Like David pounding Goliath with nothing more than a slingshot and a rock, they pumped shot after shot into the Argonaut’s hull. Lucy was hefting another ball and stumbling blindly toward the gunports when one of the gunners caught her by the arm.
His lips moved with dizzying haste. Lucy frowned up at him, both dazed and baffled. Her ears crackled with an annoying whine, but she couldn’t decipher a single word he was saying. Realizing her dilemma, he pried the cannonball from her cramped fingers and gently led her to a gunport.
The Argonaut was retreating with nary a shot fired from her massive cannons.
The gunners and powder monkeys leaped around like young colts, slapping each other on the back in congratulations. Lucy would have loved to join in their celebration, but she suddenly discovered she was so exhausted she could barely remain on her feet. Smothering an enormous yawn, she crawled over to collapse against the bulkhead, using her folded hands as a pillow.
That was precisely where Gerard found her over six hours later.
It had taken him until dawn to bring his crippled ship limping into the balmy bay of an uncharted island off the coast of Tenerife. Turning command over to Apollo, he had dragged his weary body to the great cabin, his exhaustion lightening at the cozy image of Lucy curled up in his bed, tousled by sleep and eager for his touch.
Finding the cabin abandoned and the rumpled bedclothes on the floor exactly as he’d left them, he’d combed the ship from bow to stern, growing sicker with worry each passing moment.
When he finally strode onto the lower gundeck to discover the limp bundle crumpled against the bulkhead, his heart stopped.
Alarmed by the sudden drain of color from his captain’s face, one of the powder monkeys rushed forward, still clutching the bottle of whiskey that had kept him company after his mates had passed out from a surfeit of rumfustian and excitement.
“She’s wore out, sir. And well she should be. She did a capital job last night.” The lad’s bleary eyes gleamed with admiration. “Done ye right proud, she did.”
Gerard’s heart resumed its rhythm, if at a slightly brisker pace than before from trying to absorb the shock. The man Lucy had believed to be her father for nineteen years had just tried to murder her, but instead of collapsing in hysteria, she had plunged eagerly into the fray, fighting at Gerard’s side as surely as if she’d been leaping about the quarterdeck with a cutlass between her pearly teeth.
He sank to his knees beside her, counting each precious rise and fall of her chest beneath the tattered shirt. He smoothed back her tangled hair. At the sight of her grimy little face, blissfully serene beneath its mask of gunpowder, tenderness seized him, intensified by a damning wave of guilt at the jeopardy his selfish vendetta had placed her in.
She had taught him how to smile again with that odd combination of haughty dignity and childlike innocence his jaded heart found so endearing. She had banished his fear of the dark with her reckless courage. She had reminded him, against his stubborn will, that there was something in this corrupt world of more value than vengeance.
And how had he repaid her? By rejecting her, betraying her, purchasing a one-way passage to certain doom and dragging her along for the voyage. Going out of his way to make her feel he wanted nothing more from her than her lithe, supple body to warm his bed. He wondered bitterly which one of them he’d been trying to convince.
He touched his finger to the tip of her nose. It came back smudged with grit. She didn’t belong in the dank hold of a pirate ship, he thought despairingly. She belonged in some elegant London drawing room, serving tea to a bevy of wealthy admirers. His gaze traveled to her cracked and blackened fingernails, her scorched knuckles. Before he’d invaded her life, her delicate hands had been sheathed in immaculate gloves, her milky complexion shielded from the sun by a lacy parasol, her cheeks tinted by rice powder, not gunpowder.
What in God’s name had he done?
Her eyes fluttered open, softening to misty welcome at the sight of him.
Gerard’s relief was so acute that he wanted to choke her. He clasped her to his breast, burying his lips in her smoke-scented hair. “You bloody little fool! What possessed you to stage such a lunatic stunt?”
Still half asleep, she snuggled against his chest as if rooting for truffles. Her complacency only increased his frustration.
He held her away from him until her limp head fell back. “When I asked you to go below, I didn’t mean to the bloody lower gundeck.”
She blinked up at him. “Huh?”
“Don’t play the innocent with me. You knew exactly what I meant.”
“What?”
“And stop shouting! If you think you can distract me with your bellowing, wench, you’ve got another think coming.”
Humbled by how close he had come to losing her and saddened by the grim knowledge that he would lose her anyway, Gerard drew her to him in a fierce hug, determined to cherish her warmth, her solidity for as long as he dared. He showered kisses on her face, not caring that she tasted of gunpowder and sweat.
Since she couldn’t understand a word he said, Lucy should have been alarmed by Gerard’s bizarre behavior. She’d never seen his face quite that shade of scarlet. But as far as she was concerned, he could go on scolding her forever as long as he kept punctuating his harangue with such tender embraces and delightful kisses.
She sighed with drowsy contentment as he swept her into his arms and carried her from the hold. His exhausted, exhilarated crew wisely hid their furtive smiles and knowing winks at the spectacle they made. Gerard’s lips never stopped working, not even when he plunged into the shallow waters of the bay, still cradling her in his arms.
He marched through the water, ignoring the rosy dawn blushing the sky, until they reached a narrow inlet, sheltered from view of the ship by a throng of swaying palms. Only then did he set her on her feet.
The hem of Tarn’s shirt ballooned on the surface of the water. Lucy stood in dumb confusion as Gerard alternated between smothering her brow with kisses and shaking her by the nape as one would chastise a disobedient spaniel. She peered intently at his beautifully chiseled lips. He seemed to be repeating the same thing over and over.
She was shaking her head to indicate she didn’t understand when her ears cleared with a resounding pop.
“—love you, dammit!”
She flinched at the volume of his desperate bellow.
Disbelieving wonder flooded her, warmer even than the gentle swells that cradled them. Her toes curled into the sandy ocean floor. “You do?”
Her tentative whisper seemed to jolt him back to sanity. His brow crumpled, his expression suddenly so vulnerable, so inexplicably miserable, that Lucy had the absurd desire to comfort him, to reassure him that it was all an unpleasant dream or a tropical fever. His love for her was nothing that couldn’t be cured by a piping hot cup of coffee and a strong dose of cinchona bark.
“For God’s sake, stop looking at me like that!” he shouted. “You’re exhausted. You need food, drink, and rest. But if you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to make love to you again. Thoroughly,” he barked in afterthought.
Lucy’s hearing had been restored with such acuity that she could hear the surf whispering against the shore, the warbling cry of some exotic bird, the desperate cadences of Gerard’s breathing.
“I know what I need more than any of those things,” she said softly.
“Some common sense?” he offered.
She slipped the first button of Tarn’s shirt from its mooring. “A bath.”
Even a less rational man than Gerard could find no argument with that. He groaned as the shirt slipped from her shoulders to reveal her rose-tipped breasts, their pale perfection even more beguiling in contrast to the sooty streaks marring her arms and throat.
He staggered toward her, drunk with desire. His first urge was to seize her into his arms, but instead, he scooped water into his cupped hands and dribbled it over her gently rounded shoulders. It trickled
between her breasts in lazy rivulets, beaded into molten diamonds on her nipples, tempting him to lean down and flick them away with his tongue. Her hands clutched at his hair; her head fell back, ceding her body and her heart to his tender dominion.
As the sky melted from misty pink to gold to a crisp, dazzling blue, they bathed each other’s battle-weary bodies in shimmering cascades of warm water, shivering with want when their open palms and questing fingers lingered in some sweet, forbidden place.
Gerard had told Lucy that the nights were hotter where they were going, but he’d failed to warn her about the mornings. When his fingers delved beneath the water, sliding in and out of her in a sinuous promise of delights to come, her body ignited in a fever hotter than the fiery ball of the sun ascending in the sky. Her legs drifted upward, wrapping around his lean hips in languid invitation.
This time Gerard was determined to prolong their pleasure, to woo her luscious body, still tender from his eager possession of the previous night, with every erotic skill at his jaded disposal. Water streamed from their melded bodies as he carried her ashore, laying her on a sugary bed of sand. He stood back, dragging off the clinging remainder of his clothing with impatient hands, his hungry gaze locked on Lucy’s parted lips. Her dewy skin was the same ethereal pink as the inner curves of the broken shells scattered around his feet.
Lucy’s mouth went dry at the sight of Gerard’s sun-gilded body. The first time they’d made love, he had denied her the pleasures of exploration, but the uncompromising morning light made it possible for her to appreciate him with an artist’s eye for sheer masculine beauty. In her innocence, she had once thought that sunlight showed him to his best advantage, but she’d never dreamed just how spectacular that advantage was.
She cried out in involuntary empathy as he peeled off his stockings to reveal ankles banded by thick rings of scar tissue. Their gazes met, hers questioning, his faintly defiant, as if expecting her to recoil in distaste. She realized that while Apollo might display his scars as badges of honor, Gerard still considered them emblems of shame. His chains might be broken, but he’d yet to be freed from their shadow.
She rose to her knees, gently bathing the sand from his scars with the dripping tendrils of her hair. She continued her tender ministrations, gliding her hands up the back of his calves to muscular thighs, lightly dusted with hair. A broken sound escaped his throat, half gasp, half groan, emboldening her to pursue her rapt exploration. When both of her hands failed to encompass the steel-sheathed-in-velvet perfection that throbbed so exquisitely to her caress, she touched her tongue shyly to its tip.
Pleased beyond rational speech at her unspoken acceptance of his imperfections, her beguiling boldness, Gerard seized her by the hair, tilting her head back. Her eyes were luminous; that naughty, elusive dimple had reappeared in her right cheek.
“Miss Snow,” he choked out, “if you don’t learn to curb that inquisitive tongue of yours, this may be over for you before it’s begun.”
Laying her back on the altar of sand, Gerard worshipped her body in kind with exquisite patience, its creamy folds and vulnerable hollows his own private temple of delights. His deft hands nuzzled and stroked her, drizzling her melting core with its own succulent honey until she was ripe and quivering for his possession.
Lucy moaned in anticipation as Gerard’s shadow blocked the sun. Not even his painstaking anointing could prepare her for the delectable shock of his rigid length sliding into her, filling her to the brim with each hard thrust. As if that wasn’t sensual torment enough, he reached between them and rubbed his thumb against her damp curls until thick, pulsing throbs of ecstasy enveloped her, not once, not twice, but three breathless, magical times.
As Lucy cried out his name in a bewitching incantation, Gerard’s own release came with a bittersweet force that shuddered him to the soul.
They drowsed in the sun for an eternity, their bodies entwined, their hearts slowing to some semblance of normal rhythm.
“I loved you from the first moment I met you,” she whispered.
“What romantic balderdash!” he mumbled into her shoulder. “You detested me. I was an insufferable boor. On both occasions, I might add.”
She combed her fingers through his tousled hair. “You still are. But I don’t love you any less.”
His arms tightened around her. The urgency in his embrace chilled her despite the heat. She shook off her foreboding. Perhaps at last her patience was to be rewarded by a tender declaration of love, a promise of undying devotion.
“God, I’m ravenous. I can’t remember the last time I ate.” Gerard sat up, briskly brushing away the sand that clung to his sweat-dampened skin like flecks of gold sugar.
Lucy frowned, feeling rather bereft as he tossed her his own shirt and tugged on his breeches, refusing to meet her eyes. As she fastened the shirt over her nakedness, Gerard moved to stand at the edge of the foaming surf, staring out to sea with his hands on his hips. Lucy wondered if he was thinking of his ship, scorched and lamed just beyond those palms.
The balmy wind toyed with her hair. She hugged her knees, besieged by wistfulness. “I wish we could stay here forever.”
“Romping naked in the waves like Adam and Eve?” At first, Lucy thought he was making sport of her, but when he turned, his eyes were dark, devoid of amusement. “Even in Paradise, there was a serpent.”
“The Admiral.” It was a statement, not a question.
He nodded. “Tenerife isn’t quite the haven for pirates that it was a hundred years ago. It’s only a matter of time before he returns with more ships, more men, more guns. Before, I was only guilty of thievery and a bit of mischief, but by forcing me to fire on a British naval flagship, he’s ensured I’ll be branded a traitor and hunted down as a dangerous fugitive. They won’t stop this time until I’m dead.”
His grim resignation brought her to her feet. “Then we’ll go somewhere else. Somewhere safe. To the ends of the earth if we have to.”
He shook his head sadly. “Columbus proved the earth is round, dear. No matter how far you sail, you always end up right back where you started from.”
“Óh, God,” she whispered. “You’re taking me back, aren’t you?”
His silence was answer enough.
Blinking back a treacherous rush of tears, she threw her hands up in the air. “That’s bloody rich, isn’t it? What a capital idea! You can deliver me right to my father’s doorstep. I just can’t help but wonder how long it’ll be before I succumb to a nasty tumble down the stairs or a bad bit of kipper.”
“I’m not taking you to your father. I’m taking you to Smythe. He’ll know what needs to be done to protect you. He’s a man who can be trusted.”
Lucy averted her face, afraid he was astute enough to read her bleak suspicions. She was rapidly losing her battle with the tears. They trickled, hot and bittersweet, down her cheeks, prompting her to dash them away before she faced him again.
“That’s just fine, Gerard Claremont, you take me back. Not every man in the Royal Navy is as corrupt as my fa—”—she faltered, closing her eyes briefly to compose herself—“as corrupt as Lucien Snow. There must be good men among their ranks. Men who will listen to reason. I’ll find them and I’ll clear your name, by God, if I have to go to the bloody Lord High Admiral himself!”
Gerard crossed the sand, catching her roughly by the shoulders. His face was taut with helpless pain. “You’ll do nothing of the sort! Unless you want to get your pretty little ass tossed in Newgate for aiding and abetting a wanted criminal and for suspicion of treason against the British government. Do you know what they do to women of your ilk in a place like that? Of course, if the Admiral gets wind of your inquiries before the authorities do, you won’t have to worry about it. He’s already proved to what lengths he’ll go to silence you.”
“What the bloody hell am I supposed to do then?” she yelled, belatedly thankful to the dearly departed Mr. Digby for providing her the vocabulary to have this absurd conversation
. “Sit around on my pretty little ass knitting stockings until you come back for me?”
All traces of anger fled his face, banished by poignant regret, imbuing Lucy with a knowledge more painful than anything she might have imagined. His face blurred before her eyes. Her knees crumpled. In stead of catching her, he gently lowered her to a kneeling position in the sand, brushing his hand lightly over her hair, his touch rife with pity for both of them.
Had Lucy been able to make herself believe, even for the space of a heartbeat, that he didn’t love her, that he had only used her, then cast her aside after his sensual curiosity was satisfied, she might have begged right there on her knees, might have fought for a future with him.
But she knew better. Gerard Claremont was one of those rare men capable of doing the job that had to be done, regardless of the cost. So all she could do was watch him turn his back on her and walk away down the deserted beach, his gaze riveted on the sea he loved as if seeking solace in her azure arms.
CHAPTER THIRTY
AN ICY BLAST OF WIND SKATED ACROSS the frothy whitecaps, stirring the cauldron of the North Atlantic into a forbidding witch’s brew. It sliced through the coarse wool of Lucy’s peacoat, but she didn’t even shiver. She’d grown accustomed to its bitter caress, preferring its bleak honesty to the warm, cozy deceit of a cabin that promised shelter, but left her heart exposed until it was raw and bleeding.
A thin layer of ice coated the forward rail where her bloodless fingers rested. She wished for nothing more than a commensurate numbness, but perversely enough, she seemed to have lost her ability to blunt her emotions. She hurt all the time now, a dull, hollow ache in the pit of her stomach. Yet since that day on the beach at Tenerife, she had failed to shed a single tear except for those whipped from her eyes by the relentless wind.
After the sunny skies and azure seas of the Canary Isles, she found the gray skies and leaden billows of the North Atlantic soothing to her raw senses. She stood stiffly at the rail as daylight faded into twilight, measuring the seamless passage of another day.