The Pirate's Jewel (8 page)

“I don’t dictate what society sees as proper. I know life
hasn’t been easy for you, considering your circumstances.” He looked away for a
moment.

Jewel feared he assumed those circumstances were far more compromising
than they had actually been. She squared her shoulders, unable to tolerate pity
from him of all people. “I have the map, Nolan, and with it, I plan to rise
above my circumstances.”

“I hope you see reason by the time we reach Boston. You
can take my cabin for the voyage. Here’s the key. Be sure to keep it locked at
night.” He dropped the brass key in her hand, again without physical contact.

She briefly wished to face his rage rather than his obvious
dismissal. “I’m not giving you the map, and to get me to set foot on shore you’ll
have to drag me kicking and screaming.”

“If that’s your choice,” he said.

His calm demeanor only increased her anger and
determination to make him see reason. “None of this is my choice! You know damn
well what I would choose.” Her raised voice along with a curse tossed in for
good measure didn’t even cause him to blink.

“Well, Boston is all I’m offering. If you wish, we can still
turn around and drop you off in Charles Town. You can decide while I see to the
new men.” Nolan picked up the red silk scarf the map had been wrapped in and slipped
it into an inside pocket of his jacket.

“My scarf. I want it back. My father gave it to me.” She
didn’t care about the stupid thing, but if he wanted it, she didn’t want Nolan
to have it.

He pulled the scarf out of his pocket. He rubbed it between
his fingers. “Do you mind if I keep it?”

He wanted something of hers. She raised her eyebrows.
Perhaps he wasn’t as detached as he appeared. “By all means, keep it if it’s
important to you. Unlike you, I’m reasonable.” She’d show him how to negotiate.

Nolan glanced up, his blue eyes cold and unreadable. “It
belonged to my grandfather. It’s one of the few things my father didn’t get rid
of. Between that and the map, I thought you wouldn’t mind parting with the lesser
of the two.”

“Then you must understand how I feel parting with the only
thing my father ever gave me.” She folded her arms over her chest.

The dullness in his eyes sparked, and his answering nod
was more curt than polite. “We’ll talk later.”

He left the cabin before he lost his temper, Jewel suspected.
Perhaps if she could provoke his fury again, she’d discover a weak spot in the
stone fortress he’d built around himself. Anything to penetrate his detached composure.

Jewel plopped down on the bed. Her teeth clanked together,
jarred by its firmness. How did Nolan sleep here? She ran her fingers over the
coarse woolen blanket covering the bunk. Obviously, he felt no need for
softness in his life, not even the simple comfort of a decent bed. Though the
bunk devoured a good portion of the cabin, she imagined Nolan’s feet still hung
over the edge.

She leaned her head back on the polished curve of the ship’s
hull. Nolan seemed just as determined to get rid of her as she was to stay. But
he had his weaknesses or he would not have given her back the map. And like him,
she’d learned a thing or two of human nature over the years. She’d be taking
too much of a risk if she trusted another captain to help her find the
treasure. Nolan Kenton was her only choice, and she’d do anything in her power
to make him see that.

Nolan followed the gaze of every man on board. Jewel’s appearance
on deck rattled his hard-won self-control. She had taken off her jacket, rolled
up her sleeves and tied her shirt at her waist, exposing slim hips and a
delectable rump in close-fitting men’s breeches. Her arms were spread wide,
with her palms and face turned toward the sun like some pagan worshipper. The
wind caught her hair, creating a dark halo, and he corrected himself.
Jewel
was the goddess, and all the gawking men on board, himself included, were the
worshippers.

Before he stomped across the deck and dragged her below—his
first impulse—Nolan tried to slip back into the detached, rational man he’d
been when he left her cabin. The man he’d convinced himself he’d become when he
put aside his orderly life to retrieve his grandfather’s cursed map.
Unfortunately, maintaining a sober countenance didn’t come as easily in Jewel’s
presence as it did in his parents’ household. There, each hour of the day was
scheduled with moral, bland activities. Even dinner—boiled beef, boiled
potatoes and boiled beets—was served with a minimum of aggravating spice. Jewel
presented Nolan a steady diet of volatile, spirit harming emotions—guilt, anger,
and lust. If she had turned to face him in his cabin with her shirt open and
her breasts bared, he would have been eternally lost.

According to his father, the good Lord had a way of sending
what a person most needed to resist. He certainly was proving that by dumping
Jewel in Nolan’s lap.

Jewel dragged her fingers through her tousled hair, and
Parker, along with several other men, gaped openly. Not that she was the most
classically beautiful woman any of them had ever seen, but her unconsciously sultry
appeal was impossible to escape. Her hair, a muted dark brown, caught the
midday sun and smoldered with hints of fire. Her angular face was softened by
full lips, which at the moment curled into a secretive smile. The freckles spattering
her nose suddenly seemed exotic rather than innocent. And though Nolan was
spared their effect at this distance, her unusual green eyes were hypnotic.

Apart from her physical appeal, it was the way she stood,
arms splayed to the heavens and the way she’d confronted the soldiers in the
tavern with unwarranted yet total confidence that chipped away at his resolve.
Jewel Sanderson had a passion for life yet to be tempered by reality. Which was
why she had to be expelled from his ship. Nolan would not be the one to
permanently cloud her bright gaze or strain her easy smiles. If being abandoned
by her father and working in a tavern hadn’t done that, he and his men would
not. Though his crew were all good men, handpicked for their honesty if not their
seamanship, they were still men.

“Mr. Tyrell,” Nolan finally shouted. Parker took several
moments to respond, and when he finally did, it was with barely disguised
irritation. “Take the new men and find them something to eat. It looks like the
British starved them.”

Parker nodded, and then returned his gaze to Jewel. Hadn’t
he ever seen a woman before? Not one in men’s clothing, Nolan would wager. “Mr.
Tyrell, you have your orders,” he warned.

Parker answered without looking at him. “Aye, Captain.” He
rounded up the sailors. As Nolan feared, they ranged from fifteen to sixty,
most being on the extremes. He doubted even a month of good meals would put any
meat on their bones.

Parker had to pass Jewel on his way to the companionway,
but he didn’t have to veer in her direction and  pause to bow flirtatiously.
Normally, the man had the utmost respect for women, and the fact that he gawked
at Jewel past a point considered polite proved how much of a problem Nolan had
on his hands. Whether she had or had not ventured into bartering of the sexual
kind, it bothered Nolan that Parker obviously thought she had. Yet who could
blame the young lieutenant. Jewel wasn’t ladylike. Her bold arrival on his ship
proved that.

Nolan’s advance encouraged Parker to move on, the new crew
members in tow. Only the lads had the audacity to continue to gape at Jewel
over their shoulders.

“What a beautiful day, Nolan,” she called. “I’ve never
been on a ship before.” Her eyes drifted shut while she continued to angle her
face to the sun. She sighed deeply, sensuously. “I feel so free.”

Nolan stood stiffly beside her with his arms folded over
his chest. He remembered how he’d first felt on the deck of a ship. How free.
That was an eternity ago, and some of his bitter lessons had soured his
pleasure of the sea. He felt like he’d aged fifty years in her presence.

“Jewel.” Keep it formal, he reminded himself. “Miss Sanderson.
As a passenger on my ship, I must ask that you abide by my rules. You should
call me Captain Kenton.”

Jewel saluted him, gave an insubordinate grin. “Aye aye,
Captain Kenton.”

Nolan frowned until he felt a new wrinkle crease his brow.
His intention was not to amuse her. “Secondly, I expect you to dress
appropriately.”

Jewel looked down at her clothes and, surprisingly,
blushed. “Sorry, I guess I forgot my coat. The weather is so splendid. The wind
smells of faraway places, not like on the shore, where it stinks of brine and rotting
fish. I never imagined how wonderful it would be on a ship! How did you stay on
land for so long?”

Nolan crushed the small surge of pleasure he felt at having
his ship introduce her to the rapture of being under sail. “You forgot your
dress
.
I can’t have you parading around in men’s clothing.”

“But I have nothing else to wear.” She tugged at the ends
of the shirt tail she’d tied around her waist, while Nolan tried not to notice
that the action stretched the thin material against her breasts.

“Then you give me no choice. I must confine you to my
cabin.” He swallowed hard, trying not to choke on his words. They conjured up a
flood of unwanted images, all of them involving Jewel and no clothing. Confined
to his cabin. All day. All night.

“That’s not fair.” She let go of her shirt and balled her
hands into fists, as if she longed to take a swing at him.

He willed her to, so he could respond by carrying her to
his cabin without further argument. Unfortunately, the surge of desire warned
Nolan he was in dangerous territory. He clasped his hands behind his back and
didn’t speak until he could confidently erase any hint of emotion from his
voice. “What’s not fair is your stowing away on my ship and causing my men to
be pressed into service by the British.”

She planted her fisted hands on her hips. The wind
plastered her thin white shirt to her body, clearly outlining her small, firm
breasts and hardened nipples. She’d most definitely done away with their
binding. “That wasn’t my fault. They were going to take your men anyway.”

Nolan had trouble diverting his gaze, imagining he could
see the reddish pink circles at the tip of each breast. With extreme effort, he
dragged his gaze back to Jewel’s face. She folded her arms over her chest and
looked at him as if he were a vile letch. He felt the need to say, “I’m mere
flesh and bone like any other man. Your choice of clothes is a distraction my
men don’t need.”

She glared at him. “Well, that’s good to know. I was
beginning to wonder—about you being flesh and bone rather than rock, that is.
And as for the other, I’ll wear my jacket from now on. You better get used to me,
Nolan. If you want the map, I come with it. I don’t think my going with you is
too much to ask, considering what I’m bringing with me.”

Nolan’s control slipped. “You don’t have the right to ask
for anything. You stole on board my ship, knowing full well I didn’t want you
here. From here on out, you will follow my orders without discussion like every
other man on board this vessel. Now go below!”

She narrowed her gaze and lowered her voice. “You might be
the master of this ship,
Captain Kenton
”—she sneered the title—“but you
aren’t the only captain in the colonies interested in what I have to offer.
Dump me in Boston and I’ll find someone to take your place within the hour.”

Nolan stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep from
wringing her neck. The urge to tell her that she didn’t have all the pieces to
the puzzle, that she didn’t have the book, almost overcame him just to dissolve
her confident grin. Common sense and the fact that he wasn’t sure how his
father’s book on the occult fit in stopped him. “I’m sure you’d have no problem
finding a man who could satisfy your needs and his own in the process. Is that
what you want?”

She didn’t flinch at his deliberate crudeness. In fact, she
appeared more composed than he. “Apparently, that’s what you want.”

“I want the bloody map, and what happens to you after that
is no concern of mine. Now go below.” Nolan turned and strode to the railing,
before he did something he might regret. He gripped the smooth, varnished wood
with enough force to turn his knuckles white. The strong winds coming off the
sea managed to cool his cheeks. He took several deep breaths. When he could
again see the green of the ocean and the blue of the sky without the angry red
film that had clouded his vision, he glanced over his shoulder. Jewel stood
anchored in the spot in which he had left her. Her hands were on her hips and
her feet were braced, daring him to drag her below.

He took several more deep breaths, and then slowly walked
back to where she stood. If she couldn’t see that he teetered on the verge of
snapping, he would no longer hold himself responsible for his actions. “Miss
Sanderson, please go below.”

She took a step back but held that new ground. Under the
weight of his steady stare, her gaze finally faltered.

“I’m not giving you the map,” she said almost under her
breath. Then she turned abruptly and walked toward the hatchway, never giving
him a backward glance.

He stood rooted to the deck. Damnation. He had been to sea
for less than a month and already Jewel would force him to sink lower than he
had ever wanted to go.

***

The brass handle turned without a catch. Nolan cursed silently.
He’d told her to lock the damned door. Bloody hell, since meeting Jewel again
he was swearing like a sailor and thinking like a pirate. Outwardly, he might still
appear the decorous privateer captain, but inside he knew he was slipping back
to his old ways. He had to get Jewel off his ship even if it meant using the pirate
still lurking in his soul to do it.