My Runaway Heart (23 page)

"Then I suggest you stay away from the porthole.
We're not finished hunting for the day."

"That's what Walker told me. And that we're very
near the coast of Ireland. I could get little else out of him other than that I
owe my freedom to Dag."

Jared stiffened, wondering what else she might have
asked Walker even as he decided it was time he left her altogether.

He was mad not to have let her go after lashing out at
her about Dag, mad even to have his hands upon her, her hair soft as silk
beneath his palms. Damn him for a fool, mad as a hatter, to have finally given
in to Dag's constant appeals that he
release
her from
her well-earned confinement.

"I told you
before,
he's
softhearted to a fault." Abruptly, Jared let go of Lindsay's shoulders and
strode back into the crew's quarters, very much aware that she chose to follow
him. He stopped by Dag's bunk, a tightness welling in his chest just to see the
Norwegian giant lying there, drugged into unconsciousness.

"I know little of these things, Jared, but I
believe it's a good sign that he no longer seems in pain. If you'd like, I'll
stay with him, let you know when he awakes."

Jared could see that Lindsay was truly concerned as she
came up beside him, but he shook his head. "That won't be necessary. I'll
have one of my men—"

"No, no, I don't mind, really. It's the least I
can do and I've
no
wish to return to my cabin—your
cabin, I mean—well, not right away. I've nothing to do there
anyway,
I've read all the books you told me about—"

She fell silent so suddenly that Jared glanced down at
Dag, fearing that something might be wrong. But the Norwegian, to his relief,
slept on soundly. He looked up to find Lindsay staring at him, her lovely blue
eyes so wide and luminous he felt his gut twist at the memory of how they had
once shone with such radiant admiration—for him.

"Stay with him if you want," he said gruffly,
brushing past her. "But don't come above deck unless I send someone for
you."

"Jared, wait, please."

Her heart in her throat as he stopped and turned
around, Lindsay knew she might not have another chance to talk to him for
hours, if then. And she had to know—another day was simply too long to be left
wondering.

"Please, Jared, tell me what happened to Elise."

His eyes darkened to a turbulent hue, and she held her
breath, not sure if he would stay or go. He had tensed, too, and when he still
did not speak, she could not contain herself.

"I know it must seem strange for me to ask such a
thing, but she left notes in one of the books of poetry, and after Aunt Winnie
told me Elise's husband had treated her so abominably and then I saw the name
Ryland, I thought maybe he was the one—"

"He murdered her."

The bitter words striking Lindsay like blows, she was
so stunned that she couldn't speak until sheer confusion overwhelmed her.

"But—but Aunt Winnie said she died shortly after
you returned from—"

"The bastard murdered my sister as surely as if he'd
stuck a knife through her heart—pretending he loved her so he could become the
master of
Dovercourt
. She knew she had been betrayed
when she found him in bed with her own lady's maid only a week after their
marriage. And then there were the beatings that followed for years, and the
rapes—"

"Oh, God." Sickened, Lindsay covered her
mouth with her hand, wanting Jared to stop but sensing, as he began to pace in
front of her, his face twisted in torment, that he would not, could not, as if
her question had unleashed all the demons in his soul.

"Ryland wanted to beget a son, an heir, using and
abusing my sister until there was nothing left of her, four stillborn babes his
only legacy. And all the while he and his mother, Sylvia, my uncle's mistress,
the bloody whore, entertained the ton at their lavish country parties and no
one guessed
,
no one knew how Elise suffered. Ryland
threatened he would kill her if she said a word to anyone, so she bore the
horror of what her innocent romantic notions had brought her because I wasn't
there to protect her—I wasn't there!"

Lindsay sank onto the stool by Dag's bunk, her knees
grown so weak that she did not trust herself to stand.

Struck dumb by the hoarse anguish in Jared's voice, she
had no heart to ask him how he could have abandoned his sister to return to
India, and she no longer had any stomach left to hear it. She watched in
agonized silence as he stopped his restless pacing near an oil lamp affixed to
a bunk and stared blindly into the flame.

"She wasn't a great beauty, but she was so
vivacious and full of life, so trusting—yet when I saw her again she was a
broken shell. A ghost. There was nothing I could do to help her. She didn't
want to live. Ryland and Sylvia had
fled,
else I would
have slain them at the foot of Elise's bed if it might have saved her. All she
begged of me before she died was that I avenge her, avenge our family—"

"Oh, Jared, please, no more." Her eyes fogged
with tears, Lindsay heard his ragged sigh and almost wished she hadn't asked
about Elise, hadn't opened up such an ugly wound.

To think of the guilt he must bear—could such a
terrible burden have driven him to the sea to become the dreaded Phoenix? She
could never condone his traitorous actions, yet how, now, could she condemn
him? And that wasn't all which suddenly seemed so clear to her, so achingly
clear.

"It's true. The lesson you wanted to teach me . .
. you did it because I reminded you of Elise, didn't you?"

Heavy silence stretched for interminable moments,
Lindsay's heartbeat drumming in her ears, until Jared finally turned from the
flickering lamp and met her eyes. His gaze was haunted, ravaged, yet his voice
sounded cold and strangely hollow.

"A lapse in judgment, I fear. If all had gone
well, you would have hated me once I failed to appear at your aunt's door and
my lesson would have succeeded. You would have become far less trusting and
more cautious in choosing a husband—not some impossible fantasy you concocted
in your mind, but a man of flesh and blood . . . hopefully, for your sake, an
honorable one."

"So all along you were thinking of my marrying
someone else," Lindsay said almost to herself, bleak acceptance settling
over her, though some stubborn part of her would not allow her to believe it
really was true. "Even when you kissed me, never once did you think of me
for yourself. Never once."

Anticipating his harsh reply, she looked down numbly at
her hands, but when no answer came, she lifted her gaze to find him staring at
her, his expression inscrutable. And in that one heart-stopping moment as she
rose from the stool, she was filled with such bald hope that there might yet be
a chance for them that even the slow shake of his head could not daunt her.

"Never once, Lindsay. I've no fit life to offer
any woman."

His words sounding so final, she almost faltered as she
walked over to him, but that same voice deep inside her insisted that his words
couldn't be true. He would have denounced her at once, and if she truly meant
nothing to him, why would he have become so upset about the fair trading . . .
?

She stopped just in front of him, Elise's tragic story
still ringing in her mind as she realized just how unfairly she'd judged him.
And here she had once shouted at him that he had no right to judge her and he
had agreed, which was more than she—

"Go on, woman, strike me if that will soothe my
misleading you. Lord knows I've been slapped for less."

She blinked, warmth flooding her cheeks as chagrin
filled her. "No, no, I wasn't going to . . ." At the sudden wariness in
his eyes, she murmured, "I wanted to apologize, actually, for slapping you
the other day. I've never done anything like that before—and, well, I wanted to
thank you. For thinking of me—your lesson, I mean. It was a kind thing—"

"It was a bloody mistake."

With a low curse he turned to go, but Lindsay stayed
him with a hand upon his arm, surprising herself at her brazenness. Surprised
herself even more, her face aflame, as she stood on tiptoes and planted a kiss
upon his cheek. Then she quickly stepped away, not sure how he might react, and
stared at him almost sheepishly.

"It was a kind thing, Jared, no matter what you
say—oh!"

The ship listing so suddenly beneath her feet threw her
off-balance, and Lindsay would have careened into a stout support beam if Jared
hadn't caught her, both of them tumbling to the floor. Stunned, the next thing
she knew, he was looking down at her, his hard, masculine body half covering
hers, his hand swiping hair from her face.

"Lindsay, are you all right?"

She bobbed her head, his eyes so concerned that she was
tempted to reach up and touch his face to reassure him. So concerned that she
knew, no matter he was the Phoenix, no matter anything he might say or do, she
could never think the worst of him again.

Her pulse pounding, she stared up at him, their mouths
only inches apart, his gaze searching hers, and she was certain as he lowered
his head that he was going to kiss her. Wild elation swept her, her lips
parting, aching for him; her breath caught, gone, fled . . .

"
Cap'n
, we've a flagship
of the British fleet at our stern, eighty-gunner! And three smaller cruisers in
battle formation, the devil take 'em! We just came 'round
Carnsore
Point and there they were!" Jared had risen to his feet before Cowan had
even finished, Lindsay's head spinning because she'd been pulled up so suddenly
beside him.

"Stay below with Dag, Lindsay, and take care you
hold tight onto something. There'll be more of the same that just threw us to
the floor."

She barely had a chance to nod and Jared was gone, the
squat, flame-haired first mate lingering only to throw a worried glance in the
direction of Dag's bunk and then he disappeared, too. Her fingers pressed to
her lips, Lindsay rushed over to check on the Norwegian, doing her best to
stifle the giddy breathlessness that still gripped her.

She could see that Dag had come close to being tossed
to the floor as well, his massive
chest
and right
shoulder jammed against the edge of the bunk. Flooded with concern, she spied a
thick coil of rope beneath a row of swaying hammocks and spent the next several
minutes rigging up a barrier to keep Dag safe and secure inside his berth.

After propping extra pillows around his head, she knew
there was little else she could do. Straightening, she grabbed onto the upper bunk
just in time as the deck sharply tilted beneath her feet; a nervous excitement
overwhelmed her as the
Vengeance
creaked and groaned and gradually righted herself.

Danger seemed to snap and sizzle in the air. If Jared's
grim expression had been any guide, their predicament was precarious at best.
And if that was the case, she wanted to be with him, not
belowdecks
where she couldn't see a thing, forced to rely upon her imagination alone as to
the peril they were facing.

His lot suddenly became
hers,
Lindsay felt an allegiance surge within her breast stronger than she'd ever
known for anyone, so strong it spurred her out into the narrow passageway, past
sailors running for the lower gun deck. None paid her any heed, not even when
she scrambled out of the hold to find the upper decks a blur of commotion. Men
were scurrying up rope ladders to
loose
the top
sails, while a shout went out to prime the cannon.

Wind whipping at her hair, Lindsay dodged a pair of
sailors jumping down from the rigging and ran to the starboard railing; cold
salt spray lashed her face as the ship rose and fell on rolling, white-crested
waves. But she barely felt the chill, her eyes widening in terrible awe at the
sight of the quartet of ships looming behind them, the closest a formidable
behemoth unlike anything she'd seen before.

"Damnation, woman, I told you to stay below!"

Chapter 21

As Jared strode toward her, Lindsay didn't wait but ran
to him, her heart pounding in her breast at how magnificent he looked, his gait
as strong and furious across the slanted deck as if they sailed a placid pond.

"Don't worry about Dag—I tied rope around his bunk
so he wouldn't fall out!" she cried above the wind, sputtering as a
surging wave plastered her from head to toe with icy spray. "Oh, Jared,
will we be able to outrun them?"

If he hadn't been so angered that she'd defied his
order, he might have stopped stock still to gape at her.
We?
Not liking how much her unexpected choice of words had pleased
him,
he grabbed her arm and hauled her alongside him toward
the hold.

"Get back below! It's not safe—"

"No, I want to stay up here with you! If I've
outwitted armed
excisemen
, surely a few British ships
won't frighten me."

"Frighten you, woman? Blow you to bits is more
likely! Now go!"

The stubborn shake of her head only vexing him further,
he drew her against the capstan and out of the worst of the wind, his patience
at an end.

"Blast it,
Lindsay,
I've
no time to quarrel with you—"

"So let's not quarrel. I promise I'll stay out of
the way."

Clenching his teeth, Jared glanced past the stern at
the four vessels hot in pursuit, then back to her determined face.

"Can't you understand? I don't want any spyglass
to spot you! Your blond hair is like a beacon, impossible to forget. Why else
do you think I refused prisoners these past two weeks on the chance you might
escape from your cabin and someone
remember
you?"