Читать книгу The Wicked Redhead - Beatriz Williams - Страница 17

THEY LIE anchored in a line from north to south, at intervals so regular it’s practically unnerving, if you’re that breed of person who misplaces his nerves from time to time. From three miles out you can still see the shore, verdant and kind of mysterious, but it might as well be another universe for all the good it does you. The boat bobs nervously under your feet, the ship looms large and black-sided, sails folded neat against masts and spars. I turn toward Anson and open my mouth to tell him about my dream, about the schooner that looked exactly like this one, only packed to the hatches with dead men. But he’s concentrating on bringing the motor launch alongside, on some exchange of hails with the sailors on deck.

I take his arm. “Are you sure about this? You know what you’re doing?”

He gives me this amazed look. “Why, what’s wrong?”

“I just got a feeling, that’s all. Chill down my spine.”

Anson examines my eyelashes, slings his arm about my neck, and pulls me in for the kind of long, soft kiss that draws forth a chorus of whooping from above. I am surely too shocked to resist. When he’s done, he touches his forehead to mine and whispers, “You’re safe. Trust me.”

I want to scream back that it’s not my safety giving me the chills, it’s his, but somebody’s calling down words of some kind—afraid I’m still too discombobulated by the kissing to hear them properly—and then a rope ladder falls at our feet, and the time for turning back has long past. Tick tock. Just swallow back your terror and climb that rope, I guess, doing your best to hold on with your one good hand.