Once Tempted (18 page)

“Livett, I was sent by a mutual friend, who said you were sailing for Lisbon.”

The master’s wrinkled brow furrowed like a set of deep waves. “In mutual friend, you don’t be meaning that wretched Pymm?”

“One and the same.”

A string of curses followed worthy of a man who’d spent more time at sea than on land. When he finished his colorful rendition of Mr. Pymm’s virtues, Livett spat over the rail and then said, “Well, come on then. Bring the lass aboard. But don’t think I’ll be the one to tell the Cap’n.”

Robert stepped back and allowed Aquiles and his armload up the gangway first. It wasn’t that he was hesitant to board his brother’s ship, despite the fact that they rarely saw eye-to-eye on any matter, but this wounded shoulder and loss of blood were finally exacting their toll on his usually iron constitution. And the last thing he wanted to do was to pass out in front of his brother’s crew.

As it was, he was swaying from side to side by the time he got to the top of the gangway, and if it hadn’t been for Livett’s steadying grasp, he would have fallen back into the murky depths of the river.

“Easy there, lad,” Livett said. “Why, you’ve got the legs of a—” The man’s teasing words came to a halt as Robert’s coat fell open and revealed the blood-soaked bandages beneath. “Jesus, Joseph and Mary, lad. What have you got there?”

“ ’Tis just a scratch, Livett. Nothing to worry about. But I think it would be best if we got aboard and below without any further delay. I’d prefer no one noticed our departure.”

Livett whistled low and sharp, and a boy came running along the deck. “Take these folks down below. Put the lady in yer mother’s cabin and tuck these other fellows in mine. Then fetch yer uncle here a measure of rum. Tell Cook I told him to get it from the Cap’n’s own stores.”

Robert took a second glance at the lad and immediately recognized Colin’s wife’s dark eyes staring up at him from the boy’s keen features. “You must be Gavin,” he said. “We’ve never met. I’m your Uncle Robert.”

“I’ve always wanted to meet you, sir.” Gavin’s face lit with a mischievous light. “Father says I take after you.”

“That can’t be good,” Robert told him, swaying again and this time reaching out for the railing to keep himself from pitching to the deck.

“Well, it really isn’t meant as a compliment, I suppose. I tend to get in trouble quite a bit.” The boy’s keen gaze took in Robert’s condition and the bulge of wadding at his shoulder. Intelligent little monkey that he was, he didn’t ask any questions but offered Robert a helping hand along the deck and toward the hatch and ladder that led to the cabins below.

“I still do . . .  Tend to find trouble, that is,” Robert said, glad for the help.

“So I noticed,” Gavin replied, his grin coming back.

Olivia was stowed in a tiny, well-fashioned room off Colin’s spacious cabin in the stern of the
Sybaris.
With her snoring away on the narrow berth, Robert finally gave in to his own pain and collapsed into his brother’s large berth in the main room.

He told himself it would be just for a moment. Just until he gathered his strength to get to Livett’s cabin on the next deck below.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Uncle?” Gavin asked, when he returned moments later, bringing with him the measure of rum Livett had told him to deliver.

“Don’t mention my arrival to your father. Or the whiskey.” Robert tipped the glass to the boy and then took an appreciative sip of his brother’s finest stock. It warmed his chilled bones. “How fares my batman?”

Gavin’s gaze rolled heavenward. “He’s been sick twice and begged me to lead him back above deck and push him overboard.” The boy leaned forward and whispered, “Is he always such a lubber?”

Robert laughed. “Oh, aye. And it will get worse before it gets better.”

The lad’s nose pinched in disgust. “Do you want some help to your cabin, Uncle?”

He shook his head. “No, lad. I know the way. You get on with your duties, while I rest a bit longer. I’ll be gone from here before your father returns.”

Gavin winked and clambered out of the cabin in a flash.

While he knew he should go see to Aquiles, Robert hadn’t the strength to rise from Colin’s well-appointed berth. Aquiles was like a lion on land—nothing could conquer him—but at sea, his prowess and strength toppled in the face of his worst enemy:
mal de mer.
The only thing the man could do was weather his first few days in the haven of a bunk with a bucket at his side. Then shakily he’d finally come forth like a newborn colt, and by the end of the voyage his strength and vigor would be back.

Robert’s eyes rocked shut with the sway of the ship. He would have sworn they closed only for a few moments, but when he came to the cabin was dark. What had awakened him was the sound of hasty, hard footsteps stomping down a ladder and getting closer by the moment.

A lamp swung into the room, leaving Robert all but blinded by the brilliant light.

He rolled out of the bunk but found he hadn’t the strength to stand. His knees buckled beneath him, so that all he could do was cradle his shoulder to keep from jarring it until he found his footing. It wasn’t very easy, for his injury burned with an uncontrollable fire, as hot and fatal as the light swinging before him like a hangman’s noose.

And when his eyes adjusted to it, he found the cabin’s source of illumination was held aloft by none other than a very angry Captain Colin Danvers.

“I don’t believe my eyes,” Colin said, sweeping past Robert and hanging the lamp from a nearby hook.

The lamp continued its haphazard sway, casting a harsh light to and fro, leaving Robert dizzy and nauseous in its wake. His entire body seemed gripped by the clammy, cold hand of sweat, leaving him shivering with a strange chill that challenged the rush of burning heat leaping from his wounded shoulder. He tried to concentrate on what Colin was saying and ignore the dangerous, throbbing pain where Aquiles had stitched him together.

What had Olivia said?

Oh, yes, he recalled it now.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a fever before morning.

For once the astute lady had been wrong. His fever had set in before dawn.

He took a deep breath and rose before his brother, staying outside the circle of light offered by the lamp and keeping his shoulder turned so it wasn’t as visible.

“Good to see you, Colin,” Robert offered.

“I wish I could say the same,” his brother replied. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“I needed passage to Lisbon and Pymm sent me.”

Colin shrugged his answer off. “What were you doing in London in the first place and out of uniform?” he asked, nodding at Robert’s dark coat.

He pulled the wool serge tighter around him. “ ’Tis complicated.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Colin muttered.

From the adjoining cabin, a small snore erupted.

His brother swore, caught up the lantern and crossed the room to the partition before Robert could stop him. “Georgie, damn you, I told you not to—” His voice halted as he held the lantern aloft. “What the—” He swung back to Robert.

“That’s part of the complication,” he told him.

“And is there more?” Colin asked through a firmly clenched jaw.

“Oh, aye,” Robert told him, as his fever surged through his limbs, leaving him unable to stand for another moment. He slumped to the ground, hitting the oak plank floor hard. “Get her to Wellington. No matter what,” he said, before the fever overtook his senses.

Colin rushed to his brother’s side, setting the lantern on the table. He’d been in enough battles to recognize a dying man. Pale from loss of blood and hot with fever, his brother showed all the signs. Gingerly he searched Robert, until he found the wad of bandages at his shoulder. Carefully opening his coat and unwrapping the linen cloths, he saw the beginnings of infection streaking across Robert’s shoulder.

“Dammit, Hobbe,” Colin said. “What have you gotten yourself into now?”

Olivia tossed in and out of a dreamless sleep, trying to claw her way back to consciousness. At one point, she heard muffled voices in the darkness.

“Hobbe,” a man was saying, his voice thick with emotion.

She too tried to cry out.
Hobbe, Hobbe, I’m here.

But her tongue was thick and dry, lodging over the words, leaving her able to make only a low croaking sound. Yet even as she struggled to say the words again, she fell back into the strange sleep that seemed to hold her in a prison of lethargy.

When she finally awoke, she blinked at the light peering in from the small window beside her bunk and coming from a doorway that she could only guess where it led to.

The world around her rose and fell in a gentle cadence she’d never felt before. But it took only a moment for the fresh tang of salty air to assail her drugged senses and awaken them to her surroundings.

She was at sea. And she didn’t need to guess twice as to where she was headed or with whom.

Robert
.

Damn him,
she thought, as she tried to remember how she had gotten aboard this ship.

Her memory of the past week came in strange flashes of remembrance. She closed her eyes, her hands cradling her pounding temples.

She could see it as if it had happened to someone else.

Lady Finch reading the paper . . .  Bradstone’s return . . .  Revenge, she’d wanted revenge. Going to London in the mail coach . . .  and then on to May-fair . . .  Robert, and yet not Robert. The images of the man she’d known separated into two. Two parts of the same man. One she’d loved with regrets, the other she’d kissed and regretted not . . .

Blushing at the memory of Robert’s kiss, of his hands touching her with such rough assurance, Olivia struggled to remember the rest. Not the kissing but the other things that danced just out of range.

And it all came back like a crack of gunshot.

Chambley.
Threatening her. Gloating about her father’s “suicide.” Of him aiming a gun at Robert and pulling the trigger. Of her own blind rage and unfathomable reaction.

She’d shot him.

Olivia sat straight up and gasped. She’d shot a man.

Shakily she rose from the berth, her slippered feet touching the floor gingerly. Holding on to the berth, she stood there for a moment, trying to accustom herself to the rocking of the ship. She still couldn’t account for how she’d gotten there. That part of her memory seemed lost in a fog as thick as the haze that could roll up from the Thames in January.

Putting one foot out in front of her, her toe nudged something. She looked down to find her valise. Kneeling down beside it, she opened it and found that her journal and notes were still there, as well as some other items she couldn’t place. Bundles of pungent herbs, carefully wrapped in blue apothecary papers. Closing the valise back up, she slid it out of sight and began edging along the wall until she came to a doorway. There she took a deep breath and peered out.

The room before her was wide and brightly lit. A long row of windows made up the back wall. Beyond them lay the sea, with nothing visible but the vast, blue breadth of waves and sky, confirming her worst suspicion that she was far from land. She blinked a few times, her eyes finally adjusting to the light, and then her gaze moved over the room to an unlit lantern swaying over a wide, wooden table that took up most of the middle of the room. Seated there, a man was working at a large book, his pen scratching at the thick sheets and pausing every few moments while he considered his next choice of words. She couldn’t see his face as he bent to his work, only a shock of dark hair and his tanned hands.

She glanced around and realized they were alone. There was no sign of Robert or even his ever present servant, Aquiles.

Damn him,
she thought. He’d probably just cast her aboard the nearest southbound vessel and washed his hands of her.

“Hello, there,” the man at the desk said, setting aside his pen and rising to his feet. He was tall, his head nearly scraping the ceiling. There wasn’t anything in his simple coat and breeches that told her who he was, but his stance and features spoke of well-earned command. His features were craggy and tanned, giving further evidence that this was a man who’d spent years at sea.

But his face—it was so familiar. The green eyes, the hair, the same rugged jaw.

He was related to Robert and Bradstone, more than likely. As if that should reassure her.

His lips spread in a warm, cozy smile, edging away at her wariness. “Glad to see Pymm’s potion has finally worn off. I was starting to think you’d never wake up.”

Pymm!
The mention of his name cleared away her hazy memories. “That tea!”

The man nodded. “Oh, is that how he did it? You obviously haven’t spent much time with him or else you’d have known never to take anything that man offers you. His mother was Louis the Fifteenth’s personal poisoner.”

Olivia’s hands went to her throat.

“Oh, gad, I’ve frightened you. Don’t worry, if you aren’t dead now, you’ve more than likely nothing to fear.” He swiped his hand through his wayward locks. “Suppose that’s of little comfort either. My wife says I am far too blunt for my own good.” Awkwardly he gestured at a nearby chair. “Please sit down, and I’ll call for some refreshments. You must be famished.”

“Where am I? And who are you?” she asked, still holding onto the partition that divided her small chamber from his vast cabin.

“You’re aboard the
Sybaris,
and I’m her captain, Colin Danvers. At your service.” He bowed low and then crossed the room to the main doorway. “Gavin? Lad, where the devil are you?”

“You’re related to Robert?” she asked.

“Brothers, actually,” he said.

How handy,
she thought. To keep all their nefarious deeds within the family. She wondered what other robbers and thieves and pirates Robert had dangling from his family tree.

“Right here, Cap’n,” a perky young boy said, as he came bustling into the cabin. He turned to Olivia and bobbed a short bow. “Ma’am.”

“Fetch our guest a tray of bread and cheese.” Captain Danvers glanced over his shoulder at her. “Tea, perhaps?” He grinned at her and waggled his brows. “I promise it’s not the same blend as Pymm’s.”