Passion's Tide (40 page)
Authors: Sarah West
Amber
stood staring at the door for a full minute before she found the will to move
.
As if in a daze she shuffled down the stairs
and, eyes unseeing, made her way back to the inn
.
She was oblivious of the strange looks she was receiving, deaf to the voices that called out to her.
Pax was waiting for her outside and instantly was on her, slicing through her b
o
nds and dragging her towards the light to better examine the gash on her forehead
.
“What the hell happened? Where’s Logan?” She pulled herself from his grasp and hugged her arms to her chest, not meeting his gaze. “If you can make it upstairs by yourself I’ll go find Eli.”
She said nothing, but brushed by him and entered the inn, climbing the stairs to her room where she sat in silence
.
When Eli arrived with Pax at his heels, he demanded she tell him what happened
.
“So what, we’re just going to leave him here?” Pax cried in outrage when she had finished her story.
Eli glared at the younger man
.
“Of course we are you bloody idiot,” he said, his hands shaking
,
a distinct British accent creeping into his voice
.
“You heard what happened
.
If we stay they’ll shoot him
.”
“Even if we leave they’re still going to shoot him!”
“No,” Amber whispered
.
“Mendoza wants the money.”
“But he’s our Captain, we ca
n’t abandon him here.”
“You have no choice, Pax, and in his absence
I’m
Captain
.
I need you to get Anton and have him fi
nd Deacon
.
Tell him not to waste time trying to rouse him if he is still unconscious, just get him to the beach
.
Then round up everyone else
.
We are leaving in one hour.”
“But Eli—”
“Don’t question me, boy
.
Just go.”
Amber was aware of Eli as he sat be
side her on the edge of the bed
.
“What did he say to you?” She shook her head, but squeezed her arm and turned her face towards his
.
“I know you’re in shock right now, but it’s crucial that you tell me again everything as it happened, sparing no detail,
especially what he said.”
She took a deep breath and recounted her entire evening in full, struggling to speak of their
capture and his surrender
.
When she was done Eli leaned back
.
“
Ego mos reperio vos
.
What is that, Latin?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you say you spoke Latin? On the boat ride here you said you spoke Spanish, French and Latin
.
Can you translate it?”
“I’m
not sure…”
“Sweetheart, please try.”
She moved beyond the crippling fear to search through the haze of her memory, trying to recall her classics lessons from years before
.
“Well, ego means I, and I think vos means you.”
“So Logan is giving you a message. I know this is difficult for you, but keep going
.
What about mos reperio?”
“Reperio means…to find? And mos may translate to will, but I’m not certain.”
“Ego mos reperio vos…I will find you?” His face lit up
.
“Amber, that’s brilliant, it means he has a plan to escape! But, wait, why are you crying?”
“It’s all my fault,” she sputtered through her tears
.
“If I hadn’t demanded to help, if I
hadn’t been so stubborn
, insisting I could
take care of myself
,
he’d still be here
.
If I hadn’t messed up my one job he wouldn’t have had to surrender himself.”
“Stop it.”
“One simple job and I couldn’t even do that properly—”
“I said stop it!” Eli roared as he lurched to his feet, his face contorted in anger
.
“Stop everything; stop speculating about what might have been, stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop claiming responsibility
.
It’s not your fault.” He ran a trembling hand t
hrough his hair, his voice quieting
.
“Mendoza was smarter than any of us gave him credit for
;
i
t’s likely he’d have seen through any trap we l
aid
for him
.
It’s unfortunate, but what Logan did was brave and he did it so that we could escape, and get yo
u safely to England.”
“England,” she repeated numbly, “right.”
“Come,” he said, offering her his hand and pulling her off the bed
.
“I need you to pack up everything and be ready to go in twenty minutes, can you do that for me?” She nodded. “Good girl.”
He watched her from the doorway as she began folding Logan’s clothes, laying them in a pile on
the dresser, her face
void of expression.
When he returned she was ready with everything all tied up in a neat satchel, her wound cleaned and dressed
.
Silently s
he
followed him through the streets and down the narrow path between the cliffs onto the beach, where there were two boats waiting. The rest of the men were already throwing the last of their things inside
.
Amber ignored Anton’s sympa
thetic smile and outstretched hand and climbed into the boat, clutching her satchel tight against her chest.
The sun was rising over the horizon as they pulled alongside the
Imperial Shadow
, but she took no notice of it. As soon as the ladder was dropped over the side of the ship she raced up it, throwing herself onto the deck
.
The expect
ant faces of the crew, who were no doubt awaiting victorious news, were too much for her to bear
.
She waved away their questions as she ran into Logan’s empty cabin, slamming the door shut behind her and crumpling to the floor in a heap of rose silk
.
With frantic hands she began tearing at her dress, but found to her dismay that the seams were firm and unaffected by her clawing nails
.
The weight pressing into her thigh
reminded her of the knife that was still strapped to her leg, and without hesitation she pulled it from its sheath and cut herself from the restrictive garment.
As she stared at the wrinkled pink gown in her hands she felt remorse for her hasty actions
.
Lifting it and examining it in the early morning sun’s rays, she found that the only damage was in places that could be easily mended
.
With care she folded it and laid it on the top of her trunk, and climbed into the wide bed
.
Logan’s familiar scent wafted towards her as her head dropped onto his pillow
.
To prevent any more tears she ripped the pillow from under her and held it at arms length, ready to fling it across the room
.
But she thought better of it and hugged it against her body, falling into
a dreamless sleep.
She spent the rest of the journey in a detached sta
te of wakefulness, rising at noon to wander around the ship aimlessly, usually ending up perched on the main topsail yard, watching the ocean roll past them
.
She
exchanged
very few words with the men
.
She imagined their expressions of sadness and compassion to be accusatory, and brushed off attempts at conversation
for
fear of their scorn
.
Eli had again tried to reassure her, to tell her that no one held her responsible for
the circumstances and that Logan would find a way to escape, but
it was all in vain.
She was blankly staring at the page of a book when there was a knock at the door of Logan’s cabin, a week into the journey
.
“Just leave it on the table Anton, thank you.”
“I was hoping I could join you tonight, and talk.”
She closed
her book at the sound of Eli’s voice
.
“I’m not in much of a mood for talking,” she confessed, but gestured for him to join her anyway.
“How are you?” She shot him a dark look as she reached for a roll
.
“Fine, stupid question
.
How about you tell me your plans upon arriving in England instead?”
“I am going to find my uncle and stay with him.”
“And then?”
She shrugged. “I’ll get married.”
Pity crossed his handsome face
.
“So you’re still set up
on this silly notion?”
Her hand gripped the fork
.
“I have to, nothing has changed
.
I’m required to marry someone, or risk losing everything my mother worked so hard for.”
“So
, you’re just going to marry the first Prince or Duke who proposes?”
“I don’t know about a Prince, but essentially, yes,” she replied in an empty voice.
“What about courtship? What about compatibility? Hell, what about love?” He watched the color drain from her face
.
“Oh Amber,” he sighed, “you really did love the bastard, di
dn’t you?”
“Don’t talk about him as if he’s alrea
dy dead,” she choked.
He walked around the table and knelt beside her, cupping her shaking hands between his own
.
“Of course he’s not dead
.
That man has escaped from stickier situations hundreds of times
before
.
He’s probably on a ship right now, just a few days behind us.” His face did not confirm his belief.
She shook her head
.
“Even if that were
so
, which I doubt it is, I would still be in this predicament.” Eli chewed on his lower lip and stayed silent
.
“Please, can we not talk about him anymore? Maybe in a year or two once I’m happily married with several children, you can stop by for tea and we will laugh about that time I wore breeches and learned to fight and fell in love with a
pirate Captain.”
“I doubt they would let so
meone like me into the drawing room of someone like you,” he mused as he walked back to his own chair
.
“But if I may, I’d like to talk about the protocol of your arrival in England
.
We can’t exactly pull up to the p
ier in the Thames, Jolly Roger flying and deposit a girl of some nobility
who
we kidnapped two months ago.”
“I can see why you’d wish to avoid that.”
“We can slip in relatively undetected in the middle of the night and bring you ashore, but we won’t be able to stick around to make sure you get settled
.
And it’s probably for the best that you don’t mention any of our names, or the ship at all.”
“How shall I account for my delay?”
“I’ve been thinking about that
.
Suppose you say that the ship you starte
d out on, what was the name?”
“
The
Queen Charlotte
.”
“Right, suppose it got caught in a storm and had to pull into the nearest port for several weeks to repair
.
Once you realized it was going to take longer than expected, you began to look for another shi
p
.
You found a large merchant vessel that agreed to take you on, but England was only one of several stops
.
That would explain why you’re so late arriving, and why your family would not be able to personally thank the crew that brought you here safely.”
“Sounds like a well thoug
ht out excuse.”
“Do you think you’d be able to lie to your family?
“Of course
.
If I can muster up the fake enthusiasm to search for a husband,
I can easily withhold the details of my association with el Tigre and his vicious crew.”
Eli smile
d and leaned over the table to give her a quick kiss on the cheek
.
“You’re the strongest female I’ve ever had the fortune to meet.” He gathered the plates and headed to the door
.
“We should be arriving in three days time
.
W
ill you be ready to disembark by then?” She nodded
.
“Well then, goodnight.”
As he shut the door behind him, she turned to look around the cabin
.
Each fight, each confrontation, each bout of passion that had taken place in this room came flooding back to he
r
.
So many memories, more good than bad, so many experiences with Logan on this ship that they defined her
.
She had been exposed to adventure, ecstasy and love, and now she had to bottle everything up inside and put on a mask of indifference
.
Pretend
she h
adn’t changed
.
It would be difficult, painfully so, but she would do it
.
She had known from the start that she would have to.
True, she had flirted with fantasies, foolish plans constructed by her heart
.
But even if Logan had admitted his love
for her
, asked her to marry him, she would have to say no
.
And it would likely kill her
.
So perhaps this was for the best, she tried to reassure herself
.
With Logan gone, she would be able to put her feelings aside and begin forgetting him, a
s impossible as that looked right now.
Too wound up to sleep, she threw open her trunks and began folding and organizing her things
.
As she turned up the lamp a flash caught her eye and she looked down at the ring on her finger
.
It hit her suddenly, a c
old vice squeezing her heart until she fought to breathe
.
She slid it off
.
With the band l
ying flat in her palm, her other hand groped the table behind her for the lamp, her fingers wrapping around the handle and lifting it to illuminate the
ring
.
She
couldn’t wear this; she was looking to find a husband, not appear as if she already had one. Her brain urged her body to throw it into the corner of the room, toss it under the bed, but it wouldn’t respond
.
Instead, she stood with the lantern and pushed o
pen the door.
Avoiding the crew, she descended into the hold where she used the lamp to light a pathway through the maze of crates. Weaving her way among them and stopping occasionally to check their contents, she finally
halted
in front o
f one that looked familiar
.
Prying off the lid and
dropping
it to the side, she began sifting through the sparkling gems and strands of pearls, blind to the worth of each expensive piece of jewelry that passed through her hands.
She located a black velvet pouch
.
Untying the drawstring she poured the contents into her hand, the
ball of
tangled snakelike
gold chains cool in her palm
.
She went to work untangling them, examining each one before slipping it back into the bag
.
She freed a thin, rope
chain from the mess and held it up
.
It was much more delicate and feminine than the others, but when she pulled on it she found it was surprisingly strong
.
He fingers fumbled with the small clasp, eventually freeing it and threading the chain through th
e center of the ring
.
Then she hung it around her neck.
The ring was hidden beneath her clothes so that no one would
know she was wearing it
.
She replaced the rest of the jewelry into the crate and was positioning the lid when she heard a noise behi
nd her and turned
.
Puck was sprawled on his back, his too-large paws swiping at a silver chain that had fallen from the box
.
She scooped the kitten
up
and held him tight, his surprised mew turning into a content purr
.
The cat still in her arm
s, she finished putting everything away and returned to her cabin
.
She dropped Puck onto the bed where he kneaded the soft pillow, his rumbling purr still reverberating through his small body
.
She smiled for the first time in a week
.
After slipping off
her dress, she crawled
into bed
beside the cat and moved him over so that she could lay her head on the pillow that still smelled like Logan
.
The purring lulled her to sleep.
