“Mistress Poggi,” Madeline repeated. “And she wasn’t terrible to live with, just difficult. She meant well. She always tried to protect her charges.” Madeline laughed again. “Once every fall and again in the spring, she would summon all the girls over the age of five and warn them about rakes and rogues.” Because Brazos seemed to have relaxed, she dared to tease him. “Are you certain you’re not acquainted with Beatrice Poggi, Brazos?”
He propped himself up on his elbows. “England? What part?”
“Brighton.”
“Hmm, thirtyish, dark brown hair?”
“Sixty if she’s a day, and she’s been gray as long as I’ve known her.”
“Well…” he sank back onto the mattress. “There was one older woman…”
Madeline punched him in the side and said, “You, sir, are a scoundrel.”
“Yeah,” he clasped her hand and held it against his chest. “And I’m proud of it, too.”
They fell silent then, and Madeline felt cozy and warm as sleep stole over her. The last thing she heard before drifting off was Brazos’s gentle whisper, “Thanks, Beauty.”
The next few nights passed in a similar manner and Madeline believed she was progressing splendidly toward her goal. Each morning she woke to find limbs intertwined, and invariably, his hand cupped either her breast or her buttock. Of course, as soon as he awoke, he was out the door in an instant.
But with each evening that passed, Brazos relaxed and opened up a little more. He even seemed to listen to her ideas concerning the issue of women’s equality. Madeline had been surprised to learn that many of the problems women faced in Europe apparently were not issues of controversy in Texas. “On the frontier,” Brazos had explained, “there are times when every warm body matters, and nobody checks to see whether that pair of helping hands is wearing a dress.”
She made no headway, however, when she argued that women were disenfranchised. “Women don’t need to vote, Maddie,” he’d claimed. “As a whole, women simply can’t grasp the complex issues involved. Besides, they’re free to express their opinions to their men.” He’d grabbed the hand ready to hit him. “Now, stop that sputtering. I said on the whole; I’ll admit you have a good-size brain in your head.” He’d flashed her a grin, kissed her knuckles, and winked at her. At that point, Madeline shut her mouth, rolled over and went to sleep.
On the fourth night, the conversation took a surprising turn. He’d been telling her about Texas, describing the land in the section of the state where La Réunion would be built. They discussed the details of the Europeans’ plan for building their Utopia, and Madeline mentioned she hoped to live in her own house.
“Where else would you be living?” Brazos asked. “Is ol’ Emile gonna make you live with his mother or something?”
“No, Brazos.” Tonight the lantern inside the cabin remained lit, and his disgusted expression made Madeline smile. “The majority of the colonists will live in a
phalange
. It’s like a large dormitory, and families will all live together.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” He lay with his hands clasped beneath his head, elbows outstretched. He slid her a look from the corner of his eyes and said, “But at least, you’ve some sense; you want your own house.”
He rolled over to his side, facing her. She smelled the faint scent of brandy about him and that musky, masculine scent so uniquely his. His fingers lifted the end of her braid. “What kind of house do you want, Beauty?”
Madeline licked her suddenly dry lips. She watched his fingers move across the twists in her hair, and she had trouble remembering what he had asked. “What?”
“A cabin made of wood? A mansion made of stone? What’s the house of your dreams look like, Maddie?”
Immediately, the picture came to mind. She’d built this house a hundred times in her thoughts. How strange that Brazos would ask about it; he couldn’t know how much this dream meant to her. She said, “It’ll be comfortable. Not stone, that’s too cold. My home will be warm and welcoming with a fireplace in every room. And flowers. Pink roses. I want pink roses planted beneath my windows.”
“You’re just like my mama. She’s planted so many flowers in the gardens around the house that every spring my pa threatens to hunt up a perfumer to come harvest the crop.”
Madeline heard the wistfulness in her voice as she asked, “Tell me about your family, Brazos. Are your parents nice people? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
His eyes sparkled like sunlight on blue water. “I’ve the best folks in the world. My people are planters, mostly cotton, a little sugarcane, although Pa’s real passion is horse racing. Mother’s mission in life is to guard all her little chicks from harm, and believe me, with fourteen of us, not to mention all the grandchildren, she has plenty to keep herself busy. And on the rare occasions when all of the immediate family is doing fine, there are always the cousins to see to. Yep, the rate my family’s growing, soon there won’t be a town in Texas that doesn’t have at least one Sinclair living there.”
Madeline could hardly speak past the lump in her throat. “You have thirteen siblings?”
He nodded. “Seven brothers, six sisters. We’re split ten to four; married to not.” He lifted his hand and gently brushed her bangs off of her forehead. “That’s counting me on the bachelor side. Anyway, by the time you add in all the children, there’s a regular passel of us.”
“How many nieces and nephews do you have?” Madeline asked, wondering if he had any idea just how lucky he was.
“Hmm. That’s hard to keep up with.” He frowned in concentration. “I’ll name ‘em. You keep count. John has Charles, Edward, and Mary Ann. Mark has Daniel and Sarah. Ann has Catherine, Michael, Holly, and Christopher, Mary has Joe and Molly.” He paused and looked at Madeline. “You should see Molly. That girl’s gonna be a beauty when she grows up, but I pity the man who tries to handle her. Hardheaded—I think she might could give you lessons, Maddie. Let’s see, who am I forgetting?” He nodded. “My brother Paul has Stephen, another Michael, and Christina. That’s how many?”
“Fourteen.”
“That sounds about right. Of course, by now, we could have a couple more. It’s hard keeping track when you’re so far away.”
“How long were you in Europe, Brazos?”
“Almost two years.”
That surprised her. He didn’t seem the sort of man to stay away from home for so long. “That’s too much time to spend away from your family,” she said, disapproval obvious in her tone. She must have struck a sensitive chord, because Brazos abruptly stiffened.
“Don’t you think I tried to go home?” he snapped. “I
couldn’t
, Madeline! Haven’t you figured it out by now? I’m yellow through to the backbone to set foot aboard a damned ship.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“But I found out they’re in trouble, big trouble. That’s what it took to get me on the
Uriel
. My family needs me, Madeline. That’s the reason I married you, why I walked aboard this floating hellhole, and how I came to be lying here wanting you so badly that my teeth hurt and not doing a damned thing about it.” He roared as he repeated, “My family’s in trouble, and they need me. Now, hush up and go to sleep!”
Her eyes were as round as an owl’s at midnight.
My heavens
, she thought, watching the tick of muscle at his temple. There were depths to this man she had never suspected.
Madeline silently turned away, sensing his immediate relief. She needed to think. He’d said he wanted her. Wanted her so badly that his teeth hurt. For Brazos, that sounded like a lot. Well, her next step was obvious. She closed her eyes and prayed that sleep would come swiftly.
Tomorrow she’d do her utmost to seduce him. She couldn’t wait for the morning to arrive.
Brazos lay awake well into the morning hours. Along with the usual nightly problem of convincing his body to ignore the proximity of such a beautiful, desirable woman, tonight he’d even more difficult problems to consider. While his worries concerning the children and Juanita always hovered at the edges of his mind, the conversation tonight had brought them roaring to the forefront of his thoughts.
As he heard the watch strike four bells, he hoped to hell that Salezan hadn’t made the connection between him and St. Michael’s Children’s Home. The orphans had a hard enough lot in life, they didn’t need some insane Mexican warlord using them in a plot of revenge.
But Brazos
was
worried. If Salezan discovered the link between Brazos and the children he considered family, the bastard wouldn’t hesitate to use the innocents for his own nefarious purposes. Sighing, Brazos reached out to turn down the lamp. With Salezan so heavily on his mind, he could feel the terrors rumbling around inside him more strongly than usual. A slight tremble shook his bones as he settled back into bed.
He pulled Madeline close, hugging her tight, and his lips brushed a kiss at the nape of her neck. Eventually, surrounded by the fragrance of roses and the blanket of silken hair he’d loosened from its braid, Brazos found surcease in sleep.
WIND SWELLING its sails, the
Uriel
charged forward like a courser from the spur, meeting and defeating the mountains of waves that challenged her. She tossed from her timbers clouds of spray and foam, a high-mettled horse chomping and shaking the froth from the bit. Hovering above the horizon, clouds colored by the setting sun added to the majesty of the scene. The world was a living, breathing dream of vermilion, gold, and aquamarine.
Brazos stood at the port bow and gazed at the sunset. Eyeing the palette of colors, he yearned for a bit of brown—the dull, dusty brown of dirt. Texas dirt. Dirt that remained motionless beneath his boots, solid and stable. “Damn, I want off this boat.”
Grasping the smooth wooden railing, he stared down at the white foam churning in the ship’s wake and gave a short, derisive laugh. After all those months in prison, who’d have figured he’d be pining after dirt? Of course, that had been Mexican dirt—a different thing entirely.
Texas dirt meant freedom for his body and his soul. It was a part of him, something he carried with him wherever he went. But the soil that clung to his heels was growing mighty thin, and it was time for another coat. “Dammit to hell, I want off this boat!”
“I’d suggest waiting until we’re closer to land. The swim would be less strenuous.”
Brazos looked over his shoulder and saw Madeline standing a few feet behind him. She was dressed in a formfitting gown of shimmering green silk, the décolletage cut lower than anything he’d seen her wear before. Even as his gaze locked on the tempting swell of her breasts, he cursed the sight of her. He should never have admitted to wanting her—somehow speaking the words made the near constant ache even more acute. Even harder to ignore.
As she approached him, he tried to tear his gaze away, but the gentle sway of her rounded hips captured his attention and led to the rise of more than mortification. He wanted her, badly, even though he knew the consequences would be disastrous. The hell of it was, he was just in the mood to go courting disaster.
She walked to his side and gazed out to sea. The wind wrapped her floral scent around him, and he ruefully acknowledged that for the rest of his life the sight of a rose or the whiff of its fragrance would remind him of Madeline and her child. “Where’s the baby?” he asked.
Madeline lifted her shoulders in a nervous shrug. “I took her to Lillibet early this evening. She was tired. She’d played hard today.”
He nodded, and silence fell between them. He heard the gurgle of water against the
Uriel’s
bow, a burst of masculine laughter filtering up through the wide mouth of the wooden scoop mat provided air to the lower decks, and the slightest, faintest rustle of silk from the woman beside him.
Sea mist billowed up above them, then floated down in an iridescent cloud, surrounding them with an air of isolation in a realm of fantasy. Brazos felt a strong and immediate surge of desire.
Droplets of water clung to the tips of Madeline’s impossibly long eyelashes. Brazos caught them with his finger and softly said, “You’re like a sea nymph risen from crystalline waters.”
She trembled, though she tried to hide it. “Such pretty words. But you needn’t make the effort, Brazos. I’ve known since I was a child just how I measured up with other girls, so you needn’t attempt to humor me. At least let’s be honest in that.”
“Humor you?” he drawled, offended and amused at once. Really, the woman either thought next to nothing of herself or else was big on fishing for compliments. “Fine, darlin’, you want honest, I’ll give you honest. Watching you here on the deck of this ship in that shimmerin’ green thing some folks might call a dress, I find myself wanting to check you for scales. You sure you’re not a mermaid, Maddie? A siren sent from the sea to lure me into trouble?”
“Brazos, I have serious doubts that anyone could ever lure you into anything.”
Heat spread through the hollow of his chest. In a raspy voice, he replied, “Aw, Maddie, you obviously don’t know the first thing about fishing. When there’s a trophy catch out there, a man finds it powerful hard to resist dangerous waters.”
Her eyes went round, and she swallowed hard. “Oh.”
He brushed her windblown hair away from her face with a gentle touch. “You see, Maddie, fishing demands a number of a man’s skills and fulfills so many of his needs.” He brushed a feathery kiss across her lips.
Breathlessly she asked, “Skills?”
“Intelligence, for one. A man must know just how to bait his hook to attract the game he’s pursuing. In my case, I don’t waste time fishing for perch. You won’t find a worm in my bag of tackle.”
“What would I find?” The words seemed to escape Madeline’s mouth.
In the waning daylight, Brazos saw her face wash red as the question hung between them. He knew better than to flirt with dark, dangerous waters, but a primitive need to challenge nature compelled him to continue the game. He chuckled and wrapped her tightly in his arms, pulling her flush against him. “I go after the trophies, like mermaids and sea nymphs, and for those a man has to fish deep. I use a strong pole, a hardy line, and bait that promises pleasure. Of course, many men can hook a prize, it’s landing it that requires the stamina.”