“It’s all right—he managed to catch a line. He’s not hurt,” Zeke yelled over the storm. For the first time he was looking at her without dislike.
“What the hell’s going on here? Amanda?” It was Matt, his voice sharp with anger and concern. Amanda shut her eyes. He was not dead or injured, after all. She thought she might faint again from sheer relief.
“She fainted. She saw you fall,” Zeke said briefly. He stood up, looking at his brother with a frown while Matt, ignoring him, knelt beside Amanda.
“Amanda?”
She opened her eyes, dwelling on every plane and angle of that handsome, beloved face. “Are you all right?”
He snorted. “Yes, but
you
don’t seem to be. What were you thinking of, to come up on deck?”
“I was frightened—I wanted to see you.”
“Don’t ever do that again. You could be washed overboard. Come, I’ll take you back to the cabin—and this time stay there. I’ll come for you if there’s need.”
His arms were around her, gathering her up. He lifted her high against his chest, staggering a little as the ship pitched again. Amanda rested limply against him for a moment, relishing the hard arms that held her, the beat of his heart against her side, the flush of blood that rose in his face as she looked up at him. Then she shook her head, regaining the use of her muscles and pushing at his chest determinedly.
“You can’t carry me in this storm,” she shouted. “Put me down, Matt, I can walk.”
He looked at her for a moment, his arms tightening around her as if he would never let her go, then, as he had to brace himself to withstand another roll of the ship, he seemed to see the sense of what she had said. It would be difficult to carry her down the narrow stairs to the main deck under the present conditions. Slowly his grip eased, and he let her slip to her feet. His arm stayed around her waist as she caught her balance.
“All right?” he asked. She nodded, not wanting to waste any more breath shouting into the storm. His arm stayed around her to the stairs, and then he insisted on going before her, making her back down while holding to the rail with both hands, poised to catch her if she should slip. They achieved the bottom with no mishap. Amanda would have clung to Matt’s hand when they reached the cabin, fearing to let him out of her sight, but he pushed her inside the cabin without ceremony, to stand staring at her for a moment from the open doorway. With his arm braced over his head for support, he completely filled the opening.
“Stay here,” was all he said, but he looked as if he had wanted to say more and then thought better of it. He closed the door behind him. Amanda’s knees began to tremble as she crossed to the bunk and sat down. At least he no longer seemed angry …
The storm lasted for three days. In that time Amanda, as well as everyone else on board, lost an appreciable amount of weight. With the violent pitching of the ship making a cooking fire dangerous, all they had to eat was dried fruit and pieces of hardtack washed down with water—all of which had been somewhat affected by salt from the seawater that was continually washing over them. Not that Amanda was hungry. If her stomach hadn’t been so empty, she feared that she would have disgraced herself completely by being horribly ill. As it was, she was more frightened than anything. From the ominous creaks and groans of the timbers, and the ripping sound of canvas being torn to shreds over her head, she feared the worst. And came to accept it. Whether they sank or not was in God’s hands.
She did not wholly obey Matt’s edict about staying in the cabin. On the second day, when it occurred to her that every man must be needed to battle the storm, she made her way to the ship’s galley and told the exhausted cook that she would be pleased to assist in the distribution of food. Unaware of Matt’s instructions to the contrary, he was equally pleased to let her.
The sailors accepted the bits of food and water she brought them with gruff thanks, some of them even unbending sufficiently to warn her to look tight when the ship heeled. They were not unduly friendly, but after the third time she brought them food, they were not unfriendly, either. Perhaps they were beginning to question their earlier judgment of her. At least she hoped they were.
It was inevitable that Matt should see her. She had carefully avoided the quarterdeck, knowing he would immediately order her back to the cabin as soon as he set eyes on her. But toward the middle of the third day, he observed her as she made her way across the deck, clinging for dear life to the safety lines that had been run from one end of the ship to the other. And he swooped down upon her like a hungry hawk.
“Damn it, I
told
you to stay in the cabin,” he roared. Amanda had not heard him come up behind her, and his angry bellow made her jump. It also made her lose her grip on the safety line. She staggered, then fell heavily to her knees. The supplies of dried fruit she had been carrying scattered around her on the deck, only to be washed away by an enveloping wave.
“
Good Christ.
” Amanda would quite likely have been washed away with the fruit if Matt had not reached down and grabbed her by the single thick braid in which she had confined her hair. Wincing with pain, she was nonetheless grateful to be caught. Being washed overboard was not the fate she fancied for herself. Then it occurred to her that she wouldn’t have been in the least danger if Matt had not startled her, making her lose her grip on the safety line. She was scowling as blackly as he when he hauled her to her feet.
“Damn it, don’t you have any sense?” Even over the howling of the wind, his angry bellow was audible. And not only to Amanda. Looking around, she saw that to nearly every man on board they were the objects of fascinated attention.
“Don’t shout at me,” she cried, incensed and embarrassed at being publicly upbraided. “I was perfectly all right until you came along and frightened me.”
“If I frightened you this time, wait till you see what I do to you if I catch you out on deck again.” Dark blood rising high in his cheekbones said more than words about how angry he was. His silvery eyes took on the menacing gleam of twin knives as he glared at her. With his black hair wet and curling wildly around his head, his clothes soaked with seawater and plastered to his body, showing every sinewy muscle, and his mouth set in a grim line, he looked formidable. Amanda lifted her chin and returned glare for glare, her eyes shooting purple sparks and the color of her hair no redder than the haze before her eyes. She was not about to allow him to intimidate her.
“Don’t threaten me, you
bully.
” She was furious now. Matt looked down at her slender shape, ridiculously clad in his too-large clothes, and noted her arms-akimbo stance that threatened to send her sprawling with the next pitch of the ship. Then his lips twitched. Until he noticed how the drenched clothes clung to her skin, revealing every luscious hill and valley. Her nipples, rigid with cold, were straining against the material of the shirt she wore. The laughter vanished from his eyes, to be replaced by another hot flare of anger.
“I’ll do more than threaten you next time. And that’s a promise,” he said grimly, snatching her off her feet and throwing her over his shoulder as he spoke. Amanda kicked and squirmed furiously, scarlet with humiliation, as he strode back toward the cabin with her, one arm locking her in place over his shoulder and the other hand holding tightly to the safety line. When at last he shouldered his way through the door, he tossed her on the bunk and turned to leave. Amanda was spluttering, too angry to be coherent about the insults she would like to have flung at him. He stopped at the door, turning back to fix her with a stony glare.
“If you leave this cabin again before the storm clears, I’ll hog-tie you to the bunk.” Before she could reply, he left, closing the door behind him.
By the next morning the storm had vanished as though it had never been. The sea was as smooth as blue-green silk, and the sky was equally halcyon. The sun shone brightly down, reminding the world that it was indeed spring, and a gentle breeze chased a few fluffy white clouds across the sky. Amanda, waking to find that the rolling and pitching had miraculously ceased, poked her head cautiously out the cabin door and smiled with pure delight. It was a beautiful day and, best of all, she no longer had to worry about the possible consequences of defying Matt. Because, of course, she had no intention of staying in the cabin.
Quickly she stepped back inside the cabin and tidied herself as well as she could. Besides splashing her face and hands with water and pulling her chemise on under the shirt and breeches, there wasn’t much else she could do. The bit of string with which she had bound the end of her braid the day before had fallen off when Matt had grabbed her hair; finding a comb in Matt’s sea chest, she merely ran it through her hair, then tucked some carelessly behind her ears.
She left the cabin, padding barefoot toward the quarterdeck—and Matt. Now that the storm was past, it was time for him to answer a few questions, such as where he was taking her, although she had a fair idea. Hadn’t he said once that the first thing he would do after escaping from England would be to head for New Orleans, his home?
Men were sprawled all over the main deck, most lying facedown in attitudes of exhaustion. Amanda would have thought that some dreadful plague had visited the ship overnight, killing off her crew, if it had not been for the stentorian snores that rose all about her. From the look of things, only a very groggy skeleton crew remained to see to the operation of the ship.
Zeke was at the wheel again, Amanda saw as soon as she set foot on the quarterdeck. There was no one else about. With some trepidation, she looked up into the rigging, but Matt was not there either. Hesitating only a moment, she walked toward Zeke, who was whistling as he stared out to sea. He might not like her, but surely he wouldn’t harm her.
“Good morning,” she said, hoping that civility would win a like response. To her surprise it did. He didn’t smile at her as he returned her greeting, but his eyes no longer shouted his dislike.
“Matt is below, having something to eat,” he added dryly, anticipating her question before she could ask it. “That’s what you were going to ask me, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Amanda smiled at him, wanting to be friends. She had no idea how that sweet and faintly mischievous smile affected him. It was the first time he had ever seen her smile, and it made her look very young, and very lovely. Not at all the monster in maiden’s clothing who had betrayed his brother.
“Why did you do it?” he blurted out, then was immediately angry with himself. Matt would wring his neck for butting into Matt’s private business; besides, it didn’t matter why. The only important thing was that this dazzlingly beautiful and deceptively innocent-looking chit before him had nearly gotten his brother killed.
“Do what?” For a moment Amanda was at a loss. Her smile faded as she stared up at Zeke. He was not anywhere near as handsome as Matt, she noted abstractedly, but he had a certain charm of his own. A friendly, open charm that did not extend to her. He shrugged curtly in answer to her question, his mouth tightening as he returned his eyes to the sea.
“Betray Matt?” Amanda queried softly, and the look he sent her was answer enough. “I didn’t, Zeke. I swear it. I went to the beach that morning to warn him. My half brother, Edward, had told our local constable that Matt was hiding at the convent. Edward hates me, you see. I don’t know how he found out about Matt, though. Anyway, I wanted to give Matt a chance to escape. The soldiers must have followed me. I suppose I was responsible in that way, but I didn’t deliberately betray Matt.”
Zeke was silent for some time after Amanda’s earnest little speech, and she suspected that he, too, thought she was lying. Then he turned to look at her. a sharp, judgmental expression in his hazel eyes.
“Did you tell that to Matt?”
Amanda nodded miserably. “He doesn’t believe me.”
“Why not?”
She shook her head, her eyes clouding over as she pondered the question that had tormented her so many times. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Zeke pursed his lips, looking thoughtful. He frowned at Amanda, his hands idly tracing patterns on the wheel’s wooden surface.
“I believe you,” Zeke said suddenly. His eyes were intent as they fixed on her face. “And I think I can explain to you why Matt doesn’t—although he’d probably slit my throat if he knew what I was about to tell you.” He hesitated. “Before I do, I need to ask you a personal question. Amanda”—this was the first time he had used her name—“are you in love with my brother?”
Amanda felt the heat rise in her cheeks. It was embarrassing to admit such a thing to a stranger, but …
“Yes,” she said softly.
Zeke stared at her hard for a moment, then nodded.
“All right, then, I’ll tell you. But for God’s sake, don’t tell Matt that I did.”
“Has Matt told you anything about our mother?”
Amanda shook her head. “No. Only that she’s dead.”
He gave her a sharp look. “Did Matt actually say that?”
Amanda nodded, then frowned. “No, he didn’t. What he said was that you are the only family he has. I assumed, then, that your mother was dead.”
“She isn’t,” Zeke said flatly. “Cristabel, our mother, is very much alive. At least as of six months ago, when Matt last heard from her.”
“Matt never mentioned her.” Amanda frowned again. “I take it that there is an estrangement?”
“In a way. I suppose I’d better tell you the whole story. That’s the only way you’ll understand why Matt sometimes behaves as he does.”
“I’m listening.”
Zeke chewed his lower lip for a moment, still plainly hesitant about revealing so much that his brother preferred to keep secret. Amanda gazed up at him encouragingly. She very much wanted to hear the story of Matt’s past, and she had a strong suspicion that Matt himself would never tell her.
“Cristabel—we always called her Cristabel, never Mother, on her instructions—was, according to her own version of events, the daughter of an aristocratic Southern family, the Graysons,” Zeke began slowly, shifting his gaze from Amanda’s wide eyes to the sea. “Though there are some Graysons living in Charleston, where she says she was born, I have my doubts that she is related to them. Sometimes I even doubt that her name is Grayson. But that’s what she says, and that’s the name Matt and I grew up with.” He glanced at Amanda again, noting her puzzled frown as she absorbed the information that Matt and his brother used their mother’s maiden name.