unfortunately it was free of the usual navigational charts and logs. Not surprising since he was well acquainted with this journey and had little use for them. Needing to gaze upon anything but the soft, feminine swells of Nora, he next went to the window and stared at the sun beginning its decent into the west. “The voyage
I’m
taking is at least six days more,” he said. “Yours, however, should prove to be much shorter.”

Her fingers closed around his elbow. “You’re not putting me off in some strange place? You wouldn’t do that.”

“It’s a far more merciful fate than befalls most stowaways.”

“Maybe, but what happened to me was an accident. I didn’t intend for it to happen.”

She let her hand fall and he couldn’t resist the temptation to look at her, to see the ever changing cast of her sapphire eyes. They had darkened in the last moments to a deep indigo, wary and guarded. Surely she didn’t truly fear him. “Oh, come, now, Nora,” he tested, “you’re saying it was an
accident
that you ended up on the
Dover Cloud
?”

“No, not ending up here, but remaining here was.”

He crossed his arms and widened his stance, determined to ignore the dangerous combination of seduction and vulnerability that emanated from her eyes, her mouth, the tilt of her head…

^P^P

He couldn’t allow himself to succumb to her ability to evoke his sympathy and passion. It was crucial to them both that he remember he was captain of the
Dover Cloud
and his domain had been violated by a trespasser. Never mind that the trespasser was this woman.

“It’s time, Nora,” he said. “Your medical and physical needs have been met. Your culinary and laundry concerns have been attended to by my crew. I think it’s safe to assume that there is no outside influence preventing you from answering my questions.”

She stepped away from him until the backs of her knees collided with the bed. Laying her hand on the mattress she slowly lowered herself onto the coverlet. The cool shadows in that darkened corner of the room bathed her in muted shades of ash and charcoal. Even his shirt against her skin was the soft gray of a dove’s wing. But her eyes, those great, luminous blue-gray orbs were as compelling as ever.

She took a deep breath. “Ask whatever questions you like, and I’ll answer them.”

Gratified when his voice did not betray the sudden lack of air in his lungs, he said, “There are just a few. And the first one is, why in God’s name are you here?”