The Notorious Lady Anne: A Loveswept Historical Romance (25 page)

But Emmaline proved him wrong on all fronts.

She was stronger than most men he knew. Hell, she was stronger than he was. And she’d
shown him a world of color between the black and white. He still didn’t approve of her means for revenge, but he understood it.

He shook his head and stood. What was the world coming to when he agreed with a pirate?

He took one last, mournful look back at the ship he should have been sailing on, then turned back to the house. Suddenly she was there, staring at him, the wind picking up the tendrils of hair escaping her braid, and blowing them across her face.

As it always did when she was near, his body had an instant reaction. He ached to go to her, to gather her in his arms, to kiss her the way he’d kissed her in his cabin so long ago. Ah, but to go back in time to when things were simpler.

She was such an enigma. A puzzle he was unable to solve. That was part of the attraction, of course. What man wouldn’t be intrigued? But his attraction went much deeper, and sometimes it frightened him.

“You’re still here,” she said.

“Yes.” He couldn’t explain why he hadn’t sailed away with that ship, because he wasn’t sure himself. All he knew was that early this morning, the sun was coming up and he’d still been sitting on the porch, contemplating the revelations that had rocked his world, and he knew he couldn’t board the ship. Not yet, at least. Not until he saw this thing—whatever this thing was—through to the end.

“We’re finishing the careening today.” She turned on her heel and disappeared into the trees.

Nicholas stood alone on the top of the hill, more confused than ever, and wanting her more than he ever had before.

“Heave to!”

The unlikely command rang through the chilled air, its reverberations reaching much
higher than mere sound.

The sailors and soldiers waited, their faces a mixture of abject fear, tightly strung excitement and fierce determination.

No one—no one—commanded His Majesty’s Royal Navy to heave to.

Someone behind Nicholas snickered. Someone else gasped. Through the creaking of the timbers high up in the masts and the slapping of the sails against the rigging, someone groaned. Standing ready for battle were 131 Marines, along with 569 seamen.

Against a pirate ship.

Never, in all his years as a seaman, then petty officer, and on up the ranks to first lieutenant, then captain, had any of Nicholas Addison’s ships been attacked by pirates. That this one disregarded the wrath of His Majesty’s faithful servants galled Nicholas no end.

The name on the schooner was
Megan Kelly
, such a pretty name for a vehicle cutting a swath through the Northern Atlantic leaving death and destruction in its wake. Normally, such a small pirate’s vessel would have taken one look at the massive royal ship and moved on in search of easier prey.

Tense, his pistols primed, sword neatly sheathed at his side, Nicholas stood next to his first lieutenant. Silence hung in the air like the fog the
Megan Kelly
sailed out of, broken only by an occasional cough, a low mumble, the shifting of his officers’ feet.

The only thing worse than the silence was the anticipation.

The guns of His Majesty’s men-o’-war were horribly destructive, but only at close range. Once unleashed, the twenty-four-pounders would wreak a path of destruction, ripping through the hull of the small schooner. But first they needed to get close.

When he finally yelled the command to attack, the noise was deafening. Gone were the peaceful creaking of the timbers, and the lap of the waves against the hull. The cries of wounded men and the relentless report of the cannons took their place. The briny smell of the sea was displaced by the odor of burning cordite.

Both ships suffered the consequences—their sails torn, the center mast of the
Megan
Kelly
split in two and dragging in the water. Yet she didn’t give up, came so near, in fact, that the two ships scraped against each other, taking a good layer of tar off both, and rending the air with a high-pitched screech that drowned out the sounds of battle.

They were close enough now that pistols proved effective. Nicholas drew his and fired, the small pop sounding inconsequential. But, like the
Megan Kelly
, he refused to give up, and so did his men. Pride tightened his chest at the sight of the red uniforms of the Marines mixing with the royal blue of the Navy, as they fought side by side.

The tide of battle slowly turned. The small pirate schooner couldn’t take the heavy pounding of the
Advocate
. She began to limp away, still managing a few shots. Nicholas raised his pistol one final time and sighted on a half-naked man whose dirty hair hung down his back in a single, tarred queue, his face a twisted sneer.

And whose pistol pointed directly at Nicholas.

Their guns fired simultaneously. Nicholas never got the chance to see if his ball hit its mark. Burning pain speared through his leg and he collapsed, clutching his torn thigh, clenching his jaw to keep from crying out. Blood poured through his fingers as the light of day began to fade, taking the sounds of battle with it.

And as he looked toward the sky, his vision dimming, the main topsail yard splintered and broke away from the main mast, falling toward him in slow motion.

Nicholas sat up in bed clutching his throbbing leg, the bedsheets twisted around him, sweat covering him and his heart thundering so hard, he couldn’t hear his own breathing.

He swung his legs over the side and perched on the edge, clenching his teeth as he had all those years ago, and rocking back and forth. It’d been a long time since he’d had the dream—or rather, memory—and it seemed as fresh now as it had been when it happened. The horror, the overwhelming fear and the intense anger constantly resided beneath the surface, ready to spring forth. The dream never failed to incite them.

He lost many men in that battle. Good men who believed in what they were fighting for. Who believed in England and the king. He still remembered some of their faces, and would always remember their names. In some ways, he felt responsible for their deaths, and the guilt of it lay heavy on his battered soul.

The pirate’s musket ball had reached its mark. The broken mast had done the rest. The Navy won that day, but Nicholas lost. Near death, he’d been taken to Dover, where a doctor tried to patch him up and word was sent to his brother in London. Sebastian raced to his side and when Nicholas was stable enough he was taken to London. His doctors there deemed his recovery impossible, and counseled Sebastian to install Nicholas in a home and make him as comfortable as possible.

Sebastian refused, and employed the best surgeons the Continent offered. There were times when only his brother’s determination kept Nicholas going, because his own certainly flagged. He believed it would have been better if either the musket ball or the mast had finished him off.

Eventually, he learned to walk again, but the journey was painful, arduous and frustrating.

The doctors called him a miracle.

He didn’t feel like a miracle. He felt like a broken man who had lost everything.

The pirate who attacked the HMS
Advocate
died in the battle. Nicholas had felt no satisfaction on hearing the news.

He pushed himself off the bed and hobbled across the room, desperate to forget, knowing he never would. He threw up the window sash to gulp in the humid air.

A pirate, a filthy, immoral pirate, ended his life in every way except the final way.

He hated pirates. Loathed their sneaky, self-serving ways.

“Nicholas?”

In the reflection of the windowpane, he watched Emmaline enter his room and stand inside the door. She clutched the lapels of her robe closed. Her hair was tousled, freed from its ever-present
braid. She was beautiful. And she was a pirate.

But she’s not the same pirate who attacked you
.

“Go away,” he growled.

“I heard a noise.”

He clenched his teeth against the pain in his leg, and the throbbing of his manhood. Sweat dripped down his temples. He didn’t want her near. Didn’t want her to see the wreck of a man he’d become, and didn’t want her to know what a fine line he walked this night. An animal lived inside him. One he didn’t know existed until he met her. He wanted to tear the robe from her clutches and feast upon what was beneath. He’d been raised to be a gentleman, and was proud that he’d always lived by the rules governing that classification. But tonight, he didn’t feel like a gentleman. Tonight, he didn’t want to be a gentleman.

He wanted to forget his past. Forget the attack that brought him to the lowest point of his life. He wanted to forget for a few hours that Emmaline Sutherland was his enemy, and he was on a mission to destroy her.

For one night he wanted to be a man who reveled in his baser instincts.

“What happened?” Ignoring his warning, she approached.

He made a sound in his throat, more animal than human.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, the lightning brightening the clouds over the ocean.

Emmaline’s gaze flickered to the sky. “Are you unwell?”

He wanted to move away from her, but his leg locked up and there was nowhere to go but closer to the bed, and that was the last place he needed to go. His heart thundered, his heated blood pounded through him and his manhood was so erect it pained him to move. He feared one stroke of her hand on his inflamed member would cause him to spill his seed.

He closed his eyes and breathed deep, desperately trying to banish images of Emmaline’s delicate fingers curled around his staff. His hips moved involuntarily as if she were there, pumping the life from him.

She touched his arm. He jerked away.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered.

A crack of thunder, this time closer, shook the pane of glass.

“Nicholas?”

He needed her to leave. He wasn’t in control of himself at the moment. His leg ached, even if it was a phantom pain from the dream, and he wanted Emmaline with a fierceness that frightened him.

“Go,” he managed to whisper, his voice ragged.

“You don’t look well. Let’s get you back to bed.”

She reached for his arm and he stepped back. One touch was all it would take for him to grab her and throw her down on the bed. One touch. Part of him dared her to do it, but the saner part prevailed. He stumbled, his aching leg unable to hold him.

“Don’t,” he rasped.

“Nicholas, you’re scaring me.” Her face was pale, and she’d stopped clutching the robe. It gaped open, revealing the edges of a man’s white shirt. He’d seen her in such a shirt many times, but in this instance he knew there was nothing beneath, that he could plunge his hands down there and touch her breasts.

He turned his gaze away, trying like hell to summon the gentleman in him. But that person was gone.

“Let me get Phin.” She turned to the door but Nicholas grasped the edge of her robe, stopping her. The last person he wanted in this room was Phin.

She looked back at him, her gaze bouncing from his face to his hand on her robe, to his feet and up to his bare chest, then lower. Her eyes widened when she finally noticed the bulge in his breeches. Her gaze jerked back to his face.

“Go,” he said again.

To his regret, or maybe his relief, she didn’t move. Instead she watched him with those wide eyes. She moved closer. He still clutched a handful of the robe, and it was as if he were drawing a string toward him, tempting a cat with a tidbit of fish.

Emmaline’s demeanor changed, and suddenly Nicholas didn’t know whether he was the stalker or the prey.

She touched his bare chest with the tips of her fingers, and his muscles jumped at the heat that seared him. His breath deepened as if he’d climbed to the topsail in gale-force winds.

Emmaline stared at her fingers as if she couldn’t believe she was touching him.

He should tell her to go away again, but she had ignored him the first three times. Why would this time be different? And truthfully, the last thing he wanted was for her to leave. He’d never been this hard, this desperate or this out of control in his life.