Windswept (33 page)

She lifted her face, bringing her mouth to his. She’d never kissed him first, though she’d always kissed him back. But this time she let instinct banish convention. Her lips touched his like a feather. She pressed gently and retreated, moving around his mouth with airy, noiseless kisses that left traces of dampness on his lips. When she wrapped her hands around his nape and tangled her fingers in his hair, she let her mouth wander to his cheeks, his jaw, and back to his wonderful waiting mouth again.

The initial rigidity she’d felt in his body melted with her insistent caresses. The muscles in his neck eased like warm molasses spreading to her fingertips. She slid along the garden bench until her thighs pressed against his then moved her lips to his ear and whispered, “Jacob, you are a good man. Much better than you even know. I see the goodness in you.”

He groaned and splayed his hands against her back. “Nora, I don’t want to hurt you.”

She nibbled playfully on his earlobe. “Does this hurt me, Jacob?” She moved back to the corner of his mouth. “Does this?”

She lowered her hand to his chest and slipped inside his open shirt. With her fingers, she circled the mat of cocoa brown hair that surrounded his nipples. She felt his heart beat against her palm. Her mouth hovered over his like a hummingbird, and she said, “This doesn’t hurt me, Jacob. This only pleasures me.”

She pulled her hand free of his shirt, and his arms tightened around her back. Her breasts flattened against his chest, and his mouth came down to devour hers. His breathing was short and labored, but his kiss was exquisitely long, tormentingly passionate.

He forced her lips open and tasted her, roaming the inside of her mouth and circling with her tongue until she felt a similar coiling deep inside her. Her breasts strained against the weak seams of her poorly sewn dress. The nipples responded with a tightness that was intensified by the hard plane of his chest.

His hand captured one budding tip over the fabric of her dress. He fisted the scooped bodice until his fingers grazed a bare breast. Then he stroked the tip with his knuckles until she wanted to cry out with the sweet friction of his fingers on her skin. When he finally reached inside her camisole to fill his palm with her swelling flesh, his touch weakened her knees, tugged at her abdomen, and shot a honeyed warmth to the dark area between her legs.

She rode on a sea of his embraces, ebbing and flowing on one dizzying wave after another. His hand sought her other breast. His tongue laved her skin above each trembling mound. Deep inside she sensed the waves would crest with a feeling that would bring all the other sensations together in a mind numbing finale. And she knew she would never be satisfied until she experienced it with this man. Take me there, Jacob, she cried out in her mind. Take me to the top of the wave and bring me back down with your kiss and your touch.

He crushed his mouth on hers again and gently lowered her onto the bench. His hand felt for her skirt and pulled it up to her waist. “Nora, I want you,” he said. “God knows I’ve no right, but I want you.”

“You have the right, Jacob. I freely give it to you. Let me make you happy. I want to please you. This can’t be wrong.”

His hand stopped moving up the inside of her thigh. With a groan he tore his mouth from hers and sat up.

Confusion and disappointment made her head swim. She looked up at him through eyes blurred with passion. “Jacob, what is it?”

“You don’t understand, Nora. Even after all I’ve told you, you don’t see. What we’re doing is wrong. Terribly wrong.”

“No, I don’t believe that.”

He didn’t look at her. He’d shut her away from his face, his eyes, and nothing could have wounded her more. “I told you about the madness,” he said. “I told you how it happens, that it is carried in my mother’s bloodline.”

“But Dylan…not you. You’re fine.”

“Now, yes, but what does that mean? When I look into the blankness or the violence in my brother’s eyes, I know I could be looking in a mirror. It could happen to me. It happens to male children more than to female, and it can happen to more that one offspring in the same family. In a year, maybe two, maybe ten…I don’t know. I could be as mad as Dylan.”

Tears sprang to her eyes and burned in her throat. “No, not to you,” she said. “Never to you.”

“Yes, to me dearest Nora. And if you were to get with child…”

She reached for him but he flinched as if her touch were poison. “I don’t care,” she cried. “It’s only a small chance. But my feelings for you are real. Being with you, only you, is my future. Jacob, I love you.”

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her up from the bench. His eyes fixed on hers and blazed with raw emotion that could have been either anger or pain. Nora only knew for certain that it scorched her heart. “Don’t say that Nora.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“Because it would be too easy for me to say it back to you, and I won’t. Not as long as my mother’s curse hangs over this family. I can’t. Go. Go into the house.” He turned away from her. “We’ll leave day after tomorrow as planned. I’m taking you home.”

She waited, hoping, praying he would relent and take her in his arms and swear his love. But she only stared at the rigid muscles of his back. He was lost to her and would not come back. She spun on her heels and ran into the house.

Chapter Twenty

Thurston Seabrook had never been so miserable in his life. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make anyone happy, including himself. Sidonia was in a constant state of upheaval, swearing on her mother’s grave that she would never again draw an easy breath until her daughter was returned safely. Even Armand and Hubert had turned nastier than usual, nipping at Thurston’s ankles until he had tiny teeth marks to prove it.

And Theo Hadley, the never ending house guest, added his own grousing to the mix, claiming that when Nora was taken from him, he lost the sunshine of his life, and he lived for the day she would return and once more fill his dreary days with light.

Poetic, but Thurston wasn’t one to be taken in by fancy rhetoric, especially when Theo’s appetite hadn’t suffered one whit. In fact, since living with the Seabrooks, the attorney was fairly bursting the seams of his trousers.

But most distressing was the fact that Thurston couldn’t help himself any more than he could help anyone else in his household. The simple truth was, he missed his daughter. He’d never before realized what a clever, intelligent, and interesting woman she’d become. Why, he even missed her feminine prattle with Sid and Fanny around the dinner table, and he most definitely longed to see her smile again.

Damn that Proctor! Thurston had cursed the nefarious captain more often than he cared to remember. Even if Nora had stowed away on his ship, he should have turned right around and brought her back instead of taking her God knows where. Once Nora was home, Thurston was determined never to let her within a city block of Proctor again.

An opportunity to insure that reality presented itself one night almost two weeks after Nora’s disappearance. The usual pall had settled over the Seabrook dining room with the exception of Dillard Hyde’s attempts to engage the family in conversation. Lately the man had been present every night for dinner, and he tried so damnably hard to cheer everyone up that Thurston was nearly tempted to dump a bottle of claret over his white linen suit.

During a lull in Dillard’s incessant babble, Theo announced that he had a matter of extreme importance to discuss with the judge.

Sidonia perked up immediately, dabbed at her moist eyes and actually displayed a flash of white teeth that Thurston hadn’t seen in ages. She knows about this, whatever it is, he deduced, and with trepidation said, “Go ahead, Hadley, speak your mind.”

“Well, sir, it’s no secret how I feel about Nora, and I truly believe that she feels the same about me…”

Fanny suddenly required a smart slap on her back from Dillard to dislodge a bite of food that had become stuck in her throat. “Oh, sorry, Theo,” she said when she’d recovered. “Do go on…you usually do.”

Ignoring her implied sarcasm or oblivious to it, Theo continued. “I know Miss Seabrook and I haven’t known each other long, but the time we’ve spent together, all of it strictly virtuous, Your Honor, has been, well, rewarding, and ever so dear to me. Miss Seabrook is an exceptional woman, beautiful, and…”

Thurston squinted his eyes against an impending belch and said, “I know my daughter’s attributes, Hadley. Get to your point.”

Sidonia immediately came to the attorney’s aid. “Go on, Theodore. Say it. Thurston is listening, and he appreciates forthrightness, don’t you dear?”

Theo smiled tentatively at Sidonia. “Of course, madam.” Turning back to his tougher audience, he said, “What I’m trying to propose, sir, is…well, propose isn’t exactly the right word. I mean it would be if I were talking to Nora…”

The evening’s melon and cream stuck like plaster in Thurston’s gullet. “Out with it, man!”

“Thurston!” Sidonia squealed.

“All right,” Theo said. “Sir, I would like your blessing to ask for Nora’s hand in marriage if, I mean
when
she returns.” Then in a lower voice he added, “assuming she is unblemished of course.”

Thurston’s internal mercury which already measured burning in his throat, leaped to the roots of his hair. “Unblemished, Theo? Did you say ‘unblemished’?”

Sidonia’s hand fluttered nervously in the air. “Now, Thurston, all Theo meant was…”

“I know damn well what he meant, Sid. He’s talking about my daughter!”

A line of crimson flashed along Theo’s cheekbones. “Your Honor, you’ve misunderstood. I regard Miss Seabrook as a model of womanly virtue. Why, she is the absolute epitome of fine upbringing and sound parental guidance. I know that anything…
untoward
that may have occurred during her absence would certainly not be Nora’s fault. I only meant to suggest that…”

Thurston leveled a hard stare at his wife. “Sidonia, did you have prior knowledge of this proclamation tonight?”

She smiled almost flirtatiously. “I must admit I did, dear. Theo feels that sometimes you can be a bit hard to talk to, and he tested the waters with me first. And I am heartily in favor of it.” She beamed across the table at her expectant future son-in-law. “Theo is a perfect match for our Eleanor,” she sighed.

Placing his hands on his roiling stomach, Thurston knew he’d had the last bite he’d consume this night. Theo Hadley for a son-in-law? He was a far stretch from any matrimonial candidate he himself had envisioned for Nora. But then, Thurston had never really thought any man would be good enough for his daughter. Yet, if she truly cared for him, who was he to stand in her way?

Still…Theo Hadley and his Nora? Thurston searched his mind for some snippet of sound reasoning that would explain this anomaly.
Damn! When had this courtship taken place? And where was I when it was happening? But Sid likes him, and she’s more privy to Nora’s emotions than I… And he’s certainly a better match than that Proctor!

His wife’s voice cut through his reverie
.
“Thurston, for heaven’s sake why don’t you answer Theo?”

“Blast it, Sid, I’m thinking!” He squelched another burp. “All right, Hadley, if Nora wants you, then you’ve got my blessing. You’re a decent enough sort, I guess.”

Theo expelled a long breath.

Sidonia clasped her hands under her chin. “Now we won’t have to worry about that
dreadful ship captain who seems to be constantly at Eleanor’s heels.
Thurston, isn’t there something you can do to insure that Captain Proctor will leave our daughter alone once they return to Key West? After all we’ve been through, and now that Eleanor’s future is settled, I want that man out of her life for good.”

Now this was something Thurston could agree with, and he formulated a plan that was certain to please his wife.
The thought of dealing a retaliatory blow to that upstart captain gave new purpose to Thurston’s life. “Yes, my dear, there is.” Turning to Dillard, he said, “Hyde, I want you to go ahead with that search warrant for Proctor’s warehouse.”

“But sir…”

“Tomorrow, Dillard. I want to go inside that building first thing in the morning. Proctor and Swain were the first two wreckers at the
Marguerite Gray
. We’ve searched Swain’s quarters, and we’re long overdue searching Proctor’s. My gut still tells me somebody’s hiding something.” Pressing his hand to his stomach, he added, “And damn it all, my gut’s always telling me something.”

“Yes, Your Honor. I’ll have the warrant in the morning.”

Fanny snapped such a scathing look at Thurston he felt its heat all the way across the table. “What’s the matter with you?” he barked at her. “This is all your doing anyway.”

She stood up from the table and flounced her full skirts. If her ruffles had been weapons, Thurston would have ducked. “Come on, Dill,” she said. “I need a walk in the fresh air!”

“
Dill?”
When had the proper Dillard become the devil-may-care “Dill?”
Speaking to know one in particular, Thurston muttered, “What the hell is going on in this house?”

The next afternoon, a representative of the Federal Court of Key West, Florida, discovered a padlocked barrel in the upstairs office of Proctor Warehouse and Salvage. He smashed the lock and removed several items from under a layer of straw. There were Oriental porcelain bowls, a few brass trinkets, and at the very bottom, a wooden box, its corners crusty with salt. The man handed Thurston Seabrook the contents of the box - a bundle of bank notes from the state bank of New Bedford, Massachusetts.