Untamed

Untamed

Jessica L. Jackson

Copyright © 2013 by Jessica L. Jackson

Published by Bru ebooks

Word Count: 18,877

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-0-9917890-2-3

Cover Art by Trifle Ink Design

[email protected]

Table of Contents

Titlepage

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Prologue

Angel Isle, off the coast of Nova Scotia, spring, 1804

M
ajor Lord Wensley lay dying.

Tiny lines etched deep as crevasses held his humor ‘till the last breath. Slight wisps of silver hair swayed over eyes of twinkling black. He could no longer relate the stories of his ribald youth responsible for each crook of his red veined nose. The corners of his narrow lips quirked upwards when his sixteen-year-old niece fell on her knees beside the bed, her wild hair tumbling in disarray around narrow young shoulders.

“Desarae,” he breathed, reaching to her. Her strong hands gripped his.

“Yes, Uncle?” she whispered, tears standing in her soft brown eyes and spilling forth upon her golden cheeks.

“Do not forget…all that I…have taught you,” he ordered, his voice gravelly and halting. “Remember…you are…a lady.”

“I will remember everything,” she swore. “Do not fear.”

“Be certain to…practice.” He waited for her nod. “I promised your mother not to let her father raise you. If he should hear that…I am gone—?”

“We shan’t tell him!”

“I love you, my dear,” he whispered and then his dark eyes unfocused and his sunken chest rose as the breath filled his lungs for one last time. A ragged sigh escaped.

Desarae cuddled his slack hand to her cheek and sobbed.

Behind her, Jim crossed the carpet to stand at her side. His wide shoulders shook as tears streamed down his dark brown cheeks. Desarae remained oblivious to his presence until he touched her shoulder and turned her away from the bed to take her in his massive arms. Tears that had since dried up flowed anew.

“Miss Desarae, don’t be sad,” Jim murmured, patting her hair. He rested his head on hers. “We will be happy again until your grandfather comes for you.”

“I shall never leave you.” Desarae’s young voice cried out desperately, clinging to her uncle’s former batman who was more like another uncle to her than a servant. “Never!”

“When miss’s grandfather comes, you will go,” he whispered, and then allowed her to cling to him for a moment before putting her away. “I will take Sir to the box,” he murmured, then pushed her into a chair facing away from the bed. Jim lifted the major’s frail body into his embrace and carried him from the chamber.

Desarae stared for many long moments at the empty fireplace. “I shan’t go.
I shan’t!
”

But her determination proved unnecessary. The days passed into weeks, and the weeks into months, and the months into years and still her grandfather did not come for her. As time passed, Desarae’s young heart healed and the small isle rang with the joyful laughter of youth running free and wild.

They told none of Baron Wensley’s death. But rumors began, as rumors always will, and eventually the news of his possible death reached the Earl of Kristnor. He hired the fastest ship he could find—one of the new square-rigged, ‘sharp’ schooners—and set forth to bring his granddaughter back to England. His eldest son had died in the autumn making Desarae the only heir to the Earl’s vast holdings. He would have control of her or marry her off to someone he could control and he had in mind the weakest man-milliner of the
ton
.

Chapter One

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite

in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable,

in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!

-Hamlet Act 2, scene 2

Spring, 1811, near the east coast of Nova Scotia

“
T
ie down…!”

The raging wind flung Trystan’s words from his mouth before his men heard his commands. The driving rain made the deck slick and treacherous. Trystan struggled against the pitching deck, striving to reach the helm where his navigator hung tied to the wheel, unconscious or dead. His frozen fingers closed around the railing as another pounding wave dashed over the ship. He opened his mouth to shout another order, twisting around to face the men clinging to the riggings for dear life, but his order turned into a cry as a barrel burst free from its restraints and slammed against his legs.

Stunned, drenched, exhausted from twelve hours battling a sudden squall, Trystan’s grip failed when another wave washed over the
Lady May
. For a brief moment he felt himself being lifted high over the decks on the crest of the wave, then the ship was no longer beneath him and he fell into the roiling ocean. He gasped for air. Icy seawater filled his mouth.

* * *

Fuzzy thoughts filtered into his consciousness. The shooshing of washing surf…gull screams…grit beneath his cheek…fingers digging into sand…pounding pain in his fevered brain. Trystan’s thoughts spiraled about even as he forced his body to rise out of the water’s edge and stumble onto the sandy beach.

He reached the steps leading up the rocky cliff. Later, he couldn’t recall the climb, the number of times he slipped, the length of time it took him to rise and climb once more. At last he reached the top and collapsed in the long grass. The last sight that filled his visage was of an angel looming above him, cold, white, benign.

* * *

Desarae found him lying on the grass at the top of the cove steps. She hiked up her cotton dress and tucked it between her legs as she squatted beside the stranger. She poked him with her finger and then skittered away when he moaned. Her instinctive compassion brought her to his side once more as his stomach heaved out the seawater he had swallowed.

Desarae lifted his shoulders and turned his head so he wouldn’t drown. She waited until only dry heaves shook his frame then she tugged on his arm and rolled him onto his back.

“Dear Lord, you have swooned again,” she whispered to him, though of course he didn’t hear her. A shaggy terrier padded over beside her and growled. “Hush, Athena,” Desarae ordered. “Tell me, what should we do with him?” she asked, glancing at her dog. “He’s fallen just at the angel’s feet but I do not think he’s dead yet.”

Athena cocked her head and then barred her teeth. “No, I am not going to hurt him.” She shook her finger at the dog. “And neither are you. Do you hear me?” The dog whined and sat back on her haunches. Desarae nodded her head with approval and then looked back at the man lying unconscious before her.

“The truth is, Athena, that I wish Jim had not left for supplies today. Yes, I do.” This was not the first time a sailor had washed ashore but Jim looked after them and took them to Canso on the mainland without them ever meeting her. She shrugged with resignation. “I guess we shall have to make do without him, hmm?” Desarae pushed her long dark auburn hair behind her ears. Athena barked once.

Desarae hooked her arms under the stranger’s shoulders and grasped him in the armpits. She tugged. He didn’t budge. She tugged again and he moved a few inches. Desarae took a deep breath and tugged once more. This time she managed to keep him moving until they reached the moss-covered steps leading to the upper terrace which was now totally overgrown since Jim was too busy with other chores to see to the upkeep of the lawn. Since her uncle’s illness they had kept no other servants for fear that they would spread the knowledge of his death.

Desarae plopped down on the steps and rested. She swiped her arm across her troubled brow and started to think. Athena settled down and rested her head on the stranger’s belly, apparently deciding to adopt her mistress’s new found plaything.

“I am not strong enough to drag him into the house and put him to bed,” Desarae murmured, biting the corner of her lip as she pondered this problem. “Since we cannot bring him to the bed, we must bring the bed to him!” she exclaimed, smiling broadly. “Athena? Stay!” she ordered, staring at the dog until Athena put her paw up beside her head on the man’s lap. “Good dog.”

Desarae hurried through the tall grass and absently smiled at her guardian sculptures as she passed. She flung open the front door of her home and ran up the steps to a small bedchamber. Quickly she dragged the truckle bed out from beneath the bed. The casters whined and complained as she wrestled with it through the door and over to the stairs. She took hold of the front of the truckle bed and cautiously backed down the stairs. The rear clunked down each step after her. Once the bed was on the grass beside the sailor, she hurried back into the house and returned with an armload of bedding. She covered the still figure with a blanket before making up the bed.

“Now what should we do?” she asked Athena, who hadn’t budged from beside the man. “He’s awfully dirty and we can’t leave him in his wet clothing or he could die.”

Desarae jumped up from the bed and raced across the terrace again, nodding once more to the silent sentinels covered with climbing vines. She heated some water and carried the steaming can out beside the bed. Another trip back to the house provided her with a basin, soap, a pair of scissors and one of her dear uncle’s nightshirts.

“Now, his clothes,” Desarae murmured, waving Athena off the man, who still hadn’t shifted since she had dragged him there. That worried her. Desarae leaned down and felt his faint breath against her cheek. She nodded, satisfied.

Desarae pulled his soaked tunic first away from his body and began the laborious chore of cutting his shirt off his body. With one side cut free, she flipped the cloth over his body, revealing the tanned damp skin to the warm sunlight. Here she paused to admire his broad expansive bare chest. Golden tipped hair dusted his
pectoralis major
muscles and her hand paused above them, her splayed fingers trembling. Desarae had studied male forms in her uncle’s books so that she could be accurate in her sculpting, but never before had she been in the position to truly appreciate their powerful magnetism. She looked at his face. He was a most handsome male specimen.

A gasp escaped her lips when her hand rested on the magnificent strength laid before her. Eagerly she traced the shape of the muscles with her palm and she grinned with pleasure at the feel of his curls between her fingers. She blinked rapidly and forced herself to ignore the strange swooping feeling in her stomach while she examined his torso for cuts and bruises. After examining his head for bumps or cuts, finding none, she rolled him almost entirely onto her lap so she could remove his tunic entirely. She lowered him gently back onto the ground and tossed the ruined garment to the side.

Desarae lifted first one arm and then the other examining them for injuries. She felt along their lengths and assured herself that none of his bones had broken. She held his large hand between the two of hers, using her thumbs to feel for damaged bones.
He had beautiful hands,
she thought and then imagined them vital and active. Desarae snatched her hands away and pressed her fists into her stomach where something like butterflies fluttered.

“Oh, my,” she whispered. “Now I begin to understand Uncle’s journals.” A rough chuckle escaped her lips as she shook herself back to normal. She still had to get the rest of his wet clothes off of him so she could wash away the salt and sand. The effort was going to be a trial, albeit an unexpected, pleasure as well, she suspected.

Before cutting off his trousers, she could not stop herself from tracing the shape of his
biceps brachii
with her increasingly bold touch. Her imagination, stretched through her uncle’s varied library, lingered on his shapely arms and taut stomach. She licked her dry lips and swallowed. After clearing her throat and taking several deep, calming breaths, she turned to contemplate his lower half, knowing what she would find there once she completed her task.

“My thoughts are empty. My mind is blank,” Desarae whispered over and over while she struggled to cut off his trousers. She was sweating profusely under the afternoon sun by the time she had completed this challenge.

“Oh, my,” Desarae sighed, her eyes round. “Our sailor is quite spectacular.”

She dipped the washcloth into the warm water and lathered it with soap. Reverently, her artist’s eyes filled with admiration, Desarae proceeded to bathe the stranger. In spite of her best efforts she found her eyes lingering on his private parts. Very gently she swabbed him clean and then marvelled when his member reacted to her ministrations. A quick glance confirmed that he remained in a swoon.