The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) (9 page)

Lucien.

But not Perry, who wouldn’t care. Who probably wouldn’t give a second thought to her disappearance.

“Are ye well, lass?”

She snapped herself back to the moment. “Well enough, considering I’ve fallen down a flight of stairs, been abducted by a madman, and find myself in primitive conditions while my reputation goes the way of a heavy rock thrown into a particularly shallow pond.”

“Ah. Ye looked faraway there, for a moment.”

“I’m fine.”

“Bollocks.”

She set her jaw and looked out over the endless waves parading toward them from off to her right. Starboard, her captor called it. “You have no respect for the fact that you’re in the presence of a lady, do you?”

“Given I’ve got no practice in being in a lady’s presence, no.” He shrugged. “Got plenty of practice being in the presence of other kinds of females, though. But I’m sure ye don’t care to hear about that.”

“You’re entirely correct. I do not.”

“So why the sad look in those pretty blue eyes?”

“I just told you.”

“And I don’t believe ye.”

“I don’t care if you believe me or not. My business is my own and I don’t care to share it with you.”

He shrugged again and let it go. Dropped it the way he might discard a dirty plate and with no visible evidence that her rebuff bothered him in the least. But Nerissa wanted him to care. She wanted him to persist if only for the chance to deny him and withhold from him something he wanted. It was the only power she felt she had left.

She let go of his arm and moved to the side. He moved dutifully beside her, either because he figured it was the gentlemanly thing to do or because he was afraid she’d fling herself overboard. What did it matter? She wrapped her gloved hands around the rail. It was wet with spray that quickly soaked through the gloves, and looking ruefully down at them she realized that they were ruined. That they served no further purpose.

And that she really wanted to feel the cold seawater against her fingertips, the feel of the wind and sun against the bare skin of her hands, the smooth, varnished wood of the rail beneath her palms. She stripped off the gloves and threw them into the sea, and immediately felt less burdened.

Free.

The wind tore at her hair and the sea flung cold, hissing spray in her face. And in that moment Nerissa realized she felt more alive than she had in months, and certainly since well before Perry had broken off their engagement and told her he never wanted to see her or anyone in her family ever again.

Free.

Alive.

Captain O’ Devir still stood beside her, scanning the horizon beneath a hand to shade his unfairly gorgeous eyes. She sneaked a furtive glance at him. He caught her eye and grinned.

“So who ye pinin’ for, lass?”

She turned away and stared resolutely over the endless swells, loving the feel of the ship beneath her. It was almost like riding a spirited mare. Heady. Faintly dangerous. It gave her a sense of freedom.

“You are irritatingly persistent.”

“Aye, that I am. ’Tis why I was sent here.”

“I thought it was because you were the most audacious, foolish, and downright reckless captain in your so-called Navy.”

He simply shrugged and raised a brow, still wearing that faint little smile. He was ignoring her barb and refusing to give it a response. Waiting. Patient in his persistence.

Damn him.

She sighed, her gaze on the distant horizon. “I was just thinking about someone I miss,” she said, her pride losing out to the fact that she wanted his attention back after she’d so recently thrown it away. That she wanted him to care. Or that maybe she just needed to talk, to share a bit of her still-healing heart with someone who had pretended to care. Because of course, he didn’t care. He didn’t even know her.

He leaned down and rested his elbows atop the rail beside her, his hands dangling over the bow-wake as the brig pushed through the seas. He stood closer than she would have liked, but to step away would give him the satisfaction of knowing he was rattling her. She would not give him that.

He glanced over at her. “Did ye love him?”

“For a long time.” She smeared her fingers, her delightfully bare fingers, through the fresh droplets of seawater dotting the varnished rail, quelling the urge to touch them to her mouth just to taste the salt. “But what does it matter, now? In the end, some people are not worth the time and heartache we put into even thinking about them, are they, Captain O’ Devir?”

He remained looking out over the sea. “Indeed not.”

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. I vowed not to speak to you, and here we are conversing like old friends. I am determined to dislike you, no matter how charming you endeavor to be. You abducted me, for heaven’s sake.”

“If it’s any consolation, it wasn’t in my original plans.”

“No?”

“I was actually plannin’ to abduct yer brother. The inventor one who made this innovative new explosive. But I tend to think on me feet and when ye fell, well… I figured ye were the far more advantageous hostage.”

“You are very naive if you think that.”

“And you are very naive if ye think otherwise. If yer family loves ye as much as ye claim, yer brother will give me the explosive with no questions asked if only to get ye back safe and sound. If he were here instead, he’d have no reason to. He could hold out as long as he felt like it. But rest assured, Sunshine, I’ll have ye back t’ yer family just as soon as my demands are met. The sooner I get what I crossed an ocean for, the sooner we both can get on with our lives.”

“Your life won’t be worth living once my brother the duke catches up to you.” She relished the idea of that sweet eventuality. Or told herself she did. “That is, if there’s anything left of you.”

“Ehm, right.” His lips were twitching. “The one who’s going to strangle me with me own entrails.”

“I can’t believe you’re not taking me seriously.”

“Is he a sailor, this fearsome brother of yours, with a ship able to catch this one?”

“You think it’s funny, do you?”

“Hilarious, actually.”

“You won’t be laughing when you’re facing him from the sharp end of a sword. Lucien does not tolerate—”

There was a sudden cry from above. Turning and looking up, Nerissa sank her fingers into Captain O’ Devir’s arm in horror. One of the men working so high aloft had lost his footing and was now tumbling, down, down, down toward the sea, screaming as he fell.

“Man overboard!”
cried the lookout, high above.

Before the sailor even landed with a splash in the cresting blue swells, Captain O’ Devir was running to the side. “All men to stations!
Hard down!
” he roared.

The floundering man, helpless, quickly fell astern. The captain grabbed a hammock lashed under the rail and flung it overboard, obviously intending it to float down on the drowning man.

Chaos erupted as the crew rushed aft, anxious to help the man in the water.

Captain O’ Devir’s voice pierced the confusion. “
Silence fore and aft!
”

Lieutenant Morgan was gesturing wildly, grabbing a speaking trumpet to make his voice heard. “Ready about and stations for stays! Clear away the boat. Prepare to heave to!”

And then it hit her. That man out there struggling in the heavy seas, crying out for help as he went under, reappeared, went under again, was going to die. He was going to die right here with her watching, with all of them watching, and there wasn’t a thing she could do but stand in helpless horror along with everyone else as the dark head that marked him fell further and further astern.

Captain O’ Devir’s voice roared through her horror. “
Square the mainyard and lower the boat!
”

Men ran to various lines. Orders were bawled. The brig was turning, coming around onto the other tack, retracing her course and closing the distance to the man in the water. He was now well off their larboard bow. Even Nerissa could see that there was no way the boat could be lowered in time, no way that it would reach the drowning man before it was too late.

It was obvious the poor soul could not swim.

Captain O’ Devir had long since reached the same conclusion. He had kicked off his boots, torn off his coat and waistcoat, and as the brig came up on the man, still well to windward of him, he climbed up on the rail and threw himself out into the sea.

Nerissa stood frozen. She did not want to see the man who had fallen, drown. She did not want to see Captain O’ Devir fail in his attempt to save the poor fellow or, as much as she loathed him, succumb to the seas, himself. She did not like the fact that she cared about the fate of any of these American—and Irish—mariners who had had the audacity to take her from her family, right out from under her brother’s nose and the presence of the top echelons of the Royal Navy.

But she did.

She
did
care.

Her heart in her throat, she watched as the captain swam with strong, steady strokes toward the man floundering in the water. The sailor was tiring, his desperate cries for help already fading as he tried futilely to reach the hammock, tossed up and down by the seas, some ten or fifteen feet away from him. But Captain O’ Devir had the hammock now and he was pushing it toward the drowning man as he swam, calling encouragement to him in a strong, authoritative voice that brooked no argument.

“Hold tight, there, McGuire, ye clumsy gobshite. I’ve almost got ye.”

As she stood frozen, she felt the motion of the brig changing. The ship nosed back into the wind and slowed, the great sails above thundering in protest; more shouted commands, men around her hauling on thick lines while she tried to stand out of the way, the hush of water beneath them stilling until there was only the lonely sound of the wind whistling through lines and flapping sails and a low murmur from the crew, watching anxiously from their stations.

“We’ll let the wind carry us down on them,” said someone beside her, and tearing her gaze from the drama in the water ahead and off to larboard, Nerissa saw young Mr. Cranton. “He’ll be all right. Captain O’ Devir’s not going to let a man drown, I can tell you that.”

Nerissa nodded, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she watched the drama unfold. The captain had reached the stricken man and hooking an arm across the hammock to anchor himself, was now pulling him up and over it, holding him there across it so he would not slip back into the seas that undulated like a live thing all around them. She marveled at his strength. His courage. His selfless devotion to a subordinate.

The brig continued to drift helplessly down on the pair, moving up and down, up and down on a vast expanse of hard blue water while her captain, one arm still locked around the motionless sailor on the hammock, kicked his way toward his waiting command.

It was all done with orderly neatness; lines were thrown down to the men in the water, and first the sailor was hauled up, a dozen hands reaching for his lifeless body as he was quickly brought aboard and laid on the deck. A stooped, gaunt man came rushing up from below; she heard Cranton say he was the surgeon. He got on his knees beside McGuire, rolled him onto his stomach, and began to work on him until he coughed, vomited seawater, and weakly began to move. A great cheer went up from his shipmates and immediately, they picked the poor fellow up and carried him below, the doctor at his side.

A few moments later, Captain O’ Devir was back aboard the ship with the aid of a rope thrown down for him to scale, his inky black hair streaming water down his broad back, the shirt plastered wetly to the skin beneath, his angular features and prominent cheekbones defined all the more with his hair soaked and flattened to his skull. Someone pressed a towel into his hand, and he scrubbed vigorously at his face and hair for a moment before looking up; at that moment, his intense, purple-violet gaze met Nerissa’s through those absurdly long black lashes and something tingled in her belly. Lodged itself in her heart. He had said nothing, and yet with that look, he had said everything.

He winked roguishly at her. She flushed and dropped her gaze.

“Back the tops’ls, bring her about and continue on our previous course,” he said to Lieutenant Morgan, and tossing the towel over the quarterdeck railing, turned and walked away.

And Nerissa found herself staring after him, looking at his broad, tapered back through the drenched transparency of his shirt, the line of his powerful thighs and calves through the soaked white breeches, as he strode to the hatch and, following the procession bearing the hapless sailor, went below.

Chapter 7

Captain Christian Lord was just returning from an appointment at the Admiralty when, upon entering the ornate London townhouse he’d rented while awaiting his next command, he was given the news by a servant that the Duke of Blackheath was waiting for him in the parlor.

He didn’t blink an eye. He knew, of course, why the duke was here.

He had first met Lucien de Montforte many months before when he’d been selected by Admiralty to carry out a dangerous rescue mission to get the duke’s brother Charles, and family friend Lord Brookhampton, out of France. The mission had ended in success, a life-threatening injury to His Grace, and Christian’s vow that he would never again allow a member of the aristocracy aboard his command.