“How do you feel?” Matt eyed her rather warily, she thought, but she was too miserable to puzzle over the look in his eyes. She glared at him.
“Horrible. And it’s all
your
fault.
Beast.
”
Some of the wariness left his eyes, and he grinned unsympathetically.
“Now, now, no name-calling. What you’re feeling is the result of too much punch, my girl. Of course, if I’d known you were a secret drinker I wouldn’t have mixed that punch, but how could I have known? From the look of you, you’d never touched a drop of liquor in your life.”
“You know I hadn’t,” Amanda muttered resentfully. Then, glaring at him again, she added, “If you came to gloat, you can just go away again. I feel ghastly enough without your grinning at me.”
“Is that what I’m doing?”
“Yes,” Amanda said, and at that moment another pain attacked her head and she moaned.
Matt, still grinning, moved to the table and, picking up one of the bottles that littered it, began to slosh the contents into a glass. After a moment he turned to her, holding out a glass filled with a noxious-looking golden liquid. Amanda looked at it, then at him, with acute distaste.
“Is this the
coup de grâce
?” She was scowling, a fact that only made the laughter deepen in his eyes. He shook his head, continuing to hold out the glass to her.
“Drink it, Amanda, and I promise that you’ll soon feel better. I speak from experience.”
“I imagine so,” Amanda said sourly, eyeing the glass. Then, with a fatalistic shrug, she took it, downing the contents in a series of quick gulps. This side of death, she didn’t think she could feel any worse, and if it made her feel herself again, she would drink the filthy stuff five times over. But its taste on her tongue made her gag, and for one horrible moment after she swallowed the concoction, she was hideously afraid she would disgrace herself by being sick. Then she was sure of it. Her stomach growled warningly and with one killing look at Matt—he was laughing, the devil—she ran for the chamber pot in the corner and was violently ill.
“You
swine,
” she said feelingly when she had finished. He was kneeling beside her, wiping her face with a damp cloth.
“Rinse your mouth,” he instructed, passing her a glass of water. Amanda rinsed, spat, and drank the remainder thirstily. She had to admit that she did feel better.
“Come, get dressed. What you need now is some fresh air. And, a little later, breakfast.”
Amanda shuddered.
“You’ll be hungry shortly,” Matt promised, and hauled her to her feet and over to the bunk, where he sat her down and proceeded to dress her as if she were a small child.
Strangely, Amanda did not feel the least embarrassment at his ministrations. She supposed it had something to do with the last vestiges of the stuff she had drunk, but it seemed perfectly natural for him to see her naked, to pull her chemise over her head, to help her into a clean pair of breeches—these were smaller and a much better fit; Amanda surmised that they must belong to Timmy, the cabin boy. When she was in a clean shirt, he ran a comb through her hair, and before she could mutter a grudging thankyou, he had swept her up in his arms and was carrying her from the cabin.
“Don’t think that this makes up for what you did,” Amanda told him resentfully as he crossed to the rail with her and sat her down on a coil of rope so that she could watch the play of sunlight on the smooth surface of the sea.
“What did I do?” He was leaning on the rail less than a foot away, his eyes crinkled against the sun as he looked down at her. Clad in severe black pantaloons and boots, his white shirt unbuttoned to the waist, he looked infuriatingly handsome. Amanda glared at him.
“You know what you did. You got me drunk deliberately so I would … beg you.” The last two words were a furious mutter, and her cheeks glowed bright scarlet in embarrassment and rage. She had not meant to refer to what had taken place between them the night before, but shame was eating at her like a worm in an apple, and she had to make it clear to him that only strong drink—and his trickery—had made her behave the way she had.
“I did not get you drunk deliberately.” He looked serious as he met her eyes. “That wasn’t what I had in mind when I told you I’d make you beg. As for last night, you have nothing to be ashamed of, Amanda. That’s the way it’s meant to be between a man and a woman.”
For a moment he looked so much like the earlier Matt, in the cave, that she stared at him wide-eyed. He was being kind to try to set her at ease, and that didn’t accord with the character of the man she had come to know aboard ship. This was the Matt she had grown to love … She was overwhelmed with an urge to heal the breach between them, to try once more to convince him of the truth …
“Matt, I truly didn’t turn you over to the authorities. Won’t you believe me?” she said softly, rising and coming to stand beside him at the rail. The breeze blew her hair back from her face in a rippling mass of curls, and the sun caught it, bringing out glints of gold in the glorious deep red. Matt stared down at the small face turned up to his, at the perfectly modeled cheekbones and small, straight nose, at the decided chin and deep-rose mouth, at the amethyst eyes that looked up at him so pleadingly. His mouth tightened, and he turned to look out to sea.
“I understand how it happened,” he said stiffly, as Amanda watched the dark profile silhouetted against the halcyon sky and deep blue sea. She felt a quick stirring of hope. “I said cruel things to you that night, and you were still shocked from finding out that lovemaking was not exactly what you’d been expecting. I know why you became angry, and, after having watched you in the throes of several temper tantrums, I understand what happened: you went to the constable and told him where to find me, but later you realized just what you’d done and came to warn me. That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it, on the beach that morning?”
Amanda felt the hope that had been soaring inside her flutter and die. He wasn’t going to believe her, not now, probably never.
“I did come to the beach to warn you, but I hadn’t told anyone—not a living soul—that you were there. Matt, you’re letting your judgment be colored by things that have nothing to do with us. I’m not your mother, and I didn’t betray you.” This last was a calculated gamble, a last, desperate attempt to break through the shell he had set around his heart. Amanda felt him stiffen beside her, saw dark color wash high into his cheekbones. His knuckles were white against the wooden railing as he gripped it hard; then he turned to look at her, his eyes a gleaming silver as cold and remote as the moon.
“Zeke has been telling tales out of school, has he?” His tone was grim. “I must compliment you, Amanda: you are remarkable. You managed to get around Zeke—who hated you before he ever laid eyes on you, by the way—in less than a week. And now? Will you take him to bed, too, so that you can watch while the two of us kill each other?”
The unexpected ferocity of his attack shook Amanda. She blanched, staring up at him disbelievingly while her eyes slowly darkened to huge purple pools. Then, as the full sense of his words penetrated, her mouth tightened and her eyes shot sparks at him. Without a word, she slowly drew back her hand and slapped him hard across the cheek.
“I feel sorry for you,” she said contemptuously as he stared at her, one hand automatically coming up to touch the reddened cheek. Then, turning her back on him, she walked with quiet dignity across the deck to their cabin. She was so angry she was not even aware of the shocked stares of Zeke and the crew as their eyes swung between Matt’s still figure and her own retreating back.
Six weeks later the
Clorimunda
sailed into the Mississippi River port of New Orleans. Amanda stood at the rail of the quarterdeck, dressed in Timmy’s breeches and shirt, the color high in her cheeks and her unbound hair streaming behind her like a crimson banner. Her eyes sparkled like jewels as she looked from the crowded harbor scene to Zeke, who stood beside her at the rail, a grin splitting his thin face as he answered her many eager questions. It was Zeke who had told her about Belle Terre, Matt’s plantation on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, where they would go after spending a few days in New Orleans. It was Zeke who laughed at her excitement as her eyes darted everywhere in an effort to take in the colorful port as the
Clorimunda
eased in expertly at the dock between two other tall ships. Matt was at the wheel, directing the crew, but even if he hadn’t been needed there, Amanda would have preferred Zeke’s company. Zeke had come to seem like a brother to her over the past few weeks, and she felt at ease with him as she no longer did with Matt, who had become a cold, distant stranger.
He had not touched her since she had slapped his face that day on deck. In fact, he had barely spoken to her. She was allowed the sole occupancy of the captain’s cabin, and Matt bunked with Zeke in the first mate’s. Where the first mate now slept, Amanda had no idea and had never asked.
Zeke, who had witnessed the confrontation, tried to serve as peacemaker and had earned the lash of his brother’s tongue as a reward. Amanda, although grateful for Zeke’s concern, was equally unresponsive to his efforts. If Matt’s coldness hurt, she vowed he would never know. And she didn’t think he was capable of feeling a thing.
The
Clorimunda
’s sails were lowered and furled, and the small boats that had towed her in had released their lines when Matt finally gave the order to drop anchor and lower the gangplank.
“Can we go ashore now?” Amanda demanded excitedly of Zeke. He smiled down at her, his expression indulgent. He had grown as fond of Amanda as she had of him, and strongly disapproved of his brother’s treatment of her.
“I don’t see—” he began, only to be interrupted as Matt appeared beside them.
“Not today,” he said in answer to Amanda’s question, and as she turned a disappointed, sulky face to him he added, “Zeke and I have business to attend to today. Tomorrow we’ll take you ashore. You wouldn’t be safe alone, and I don’t trust any of the men enough to send them with you. You’d twist them around your little finger inside an hour.”
Amanda glowered at him. He was just being contrary, she knew. If he had thought she didn’t want to go ashore, he would have forced her to, if necessary. But now that he knew that such an excursion would give her pleasure, he had denied her out of sheer bloody-mindedness.
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” Zeke asked his brother uneasily. Since he and Amanda had quarreled, Matt had grown moodier by the day. His once even-tempered, even jovial brother was now as likely as not to bite his head off at a wrong word. Indeed, the entire crew of the
Clorimunda
had felt the heat of his ill temper.
“No, it cannot,” Matt replied brusquely, and turned away. Zeke stared after him, frowning. Then he looked down at Amanda.
“Sorry,” he said with a grimace. “But I promise I’ll take you ashore myself tomorrow, no matter what. I don’t know what’s got into Matt, but he’s like a bear with a sore head. I’ll have a talk with him.”
“Please don’t,” Amanda said swiftly, and Zeke’s mouth twisted as he looked at her.
“You’re probably right.” He shrugged, looking after Matt as he disappeared down the stairs to the main deck. “I’ve tried four times now, and the last time he damned near throttled me. Why don’t you try, Amanda? Perhaps if you tried to make him see reason, he’d listen.”
“As he did the last time?” Amanda’s voice was bitter. “I’m not likely to try that again. Besides, I no longer care what he thinks. He’s stubborn and pig-headed, and I don’t give a snap of my fingers for his opinion of me.”
“Really,” Zeke said dryly. Amanda scowled at him, knowing very well that he had a shrewd idea of the state of her feelings toward Matt. Well, she’d be damned if she’d wear her heart on her sleeve. Matt clearly didn’t want to know, and she wasn’t about to tell him.
“Yes, really,” she said, defying him to say anything further. Zeke eyed her, clearly thinking about calling her bluff, and Amanda turned an impatient shoulder on him to stare out at the town.
“Oh, go with Matt, Zeke, before I quarrel with you, too. Then I really would be miserable.”
“Would you?” He smiled down at her. “So would I. But I think I’d better go anyway. Big brother definitely does not like to be kept waiting.”
Amanda hunched her shoulders as he left her, miserably aware of the excitement in the air. New Orleans appeared a thrilling place, and she wasn’t going to see it—at least not today and, considering Matt’s bloody-mindedness, perhaps never. Moodily she sniffed at the air, enjoying the tangy scent of citrus fruits and spices mingled with salt from the sea. How she wished she was on the dock to discover the source of the tantalizing aromas for herself. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of the sun glinting off a familiar blue-black head, and turned to watch moodily as Matt and Zeke strode side by side down the gangplank and disappeared into the milling crowd on the wharf. She glowered at their retreating backs and felt a little better.
For a moment she toyed with the idea of going ashore herself, on her own. It shouldn’t be too hard to sneak away and she would not stay long. She would be back before Matt, and he need never know she had disobeyed him. But then she studied some of the men on the quay and thought better of it. Swarthy men with bright scarves around their necks and gold rings glinting in their ears pushed carts full of oranges and other, less readily identifiable fruits through the mob, calling out in a language unknown to her to advertise their wares; ragged children darted in and out among the sea of long legs; sailors, some alone, some in pairs or groups, and some with women on their arms who looked no better than they should be, overflowed the nearby saloons to swill whiskey on the dock itself. Though she hated to admit it, Matt had been right when he said it would be dangerous for her to go ashore alone. As much as she relished the idea of defying him, she was not foolish enough to put herself at risk to do it.