“Eat first,” Katey insisted.
Judith grinned. “I did this afternoon.”
Telling her father she’d be right back, Judith slipped out of the captain’s cabin. A few lanterns were lit, but they weren’t needed with the deck currently bathed in moonlight. She caught sight of the moon in the eastern sky and paused. She wished it were a full moon, but it was still lovely. After she got the book, she decided to go to the rail for an unobstructed view of the moon before returning to her family. But as she hurried back upstairs, she dropped her book when she slammed smack into a ghost. And not just any ghost, but the Ghost.
Chapter Twelve
All she could do was stare at him as light from a lantern on deck illuminated him. Hair as white as she remembered and floating about his shoulders. His eyes a deeper green than she remembered. And tall. No, taller than she remembered she realized now that she was standing next to him, six feet at least. He was too close. She realized he’d grabbed her shoulders to keep her from tumbling backward down the stairs. But he should have let go of her now that she had steadied herself. Someone might come along and see them. Someone such as her father.
With that alarming thought, she stepped to the side, away from the stairs, and he let go of her. All she could think to say was “You’re dead.”
“No, I ain’t, why would you say so?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I think I’d remember dying.”
“We met a few years ago in that old ruin in Hampshire, next to the Duke of Wrighton’s estate. I thought you were a ghost when I found you there. What are you doing here?”
It took him a moment to connect the when and the where, but when he did, he laughed. “So that’s why you seem familiar to me. The trespassing child with sunset hair.” A slow grin appeared as his emerald eyes roamed over her, up, down, and back up. “Not a child anymore, are you?”
The blush came quickly. No, she wasn’t a child anymore, but did he have to look for the obvious evidence of it? She shouldn’t have left her evening wrap in the cabin. Her ghost was a common sailor. She shouldn’t be talking to a member of the crew for so long, either. Devil that, he was fascinating! She’d wanted to know everything there was to know about him when she’d thought him a ghost. She still wanted to.
To that end, she held out her hand to him but quickly pulled it back when he merely stared at it. A bit nervous now that he didn’t know how to respond to her formal greeting, she stated, “I’m Judith Malory. My friends and family call me Judy. It would be all right if you do.”
“We aren’t friends.”
“Not yet, but we could be. You can start by telling me your name?”
“And if I don’t?”
“Surly for an ex-ghost, aren’t you? Too unfriendly to be anyone’s friend? Very well.” She nodded. “Pardon me.” She walked over to the railing. She gazed at the wavering reflection of the moon’s light on the pitch-dark ocean. It was so dramatic and beautiful, but now she couldn’t fully appreciate it because she was disappointed, much more than she should have been. She almost felt like crying, which was absurd—unless Jack had been right. Had she really fancied herself in love with a ghost? No, that was absurd, too. She’d merely been curious, amazed, and fascinated, thinking he was a ghost, that there really were such things. Even after Jack and she were older and admitted he couldn’t really be a ghost, it had still been more fun and exciting to think of him that way. Yet here was the proof that he was a real man—flesh and blood and so nicely put together. Not as pale as she remembered. No, now his skin was deeply tanned. From working on ships? Who was he? A sailor, obviously. But what had he been doing in that old ruined house in the middle of the night all those years ago? The ghost had told her the house was his. But how could a sailor afford to own a house?
She was more curious about him than ever. Unanswered questions were going to drive her batty. She shouldn’t have given up so easily on getting some answers. Jack wouldn’t have. Maybe she could ask Uncle James . . .
“Nathan Tremayne,” said a deep voice.
She grinned to herself and glanced at him for a moment. He was so tall and handsome with his long, white hair blowing in the sea breeze. He was standing several feet from her and staring at the moonlight on the ocean, too, so it didn’t actually appear that he had spoken to her. But he had. Was he as intrigued with her as she was with him?
“How do you do, Nathan. Or do you prefer Nate?”
“Doesn’t matter. D’you always talk to strange men like this?”
“You’re strange?”
“A stranger to you,” he clarified.
“Not a’tall. We are actually old acquaintances, you and I.”
He chuckled. “Telling each other to get out of a house five years ago doesn’t make us acquainted. And why were you trespassing that night?”
“My cousin Jack and I were investigating the light we saw in the house. That house has been abandoned for as long as anyone living can remember. No one should have been inside it. But we could see the light from our room in the ducal mansion.”
“And so you thought you’d found a ghost?”
She blushed again, but they weren’t looking at each other, so she doubted that he noticed. “When we saw you there, it was a reasonable assumption.”
“Not a’tall, just the opposite.” Was that amusement she heard in his tone? She took a quick peek. It was hard not to. And, yes, he was grinning as he added, “You drew a conclusion that no adult would have come to.”
“Well, I wasn’t grown yet. That was quite a few years ago. And you were holding your lantern so that its light only reached your upper body. It looked as if you were floating in the air.”
He laughed again, such a pleasant sound, like a bass rumble. It shook a lock of hair loose over his wide brow. His hair wasn’t pure white as she’d thought. She could see blond streaks in it.
“Very well. I can see how your imagination could’ve played tricks on you.”
“So why were you there that night and looking so sad?”
“Sad?”
“Weren’t you?”
“No, not sad, darlin’.” But instead of explaining, he said, “Do you really believe in ghosts?”
She looked up and saw his mouth set in a half grin and the arched eyebrow. Was he teasing her? He was! She also noticed his green eyes were gazing at her intently. Quite bold for a common seaman if that’s what he was. Quite bold for any man, actually, when they’d only just met—that first time didn’t count.
In response to his teasing she said, “Jack and I admitted to ourselves a few years ago that we’d been mistaken that night. But we continued to refer to you as the Ghost because it amuses us. It was our special secret that we only shared with our younger cousins. It was much more fun to say we’d found a ghost than the new owner of the house. But you can’t be the owner of the house. What were you doing there?”
“Maybe I like secrets as much as you do.”
On the brink of discovery and of clearing up a mystery that had intrigued her for years, she was more than a little annoyed by his reply. “You really won’t say?”
“You haven’t tried convincing me yet, darlin’. A pretty smile might work. . . .”
Judith went very still. So still she thought she could hear her heart pounding. She couldn’t believe what had just become crystal clear to her. She knew who he was. It was that second instance of his calling her darlin’. She’d been too flustered to pay much attention to it the first time he’d said it, but this time she remembered where she’d heard it before. A mere two weeks ago from a man who she suspected was far more dangerous than a vagrant.
The moment it had struck her that night of how odd it was for a vagrant to be drinking French brandy, she had known he wasn’t what he’d first seemed to be. But that wasn’t all. He claimed to know the abandoned house better than she did, so he’d either been staying there a long time or had visited it more than once. His putting a lock on a door that didn’t
belong to him. His coming out of a hidden room where he could have been storing smuggled or stolen goods. And his warning her to tell no one that she’d seen him there. All of it pointed to his being a criminal of one sort or another.
Of course she’d told Jacqueline about him in the morning, and of course Jack had agreed with her conclusion and suggested she tell Brandon, who could prevaricate a bit and warn his father without revealing that Judith had had a run-in with a criminal in the old ruin. Before they’d left for London, Brandon had told her he’d spoken to his father and assured her they’d catch the smuggler red-handed that very day. So what was he doing here, on The Maiden George?
He appeared to be waiting for her to answer him. She did that now, hissing, “You deserve to be in jail! Why aren’t you?”
Chapter Thirteen
Nathan was taken aback by the girl’s angry question. He almost laughed at how close to the mark it was, yet it didn’t make sense. Nonetheless, the instinct for self-preservation kicked in, and quickly.
“You’ve mistaken me for someone else. But I’m not surprised. First you thought I was a ghost, then you took me for a landowner. Isn’t it more obvious that I’m just a hardworking seaman trying to earn a living?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’d never forget a face that’s haunted me for five years, and now I recognize your voice, too.”
“From five years ago? I doubt that’s possible.”
“From two weeks ago when you accosted me in that ruined house,” she said hotly. “You’re a criminal and I won’t have you on board endangering my family.”
So it was her, he thought, and not one of the duke’s servants as he’d assumed that night. And maybe she was not quite a lady either, except in title. That was an intriguing thought and even likely, considering how he’d met her, both times, out and about alone at night. And now tonight.
“It seems to me you’re the one guilty of criminal behavior, breaking into houses that don’t belong to you. And more’n once? Tell me, darlin’, does your family know about your late-night rendezvousing?”
She sucked in her breath. “Don’t even go there. You know I spoke the truth about why I was there that night.”
“If I wasn’t there, how would I know? Or wait, were you there to see me again?” He grinned, suddenly beginning to enjoy himself. “Well, me in ghost form, but me nonetheless. And you already admitted you did that at least once.”
She scoffed, “You’re not turning the tables on me here, but nice try. There’s simply no comparison to a smuggler, or is it a thief? Which one are you?”
“And why would I be either of those?”
“Because the facts add up precisely, and there’s a long list of them. You even proved yourself to be a liar that night. You weren’t just passing by, not with your own cot set up in that room.”
“A criminal who carries a cot around with him? Do you realize how unlikely that is?”
“You put a lock on the door.”
“If whoever you are talking about did that, I’d think he did it to keep pesky ghost hunters from waking him in the middle of the night. Didn’t work, did it?”
“You think this is amusing?”
He smiled. “Did I say that?”
“You didn’t have to when it’s written all over your face,” she snapped.
“Well, you have me there, darlin’. But it’s not every day I get accused of criminal activities. I have to admit, I do find a certain humor in that.”
“You were hiding illegal goods there and that put my family at risk! My cousins could have been implicated. No one would believe they couldn’t have known what was going on in their own backyard. The scandal would have touched my entire family!”
Enraged in defense of her family? Well, that at least he could understand. It just didn’t alter that he needed to convince her she’d made a mistake.
So he chuckled. “Will you listen to yourself now? No one in their right mind would blame a duke for anything, much less something illegal.”
“So you admit it? You came out of the hidden room, and I tasted brandy when you kissed me. You were not just a vagrant passing by as you claimed! I don’t doubt you’ve even been using that ruined house to hide smuggled goods for five years, haven’t you?
He was hard-pressed not to laugh. She’d figured everything out and with amazing accuracy. Smart girl. Beauty and intelligence. When was the last time he had come across that combination? But she was merely making charges she hoped to hear him confirm. That wasn’t going to happen. He did need to get her off the scent though. . . .
His voice dropped to a husky timbre, his smile broadened. “You know, darlin’, if you and I had actually shared a kiss, that would be a pleasant memory I’d not soon forget. And now you make me wish it had happened. . . .”
She was staring at his mouth. As he’d hoped, he was distracting her. He just hadn’t counted on his getting distracted, too. The pull was incredibly strong to kiss her again, right there on the deck in the moonlight. Utter madness.
But he was saved from finding out what might have happened next when he heard two of the crew talking, their voices getting louder as they approached. She heard them, too, glancing nervously beyond him.
“Good night, darlin’. I better fade away like a ghost. I’d hate for your family to learn of your predilection for late-night trysts.”
Nathan walked away. The subtle threat plus the doubts he’d tried to put in her mind would hopefully be enough to keep her mouth shut for the time being. He was going to climb the mainmast again, but unable to resist the urge to look back, he merely moved into the mainmast’s shadow. She was halfway to the quarterdeck before she turned to look back as well. Had she thought of more aspersions to cast on him? But he relaxed when he saw she wasn’t looking for him, but for the book she’d dropped. She came back to retrieve it.
A few moments later he lost sight of her when she entered the captain’s cabin, but her image was still in his mind. The woman was too beautiful—but she was trouble. He was going to have to come up with a better way to keep her from voicing her suspicions to other people. But that could wait for tomorrow.
Chapter Fourteen
In the morning, Nathan found corky to discuss his newest problem—Judith Malory. But his friend had been tasked with swabbing the main deck, a chore so menial Corky couldn’t stop grumbling about it long enough to offer any suggestions. Nathan still kept him company while he checked the railings for loose nails. It wasn’t something he would have thought to do so early on the voyage if he hadn’t seen Judith leaning against a rail last night.
“Watch out, Cap’n,” Corky suddenly said behind him. “I think that trouble you were telling me about is coming your way.”
Nathan turned to see Judith marching toward him and Corky quickly getting out of the way. She looked even more beautiful in daylight with the sun on her glorious red-gold hair, wearing a long velvet coat left open over an ice-blue dress trimmed with yellow-dyed lace—and the light of battle in her cobalt-blue eyes.
She’d lost a few hairpins last night, which he’d found on the deck after she’d gone, so he wasn’t surprised to see she’d braided her hair today. Diamond-tipped pins. He’d thought about keeping them as a memento, but dug them out of his pocket now and handed them to her, hoping it would forestall another tirade. It didn’t.
“I do not care for the way you threatened me last night!” she began.
He shrugged. “If you’re going to make outlandish accusations about me, I can make a more realistic one about you—that you seem to have a habit of conducting nighttime trysts with strange men.”
“When you put my family at risk, there is no comparison!” she said furiously. “I demand an explanation.”
Nathan gnashed his teeth in frustration. He wasn’t about to spill his guts to her and tell her about his unusual situation when he didn’t know her and had no reason to trust her with the truth. Beautiful in
the extreme, she was still a nabob. And he wasn’t so sure she was going to spread her suspicions around either. If she was, why would she have come looking for him this morning to discuss them again? He just had to come up with a way to ensure her silence, or at least some explanation that she would believe so she could laugh off her damned conclusions. Or maybe another bit of truth would suffice. . . .
“Tremayne!” was suddenly bellowed from the quarterdeck.
Nathan hissed under his breath, “Bleedin’ hell. I knew better than to talk to you when you’ve got relatives crawling all over this ship—including my captain.”
“Why are you even aboard? Escaping a hangman’s noose in England?”
In exasperation he said, “No, chasing down my ship, which was stolen.”
“Yet another lie? Good God, do you ever say anything that’s true?” Then she smirked, “But that was just my uncle’s ‘come here’ voice, not his ‘come here and die’ voice. You’ll hear the latter after I tell him who you really are, Nathan Tremayne.”
He was out of time to talk her around, so he said, “Give me a chance to explain before you do anything we’ll both regret. It’s not what you think.”
He left her with that, and hopefully enough doubt to keep her pretty mouth shut for the time being.
Nathan approached Captain Malory with a good deal of annoyance. The man’s summons couldn’t have come at a worse time, when he still had an ax hanging over his head from the man’s niece. But he didn’t think a few more minutes with Judith would remove that ax. She’d had two weeks to convince herself that her suspicions about him were accurate. He might need just as long to change her mind—if he could. And if he couldn’t? If she spread her tale anyway?
He supposed he could jump the gun on her and make a full confession right now to her uncle—captain to captain. Like hell he would. That would only be a logical path if the man weren’t a lord, too. Damned nabobs were too unpredictable. And he knew nothing about Judith Malory’s uncle other than he was a rich lord with sledgehammers for fists—and he liked to fight. Nathan had definitely gotten that impression the other night.