The Pirate and the Puritan (20 page)

She rubbed a small piece of soap
against the washcloth until foam appeared. Her movements were stiff, as if she
struggled for control. She circled behind him and began to gently wipe the
blood from his upper arm.

“Don’t do this,” he snapped. The
strong scent of rose and sandalwood crept from the soapy water, reminding him
of the moment he’d found Felicity draped in the ruby-silk robe. He should yell
at her for even thinking of dousing him with the fragrant lather, but alluding
to the scent would give the memory too much power. It was like a bruise too
painful to touch.

She continued cleaning his arm
with long, gentle strokes. “I want to help you. I need to make up for the way
I’ve treated you. I want you to know—”

“You’re wiping another man’s
blood from my body. I’m no saint. Anything I’ve gotten from you, I deserved.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose to keep from saying more until he found the
right words. When he brought away his hand, he realized his fingers were still
covered in blood.

She rinsed the cloth in the
basin, then dabbed away the smudges left by his touch. “Hear me out, Drew. I
misjudged you from the very first moment we met. I only saw exactly what you
wanted everyone to see.”

He leered up at her. All he had
to do to make her hate him was be himself. Apparently that was enough for his
own father. “And you know better, sweeting? I’ve lured many a good woman into
my bed on the ruse of letting her save my black soul. Is that what you had in
mind?”

She threw down the rag, sending
water splashing over the edge of the basin. “Certainly not.”

To get a better view, he leaned
back in his chair. Her angry eyes shone like sunlit moss. How could he have
ever found her fiery features cold?

While she silently fumed, he used
his cupped hands to pour water over his chest and arms.

“You’re making a mess.” She
grabbed the cloth and wiped away the pink streaks left by his hurried effort.

He brushed her hand away. “It’s a
ship, Felicity. A little water isn’t going to hurt anything.”

She persisted despite his
not-so-gentle hints to leave him alone. He noted the tilt of her chin, a sign
he’d come to interpret as a prelude to battle. When he was drunk enough to
deliver his news, the row they’d have was sure to rival anything in the past.

She dried him with quick, rough
strokes. “I know what you’re doing. You’re not going to stop me from saying
what I want to say.”

He almost laughed. “Has anyone
ever accomplished that feat, Miss Kendall?”

She looked him over. When she
appeared satisfied, she placed the soiled rag in the pink-tinged water. After
sitting down beside him, she focused all her attention on his face. The
intensity of her gaze pulled him to her. He met her smoky eyes, something he’d
been trying to avoid since entering the cabin.

“As I said, I misjudged you.” She
held up her hand when he tried to interrupt. “It doesn’t matter what name
you’re using or who you’re pretending to be. There is a man underneath all that
who didn’t deserve the horrible accusations I made.”

He laughed, though the irony of
her words left him with the feeling he’d swallowed an anchor rather than
anything resembling amusement. “Oh, there are a few things I could say to
change your mind.”

She smiled and shook her head. It
was a closemouthed grin, a gesture of confidence. “You’ve said things that
should have irrevocably condemned you in my mind, but nothing has. And I have
tried to persuade myself. I hate to be wrong.”

“Felicity, you’re not wrong.
Trust your first instinct.”

“I am trusting my instincts, and
it’s the first time I’ve truly done so in years.” She gently placed her hand
over his clenched one. “Children don’t lie. They aren’t clouded with notions of
how people should be. The way Hugh looks at you...”

He couldn’t stand another moment
of her regaling him with praise for his good nature. “Felicity, your father’s
in jail. The Barbadian government believes he’s my accomplice.”

When she snatched her hand away
from his, an Atlantic wind blew through his hollow chest. He hadn’t meant to
say it so bluntly, but now that it was out in the open, he was glad. Let her
hate him for what he’d done to her father. Maybe her animosity would relieve
some of his own self-loathing at the thought of Ben rotting in a jail cell
while Drew tried to seduce his only daughter.

She flattened her palm against
her chest. “I don’t understand. How could you know this?”

“The ship we just took was the
Carolina
.
She brought the news.”

“That can’t be.” Her features
wavered between disbelief and horror. “Surely no one would believe my father a
pirate.”

He topped off the brandy in the
tankard and pushed it her way. “Drink. It gets worse.” To his surprise, she
took a large swig and hardly grimaced before she swallowed another. “All your
father’s ships have been seized. Captain McCulla was lucky enough to gain use
of one in order to hunt me down. They believe Ben and I had something to do
with Marley’s death.”

“That’s ridiculous. A pirate
killed Marley.” She shook her head, as if trying to clear it. “My father would
never do anything to break the law.”

He’d not tell her of Ben’s
involvement in their scheme to sell pirated goods. At least he could spare her
that. As sharp as she was, Drew found it amazing that she didn’t know how
heavily in debt her father had been when he fled Boston. The fact that she’d
ignored the man’s obvious faults spoke to her capacity for love. Not that Drew
had experienced that kind of unconditional sentiment, or ever would. Still, it
made the world seem less cruel to know it existed.

“My father came to Barbados and
is offering a reward for my capture.” No need to tell her of Marley’s
involvement. She’d never believe Drew hadn’t killed him. Drew wouldn’t believe
it himself.

“How could he do that to you?
What is your crime? Oh. Being his son.”

Drew abruptly stood and paced the
room. The look of compassion on her face proved harder to digest than he’d
anticipated. That she soothed his soul with the very words he’d longed to hear
didn’t help. He strode back to her, leaned one hand on her chair and braced the
other against the table. “I’m a pirate. Remember? Perhaps on your arrival in
Barbados you missed some of my associates’ heads rotting on spikes.”

“But he’s your father. And why is
my father being accused? This isn’t right.”

The tremor in her voice forced
him to straighten abruptly. If she started crying, he’d have no choice but to
leave the room. He couldn’t take much more of these emotions ravaging his
sanity. His heroic sacrifice, giving up Felicity’s seduction in order to tell
her the truth about her father, should have freed him from his guilt. It
hadn’t. Her unhappiness made him even more miserable. Knowing he had
inadvertently caused it cut him until he felt as if he would actually bleed.

Drew sat back in his chair and
gulped brandy from the bottle. He needed fortification in order to stick this
out. Leaving Felicity alone to face her hurt was not an option. To his dismay,
his lowness had limits. With any luck, the brandy’s heat would burn away the
demons of emotion. He’d rather be stinking drunk than feel like this. But first
he had to explain to her why he was such a complete and utter fiend.

“Knowing Ben, he tried to defend
me. Since the Duke of Foxmoor can’t set his hands on me, Ben gets to be the
sacrificial lamb. I suspect they’re hoping I’ll come to his rescue.”

Felicity’s watery gaze hardened.
“Your father wants you dead, doesn’t he?”

“It appears so.” He rubbed his
forehead to avoid looking into her eyes.

She stood. Her angry footsteps told
him she’d taken up pacing where he’d left off. “Those aristocrats think they
can always have their way even if they trample good men in the process. If it
weren’t for their greed, my father would never have had to leave Boston in the
first place. I won’t stand for it anymore.”

His neck ached from watching her
stomp circles around the room. He got up and leaned against the table with his
arms folded across his chest. “What in the hell do you intend to do about it?
Have you forgotten I’m not exactly innocent in all this? Don’t doubt for a
minute I’m a pirate.”

As she swung around to face him,
her skirts swirled about her trim silk-clad ankles. “You were driven to it.
Your father abandoned you. What were you supposed to do, starve? Or worse, stay
an indentured servant? Anyone who cared to know you would realize that would
never suit you. I don’t blame you for escaping.”

Drew tried to maintain his
relaxed stance. Playing the callous bastard worthy of her hatred grew harder
when she appeared not to know her role. She should be railing at him, not
defending him. Though he suspected her tirade had more to do with salving his
hurt feelings over his father’s cruelty than defending his choice to become a
pirate. God bless the female heart.

“Of course I agree with you about
my being driven to a life of crime. Even I’m convinced by your passionate
defense of the good man gone bad, but I don’t follow the rest. The only reason
Ben is in jail is because they can’t get their hands on me.”

She stopped directly in front of
him. Her touch on his cheek forced him to look into her eyes. “We both know the
New England Trading Company barely broke even until you came along. If my
father was a pauper, no one would have looked at him twice.”

He laid his hand on top of hers
and turned his face toward her palm. He shouldn’t touch her, but her initiation
of the contact made it impossible not to respond. “I gained that money
illegally, Felicity. I used your father’s business as a front for selling
stolen goods on Barbados.” He should have told her more, but he couldn’t let
her know of his connection with
El Diablo
. Money might be a strong
enough motivator for Barbados’s current governor, a man infamous for
corruption, to seize Ben’s ships, but the population’s terror of
El Diablo
was
an infinitely more powerful reason to arrest Ben. Especially since
El Diablo
was accused of killing two of their citizens in their own home.

Felicity tucked a lock of hair
behind his ear, forgiving him for things for which he hadn’t asked forgiveness.

“I realize the company’s wealth
came from your stolen goods, but my father didn’t. He’s an honest man. He won’t
survive in prison.”

It took everything in Drew’s
power not to draw her into his arms, quenching his hunger and her fears. He
recognized the vulnerability behind her bravado. He captured her hand and
brought it to his mouth, turning their joined hands to press his lips against
her palm. The callous bastard be damned. He had to reassure her that her father
would be fine, even if he wasn’t sure himself.

“I won’t let Ben stay in jail.”

“If we go to Barbados and
confront this Duke of Fox—whatever, they’ll have to let my father go. You are
his son, after all. That can’t be a crime.”

He flicked his tongue against her
palm, then whispered against her bare wrist. “It’s the Duke of Foxmoor... and I
think impersonating his legitimate son might be a crime. I know piracy is.”

The taste of her undid his good
intentions to make her hate him. He swore he heard her moan softly before she
pulled her wrist away and stepped back. Without hesitation, he let her go.
Thank God she had the sense to pull away. He tried to remember how he had come
to be licking her palm in the first place. His response to her nearness had
taken over his common sense. If she touched him again, he feared he’d be lost.

Felicity folded her arms over her
chest and drew a shaky breath. “I’ll have to go back alone, then. The first
step is to unite the merchant class in my father’s defense. Common citizens
have strength in numbers. When the duke realizes he’s accused a well-respected
member of the community—”

Drew pushed away from the table
and stood before her. “Slow down, my little hurricane. I know Barbados would
never be the same if you unleashed your fury upon its poor souls, but I have to
handle this without your help.”

She touched his shoulders
lightly. He tried not to flinch at the contact on his bare skin. As if she
sensed his unease, she let her hands glide down his arms to grip his hands. Not
better. The draw of her palms along his skin sent a shiver he clamped down on
his jaw to suppress.

“I can’t sit idly by and watch my
father’s life destroyed at the whim of some self-centered aristocrat.”

To break the skin-to-skin
contact, he pulled her against his chest, careful to keep his hands on the
thick layers of her corseted waist.

“Felicity, I don’t want to have
to rescue two Kendalls. Please, do it my way.”

His brotherly hug might have
worked if she hadn’t leaned her curves into him in all the right places. He set
her away from him with teeth-jarring abruptness.

She blinked in surprise. “You
have a plan?”

He tried to think of something to
say to satisfy her, but all he could do was stare at her parted lips. Her
breath came in gusts of sweet scent that fogged his thinking. He had to take
care of this woman, protect her. If he couldn’t save her from himself, he’d
save her from being snared in the web her father had created.

“Trust me,” he whispered, close
enough so she could feel the brush of his words on her wet lips.

The urge to devour her held him
in place. He feared it wouldn’t be a simple kiss, but an all-out assault. His
body wound tight, his control teetered on a fine thread stretched taut. A
damning chant taunted him, reminding him of what he’d caused her father,
binding him from moving. If Felicity had any sense of self-preservation, she’d
stop staring at him through doe-like eyes and remove herself to the other side
of the room.