Читать книгу A Wedding By Dawn - Alison DeLaine - Страница 14
ОглавлениеINDIA LET HERSELF into the passageway and crept back to her cabin, trying to ignore that her body hummed with the lingering effects of Nicholas Warre’s touch.
Gain. He thought she would gain from marrying him, when he’d made his expectations perfectly clear.
Oh, God. She stopped, suddenly, in the middle of the passageway. Leaned against the wall outside her cabin, taking a moment to compose herself, aware of her breasts in a way she had never been before—but even more aware of the things he’d said, and the fact that she could never, ever allow this marriage to take place.
She knew all about the things a man would do to avoid being shamed.
Your hoydenish tricks...that was how he saw her. He did not see her accomplishments, her skills. He was already ashamed to take her to wife—just as Father had been ashamed when she’d returned to London and locked her up in her apartments.
Only imagine how Nicholas Warre would treat her if he discovered her biggest failing. Except she didn’t need to imagine, because she had an entire childhood of memories to draw on.
You may redeem yourself, India—and have your dinner, as well—the moment you decide to apply your efforts and read me these stanzas from Pope. It hadn’t mattered to Father that applying her efforts had never done any good.
It wouldn’t matter to Nicholas Warre, either. When he learned she couldn’t read, he would try to force her just as Father had, and withhold every pleasure from her, and it wouldn’t work because no matter how hard she tried it never worked. And he would prevent her shaming Taggart by keeping her hidden away, and Taggart would become her prison, just as surely as her childhood rooms had been.
Her stomach twisted. She needed to do something now—tonight. But the only person who could possibly save her now was William.
Yes. Yes—she could talk to William. Tell him everything—make him see how imperative it was that she be in charge of her own destiny. She would promise anything in exchange for his forgiveness. Then perhaps he would let her and Millie join his crew, and then they would have protection instead of needing to make their way alone. And it would be just like before when they’d sailed with Katherine—
“India!” Millie’s voice hissed through the darkened passageway.
India turned. “Millie?”
Millie hurried from the darkness and grabbed India’s arm. “Come—come quickly!”
“What’s happened?”
Millie didn’t answer. India practically ran after her down the corridor to William’s cabin, through the door, and—
Oh, God. “What have you done?”
“I don’t know—I don’t know!”
India fell to William’s side, where he lay motionless on the floor.
“It isn’t as bad as it looks—”
“How can it not be as bad as it looks?” Oh, God. Oh, God. India shook him.
“No! Don’t try to rouse him!”
“We have to!” She listened for breath—yes! He was breathing.
“No, we don’t.” Millie grabbed her arm and tried to pull India to her feet. “India, this could be our opportunity. I didn’t mean to do it—I didn’t—but we won’t escape any other way...you know we won’t. And even if we do, what then? But if we take this ship back to Malta now, we can retake the Possession—”
“We can’t return to Malta. When William’s crew finds him like this, we’ll be killed.” She felt behind William’s head, encountered a bump wet with warm blood. Pain fisted in her stomach. “Mutiny? How could you? He’ll kill us himself when he awakes!”
“Not if we lock him in here.”
“We can’t do that! Not to William!”
“Have you forgotten he came here on Katherine’s orders?”
“You know bloody well the crew will never accept our leadership.”
“Did you not hear their complaints as we boarded? These men are not loyal to William. They were hired two months ago. They thought they would be a week at Malta, but instead they’re back at sea after only a day. Believe me, the promise of returning to Malta will have them in the palm of our hands. But in case it doesn’t...”
She held out a pistol, shot and powder.
The metal glinted in the moonlight through the windows of William’s cabin. India looked at the pistol. At Millie.
“I can’t do this. Millie, you should have told me first.”
“It wasn’t something I planned!”
“We’ll be pirates. Real pirates.”
Millie’s hands were trembling. She quickly set the pistol and shot on a chair. “He’s come to no real harm.”
“Aye,” India said sarcastically, “That is precisely the definition of piracy. As long as nobody comes to harm—”
“We shan’t be stealing William’s ship.” Millie sounded terrifyingly determined. “We shall merely divert it back to Malta and then return it.”
“If we return to Malta with William and Nicholas Warre aboard, there will be no way to keep them secured until we make our escape. We’ll be apprehended before we can weigh anchor out of Valletta.”
“Then we shall leave them off somewhere before Malta.”
India’s breathing turned shallow. Leaving them off was different from keeping them safely aboard.
“What are we going to do when William awakes?” India asked.
“There are things I can give him to keep him calm—”
“Millie, we can’t do that.”
“Do you have a better solution?”
Yes. They could wake William and beg for his mercy. But even William had limits, and they had already exceeded those limits by taking the Possession from Katherine.
Now there was no turning back.
Millie hurried to dress William’s wound while India held his head with shaky hands. “Is there any chance he would wake up and think he fell and hit his head?” India asked.
Millie answered with a look.
“You confronted him?”
“I went to ask him a question.”
“And knocked him unconscious?”
“I didn’t care for his answer! Hold his head higher.”
William’s slackened features were terrifying. “What if he dies? How can you be certain he won’t die?”
“Stop asking questions and help me put a pillow beneath his head!”
“What good will a pillow do us now?” None. A pillow would do them no good. But India stuffed one beneath him anyhow and grabbed up the pistol and shot.
* * *
NICK AWOKE TO the sharp pounding of a hammer.
What the devil—
He pushed himself upright in the darkness, realizing at the same time that the hammer was pounding against his door. He bolted out of bed and tried to wrest the door open, but something on the other side held it fast.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“What the devil is this about?” No answer. “Jaxbury! Jaxbury, you sodding bastard, open the bloody door!”
The hammering stopped, and it wasn’t Jaxbury that answered.
“How does it feel to be locked away, Mr. Warre?” Lady India’s voice singsonged through the door.
The implications raced through his mind. “Where is Jaxbury?”
“William is none of your concern. From now on you shall answer to me as your captain.”
“Tell me what’s happened to Jaxbury.” Lady India, and presumably Miss Germain, could not have taken over the ship unless—
“You need not fear for your safety, Mr. Warre, as long as you cause us no trouble. You shall be let off at Sicily—it should be easy enough for you to find passage back to England from there.”
Nick’s blood ran cold. “Is Jaxbury dead?”
“I do not care to answer any questions. You will remain in your cabin. Of course, that shouldn’t present any additional hardship for you with your ill health. But I intend to keep the door locked just in case.”
“So you will put me off at Sicily, and then what? You and Miss Germain will sail the Mediterranean in a stolen ship? Once the line of piracy is crossed, it can’t be undone.”
“If I tell you I fully intend to cross that line, will it make you less inclined to marry me? Only imagine what shame it will bring upon Taggart to have a pirate as its mistress.” Nick did not bother to answer. “Ah, well,” she said after a moment. “I thought not. But only consider, Mr. Warre, how much you could profit by piracy. More than fifty thousand, I daresay.”
“You and Miss Germain are as good as dead, Lady India. And anyone else out there—” he thought of the crew and called louder, in case any might be listening “—do you imagine you’ll not be counted as pirates, too?”
“Enjoy your voyage, Mr. Warre,” she called, and he heard her footsteps fading down the passageway.
He stared at the door.
A wave of nausea rolled through his stomach, and he breathed deeply through his mouth until it passed. When it did, he lurched to the dresser for another piece of candied ginger and stumbled toward the pot in the corner of the cabin.
God, he hated ships. Despised them and everything they stood for.
With just enough moonlight to see, he slid the pot aside with his foot, gripped the wall for balance, and retrieved the pistol he’d hidden there. Loaded a ball, and replaced the pistol behind the pot with his reserve of shot and powder. Under these circumstances, having an extra pistol hidden away could become very useful.
He returned to the bed, sinking into the mattress and staring at the ceiling while his stomach threatened another rebellion.
In the space of—what, half an hour? Longer?—he’d gone from stroking her breasts, God damn it, to being imprisoned in his cabin with Jaxbury possibly dead. They couldn’t actually have killed him. Could they?
Whatever they’d done, Lady India would have had the opportunity for none of it if he had alerted Jaxbury and returned her to her cabin like he should have instead of standing there captivated by the womanly swells beneath her shirt. Putting his hands on her was a misjudgment of incalculable proportions. Yet he’d scarcely touched her at all—so much less than he’d wanted to do, and so much more than he should have.
And she’d reacted. Bloody devil, he’d seen exactly the moment it had happened, had seen the way her lips had parted a little, had noticed how she stumbled over her words as he’d caressed her full, heavy curves.
A strangled laugh pushed into his throat. Perhaps that was the way to tame her. Good God.
The ship pitched now with a large wave, and he braced himself to keep from rolling.
He’d thought her foolish and stupid. Had wanted—needed—to believe it was true. But that was just as much of a mistake as touching her. There’d been something else in those eyes tonight—something he’d been in too much of a hurry to notice in Malta, or perhaps just unwilling to acknowledge: a dark shadow.
Evil?
No. It was the dark shadow of desperation one saw in the eyes of street urchins. Except that Lady India was no urchin. She was the spoiled daughter of an earl.
And she was a pirate. And according to his agreement with her father, his fiancée.
If he were smart, he would let her put him off at Sicily and be grateful to see the last of her.
But he wasn’t smart. He was nearly fifty thousand pounds in debt. And she may have been desperate, but she was forgetting one thing.
So was he.
