Captain's Bride (22 page)

Glory touched his cheek, glad he was beginning to
confide in her.

“I used to lie in bed,” he told her, “praying she
would die and Father and I would be free. Then I’d feel guilty for
wishing such a terrible thing.”

Glory felt tears welling as she thought of the little
boy who had never known a mother’s love. She wanted to put her arms
around him, absorb some of his pain, but she also wanted him to
trust her, tell her the things he hid in his heart. “Mac said you
left home at twelve.”

“I ran away to sea.” He jabbed the fire again. “It
was a hard life, but I came to love it. I still do.”

“And your back?” She traced a finger down one of his
almost invisible scars.

Nicholas surprised her by smiling. He seemed relieved
his childhood was no longer the subject. “I made the same mistake
your young sailor did. I disobeyed the captain’s orders. I was
young and hot-headed. I got into an argument with one of the mates
from the larboard watch. I challenged him to a fight. The captain
forbade it. We met after dark and the other man wound up with a
broken arm. I won the fight, but the captain lost the services of a
valuable man. I got exactly what I deserved—and so did that sailor
who helped you.”

“I never thought of it that way. On the plantation,
the slaves were whipped for wanting to be free. I never thought it
was right.”

“On a ship, a man is whipped when his actions
endanger the safety of the ship or the people on board. It doesn’t
happen often. When it does it’s usually well deserved. The boy
should have said no to you.”

Glory nodded. “And I should have stayed aboard.”

“As I recall you paid for your mistake as well.”

Glory glanced away, a little embarrassed to think of
the discipline she herself had received. Nicholas, it seemed, was a
man who meted out justice in a stem but fair manner. “Do you always
discipline your women with such a heavy hand?” she teased.

“Only when they need it.” He smiled, and a hungry
gleam darkened his storm-gray eyes. “From now on I plan to keep
your sails trimmed smartly and a firm hand on your rudder.”

Glory blushed to her toes. As if to prove his point,
Nicholas pushed her down on the sand and kissed her soundly. “I
can’t remember wanting a woman as I do you,” he said. “I never seem
to get enough.”

Glory knew exactly what he meant.

The days on the strand passed in a hazy blur of
love-making, improving their primitive home, and watching for the
rescue ship Nicholas felt sure was soon to arrive. He had readied a
huge signal fire, but would light it only when sail had been
spotted.

“Nicholas?” Glory approached him quietly, brushing
aside the heavy palmetto leaves that blocked her path. Nicholas
knelt beneath the leaves, setting a rabbit snare.

“Yes, love?”

“I’m ready to learn to swim.”

Nicholas smiled delightedly. “You’re going to love
it, I promise you.”

“If you keep this promise as well as you did the
last, I have nothing to worry about.”

They spent the day in the warm waters of the ocean
and once Glory got over her panic—and Nicholas vowed to watch for
sharks—she caught on easily. Not comfortable swimming nude, she
wore her chemise and thin cotton drawers. Nicholas held her waist
while she floated face down in front of him, legs kicking out
behind. Her shapely bottom wiggled alluringly with every stroke,
and it was all he could do to concentrate on the lesson.

The thin fabric of her drawers, all but invisible in
the water, clung to the curves of her bottom and added to his
discomfort. Holding her dainty waist in his hands, determined to
continue, he swallowed hard and tried to look somewhere else, but
his traitorous eyes returned again and again to the tempting flesh
wriggling in front of him. With a low groan of defeat, he gave in
to his desire, carried her protesting to the shallows, and made
passionate love to her.

The swimming lesson continued some time later.

Eventually Glory was able to swim by herself, though
Nicholas warned her against going out too far. Occasionally, she
would even go in without her garments, if Nicholas promised not to
watch. Swimming, she declared, was far too unladylike a sport to
indulge in without one’s clothing. Today was one of those rare
occasions. After extracting Nicholas’s promise, Glory had removed
her clothes and was paddling close to shore, ducking her
flaxen-haired head, then breaking the surface and splashing
delightedly when he heard her cry out.

Her high-pitched scream sent chills the length of
him. He was on his feet and racing down the beach before her second
scream reached his ears. His gaze searching the tranquil water, his
knife unsheathed and gripped in his hand, he saw the deadly
tentacles and cloudy mass of the Portuguese man-of-war’s body just
before he rushed into the surf.

Shoving the knife back into its scabbard, he plunged
through the waves and pulled Glory away from the stinging tentacles
of the jellyfish.

“Nicholas?” she whimpered, her voice choked with
sobs. “What—what happened? I . . . hurt so . . . much.”

“You’re going to be fine,” he said, wanting to
reassure her, wishing he could ease her pain. Holding her in his
arms, he sloshed ashore. “You’ve been stung by a jellyfish. A
Portuguese man-of-war. They’re rare in these waters. I . . .” His
voice trailed off, but his gaze remained on her face. Her tortured
expression twisted his heart.

Nicholas laid her on the sandy beach and began to
examine her wounds. One whole side of her body looked as if it had
been burned with a hot iron. Red welts marred the delicate flesh,
and Nicholas cursed beneath his breath.

“I should never have let you go in alone,” he said
softly, blaming himself.

Glory moaned and tried to sit up. “I . . . I’m going
to be sick.” He held her while she retched up the fruit and fish
she’d eaten for breakfast, her body shaking, trying to rid itself
of the pain. “I’m so embarrassed,” she whispered.

“Don’t be absurd. This isn’t your fault.” The words
came out a little more harshly than he intended. If he hadn’t
insisted she learn to swim, she wouldn’t be suffering now. With a
shudder of regret, he carried her back to their camp, where he made
a pallet of pine needles beside the pool, covered it with a
blanket, then made a poultice of mud for her burns. People had been
known to die from the sting of the vicious man-of-war, but more
often they just suffered in agony until their body could ward off
the poison.

Nicholas applied the mud poultice while Glory bit her
lip until it bled. She tried to stifle her tears, but still they
came, in salty rivulets that trickled down her cheeks.

Nicholas cradled her head in his lap. “I’m sorry,
love. So sorry. There’s nothing to do but wait for the pain to go
away.”

She nodded weakly. “Talk to me. Tell me about . . .
about . . .” She swallowed hard and wet her dry lips. “Just talk to
me.”

“I’ll tell you about Bradford.” He smoothed the hair
from her cheek. “He’s my stepbrother. I’ve been thinking about him
lately.” Though he brushed the tears from her cheek with a
trembling hand, more followed in a wet cascade that tore at his
heart. He swallowed hard and forced himself to go on. “Brad goes to
school at Harvard. I can’t imagine how my stepmother managed to
have a son like Brad, but she did, and it’s the one thing I’m
grateful to her for.”

Glory smiled. Tears spiked her long dark lashes, but
she ignored them. “What . . . does he . . . look like?’’ It was a
battle to keep her mind off the agonizing pain.

“He’s shorter than I am, though he’s still quite
tall. He has fair skin and brown hair—and the kindest hazel eyes
you’ve ever looked into. He’s nothing like me. Brad’s gentle and
caring. Everyone loves him.”

“You can be gentle,” Glory said.

Nicholas shook his head. “I’m overbearing, arrogant,
and demanding. You ought to know that by now.”

She gave him another weak smile.

“I’ll grant you, I’m not without a certain amount of
charm when I want to be,” he teased, “but I’m certainly not
lovable.”

That’s not true, she wanted to say. I love you.
Instead, she kept silent. He hadn’t said those words to her, and a
proper southern lady would never be the first to admit such a
thing. Of course a proper southern lady wouldn’t be living on an
isolated strip of land, wearing nothing but her petticoat, and
making love to Nicholas Blackwell without benefit of marriage.

“I think you’re . . . quite often . . . lovable,” she
told him instead, then moved too suddenly and felt a white-hot,
searing stab of pain. Clenching her teeth, she closed her eyes and
gripped his hand until her nails dug into his skin.

“Just lie quiet, love.” He eased her head from his
lap. “I’ll make you some broth. We’ve got to get something in your
stomach.”

With a nod, she turned away, knowing she would rather
rest in his lap than eat any day.

By the end of the fifth day, Glory had, for the most
part, returned to normal. She bathed in the pool and washed her
hair, though she hadn’t as yet been in swimming again. Watching her
around the camp, Nicholas felt the familiar surge of desire for her
he hadn’t experienced since her accident. He’d just been too damned
worried until today. Seeing her leaving the pool, her thin white
garments clinging to every curve, he groaned and glanced away.

Grudgingly he admitted he was falling in love with
the elegant blonde. He hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t wanted to. In fact
he’d done everything in his power to avoid it. But the evidence was
clear. He thought of her day and night, worried about her—and
wanted her endlessly.

She hadn’t mentioned her lover, and since Nicholas
had been the first to bed her, he decided she’d probably only
thought
she was in love with the handsome Negro. The man was
just an infatuation, he told himself. As soon as they reached
civilization, he decided, he would offer marriage. They’d move to
his estate near Tarrytown in the New York countryside. He would be
close enough to oversee his shipping company, but the estate would
be the perfect place to raise a family.
His
family. The
thought warmed his heart.

With a flash of clarity, Nicholas realized he
actually
liked
the idea of being married to Glory.

Until now he had never believed it could happen to
him, not after the way marriage had destroyed his father. But
Gloria Summerfield was different from any other woman he’d
known.

He trusted her. Why—after the way she’d tricked him—
he couldn’t say. But he did.

And she trusted him. Of that he was sure. She loved
him, too. If he was any judge of women, and he was.

Thinking of the future they would share, he put aside
his worries about her relationship with the man called Nathan. She
had probably forgotten all about him by now.

At least he hoped so.

But his experience with women and his one small
lingering doubt were enough to keep him from speaking his
heart.

Eighteen days after the
Black Spider
went
down, Glory spotted sail just south and east of where they were
stranded. Jumping up and down and pointing excitedly, she flashed
Nicholas a bright smile and rushed toward the beach. Nicholas
headed straight for the signal fire. Glory waved her arms and
loudly called out to the ship, though it was much too far away for
the crew to hear her. Once the fire began to blaze, Nicholas joined
her on the beach.

Glory slipped her arm through his. “Just think,
Nicholas, at last we’ll have clean clothes.”

“And a hot bath,” he said.

“And food we don’t have to catch first.”

“And a feather bed,” he added with a warm note in his
voice.

She tilted her face to look up at him. “In some ways
I’ll miss this place.”

Smiling warmly, he ran a finger down the line of her
jaw. “Me, too.”

The huge signal fire shot flames into the air,
marking their location, and the ship headed straight for their
position. Nicholas brought a blanket for her to wrap herself up in,
and Glory blushed prettily, conscious of her skimpy garments for
the first time in days. Neither spoke for a while; they just stood
quietly on the shore, listening to the waves breaking at their feet
and watching the big ship approach.

“That’s the
Black Witch
,” Nicholas told her,
ending the silence, a proud glow warming his gray eyes. “She’s my
flagship.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“She can carry only half as much cargo as the
Spider,
but she’s as fast as they come. A man named John
Griffiths designed her. She has a sharper bow and a leaner hull
than most ships; that’s what makes her so fast. If they’ve picked
up the rest of the crew, we’ll make New York Harbor in four
days.”

Glory looked out at the graceful ship and, for the
first time since the sinking, allowed herself to think of Nathan
and the crew. During the time she’d spent on the island, she had
refused to believe Nathan wasn’t safe. Now that the resolution of
her fears lay only minutes away, she was worried. Was he all right?
Was he safely aboard the
Black Witch
with the rest of the
crew? She prayed he was and in her heart felt almost sure. Still .
. . She couldn’t wait till she reached the ship and could put her
fears to rest.

In the end she didn’t have to wait that long. Two
shore boats were launched from the
Witch
as the ship drew
near, and shading her eyes from the sun, Glory could just make out
Nathan’s handsome dark profile in the bow of the second boat. Heart
racing wildly, she rushed into the surf, waving and calling out his
name. Jago sat at the helm, and she could see Mac and Josh
Pintassle in the bow of the lead boat. Relieved at last, Glory
wrapped her arms around herself and gave up a silent prayer of
thanks.