Savannah Heat (26 page)

As the ship sliced through the water beneath a waning moon, the hour grew late, but Silver felt reluctant to go below. She hadn’t slept well for the past three nights; tonight would be no different. Instead she let Connie guide her toward the bow of the boat, her thoughts disjointed, her mind someplace else. She didn’t notice until too late that he had led her behind the small white deckhouse that held the cooperage.

“Silver,” he whispered, just before he lowered his head and kissed her. Though she tried to turn away, his wide mouth covered her lips and his tongue slid forcefully between her teeth.

Silver broke away. “Stop it, Connie, this is hardly the place.” She pressed her hands against his chest and tried to wedge some space between them, but the colonel only tightened his hold.

“If you would only give me a chance.” He pressed her back to the rough wooden wall and kissed her, his lips hard against hers, his tongue possessive and not the least bit thrilling.

When he wouldn’t let go, Silver’s hands balled into fists against his chest in angry protest, but before she had a chance to break free and deliver her assault, she heard footfalls ringing behind them, then the sound of Morgan’s voice sliced bitterly through the still night air.

“So, Her Ladyship has snared fresh game,” he taunted, his voice cold and mocking.

Silver tore away from Buckland’s grasp and whirled to face him, her breasts rising and falling
with her rapidly speeding heart. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means as soon as I stop chasing after you, you set your sights on something bigger. I should have guessed a colonel would be more to your liking than a major.”

“See here, Trask—” Buckland cut in.

“Are you saying this is my idea?” Silver raged, as if the colonel hadn’t spoken.

“You’re a woman, aren’t you?”

“Damn you!”

“Watch out, Salena, you wouldn’t want the colonel to see that nasty temper of yours.”

“Why, you—” Silver swung at him and missed. Her petticoats caught between the colonel’s long legs, and only his arm around her waist kept her from falling.

Morgan just laughed. Turning on his heel, he started walking away. “Enjoy your evening, Colonel,” he called back over one wide shoulder.

Silver wanted to kill him. Instead she turned the force of her fury on Constantine Buckland, bringing her palm across his cheek in a stinging blow that nearly flattened him. Hoisting her rose batiste skirts, she stormed away, leaving him staring after her.

Silver marched across the deck, descended the ladder into the main salon, and pulled open the door to Morgan’s cabin. Knowing he wouldn’t be there, she entered her tiny steward’s quarters and began to unfasten her clothes. As mad as she was, she nearly tore off the dainty cloth-covered buttons in her furious effort to loose them. Though her hands still shook, eventually she accomplished the task, shed her petticoats, pantalets, and chemise, and pulled on her nightgown. At the sound of Sogger’s familiar
mewing outside her door, she opened it and let the mangy cat inside to join her.

“He’s a real bastard,” she pronounced, scooping the furry feline into her arms and stroking his pitiful orange-striped fur. “How could I possibly care about a man like that?”

When Sogger didn’t answer, Silver sighed and sank down on the berth.
Why does he always think the worst of me
? she asked herself, not for the first time. Then she thought of her own opinion of the opposite sex, which, except for Quako, and until she’d met Morgan, hadn’t been one whit better.

Determined to get some sleep and knowing the odds were against it, Silver slid beneath the covers and punched her pillow, trying to get comfortable. But she didn’t fall asleep until she heard Morgan’s heavy footfalls on the other side of the door.

“Hey, Jordy!” Farley Weathers’s harsh whisper rasped across the quiet deck. Though the hour was late, he and Dickey Green were still awake. They had spotted Jordy making a trip to the rail to relieve himself in the darkness. Along with the marines and mercenaries who crowded the ship, Jordy had slept on deck every night since the
Savannah
had sailed from Barbados.

Jordy finished his task and sauntered over to join them. “What’s up, Stormy?”

In the moonlight overhead, the brawny man’s eyes gleamed dark and forbidding below his thatch of bright red hair. “Me and Dickey was just thinkin’ … we seen that gal—that friend o’ yours—on a poster back in Bridgetown. Her daddy’s offering a big reward to fetch her home. We figured maybe, when this trip is done, we oughta do the fetchin’ and
claim the reward. You bein’ her friend and all, she’d go wherever you took her. It’d be real easy.”

Jordy shifted uncomfortably and squatted down on the deck beside the men. “Ain’t no reward left to claim. Cap’n’s already been to Katonga. Picked up the gold for Ferdinand Pinkard—he’s the fella that found her.”

Stormy Weathers grunted. “Knew it sounded too good to be true.”

“Wait a minute, Stormy,” Dickey Green put in. He was a skinny little Englishman with frazzled mouse brown hair that didn’t quite cover his egg-shaped head. “If Trask has the money, that just makes things easier. We’ll pocket the coin and leave off the ship as soon as we reach Campeche.”

Jordy felt the blood drain from his face. “You’re not meanin’ to steal it from the cap’n?”

Stormy chuckled. “No, we ain’t. You’re gonna do it for us.”

Jordy shook his head and started to stand up. Weathers caught his arm, his grip so hard Jordy winced.

“You been tellin’ us how you had no place to go when this trip was ended,” Weathers reminded him. “You said you’d be left on your own. Well, this here money’ll give you a way to fend fer yourself.”

“I won’t do it,” Jordy said, vehemently shaking his head.

Weathers’s voice turned hard. “You will do it, you little bilge rat, or you won’t live till the end of this voyage.” His free hand disappeared inside the pocket of his canvas trousers. Jordy caught the flash of silver as the blade of his knife gleamed in the light of the moon. “Do I make myself clear?”

Jordy swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Good.” He folded the knife and stuffed it back in his pants. “Now where’s the major keep it?”

“How should I know?”

Weathers’s hand snaked out once more, grasped Jordy’s shirt near his throat, and jerked him to within inches of the thick-lipped mercenary’s face. With his weather-roughened skin and cold, dark, heavy-lidded eyes, his expression looked demonic.

“You know ’cause you’re his cabin boy. You do all the cleanin’ and straightenin’.”

Jordy felt the heat of the man’s massive fist beneath his chin. One powerful blow, and he’d be a dead man. “He keeps it in his sea chest,” Jordy croaked to appease him, looking for a chance to escape. Weathers slowly released him, brushing imaginary wrinkles from the front of Jordy’s shirt.

He waited until Weathers removed his hand. “But I ain’t stealin’ it, no matter what you do to me!” With that he sprang to his feet and darted away, scurrying across the deck as if the hounds of hell dogged his heels.

Weathers just chuckled. “Don’t make a damn. Now that we know where it’s hid, we’ll do it ourselves. Kid would prob’ly just get caught anyhow.”

“Ye don’t think he’ll talk, do ye?”

“Nah. Kid’s hung up on bein’ a man. He wouldn’t sell out a shipmate if they cut his heart out.”

Dickey Green smiled, his narrow face nearly splitting in two. “Always wanted a trip to ol’ Me-hi-co,” he said, imitating the Spanish pronunciation. “Hear tell a bloke can live like a king for just a few shillings.”

“Gonna git me one o’ them luscious senoritas.” Weathers lay back on his bedroll and shoved his hands beneath his head. “Gonna keep her flat on her back until I use her up.”

“Too bad we couldn’t take that little silver-haired mort along—bet she could warm a man’s bed with the best o’ ’em.”

“Too risky,” Weathers said. “Major’s got the hots for that little piece of fluff. He’ll be riled enough we take off with his money. We take his woman, he’ll track us to the ends of the earth.”

Dickey Green just laughed. “A dark-haired wench suits me fine. When do we steal the gold?”

Two days passed, Silver and Morgan coolly civil at best. Every time he looked in her direction, she could have sworn he mocked her.
Fine
, she thought,
if he wants to think the worst, then let him
.

Still, his hard looks bothered her, and she found it difficult to sleep. Already there were smudges beneath her eyes, and her loss of appetite was beginning to take its toll. She would get some rest tonight, she vowed, Morgan or no.

To ensure the fact, Silver downed several snifters of brandy after supper, enjoying the relaxing warmth and the sleepiness it invoked. She refused to think of Morgan Trask for a single moment more. She would sleep the sleep of the innocent, which, as far as Silver was concerned, was exactly what she was.

As she hoped, the liquor numbed her senses, dulling her thoughts and making her drowsy. She fell asleep soon after she reached her cabin, just minutes after she undressed and lay down on her berth. Tonight she didn’t toss and turn, just enjoyed the deep, drugging sleep that held her captive, giving her body a long-needed rest.

It wasn’t until the hours just before dawn that she stirred. She was dreaming, some distant part of her knew, an ugly nightmare that had plagued her several times before. She wanted to pull her eyes open,
end the terrible visions that haunted from the edges of her mind, but she was just too groggy.

Instead she fell deeper under the spell, swept up in a cross between memory and fiction until the terror in the nightmare seemed as real as any she had known.

She heard the rending of her nightgown, felt the warm, moist fingers skimming over her flesh. A hand surrounded her throat, cutting off her air supply, silencing her scream, and pinning her to the bed. Though her vision dimmed and blackness hovered near the edge of her consciousness, she could see his harsh features, the heated look in his cold black eyes.

It was her father—but it couldn’t be! She didn’t know this man who acted like a stranger. This horrible man whose moist hands stroked her flesh, bringing the bile to her throat. Silver jerked her arm free and clawed at his face, her nails scraping skin and drawing blood. If only she could loosen his hold on her throat, if only she could—

She didn’t realize she was screaming until Morgan burst into the room, the small door slamming against the bulkhead as he rushed in. He stood beside her in an instant, knelt, and drew her into his arms.

“It’s all right, Silver,” he soothed, “it’s all right. You’re only having a nightmare.” Brushing damp tendrils of hair from her face, he cradled her head against his chest.

Silver clawed her way to the surface of consciousness, blinking frantically and trying to clear her muddled thoughts. She noticed Morgan’s jaw was set, and tiny lines of worry creased his brow. They eased when she looked up at him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, awake at last and feeling just as foolish as the major surely believed. She
noticed he wore only his breeches; his bare chest felt hard where it pressed against her cheek, and his dark blond, sleep-tousled hair curled softly at the nape of his neck. Silver felt the urge to slide her fingers through the glistening strands.

Morgan was looking at her as if his thoughts were much the same. He started to speak when a determined rap at his door drew their attention. Morgan set her away with a determined gesture and went to assure the men who had heard her screams that she was all right.

Shivering against the chill she’d begun to feel, Silver heard him close his cabin door and wondered if he would return to her tiny steward’s room. Not that she wanted him to, she assured herself. After the way he had treated her, she wanted nothing more to do with him. Still, she couldn’t forget the gentle way he had held her.

“Are you all right?” Morgan asked from the open doorway between their two cabins.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” she said. “I’m sorry for making such a commotion.”

His eyes raked her, assessing the curves of her body beneath the thin white cotton nightgown. His tender expression had faded, and a hard look gathered in his eyes.

“There seem to be an endless number of things you don’t mean to do, Silver. You didn’t mean to get kidnapped at the White Horse Inn; you didn’t mean to stow aboard my ship; you didn’t mean to make love to me; you didn’t mean to kiss Colonel Buckland—”

“You’re wrong, Major,” Silver said with a defiant tilt of her chin. “I meant to make love to you. And I’m not one bit sorry!” With that she slammed the door.

Bloody hell! As he swore in frustration, Morgan’s hands balled into fists. The woman was driving him crazy. He knew what she’d been dreaming—he had seen the anguish on her face, the way her hands clawed the air, doing battle with her imaginary attacker.

He couldn’t help feeling sorry for her though he damned well shouldn’t. Why did she have to look so alone, so afraid? Why did he have to see her in her nightgown, her hair tumbled loose around her shoulders?

Why did she have to look so damned beautiful?

For days after they had made love, he’d done nothing but think about her. At night it had been nearly impossible for him to fall asleep. But he wasn’t about to bed her again—not after the way she had scorned him.

The willful little baggage had all but thrown his offer of marriage back in his face. Any other woman would have been flattered, would have done handstands to snare a catch like him. Any woman but Silver. On top of that there was William to consider. What the hell would William say if he returned Silver to Katonga and three months later she wound up carrying his child?

Morgan moved to his carved oak desk and poured himself a brandy. Without bothering to warm it between his palms, he brought it to his lips and tossed it back. The fiery liquid jolted his insides but soon began to relax him. A second shot eased some of the tension from his shoulders. He wished it could ease the heavy ache he was feeling lower down.

Morgan cursed Silver for the tenth time that day. He had to admit he’d been surprised to find her kissing Buckland. Only days ago she’d been an innocent—curious yet frightened by the passions of a man.