Tears of Gold (43 page)

Mara glared at the self-assured Jamie. “Perhaps, Mistress Jameson, since ye’ve such a likin’ for the man, you should be sharing his bunk instead of me,” she recommended. Jamie’s wizened face turned beet red with embarrassment.

“Well, I never!” Jamie sputtered. “I can see that someone’s goin’ to have to teach ye to curb that wicked tongue of yours,” Jamie warned. “Ye’ve got the worst of your mama in ye, God rest her soul. She could cut loose with a phrase or two that’d have ye reelin’ with the shock of it.”

“But I don’t intend to follow in her footsteps, Jamie,” Mara told her, feeling a momentary flicker of fear at the memory of Maud.

“Ye won’t,” Jamie said with assurance. “Ye be stronger than Maudie ever was.”

Mara stared at the little woman and wondered if it were true. At one time she might arrogantly have thought so, but where Nicholas was concerned, she was pitifully weak. If he only knew how vulnerable she really was. Then there would be no contest of wills.

“Mara!” Paddy said again as he tried to attract her attention. “Will you play soldiers with me?” he asked hesitantly, jealous of all this talk about the big man who was taking up all of Mara’s time.

Mara smiled as she sat down on the edge of the bunk. “Which am I, the French or the British?”

“The French, of course,” Paddy replied happily now that he had captured Mara’s full attention. Soon her men would be his as well, for the English always won in battle, and his side always flew the English flag. Their first week out at sea stretched into a second and then into a third as they sailed southward toward the tip of South America and the passage around Cape Horn that Mara dreaded even worse than the first time, for now she knew what she could expect with stormy sea and weather, but she was less certain what to expect from Nicholas, even though he left her to sleep undisturbed beside him night after night. The only contact between them was the kiss she bestowed upon him each time he helped her to dress, although of late the last kiss of the day when she was unhooked from her gown before climbing into the bunk had evolved into something more than a kiss as Nicholas held her without the barrier of her many petticoats between them, his mouth caressing hers with such tantalizing sensuousness that she felt herself drifting against him, with only an awareness of Nicholas filling her senses as she allowed him to mold her closer to his muscled chest, her soft breasts pressing against his flesh as his lips devoured hers.

As their first month at sea came to a close, Mara realized that it was truly no ephemeral attraction she felt for Nicholas Chantale. She had fallen irrevocably in love with the dark Creole. It was a love deeper than mere physical lust and appreciation of his handsome features. As the weeks of confinement lengthened, so did the time spent together, and gradually Mara came to know the man Nicholas was. That was what finally captured her heart, along with his determined effort to befriend Paddy.

Nicholas had surprised her by his sincere attempts to include Paddy in their activities. At first his moves toward friendship had been met with total rejection, as Paddy eyed this rival for the attentions of his beloved Mara with a deep wariness. But a lonely little boy of seven was no match for a charming, experienced man almost thirty years his senior, and soon Nicholas had Paddy hanging on his every word as he told him tall tales about fierce alligators in the deep water of the swamps, of fishing along the banks of the Mississippi River for catfish, and of poling into the backwater of the bayous as they hunted crawfish. Nicholas even managed once to almost change history as his Napoleon came close to beating Paddy’s Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo played out in deadly seriousness on a mock battlefield on Paddy’s bunk.

By showing just a little bit of attention and interest in Paddy, Nicholas had made an easy conquest of Paddy’s hero-starved imagination. Brendan had only felt like playing the father when the mood suited him. He had loved Paddy, but he’d been too absorbed in himself to take much time with him. And as Nicholas gave of himself to Paddy, Mara fell more hopelessly in love with him. Here was a man who would accept Paddy as his own, making a home for both of them. Mara suddenly felt envious of the easy affection that now existed between Nicholas and Paddy. She wished it could be as simple between them.

One stormy afternoon Mara was trying to decide whether to lay down the ace or the queen, Nicholas having already won the last couple of hands, when she stopped and sat as if turned to stone. Nicholas looked up, staring at the strange look on her face.

As Mara continued to hear the faint notes drifting to her from the corridor outside their cabin, she got slowly to her feet. “But he’s dead,” Mara whispered brokenly, her composure falling from her as Nicholas watched in fascination. The haughty demeanor disappeared as her shoulders slumped tiredly. “Brendan,” Nicholas heard Mara mumble as she stood dazed, her eyes focused on something beyond him and the cabin. “He always hated the sea. He used to laugh and say it was strange that he should be named after St. Brendan the Navigator. He used to play his fiddle when it became too much for him,” Mara remembered aloud. When the notes from the fiddle became louder so that even Nicholas heard them, Mara put her hands over her ears. Finally she ran from the cabin.

Mara followed the music down the passageway. Opening the door to the cabin, she stared in disbelief at the fiddler. Not Brendan. But the fiddler had the same dark reddish brown curls and laughing eyes. Paddy! He was playing Brendan’s fiddle. Mara had forgotten all about Brendan’s sole legacy to his son—his prized fiddle.

Paddy glanced up as he felt the eyes on him, his dimple deepening as he saw Mara standing in the doorway.

“I surprised you, didn’t I?” Paddy laughed.

“I didn’t know you knew how to play, Paddy,” Mara said huskily.

“Papa taught me. Well, he let me play his fiddle sometimes and I just remembered from watching him,” Paddy explained proudly, unaware of the fright he had given Mara, or of the memories conjured in her mind as he played with the same natural gift that Brendan had had.

Mara felt a hand slide along her shoulders and glanced around to see Nicholas standing behind her in the doorway, his eyes soft with compassion as he pulled her gently against his chest.

“Brendan played the fiddle so beautifully,” Mara whispered.

“I know. I remember hearing him play once,” Nicholas answered simply, knowing there were no words of comfort he could offer.

Mara spent the rest of the dismal day in a brooding silence that matched the weather. Thunderclouds piled high across the horizon, promising rougher seas ahead. She was almost relieved to be able to lose herself in sleep after she crawled under the cold, damp blankets later that evening.

It felt like she’d only just closed her eyes when the ship seemed to drop into an endless pit, and Mara woke up reaching out for support. Coming in contact with Nicholas’s warm chest she fell against him in rising terror.

“Nicholas!” Mara cried.

Nicholas’s comforting arms closed around Mara as she pressed against him, but she couldn’t get close enough to him, the bolster blocking any movement she made to feel the warmth of his body. “Hold me close, Nicholas.”

Swearing beneath his breath, Nicholas yanked the rolled-up blanket from between them and tossed it across the cabin. He pulled Mara against him, warming her shivering body with his. Mara could hear his heart beating under her ear as she rested her head against his chest.

“It feels as if we’re going to sink,” she whispered as the ship rode precariously to the crest of a huge wave.

Nicholas’s hand rubbed her shoulder and back with a soothing motion that began to relax the taut muscles as he said softly, “You don’t really think I’m going to allow this ship to sink now that I’ve finally gotten that damned bolster out of our bed?”

Mara snuggled against him, pressing her cold nose into the warmth of his throat. “Your nose is like ice,” Nicholas complained as he rubbed his cheek against hers. And then, in the darkness, their lips met and clung, and parted only to return.

Nicholas’s hands began to slowly search the concealing folds of her nightgown, finding the soft swell of breast, the nipple beneath rising hard with excitement as his other hand slid the material over her thighs until her hips were bare against his. His hard, muscular thighs moved against hers. Cold was no longer the cause of Mara’s shivering, her flesh now burning where it came into contact with his as his hands explored with leisurely thoroughness the alluring curves of her body.

As the violence of the tempest raged outside with turbulent seas and shrieking winds, Mara gave herself up to the wildfire sweetness of Nicholas’s lovemaking. She lay beneath his warm body as he once again filled her with an exquisite pulsating hardness as he became a part of her, knowing her with such intimate knowledge that he could control her pleasure with his movements inside of her until she thought she would burst with the pure joy and rapture of it. To be one with him again was worth the despair she would ultimately feel on the morrow, Mara thought feverishly as she returned his kisses with such unrestrained and natural eagerness that it surprised Nicholas as well as inflamed his desire to know every soft, fragrant inch of her beautiful body.

But for now he was content with the softness of her parted lips as his tongue moved against hers with velvety sinuousness. He gave Mara no opportunity for words as she began to speak, keeping her lips beneath his and her thoughts solely concerned with responding to his next arousing caress, the fury of the storm forgotten and fading into insignificance under the onslaught of emotion generated by Nicholas’s fierce, all-devouring passion.

***

Mara slept, waking only when the feel of the ship changed as it gently rocked on a tranquil sea, the violence of the squall having abated sometime before dawn. Mara yawned and stretched, her elbow coming in contact with a firmly muscled chest and reminding her of the night past. Mara stared at Nicholas’s face, the hardness of his expression softened in repose. Unobserved, she allowed the truth of her feelings for him to be revealed on her face. Mara’s golden eyes captured for memory every endearing feature of his face, from the dark lock of hair that had fallen across his brow, to the beautifully chiseled lips that had kissed hers so hungrily only hours before. She laid her cheek against his chest, the thick covering of black hair tickling her nose as she gazed at the rest of his naked body, her hand straying across the taut, flat belly while her eyes followed the line of his thigh, the powerful muscles hardened from years of vigorous physical activity that went beyond mere horseback riding. Mara cursed that he should be so devilishly handsome, and that she was so desperately in love with him.

Two hard arms wrapped themselves around her, and then she was on her back, staring up into Nicholas’s bright green eyes that reflected a warm lustfulness as they roamed across her face and down to her rounded breasts.

“Nicholas, please, I must talk with you,” Mara said softly as she avoided his searching lips, pressing her hands against his chest as she fought the rush of feelings his touch evoked inside of her.

Nicholas rose, a slight frown marring his brow as he stared down at her withdrawn expression. “Your timing is ill-conceived, for you arouse me with your touch and the feel of your warm body pressed intimately against mine, and then you wish to talk?” he exclaimed softly, not quite believing her words of refusal as he lowered his mouth to hers and began to kiss her with seductive slowness.

“Nicholas,” Mara gasped, pulling her mouth free, her heart pounding erratically. “We need to have an understanding.”

Nicholas sighed and rolled over to his side of the berth and Mara felt like crying out in protest as the contact of his warm body left hers, but she held her tongue, for she had carefully thought out what she must say and she was determined to set things straight between them before any more time passed and she lost her advantage.

“What’s troubling you, Mara?” Nicholas asked. “Are you still fighting the truth, that you and I are attracted to one another and that you have responded naturally to me? There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he told her gently, his hand rubbing her thigh.

“I’m not ashamed,” Mara told him truthfully—for how could she be ashamed of her love for him?

“Then what is bothering you?” he asked curiously. Then, as a sudden thought struck him, he turned to face her, peering into her face. “Oh, I see. You wish to talk of certain financial matters pertaining to our relationship?” Nicholas spoke softly, yet there seemed to be a hard note in his voice as he sat up against the pillows. “It’s hardly in good taste to have broached the subject so soon, and in bed. However…” he paused reflectively.

Mara drew in her breath raggedly and, jerking away from him, sat up. Facing him, she balanced on her knees. “Damn ye, Nicholas Chantale,” Mara spat. “You don’t understand me and you never will. I take nothing from you, no money, no gifts, nothing. You were right, and I am attracted to you. There is no payment due. You insult me by offering it. I’ll not play the whore for you, Nicholas. I never shall. Not for you or any man. I give my body to you because I want to, not because I expect anything in return. I will not be your mistress, you will not be supporting me, Nicholas, and when we tire of each other…I go my way, and you yours. You do not love me, and I,” Mara swallowed painfully, “I do not love you. So do we agree? Once in New Orleans you will have your family to return to and I shall make plans to return to England. I shall be free of any entanglements with you, free to go my own way,” Mara told him bluntly, her chin raised proudly.

Nicholas was quiet for what seemed an endless time. “You are certainly cold about the whole affair,” he finally commented.

“I’m merely being practical,” Mara defended herself, then managed a slight laugh as she added wryly, “for it might prove embarrassing to have me acting the clinging vine and making outrageous demands when you return to New Orleans. How much easier to just bid me adieu.”

Nicholas frowned in the darkness. He had the impression that he was, in some subtle way, being maneuvered by her. Yet, could he really find fault with her reasoning? He never had cared for the breaking off of relationships, finding the angry accusations and tearful pleadings distasteful. But Mara O’Flynn was a woman of surprises. He didn’t, however, like having his life arranged for him, and this arrogant Irishwoman was definitely trying to guide their relationship along the lines she desired.