A Brother's Honor (29 page)

“I hope you are right, Miss Abigail.”

“I hope so, too. We shall not get a second chance.”

Abigail's skin became gooseflesh as she entered the shadowed clamminess of the prison. The ugly prison courtyard was deserted. She had never seen any prisoners out here. When she heard a scratchy, too familiar voice, she turned. Pritchard must have been watching for her.

“Good day, Miss Fitzgerald,” he said, holding out his hand for a bribe.

She placed the coins on his palm. When he counted them and grimaced, she wondered if he would believe how difficult it was for her to get even these few shillings. She was surrounded by wealth, but to obtain it she would have to sell her soul to Sir Harlan.

Shuffling his feet, Pritchard walked toward the stairs that led most directly to Dominic's room. She kept her cloak close to her. If anyone saw filth on it, her visits might be discovered and halted.

“Trial be coming around soon,” Pritchard said.

“Unfortunately for you! Then you will not be able to beg for shillings from me.”

He shrugged with a smile. “Others come to replace those who go to the gallows. Others have those who want to visit them. They shall pay as ye did.” Grumbling, he added, “Mayhap better.”

Abigail did not bother to answer. If she lowered her facade of cool regality, he would prey on her vulnerability. She kept her gaze focused on the corridor ahead of them as she climbed the final set of steps leading treacherously up to where Dominic was imprisoned. To see the ghostly faces staring through the bars in the desperate hope of a visitor would tempt her to tears.

At Dominic's door, Pritchard banged his ring of keys on the battered wood. “C'mon, Cap'n. Ahoy there. Ye be wanting company?”

The small panel slid open, and she saw Dominic's welcoming smile.

When Pritchard opened the door, Abigail did not wait for him to shove her into the cell. Skipping lightly past his loathsome fingers, she ignored his muttering as he relocked the door. She untied her bonnet and drew off her cloak. She dropped both on the chair before turning to Dominic.

He was too pale. She hoped that it was from lack of sunshine and decent food, and that he had not taken ill with some prison fever.

“You act surprised to see me,” Abigail said. “Did you think I would go to London without visiting you before I left?”

“London?” He slammed the panel on the door closed and whirled her into his arms. “
Chérie
, you have managed the impossible!”

She laughed as she locked her fingers together behind his nape, trying to ignore the clatter of chains that emphasized every step he took. “Only partly. Sir Harlan and I leave for London on the morrow.”

“Sir Harlan is escorting you there?” His brows lowered in a frown.

“I would rather it be he than Captain Fitzgerald.”

“Fitzgerald is back here?”

She nodded. “I wish he had stayed away, but it might be better that he is not in London while I am there doing an errand or two that needs to be done.”

He tugged her even closer. When he pressed his mouth over hers, she sensed his intense longing. Not only that, but some darker emotion he could not hide.

She pulled away slightly and whispered, “What is it, Dominic? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing should be wrong when soon we will be away from this chamber pot of an island.”

“We? So you will take me with you?”

He hesitated. “
Chérie
, I did not mean—”

Abigail moved away to sit on the single chair. “Nothing has changed, has it?
La Chanson
is first in your heart.”

Crossing the room, accompanied by the jangle of his manacles, he knelt and took her hands between his. “You don't understand, do you? I shall not put you in such danger again. Mayhap when the war is over …”

“Enough, Dominic.” She stood. “This is not the time for arguing.”

“When you return to your Aunt Velma, you will see I am right.”

Her face became icy. “Mayhap.”

He gripped her shoulders. “What is it? What is stealing the color from your face? Has Fitzgerald threatened you?”

She put her arms around him. She was tempted to tell him the truth about her betrothal to Clive Morris. But she must not. Dominic might squander his sole chance to escape in an effort to save her. The boundary between France and England might as well have had a brick wall along it. Few ships crossed the invisible frontier. If
La Chanson
did not return in time, Dominic would die. She would not let him know what she would suffer if they did not escape, because there was nothing he could do to halt it.

“I do not want to be without you,” she whispered. That much was the truth.

His fingers touched the center of her chest. “You cannot be without me. My heart is here with yours. That part of me will be with you forever.”

When he drew her back into his arms, she did not resist. The caress of his lips told her what she knew too well. He dreaded their parting as she did, but Captain Dominic St. Clair had taken to the sea to serve his country. He would not be waylaid from that obligation until it was completed, not even for her love. Yet it was that sense of duty that she admired, and he would not be the man she loved without it.

His fingers combed through her hair to send her hairpins cascading to the floor. As the red strands fell to her waist, he brushed them aside to unhook the back of her dress. “I love you,
chérie
. I want your love now.”

“You love me?” she gasped, pulling away.

“
Oui, chérie
. How could you not know that?” He ran his fingers along her cheek. “My heart, before it left to join yours, told me that you might love me, too.”

“I do love you, Dominic.” She laughed, unable to contain her joy. “Although if you had told me when you boarded the
Republic
that I would fall in love with such a bold pirate, I would have called you a liar.”

“A privateer,
chérie.
”

“Mayhap, but you have stolen my heart.”

As his lips moved along her neck, she let the remnants of her unhappiness and fear of what awaited in the future flow from her mind. She wanted the joy he gave her. She wanted it, and she wanted him.

Tossing her cloak over the scratchy straw on the bed frame, he leaned her back on it. She held out her arms to him. Grinning, he murmured, “One moment.” He sat beside her, drawing her up as he finished unhooking her gown.

She sighed with eager anticipation as his mouth etched moist fire into the skin above her chemise. When footfalls paused outside, she stiffened and grasped his shoulders.

“Pritchard will not disturb us,” Dominic whispered as he leaned her back onto her cloak.

“How do you know?” She twisted her fingers into his hair that reached past his shoulders.

“Because I paid him well.”

“
You
paid him? How?”

He took her hand and brushed her fingers against his ear.

“Your earring!” she gasped. “You gave him your earring? You were so proud of it.”

He framed her face with his broad hands. “What good is it,
chérie
, when it is of the past? I want you, for you are the pleasure of this moment.”

As his hands explored her in a thrilling voyage of rediscovery, she closed her eyes and delighted in the warmth of his touch. His lips soared along her skin, bringing every inch of it alive.

Although he hurried to undress her and then tossed his shirt atop her clothes, he slowly caressed her. His mouth explored her as eagerly as he had the first time she had given herself to him. She moaned against his mouth as his hands stroked the downiness of her inner legs, enticing her to press more tightly to him.

When she loosened the buttons on his breeches, she realized why he had not removed them. With his ankles manacled, he could not take off his breeches. She began to laugh. “I think we have a problem.”

“I do not find it particularly funny,” he growled against her ear, sending a fiery shiver through her.

She looked up to see his lips twitching. “You, my dear Captain St. Clair, seem to be a prisoner of love.”

“Me?”

She could not answer as he teased her with kisses that stripped all strength from her, but she tried to undo the buttons. She pushed his breeches down his legs, stroking him with each movement. The touch banished her laughter as she was consumed by a more potent joy.

He whispered against her neck, “I need your love to take with me when the trial—”

Her fingertips covered his lips. To hear him speak of the horror waiting beyond these walls would ruin her happiness. “No. Not now!”

The roguish sparkle returned to his eyes as he rolled her onto her back. Raising himself over her, he stated, “Yes, now,
chérie!
”

Her bare skin touched his, and it was as if she had become alight with fire. His light kisses scintillated along her. When she pressed on his shoulders, she leaned over him to taste his warm skin. It heated to a higher temperature to send the flame cascading through her. When her fingers flicked across him, she heard his quick intake of breath. A smile tilted her lips as he growled with the longing that would no longer be denied.

She cried out in surprise as he pushed her onto her back. His gaze refused to release hers as he smiled victoriously. Grasping one of her wrists, he pinned it to the straw. He did the same with the other and bent to place his mouth against her neck. When she writhed beneath him, he smiled.

“Let me go!” she gasped as she tried to escape the ecstasy which was speeding her toward madness.

“Never, my russet vixen,” he rumbled in her ear. “You are my prisoner of love forever.”

With a throaty moan, she shivered as his tongue teased the soft skin behind her ear. His tongue moved along her in its succulent spiral, and she forgot everything but its heat as he traced a path along her breast and into the downy hollow between them. Her breathy call of his name did not halt him as he moved to sample her most intimate delights. She became the flame.

She only realized he had relinquished his hold on her when she placed her arms around his shoulders. Guiding his mouth back to hers, she tangled her fingers in his hair. As he slid within her, she sighed against his mouth. Nothing had ever been so wondrous, so perfect, so glorious.

Hungrily she pressed to him, letting her need for him careen out of control. His mouth was branded into her mouth by his uneven breath. That caress threw her into the powerful pulses of yearning. As rhythm ruled them, their craving gained strength. In a cataclysmic explosion, the fire melded her heart to his as it had yearned to be for so long.

When Abigail opened her eyes to see Dominic's sad smile, she did not speak. Holding up her lips for his kiss, she swallowed her sobs. To ruin their time together with tears was something she had vowed not to do.

He held her in silence. She knew he was no more willing than she to speak the truth about the fear within their hearts that they never would be able to share this ecstasy again. As his fingers traced an aimless path along her arm, she stared at the filthy ceiling.

“Hush,
chérie,
” he whispered. Only then did she realize her sobs had escaped.

“I love you so very much, Dominic,” she moaned through her grief.

“And so very well.”

At his light tone, her lips demanded the chance to smile. That he could joke in the face of death proved to her that Captain Dominic St. Clair was not ready to cede himself to English justice. What exactly he had written in the note she take to London she still did not know, but she suspected he planned on being rescued in a most spectacular way if the crew of
La Chanson
could reach him in time.

Leaning on her elbow, she looked down into his smiling face. He tickled her side, and she laughed with a happiness she had not expected she ever could know again. Her amusement faded as she realized Dominic wanted his legacy to her to be a love laced with laughter.

He reached past her, and she watched in confusion as he drew off his ring. “Take this,
chérie.
” He pressed it into her hand.

“But why?”

“In case all does not go as we hope when you are in London.” When she looked at him in wide-eyed horror, he smoothed the furrows from her brow. “Take it back to Château Tonnere du Grêlon. Sometime, when there is peace between our nations again, return it to where my father's heart rests.”

“Dominic, don't talk like this.”

“If you can find any of the St. Clairs, tell them I died bravely in the service of my country.” A tender smile lessened the harsh line of his mouth. “Tell them as well that you are the woman I have loved as I loved no other. Tell them you are the one who would have borne my name if I had not died too soon.”

She dropped the ring on his broad chest. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she hid her face in her hands. A pang sliced through her as she heard him speak of marriage. That was what she faced in Sir Harlan's house, but that marriage would be hellish.

“
Chérie?
”

“Don't ask, Dominic,” she whispered. She could not tell him of the fate that Captain Fitzgerald had arranged for her.

“
Chérie?
” He drew her hands from her face and clasped them between his. “Do not weep for me. Do not weep for yourself. So many wander through life without finding this love we have discovered. Would you rather that we had not had this joy which cannot be taken from us?”

His easy acceptance of death should have strengthened her. If only she could share her pain with him … No! For the thousandth time, she reminded herself of how she wanted to let him go to the gallows thinking he had saved her.

Rising, she said, “I must get dressed. Pritchard will be back soon. He never lets me have a second longer with you than I can pay for.”

Dominic watched in silence as she hurriedly pulled on her clothes. As his gaze traced the slender lines of her body disappearing beneath her chemise and stockings, he wondered what else she was hiding from him. Something more than her fear for him. Something that held her in a captivity as horrifying as his. When she glanced at him and quickly away, he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her until she told him the truth.