Capture The Wind (29 page)

“Emily? She seems happy enough now, though I admit it’s taken a while for her to adjust.” His voice softened. “Angela, don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve made mistakes, but they were honest ones. Don’t ruin everything because of another one.”

“Ruin everything?” She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. Kit’s the closest thing to a big brother that I’ve ever had. He cared about me and took me in when no one else was willing to, and he’s tried to teach me a few things along the way.”

“Such as piracy? What kind of thing is that to teach a friend?”

Sighing, Dylan shook his head. “You don’t know half of what you think you do. There’s a lot more than appearances at stake here, but that’s another story. Right now, what I’m trying to tell you is that Kit truly cares about you. I can see it in his eyes whether he wants to admit it or not, and I don’t want to see him hurt.”

“Hurt? I couldn’t hurt him. On the contrary, it is I who am much more likely to be hurt.” She wrenched away, pulling back to stare at Dylan in the dim light of a lantern. It hissed above her head, sputtering and throwing a feeble glow. “Don’t you care about my feelings?”

“Why do you think I’m wasting my time standing here?” Dylan raked a hand through his dark hair, exasperation marking his face. “I could be snuggling up to Emily instead of trying to convince you of a truth you don’t want to hear.”

“Then go snuggle up to her and leave me alone. I’m going to sleep.”

Dylan thrust a bottle at her. “If you really want to sleep, drink your wine. There’s not much gone, and you can always blame your headache on too much to drink instead of the truth.”

She snatched the bottle from his hand, glaring at him. “I think I will, thank you. You’ve given me a wonderful idea.”

Ignoring his frustration, Angela stepped back and firmly shut the door on Dylan, then leaned against it. In a moment, she heard his steps echoing down the corridor. Still distressed, she looked down at the bottle in her hand. Why not? Wine might ease the worst of her mood, though it would still be there to contend with on the morrow. But tonight—tonight she needed a respite from the black despair that seemed to grip her whenever she dwelled on Kit Saber for too long.

Only a few swallows of wine were enough to convince her that it would not offer any lasting solution, however, and she set the bottle into a bucket in disgust. She crossed to the bunk and threw herself across it. Her moods swung from anger to anxiety to despair, then back to anger as she lay there staring at the low ceiling of her cabin. The only light was a small lamp on the wall and the bright press of moonlight through the port window. It gave the tiny cubicle a hazy unreality that made her think she must be going mad.

How else could she explain her confusion? She should despise Kit, yet she didn’t. Deep inside, there was a part of her that could not deny her feelings no matter how much she tried to ignore them.

Time passed as she lay there in numb misery, listening to the ship’s noises that were somehow muted as they lay at anchor in the secluded bay. Instead of the familiar heavy flapping of sails filled with wind, there was the steady creaking of the ship against the mooring lines. The lilting cries of seagulls drifted on the night wind. Voices still sounded—the night watch, no doubt—and in the distance, she could hear the twang of a fiddle and singing. Mercifully, they were too far away for her to make out the words. There had been times when she had pulled a pillow over her head to stifle the lyrics to certain songs the crew was fond of singing, her face flaming as she wondered if it was all fantasy or there was any feasibility to the antics mentioned in the song.

Finally, with the gentle rocking of the ship lulling her, she drifted into sleep.

Kit swung below deck, landing on his feet in the dimly lit corridor leading to Angela’s cabin. He paused, his eyes adjusting slowly to the change in light, the familiar smells of the ship washing over him. Warm wood and fragrant reminders of a previous cargo of cinnamon and ginger they had taken from one of Sheridan Shipping’s merchantmen out of India made him smile. He loved this ship in a way he had never loved any home; not even a sprawling estate of gray stone and turrets could give him this kind of feeling.

Of course, he had not considered England home since he was a boy barely out of leading strings. The land of his birth held more painful memories than joyous ones, and on the few occasions that he returned, he was always reminded of why he had left. Oddly enough, though, he felt a fierce loyalty to England and never passed up an opportunity to aid her in the struggle against Napoleon.

Napoleon. Though at the moment there was a treaty that had been signed at Amiens between England and France, Kit did not expect it to last. Napoleon was too greedy, too power-hungry and autocratic to allow England and her wealth to slip from his grasp without a struggle. With his armies divided, some in Santo Domingo to put down the revolt begun by Toussant L’Ouverture, the little Corsican was only biding his time, Kit was certain. War would come again. And when it did, he intended to pit his money and energies against the French.

Until then, he had his own private pursuit that haunted him day and night, leaving him restless and frustrated most of the time. Vivian. He always missed her somehow, and he knew Turk was right. She must know he pursued her, and thus always cleverly managed to evade him. Why? Why would she not face him? He would not rest until he got an answer, even if it took him the rest of his life.

Yet lately, he had found himself distracted from his purpose by a most unlikely obstacle—Angela. It amazed him that he could spend even a fraction of his time dwelling upon the vagaries of a female, especially one that seemed to epitomize all the deceitful women he had ever known. The suspicion that she was, as Turk insisted, very different from Vivian, Elaine, and especially Susan gave him long moments of pause. He would have liked to believe it. Life, however, had taught him that rarely was anything as it seemed, particularly regarding people.

Despite Turk’s belief that without blind faith a man and a woman could not have a significant relationship, he had seen nothing to recommend such a course. His relationships with women had degenerated into quick physical ones, and he told himself that he did not miss the warm intimacy that came with trust. The crushing blow of being betrayed was not worth even a decade of happy gullibility.

Which conclusion left him baffled as to why he was so angry that Angela had left Bloody Bob’s Tavern as she had. He should just shrug and forget it. There were enough other women to occupy his time if not his mind. Why did he find it so difficult to dismiss Angela?

He still had no answer to that question when he quietly pushed open the unlocked door to her cabin and stepped inside. He found her asleep on her bunk, moonlight spilling over her face and glittering from the silvery tracks of dried tears. That brought him up short, defusing some of his anger. She’d been crying. Over him? Or was it over Philippe?

If he had any decency, he thought, he would leave quietly and she would never know he’d been there. But as Turk had noted dourly, his sense of decency had vanished as of late. It probably had to do with his sense of frustration being so prevalent. And most of that frustration was because of Angela.

Slowly, he sat on the edge of the bunk, lowering his weight atop the folded quilt on the end. Angela did not stir, except to sigh softly in her sleep. Her hair had come undone from its braid and framed her face in soft tangles. One hand was propped against her cheek, fingers curling lightly toward her palm. He resisted the inexplicable urge to slide his hand through hers, opting instead to touch her hair. It was fine and silky and, when he leaned close, smelled as fragrant as the air after a summer rain.

What was it about her that engendered this tender response? He’d been angry when he arrived at the ship, after having to commandeer a skiff to get there, as furious with her as with himself. He shouldn’t have given a damn if she’d gone, yet he did and that was even more maddening.

And now he was here, and instead of rudely awakening her and demanding to know why the hell she’d fled Bloody Bob’s like a scalded dog, he was contemplating kissing her. Her lips were half-parted, her lashes making long shadows on her cheeks, her breasts rising and falling in a regular rhythm. Unable to resist, he bent and touched his mouth lightly to the curved slope of her cheek.

Angela stirred, and her lashes fluttered but did not lift. He kissed her again, this time on the mouth, insinuating his tongue between her lips until she opened for him. He explored gently, lightly, kissing her until she began to move restlessly beneath his weight. He could still taste the wine she’d had earlier, a fruity bouquet clinging to her mouth and tongue.

Moving lower, he kissed her chin, the curve of her throat, the creamy expanse of skin just above the lace fichu covering her breasts. When he deftly unfastened the pin that held the lace and tossed it carelessly to the floor, he glanced up to see her watching him, eyes glistening in the pale moonlight. He paused, the back of his hand resting in the warm valley between her breasts.

“What are you doing?” she whispered. Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips, and she stared at him with fathomless eyes.

There didn’t seem to be an answer to her simple question; not one he wanted to voice anyway. He took a deep breath and shook his head, then bent to kiss her again. She did not turn away, but there was no response, and he drew back to look down at her.

“I’m sorry you were upset,” he said after a moment, half-surprised to find that he meant it. “That should never have happened.”

“Is she—is she a very good friend of yours?”

“If you’re asking whether I’ve ever been intimate with her, the answer is no. We’ve shared a few bottles of rum together in the past, and that’s all. Kate’s not exactly the kind of woman who interests me.”

“She doesn’t seem to think so.”

He drew in a long breath. “Don’t hold me responsible for what she thinks. I doubt she’s ever had a sensible thought in her head anyway. She is not exactly an intellectual.”

“I’m not sure it’s her mind that interests you.”

“Dammit,” he snarled, losing patience, “will you forget about Kate? She’s not worth a second of your time. I think you’re just using her as an excuse.”

She stared up at him in angry disbelief. “An excuse for what? Not liking you? I don’t need an excuse for that.”

“Liar,” he said softly. “You’re using excuses like bricks to build a wall between us. I recognize your tactics, but they won’t work anymore.”

Sitting up with a jerk, she tugged at the bodice of her gown where it barely covered the swell of her breasts, snapping, “What did you do with my modesty bit?”

He held up the scrap of triangular lace. “You don’t need it tonight.” She grabbed at it, and he held it easily out of reach. “We don’t need to degenerate into wrestling like children over a toy. If we try, surely we can communicate like two adults who want the same thing.”

“I hardly think that applies here. What is it you think I want?”

Kit tossed aside the scrap of lace and leaned forward, his weight pushing her back against the bunk, one hand propped on each side of her body. They stared at one another, lungs competing for the same air to breathe, tension crackling around them like summer lightning.

“I know what you want,” he muttered, “because I’ve seen it often enough in your eyes. Do you think I’ve forgotten that afternoon I surprised you at your bath? I haven’t. And I can remember how you held me and how I made you feel, the way you cried out
 . . .
” His voice roughened when she caught her breath in a little gasp and tried to squirm away. “Oh, no you don’t. Damn, I haven’t been able to get that afternoon out of my mind. It’s all I think about, when I should be thinking about other things.”

She made an inarticulate noise low in her throat and rose to her elbows, green eyes wide in the press of moonlight that seemed to fill the cabin with a silvery glow. “Tell me Kit—why do you think about me?”

In answer, Kit lifted one hand and caught hold of her hair at the nape of her neck, tilting her head back as he bent to kiss her. This was no gentle kiss, but a harsh possession, a branding. This time she did not try to push him away, but moaned again, lifting her arms to curl them around his neck.

“You know why I want you,” he muttered harshly against the skin just beneath her ear. “You’ve known it from the first day, you little sea witch. Why must a woman insist upon hearing what she already knows?”

“Reassurance—”

He stopped her with his mouth, a scalding kiss that made them both breathe heavily when he pulled back. This was insanity. He should know better, but there was no stopping now, not when it seemed as if he had waited forever for this moment.

It took much too long to unfasten her gown and divest her of the garment. Beneath that, she wore petticoats and a chemise, as well as stockings. He tamped down a wave of savage impatience.

“Take this off,” he muttered, plucking at the lacy straps of her chemise. “Unless you don’t mind if I rip it.”

Angela was shivering, whether with chill or reaction he wasn’t certain, and he reached out to help her trembling fingers. “That’s right, love,” he murmured when she faltered, “like this.” He kissed the smooth flesh bared by the removal of one strap, then moved a bit lower, his lips lingering on the swelling round of her breast. She gave a soft sigh that penetrated to his marrow, and he saw that his own hands were slightly shaking as well when he helped her with the other strap.

Slowly lowering the bodice of her chemise, he fought an overwhelming wave of desire. She was beautiful. His memory wasn’t faulty after all.

Unfortunately—or was that fortunately?—she was everything he’d remembered, pink and cream and seductive shadows that made him ache with all the fervor of a man long denied. God, he had to go slow and not ruin the moment. She wanted him; that was evident. And he wanted her to yield to him eagerly.