The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) (13 page)

“Slimy gruel?”

She would not meet his gaze and he sensed that she herself was aware of her own ridiculous demands and was ashamed.

“Maggots,” she whispered, looking down. “They were in the bread.”

Of course they were
, he wanted to say.
Hard tack is full of them. You pick ’em out and dunk it in your lobscouse, shove it into your gob and wash it all down with your grog so ye don’t remember how bloody awful it is. What the divil’s the damned problem?

Lady. L-A-D-Y lady.

That was the damned problem.

“I’m beginnin’ to regret taking you and not yer brother,” he said in exasperation. “Ye’re a pain in the arse.”

She stiffened. “Well, I didn’t
ask
to be here.”

“Aye, and the sooner ye’re gone the better.”

“I could not agree more. But in the meantime, you could at least ensure that I don’t starve to death.”

“Nobody’s starvin’ ye. Ye’re just damned picky.”

“And you are callous and rude.”

“No argument there.” He glared at her. “Will ye eat an egg or two?”

She glared back. “Boiled?”

“God almighty—”

“Because I’m certainly not expecting them to be coddled and served in a china egg-cup.”

“Well, then, ’tis glad I am to hear it, because high expectations will only lead to disappointment and the divil only knows we’ve failed yer high and mighty ladyship in everything else.”

“Not everything,” she said beneath her breath.

“Oh?”

“Your objectionable language aside, you
have
been a gentleman,” she allowed with pointed reluctance.

He made a sound of hopeless frustration and gazed out at the horizon, thinking he’d heave the ship to in the morning so Cranton could catch her a fish for breakfast. No worms in that. Nothing to complain about and the damn thing would be fresher than anything she’d find on her plate back in that fancy townhouse she must inhabit in London.

“I’ve been a gentleman, but saints alive, woman, ye push the limits of my patience, ye do.”

“Well, you push the limits of mine. You have abducted me. Held me against my will. You have ruined me, ruined my life, and ruined any chances I might’ve had to marry a man of my own choosing.”

“Oh, the drama,” he said. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”

“It is as bad as all that. But what would you know? You don’t move in my world. You have no idea what you have done to me in bringing me here, what it will cost me. I am ruined.”

He risked a glance over at her. Her face was in profile, beautiful in the starlight. He wished he were not the gentleman he was trying to be, because his instinct was to slide an arm around her back and pull her close, to cajole away her anger, to kiss her senseless beneath Lucy and Susan and the grand union flag at the masthead and the canopy of stars that stretched across the zenith above.

“Do ye like fish, lass?”

“What?”

“We’ll catch ye one for breakfast tomorrow. A big one. Nice and fresh, best ye’ll ever have.”

“A fish?” She raised a brow. “Will you prepare it yourself?”

“I might, if it’ll make ye happy.” He looked down at her. “Of course, ye don’t know if I’m any better a cook than that useless looby who’s charged with feedin’ us all now, do ye? On the other hand, ’twould be hard to bollocks up a fish.”

“You are going to cook me a fish.”

“I could.”

“And why are you smiling, Captain O’ Devir?”

He hadn’t realized he was. Another thing she did to him. Charmed him right out of his melancholy, kicked out the darkness that was English hatred and Josiah’s death and Dolores Ann’s betrayal and filled it with sweet, warm sunshine, even when she was being prickly.

“Am I?”

“You were.”

“Well, lass, I was just thinkin’ how nice it is to be standin’ here with a pretty girl and enjoyin’ a bit of life before her lauded brother catches up to and kills me in the most gruesome manner a body might imagine, before the Royal Navy finds a way to try and annihilate me, before I head back to America with her brother’s explosive.” He looked down at her. “Puttin’ it all in me memory bank, I am. Moments like this don’t last forever.”

“And what makes you think you’ll be so successful?”

“Eye on the prize, Lady Nerissa. Eye on the prize.”

He realized he was looking at her lips, wondering what they would feel like beneath his own, what they would taste like.

Maybe it’s not the explosive that’s the prize but you, Lady Nerissa, yourself.

Now where the divil had
that
thought come from?

“You shouldn’t be so blithe about my brother, you know. Any of them, actually. They are famously protective of me.”

“Perhaps too much so, Lady Nerissa?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Ye’re beautiful, likely heavily dowered, from one of the oldest and most noble families in England. And yet, ye’re not married.”

“No, I am not.”

“Why not? Those same overprotective brothers? Have they turned or frightened away all suitors, finding them unworthy of their little sister?”

She was quiet for a long, long moment. “I was affianced, once.” She took a deep breath, raised her head and looked out towards the horizon where the moon, a giant glowing orb behind a few bars of cloud, was just climbing up out of the sea. “His name was Perry. He was the Earl of Brookhampton, our neighbor, and we knew each other from childhood.”

“What happened?” He sensed the sudden withering of her spirit and it was all he could do not to take her hand. “Did he die?”

“In a way, yes, he did.”

Ruaidri waited, letting her take her time. He itched to reach out and tuck that errant strand of hair, now silver in the rising moonlight, behind her ear.

“My brother, Lucien….”

“The one that is going to slit open me belly and strangle me with me own bowels?”

She gave a wan smile, responding to his attempt to lighten the moment. “Yes, that one.” She sighed. “Well, Lucien is—
was
—very manipulative. He found great sport and satisfaction in arranging circumstances such that each of my brothers were coerced into marriage. Happy marriages, yes, but his arrogance in believing that he knew best for them and for others, was maddening.”

He said nothing. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Midshipman Cranton materialize from out of the darkness to go forward and ring the bell, signifying the end of the watch.

“Lucien managed to get my three brothers married, and when Perry kept dragging his feet, unable to muster the courage to set an actual wedding date, he took matters into his own hands. He bought an estate in Spain. Arranged things through his solicitor so that it appeared Perry had inherited it from a distant relative. Told himself that absence would make the heart grow fonder, that if he were away from me, Perry would realize how much he missed me and would return all ready and eager to finally get married. But Perry never knew, of course, that Lucien was behind it all. Neither did I. Off he went to Spain, as Lucien intended. What Lucien did not intend was for the ship he was on to be attacked by an American privateer and the English prisoners sent to a French gaol.”

“Yer brother sounds like he needs a good toe in the hole.”

She smiled a little, obviously finding amusement in that. It was probably the first time anyone had ever dared speak the truth about the duke. Perhaps she found it refreshing.

“Anyhow, everyone thought Perry was dead, that he’d gone down with the ship, but he wasn’t dead, just badly injured. By the time he came to his senses, the French gaolers did not believe him to be the English earl he claimed to be. He did not make for a compliant prisoner, so they beat him and put him into solitary confinement. It pretty much destroyed him, that prison. My brothers—and your brother-in-law, Captain Lord—got him out in a daring rescue and at first, he couldn’t wait to hurry up and set a date for our wedding. But his incarceration changed him. He suffered wounds to his soul that were far deeper than anything he sustained physically.” She looked down at her hands, her eyes tragic. “Of course, he learned that it was Lucien who manufactured the whole Spanish estate thing, and who could blame him if he could not forgive. I’m not sure I could, either. I’m not sure I
have
. Perry wanted nothing more to do with my family. He ended the engagement several months past, and I haven’t seen him since.”

She spoke so matter-of-factly that Ruaidri had trouble believing that her feelings for this man had been as warm as she claimed them to have been. He was used to women who wore their hearts on their sleeves, their emotions, needs and desires on display for all to see. This cool, elegant woman beside him…did she lack that warmth, or had breeding and class choked off any expression of emotion she might otherwise have shown?

“Ye think he broke yer heart, don’t ye, lass?”

“Of course he did.”

“Yer heart isn’t broken, Lady Nerissa.”

She looked up then, frowning. “How dare you presume to know what is in my heart.”

“Yer heart wasn’t broken, because ye never really loved him the way ye thought ye did, did you?”

“What?”

“Ye stand here beside me and relate this tale of woe t’ me with a dry eye and all the feelin’ ye might use to describe a bucket of sand. I think there’s more to ye than that, and I think that this man, Perry, would have made ye miserable. He wasn’t good enough for ye.”

“How dare you, Captain O’ Devir!”

“Well, I’m standin’ here, lookin’ at you. Ye’re made pretty enough to make a man weep, you are, and if this piece of shite couldn’t make up his mind and sweep you off to the altar, he sure wouldn’t have made ye a strong husband. Is that what ye’d have settled for? A wishy-washy nob who not only couldn’t make up his mind, but was also gullible enough to be taken in by yer brother’s schemin’?”

She just looked at him, mouth agape. To deny his conclusions would have screamed of falseness; to her credit, she did not.

“He was,” she finally admitted, looking back out over the sea, “…indecisive.”

“And you wanted that in a husband?” He snorted. “Doesn’t seem he was worth a broken heart. Don’t tell me ye’re pining for this blatherin’ idiot. Why, did he ever even kiss ye?”

“Captain!” she gasped, outraged.

“Well, did he?”

“Of course.”

“With passion?”

“He was a gentleman. He…he abided by the rules of propriety.”

“Bollocks.”

She gasped, her eyes widening.

“He was an arse. When are ye goin’ to get good and angry about what he did to ye? If he loved ye as ye deserve to be loved, he wouldn’t have dragged his feet, he’d have had a ring on yer finger and you in his bed before ye even had time to consider the difference between a kiss of passion and a kiss of ‘propriety.’” He shook his head. “Ye don’t throw gold overboard. Ye don’t hold a diamond up to the light and wonder whether it’s the real thing when it’s blindin’ ye with its brilliance. Indecisive piece of shite.”

“You did not know him!”

“Why are you defendin’ him? He took, arguably, the best years of yer life with his wafflin’ like a one-footed duck.”

“Lots of people are indecisive…unsure.”

“Not in my line of work, they aren’t. Indecision will make a person dead, very dead. Oh no, I may be many things, Lady Nerissa, but I can assure you I’m not indecisive.”

“And your point?”

“My point is, the good Lord gave ye a face and form to bring a man to his knees. Yer earl was an idiot. I barely know ye, but I can tell ye right now that if I were to kiss ye, it would sure as hell not be a kiss of
propriety
.”

“Of course it wouldn’t. No matter what you pretend, you are anything but a gentleman.”

“Aye, ’tis true. But I could show ye what a kiss ought to feel like. Taste like. Make ye
feel
like.”

Her head jerked up, her fingers went to her throat, and in the darkness, he could see the twin stains that suddenly bloomed on her cheeks. “Captain, what makes you think I want you to kiss me?”

“Everythin’ about ye.” He unclasped his hands from behind his back and reaching out, finally tucked that errant strand of hair behind her ear, noting that she did not flinch or push his hand away. “The way yer eyes look suddenly intrigued despite the protests of yer tongue. The fact that ye haven’t slapped me. The fact that when I suggested it, ye swayed toward me just the slightest bit.” He cocked his head, letting a little smile touch the corner of his mouth. “Ye’d enjoy it, you know.”

“You are arrogant and audacious.”

“And I could kiss ye senseless.”

“You think
far
too highly of yourself.”

“I think I can make ye forget that idiot ye almost married.”

“I shall never feel again, what I felt for Perry. And if I did, it would never, not in a million years, be with
you
.”

He grinned down at her. “I’d like to challenge that.”

She turned from the rail to face him, her eyes flashing. She had been jilted by this complete arse of an earl, had been manipulated by the even bigger arse that was her brother but she was no simpering miss, and if the idea of kissing him completely repulsed her, she would have fled.