Once a Mistress (25 page)

“Take me with you.”

“I cannot.”

“But why? I will be safe with you. And perhaps I can help.”

He closed his eyes and sighed, then rolled away from her and sat on the edge of the bed. The covers rustled as she sat up as well.

“Talk to me, Alex. There is something more to this than a fear for my safety. You know I can take care of myself.”

He glanced at her, disarmed by her insight. “Marcus is a dangerous man.”

“You forget, I have made his acquaintance.”

“I haven’t forgotten. And I don’t intend to let him get near you again.”

“He won’t, not if I am with you.”

“You can’t be certain of that.”

“Nothing is ever certain.”
 

“Bloody hell, woman!” He rose from the bed and turned to face her. “There are reasons why I will not allow you to accompany me.”

“And there are reasons why I insist on coming with you.”

“No.”

She bit her lip. “Tell me the truth, Alex. Tell me the real reason, and I will not ask you again.”

The plea in her eyes tugged at his heart. He had given her a valid explanation, yet she was perceptive enough to realize that he had not told her the whole of it. He stared at the floor for a long moment. Finally he said, “I was married once.”

Her mouth fell open. “You were married? You are not any longer?”

“She died.”

“Oh.” She plucked at the coverlet, obviously curious yet not voicing the questions he knew she must have.

“It was a long time ago.” He came to sit beside her on the bed and took her hand. “I don’t want to lose you as I lost her.”

“Alex.” She took a deep breath and stared at their entwined hands. “I care for you. And I am so afraid you will be killed, and I will never see you again.”

“I care for you as well.” He kissed her fingers. “I will conduct this business all the quicker, knowing you await me here.”

“I have been afraid to ask how I fit into your life,” she said.

“Diana, I have every intention of building a future with you.”

“I needed to hear that,” she whispered.

“Trust me,
amada
.”

“You have called me that before,” she said. He felt her pulse speed up as he brushed his lips over her wrist. “What does it mean?”

“
Amada
? It is Spanish. It means ‘beloved’.”

“Beloved.” Her voice trembled. “I like that.”

“
Amada
,” he whispered in her ear. He placed her hand on his shoulder and bent his head to nuzzle her neck. Apparently, she had accepted his decision to go after Marcus alone. And he felt better for telling her about Bianca. Now he wanted to make love to her until dawn parted them.

“Alex?”

“Hmmm?” He tangled his fingers in her hair and gently pulled her head back so he could taste the sweet skin of her throat.

“I know you are Spanish,” she said. “But how is it that you speak English with no accent?”

“My father was English,” he murmured, distracted by the pulse at the base of her neck.

“What!” She jerked from his embrace. “You are half English?”

“Blast it,” he muttered. He had inadvertently given her a key to the mystery of El Moreno. He wondered how long it would take her to associate him with the Rawnsleys.

“Alex?”

“Aye, my sweet. Half English, but still a passionate Spaniard.” He stretched out over her, pressing her back into the pillows. “Let me show you.”

In moments, they forgot everything but each other.

The tide would soon be in.

Alex stood on the deck of the
Vengeance
and watched his crew lay in supplies. Cask after cask of rum came aboard, as well as sacks of flour, salted meats, fresh fruit. Aye, they would eat well, he thought, but it would be a long, lonely voyage.

“Captain?”

He scowled at the interruption. “What is it, Mister McBride?”

The Irishman showed no concern over Alex’s irate tone. “‘Tis Mister Fraser, captain. He isn’t aboard, and no one knows where he is.”

“Blast that philandering Scot!” Slamming his hands down on the rail, he barked, “Send out a few men and roust the bawdy houses. If I know Mister Fraser, he is sleeping off the night’s pleasure in some wench’s bed.”

“I’ll do that, sir.” McBride hurried off.

Alex watched him go, already regretting his caustic tone. Aside from Birk, McBride was the only one aboard who knew the true identity of El Moreno. He was also one of the most loyal members of the crew, since Alex had saved him from being flogged to death when they had both served in His Majesty’s navy. Of course, Alex’s service had been voluntary, whereas McBride’s had not.

McBride was a good man, who had not deserved to be spoken to so sharply.

Birk was the reason he was angry, Alex realized. Birk and circumstance. Birk because he was delaying their departure. And circumstance for forcing him to depart at all.

He looked up at the shadow that was Rothstone Manor and thought of Diana, asleep in her bed, her flesh still flushed from his touch. The image heated his blood, raising memories of the night’s erotic adventures. He clenched his hands with the need to touch her.

“Sleep well, my love,” he whispered. Turning on his heel, he went below.

Diana peered out from behind the rum barrel and watched as two crewmen transported more casks on board the
Vengeance
. Soon she would have her chance.

She glanced at the barrel beside her. The rum was almost drained from it now. The gush of fluid that had poured out of the cask when she had first pulled its plug, had trickled to a tiny stream. In a few more seconds the cask would be nearly empty.

Footsteps crunched on the beach. She ducked down behind the barrels. A seaman passed by without so much as glancing at her hiding place. When he was gone, she peered out again. No one was about. Glancing at the barrel, she noted that only the merest trickle leaked out now. She pushed the plug back into the hole.

Then she looked around again. The beach was deserted. It was time.

Using a knife she had stolen from the kitchens of Rothstone Manor, she pried the top off the barrel and looked in. A couple inches of rum remained at the bottom. Wrinkling her nose at the smell, she lifted her skirts and climbed in anyway.

She made a sound of disgust as her slippers quickly became soaked. She longed to climb right out of the thing and go back to the comfort of the manor house. But she was determined to go with Alex, and this was the only way she could think of to get aboard without being seen. Pulling her dark cloak closer with one hand, she sank down into the barrel and slid the lid closed with the other.

She had deliberately picked one of the last casks to be loaded for two reasons. One, while she hid behind the other barrels no one saw her draining the rum from this one. Two, she did not want to end up in the back of the hold with the other barrels piled atop hers. She needed to be able to escape her pungent prison as soon as the ship set sail.

She shifted and tried to get comfortable. Trying to ignore the strong odor of rum-soaked wood, she settled down to wait.

From a few yards down the beach, Birk watched Diana climb into the barrel. He shook his head with disbelief. “What the devil does she think she’s about?” he muttered.

His first instinct was to stop her, but then he reconsidered. Alex tended to go mad when confronted with Marcus. Perhaps with Diana by his side, he would have a care for himself.

He saw the boatswain, Mister James, help young, bare-faced Thomas Carver drag the longboat through the shallow surf and up on to the sand. Laughing and joking, they made their way toward the last few barrels of stores that sat at the water’s edge awaiting transport. Carver laid his hand atop the one containing Diana. Birk swore and started forward.

“Good evenin’ tae ye, mates!” he called.

“Where you been?” Mister James called. “De captain’s in a temper cuz he couldn’t find you.”

Birk grinned and leaned his hip against the barrel containing Diana, preventing Carver from lifting it. “Man, as handsome as the captain is, he canna hold a candle tae the bonny lassie who shared her bed wi’ me this night.”

“You have the devil’s luck with women, Mister Fraser,” young Carver said, his eyes wide with admiration. “How do you do it?”

“‘Tis the Fraser charm. I’m cursed wi’ it.”

“Cursed my arse,” Mister James grumbled. The huge black man hefted a nearby cask and turned towards the longboat.

“He’s jealous,” Birk confided, loud enough for James to hear.

“Kiss my blindcheeks, little man,” James called back, tipping the cask into the boat.

“I’m thinkin’ that’s yer problem, man! Ye’ve nae lassie tae do that for ye!”

James responded with an anatomically impossible suggestion that turned Carver’s fair complexion beet red. Birk laughed and slapped the young man’s bony shoulder.

“When ye’ve grown a bit more, young Thomas, I’ll teach ye a Scot’s way o’ wooin’ a lassie.”

Carver swallowed and nodded.

Birk slid off the barrel. “Would ye care for an extra pair o’ hands, lad? I’ve a mind tae get back in the captain’s good graces. The sooner these casks are stowed, the sooner we set sail.”

“‘Tis all the same to me,” Carver answered.

“That’s the spirit!” Birk slapped his hand down on the top of Diana’s barrel, locking the lid into place. “I’ll take this one.”

James came back, gave Birk a look and hefted another barrel. “You goin’ to work or talk?” he asked Carver.

The boy grabbed a barrel. “Work,” he answered, his puny muscles straining beneath the weight of the cask.

Birk hefted Diana’s barrel. “God’s teeth, lad! What have ye got in here? Rocks? It’s bloody heavy!”

Already halfway to the longboat, James turned. His stark white smile contrasted with both the night and his own dark skin. “You just not used to dis kind of work,” he said.

“Never you mind about that,” Birk said, balancing the barrel on his shoulder. “Just lead the way.”

With one cask balanced on his shoulder and another tucked under his arm, James continued to the longboat. Birk and Carver trailed behind with the last of the stores.

“I suppose these will be goin’ in the hold,” Birk said to the younger man, knowing Diana could overhear every word. “Och, I dinna like goin’ down there. Over many rats for my way o’ thinkin’.”

He continued in a similar vein as he tipped the cask into the boat, then rested his hand upon it. “Aye, the hold is a nasty place. As dark as Hell and the smell is worse.”

His companions said nothing. Together the three men pushed the boat into the water, then hopped inside. Birk made sure to sit beside Diana’s barrel. As the two seaman rowed out to the
Vengeance
, he sang a rowdy Scottish ditty and thumped his hand on the barrel in rhythm with it.

He hoped the pounding gave the troublesome lassie a devil of a headache.

When they reached the ship, Birk scrambled aboard and helped bring the casks up on deck. He set the one containing Diana aside and kept a careful eye on it until all the stores were aboard. Several men worked to stow the supplies in the hold. A burly crewman went to take Diana’s barrel below, but Birk stopped him.

“Nah, man,” he said, hefting the cask himself. “I’m takin’ this rum tae the captain’s cabin.” He turned and walked straight into Mister James.

“I will take that,” the boatswain said.

“Nah, ye will no.” Birk refused to relinquish his prize. The bigger man scowled.

“You don’ fool me. You want dat keg for youself. Not for de captain.”

Birk let his mouth fall open and his eyes bulge with feigned shock. “The devil I do! I wouldna do a thing like that. Sure as the devil’s in Hell, it’s a gift for the captain.”

James eyed him with suspicion. “I don’ trust you.” He tried to grab the barrel, but Birk whirled out of the way, almost losing his balance from the weight he hauled.

“Is that any way tae be talkin’ about the man who took yon splinter out o’ yer leg durin’ the last battle?” Still speaking as fast his clever tongue would allow, Birk edged in the direction of the captain’s cabin. James shadowed his every step. “As long as my hand it was, and the verra devil tae get out.”

“Leave da cask here.” James blocked his way just when he would have reached the hatch.

“Ye’re in my path, James.”

The huge boatswain folded his arms across his chest in answer.

“Well, if that’s the way o’ it…” Birk put the barrel down in a shadowy corner near the hatch where it would remain safely out of the way. Then he spun around and punched Mister James in the jaw. The bigger man grinned, unfazed by the blow, and balled his own fist.

The brawl drew everyone’s attention. Men called out wagers as Birk and James went at it. In the midst of the fight, Birk saw Diana climb out of the barrel and slip down the hatch. With the sun not yet risen, no one else noticed her.

Then Birk saw stars as his opponent landed a blow that sent him sprawling. His last thought before the blackness claimed him was that Alex owed him a very
large
boon.

Diana paced Alex’s cabin. The ship had set sail some hours ago, just before dawn. With the sun now high in the sky, Alex had yet to venture to his cabin. Where was he?

She plucked at the over-sized black shirt and breeches that she had borrowed from Alex’s chest. Her own clothing reeked of rum from when she had been jostled about in the barrel. She had been quick to discard it.

Alex’s clothes smelled like him, an alluring combination of sandalwood and sea. Wearing his things made her feel very close to him. She hugged the shirt tighter around her and wandered over to finger the maps and charts lying on his desk.

Had she done the right thing in following him? No doubt he would be furious when he discovered her presence aboard, but there was no help for it. She could not let him go after Marcus alone. Not when there was every possibility that he would die in his quest for vengeance.

No, her place was at his side.

The ship rolled suddenly, thrusting her against the desk. She cried out as pain shot up from her knee. Limping and muttering, she made her way to sit on the bed. Her knees and elbows already bore bruises from bouncing around in the barrel. By the time the ship reached its destination, she feared she would be black and blue all over!