Читать книгу Regency High Society Vol 4: The Sparhawk Bride / The Rogue's Seduction / Sparhawk's Angel / The Proper Wife - Miranda Jarrett - Страница 19

Michel’s mouth closed down on hers before Jerusa could protest. With a smothered cry that was lost between them she struggled to break free, her hands pressing hard against his chest, but his arms were stronger and he held her fast, until he wasn’t sure he could have surrendered her then even if he’d tried. This was the one way he could prove that he was worthy of her, that she needed him as much as he did her.

And God help her, she did. She couldn’t help it. The more his lips moved over hers, teasing her, coaxing her, tasting her, the less she fought against him. The slow fire that had been lit between them the first time they’d kissed had had days and nights to smolder and build, until now, when they touched again, it burned white-hot, hot enough to melt away their differences and leave only what they shared.

Her palms on his chest relaxed, sliding across the hard muscles and planes of his arms and shoulders until they linked behind his neck. His hair was silky across her skin, curling around her wrists like another caress.

Confident now that she would stay, he broke away long enough to tear himself free of his coat and waistcoat and finally his shirt. In his haste a button popped off the waistcoat, rolling in a crazy circle across the deck, and Jerusa laughed, deep yet giddy, and wholly captivating. When he reached for her again, she came willingly, her eyes widening as her hands explored the different textures of his skin and the dark gold whorls of hair that patterned it. He whispered her name as his lips grazed the sensitive place behind her ear, words he’d never said to another.

Recklessly she let herself sway against him, her whole body arching with the pleasure that his kiss brought. As she moved against him she felt her breasts tighten and ache from the friction, and, as if she’d begged him, his hand slipped between them to undo the hooks on her bodice. She gasped as his fingers touched her breast, raised by the stiff whalebone stays like an opulent offering for him alone. Deftly he eased her full flesh free of the stays, teasing her nipples with his rough, callused palms until she thought she’d melt with the pleasure of it.

But it was her little moan of desire that changed everything for him. He’d never been with a woman who responded so completely to his kiss and his touch, scorching them both with her fire, and knowing he was the first to awaken such passion in her left him shuddering with the force of his own need. He was the one she wanted: he, Michel Géricault, who had never been wanted before by anyone, let alone a woman as blessed as Jerusa Sparhawk.

His hands slid down the length of her spine, kneading the soft curve of her hips and buttocks as he lifted her against the hot proof of his own want. His world had narrowed inexorably to the girl in his arms, and nothing in his life had ever mattered more than making her his.

Hungrily Jerusa opened her mouth as he deepened their kiss, her fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders. She had never behaved so wantonly with Tom, but then, Michel tempted her in ways Tom never had. Marveling at how well their bodies fit together, she finally understood all that Mama had so carefully explained to her on the day of her wedding. Passion and love, declared Mama, were among the most wondrous gifts a man and woman could share, and now, here in Michel’s arms, Jerusa realized exactly how wise her mother had been.

Strange that she had discovered it not with the man she was to marry but instead with the one who’d kidnapped her, and stranger still to realize, as she suddenly did now, that she loved him. She loved him.

She closed her eyes and smiled as he murmured to her in French, his breath warm on her skin. It didn’t matter that the words meant nothing to her; it was the way he said them that touched her most. Of course he must love her as she loved him, or else how could they be discovering such unbelievable pleasure together? Hadn’t Mama promised that that was the way it happened?

Yet she shivered as he lifted her onto the edge of the bunk, pushing his way between her thighs, and though still she clung to him, her heart pounding, the first flutter of apprehension rose up through her pleasure. He was shoving her skirts high over her legs, above her garters, above her knees, to let his large hands caress her white thighs with long, intoxicating strokes that left her breathless and dizzy with need.

“Ma petite amie, ma chère Jerusa,” he said, his voice rough and his breathing harsh. “Are you ready for me, my own darling Jerusa?”

Impatiently his hands roamed higher, around her hips, as he pulled her closer to the edge of the bunk. She knew what would happen next, for her mother had told her that, too. But when she felt him touch her there, that most secret place between her thighs, she stiffened and instinctively tried to retreat.

“You know I won’t hurt you, Rusa,” he whispered, kissing her again to sway her reluctance. “Only joy, my darling, only pleasure, I swear it.”

His fingers moved more gently this time, gliding over her slick, swollen flesh, and she gasped raggedly as the first ripple of bliss swept across her, as wondrous as Mama had promised.

But what of the warnings and cautions that had come before the promises? Think, Jerusa, think! Are you ready to risk the price of love and passion without marriage to bless them?

“Ma belle Jerusa,” he whispered. “Ma chérie.” Gently he guided her legs farther apart, lifting her knees, and she shuddered at the dizzying pleasure, her eyes squeezed shut and her head arched back.

Will you risk it all for this moment, Jerusa? Shame and disgrace, your belly swelling with a fatherless babe beneath your apron?

Will you bear a bastard child to grow in misery, to suffer as Michel, your own darling Michel, suffered even before he was born?

Think, Jerusa, think, before he decides for you!

“No, Michel, please!” Panting, she tried to twist away from him. “I can’t do this!”

“Yes, you can, ma bien-aimée,” he said, ordering more than coaxing as he began to unbutton his breeches, his fingers shaking with his urgency. “Don’t say no to me now, little one.”

“No, Michel, I can’t!” she cried, her fear cutting through the haze of his desire. He was so much stronger, that if he wanted to take her against her will, she knew she’d be powerless to fight him. “We can’t!”

And though his whole body ached for release, he stopped. She lay trembling before him, her eyes heavy lidded with passion and her lips swollen from his kisses, her bare breasts taut and flushed, and her legs still sprawled wantonly apart. Despite what she said, here was the proof that her body wanted his, that she craved him with the same desperation he felt for her.

Morbleu, he would give ten years of his life to be able to lose himself in her! Unable to keep away, he reached for her again, his Jerusa, his salvation—

Desperately she shook her head, her eyes wild. “For God’s sake, Michel,” she cried, “do you wish me to become like your mother?”

He recoiled as if he’d been struck. Could his love alone do that to her? Drive her to madness and a solitary world of black sorrow, rob her of her happiness and her good name, destroy all that was joyous and beautiful in her life? Could he do that to the woman he loved more than any other?

He wouldn’t stay to be tempted and find out. She wasn’t his; she never would be. Swearing under his breath, he grabbed his shirt from where he’d dropped it, and left.

Jerusa found Michel at the larboard railing, staring without seeing at the pink glow of dawn to the east. He stood with his shoulders slumped and his arms leaning on the rail, his hair whipping back untied from his face and his untucked shirt billowing around his body like the sails overhead. For a man who had spent his life striving to be inconspicuous, such an open display of his feelings was unthinkable, and Jerusa’s heart wrenched to see him like this, knowing that what she’d done had left him so visibly despondent.

Carefully she felt her way across the slanting deck to stand beside him. He didn’t turn to greet her, still staring steadfastly out to sea. She would have been surprised if he’d done otherwise. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say to him, but she did know she wanted to be with him now, and she prayed he’d want her there, too.

She gazed out at the coming dawn, the sun still no more than a rosy feathering in the clouds on the horizon. Despite her seafaring family, this was the first time she’d been on a deep-water ship, and the high-pitched thrum of the wind in the standing riggings, the constant creaking of the ship’s timbers and the rush of the waves were all new to her. After the tiny, close cabin, the wind and spray in her face felt good, helping to clear her thoughts.

Without turning, she dared to slide her hand along the rail until it touched his. “‘Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.’”

“Is that a maxim on all Sparhawk ships?”

“Not on ours alone, no,” she said, glad he’d answered. “You’ve never heard it before? ‘Red sky at morning, sailors take warning, red sky at night, sailors’ delight.’”

He glanced down at how their hands touched. “You English have a clever saying for everything.”

“And the French don’t?”

“Not nearly enough, it seems, or else I’d know what to say now.” He sighed and lightly brushed his fingers across her hand. “There was no excuse for losing control as I did. It won’t happen again.”

“Oh, Michel, please don’t!” He shouldn’t blame himself like this; until the very end she’d been every bit as willing.

When at last he looked at her, she was shocked by the mixture of pain and longing she saw in his eyes. “That’s exactly what you said to me earlier, ma chère. Thank God you did.”

“But I didn’t mean that we should never do—do such things again!” If only she knew the proper words to describe the intimacy of what they’d shared!

She was slanting her green eyes at him, her cheeks pink with more than the wind as she looked up at him from beneath her lashes with an unwitting blend of shyness and seduction so tempting that it tore at all his resolve and made him hard again in an instant.

“I took advantage of your trust and innocence, Jerusa. You can’t deny that.”

“You brought me more joy than I ever knew existed!”

His mouth tightened. “There’s countless other rakes and rogues able to do the same. It’s a skill that can be learned like any other.”

“I don’t believe that, and neither do you! What we shared—what we share—is special. I may be as innocent as you say, but there are some things that even the innocent can understand.” Impulsively she left the rail and held on to him instead, curling her arms around his waist.

“Jerusa, don’t,” he said, tensing. “You’re not making this easier for either of us.”

“Then think of it as more of your game, Michel. Let these sailors think Mrs. Geary is so besotted with her husband that she cannot bear to be apart from him. Better that than a public falling-out.”

Sacristi, she was right. There’d be talk enough among the crew of how he’d come stumbling on deck like a drunkard. He didn’t need to fuel their gossip any further by pushing his “wife” away.

“This I can do, Michel,” she said softly, her lips close to his ear so he could hear her over the wind. “Because this isn’t pretending. I love you, Michel Géricault, or Michael Geary, or whoever you are. I love you.”

“No, Rusa,” he said wearily. “Don’t even say it. What about Carberry, eh? I thought you loved him.”

She shook her head in furious denial. “I never cared for him the way I do for you. How could I? Tom was only a girlish attachment. I see that now. Even if he still wishes to marry me, I would not have him.”

Michel’s smile was full of bleak amusement. “A wise decision, ma mie. Perhaps the best you’ve ever made. Now stop at that, and don’t spoil it by mistaking me for your next protecteur.”

“You stop being so blessed noble, and listen to me!” Her fingers tightened in the loose folds of his shirt as she searched his face for some sign that he believed her. “I care for you, Michel, and I love you, and nothing, nothing you say can change that!”

No woman had ever said such things to him before. No one had ever said she cherished him like this, or cared for him, or loved him. With every smile and jest, and even merely the graceful way she turned her head, she had become more and more dear to him, until in a handful of days she had somehow found and filled a place in his life that he’d never known was empty. For a long moment he closed his eyes, fighting the fierce joy her words brought him, joy he’d no right to claim for himself.

For in his life there was no place for love, especially not from her, and he forced himself again to think of his mother and his promise to her, of his father and how he had died. He must never forget that. That was who he was.

“No, Rusa,” he said hoarsely. “There’s too much you don’t understand.”

“Then tell me!” she cried with desperation. “Is it our fathers? I want to know!”

Her body was warm and soft against his side, and as he stared again out across the water again, he tried not to remember how sweet she’d been to hold in his arms.

Anything else, mordieu, think of anything else!

“The sun is so slow to rise or set in your Yankee waters, ma chère. Almost as if she knows how chilly the air will be for her, eh?” He smiled wearily. “In Martinique, the sun comes all at once. One moment the sky is blue-black with night, and the next, before you quite know how, it’s day.”

“I know, because Father’s told me,” she said eagerly. “He says the sunsets are the same way, from day to night in an instant.”

“He told you that, but nothing of Christian Deveaux?”

She shook her head wistfully, brushing aside the strands of hair that the wind tossed across her face. “Perhaps he tells the boys, but not me or my sisters. He hardly speaks of the wars to us at all.”

“He knew my father long before any war brought them together, ma mie,” said Michel slowly. “They were scarce more than boys when they first clashed. Over and over they’d meet on different islands, with different ships or crews, each seeking to destroy the other. On Statia, they still speak of how the two young captains, one French, one English, nearly cut each other to ribbons at noon while every fat Dutchman in town watched in pop-eyed horror.”

“You are so beautiful, my son,” murmured Antoinette as she cradled Michel’s face in her hands. “I look at you, and see your father again before me. He was the most handsome man I had ever seen. Not brown and swarthy, like these strutting Creole men who fancy themselves such blades, but fair like an angel, with golden hair and eyes as blue as the water in the bay.”

“But the scar, Maman,” protested Michel. Young as he was, he’d heard the stories and seen how the other mothers drew their children away from him. How could he not? “Everyone says he’d been marked by the devil.”

“The devil!” She laughed bitterly. “The only devil your father knew was English, my son. A tall, green-eyed Englishman who hunted your father down without mercy. But at first he did not kill him. No, no. First he marked your father in a way that shamed him before the world.”

Gently she turned Michel’s face to the right in her hands. “One side belonged to the angels, a face to make the queen herself weep from longing. But may God give rest to my poor Christian’s soul, not the other. The other belonged to hell itself.”

Abruptly she twisted Michel’s face to the right, her fingers tightening so roughly that he struggled to break free. Her eyes black with fury, she jabbed her finger into Michel’s jaw and slowly dragged it up across his cheek to his forehead. “With his sword the English devil destroyed your father’s face, Michel, marking him so evilly that children shrieked in fear to see him and grown men crossed themselves if he passed them in the street. He was never the same after that, my poor, sweet Christian, and how could he be?”

Lost as she was in her memories, her own face softened, so that Michel, frightened though he was, could see how Maman, too, had once been beautiful.

“But one day such cruelty will be rewarded,” she whispered, her voice rich with the promise of vengeance. “One day Gabriel Sparhawk will find himself made to answer for his cruelty. And you, my son, will do it.”

“You mean my father and yours fought with swords, before a whole town?” asked Jerusa in disbelief, unable to imagine such a thing. Father could be hot-tempered, to be sure, but he was also a respectable gentleman with white streaked through his hair who served on the council of their town and as a vestryman for their church. “Just the two of them?”

“The crews of their ships were ordered not to interfere.” As soon as he’d been old enough, Michel had traveled to St. Eustatius himself to stand in the square where his father had fought, and he’d found an old man in a tavern there who remembered every thrust, every feint, every drop of blood spilled onto the cobblestones. “Everyone knew it was between the two men alone, not their countries. And it was far from the only time they met, ma chérie.”

“But why would they do such a thing? What was their reason?”

Michel shook his head, his voice curiously distant. “I don’t know, Jerusa. Ask your father, if you wish, for I cannot ask mine.”

Miserably Jerusa saw how he was shutting her out, retreating into himself. Whatever had caused their fathers to hate each other so was long past any reconciliation now. It could just as easily have been her father who had died instead, but nothing either she or Michel could do now would change the past. So why, then, was he so determined to let it ruin their future?

But maybe he already had. Maybe it was already too late for them, just as it was too late for their fathers.

By now the sun had risen, the bright red circle clearing the horizon to mark a new day. But to Jerusa the wind seemed colder than it had been, her joy in the day gone, and she shivered as she eased herself away from Michel’s side and back to the rail for support.

“No one has hired you to do this, have they, Michel?” she asked, already knowing the answer. “You came to Newport to kidnap me for yourself, not for anyone else.”

He tried to tell himself that this was what he wanted. He’d dedicated his life to honoring his father this way, and he’d come too close to his goal to stop now. “A good guess, chère. But then, I never told you otherwise, did I?”

“But why, Michel?” she pleaded. “Why take me?”

When he turned toward her, his eyes were as cold and bleak as the wind. “Because you are your father’s favorite child. He will go anywhere to save you, Jerusa, even Martinique. You may have thought he’s abandoned you, ma mie, but I am certain he hasn’t. He will be there in St-Pierre, waiting for us.”

“And then?” But already she knew. God help them all, she knew.

“And then I will kill him.”

“Ah, Mr. Geary, good morning!” boomed the man behind them. “And Mrs. Geary! I am honored, mistress, honored indeed to have you in our midst. I’m Captain Robert Barker, Mrs. Geary, your servant.”

Somehow Jerusa found the words, however faint, to answer him. “Thank you, Captain Barker. I’m most happy to meet you.”

“Under the weather, aren’t you?” Barker peered at her from beneath his hat, flat brimmed like a parson’s. He was a small, narrow man, too little for his great, thundering voice, and above his black coat his face was brown and wizened like a walnut. “Both of you look a bit peaked and green around the gills, I can see that now.”

“Have we that much the look of landsmen, Captain?” asked Michel, falling in with the explanation that Barker so conveniently offered. “As I told you, this is my wife’s first voyage.”

“From the look of you, Geary, you’ve had a rough night of it, too.” Taking in Michel’s disheveled appearance, Barker shook his head in sympathy. “But I warrant you’ll find your sea legs soon enough. If you’re headed back below, I’ll have the cook send you something directly to settle your bellies.”

“That won’t be necessary, Captain Barker,” said Jerusa quickly, managing a quick smile for him alone. The thought of returning to the tiny cabin with Michel was unbearable to her now, and she desperately needed time away from him to think. “I’m feeling much better here on deck. Your sea breezes are wonderfully refreshing, aren’t they?”

Cynically Michel watched as the older man seemed to preen and swell beneath the warmth of Jerusa’s charm. Mordieu, and he knew she wasn’t even trying. Delightful as the belle of Newport could be, it was the other, quieter side of her that had so devastated him.

And he’d stake his life that she didn’t love him any longer.

She fluttered beside him, lightly touching his arm but carefully avoiding meeting his eyes. “But you do wish to go back to the cabin, don’t you, sweetheart?” she said with a brightness that didn’t fool Michel for a moment. “I know you’ll feel so much more like yourself once you’ve slept. And I’m sure Captain Barker here will oblige me by showing me about his lovely ship, won’t you, sir?”

“That I shall, Mrs. Geary, and a pleasure it will be, too!” exclaimed Barker in his thundering voice. He winked broadly at Michel. “That is, Geary, if you don’t mind sharing your lady’s company with an old rascal like me?”

It wasn’t so much Barker that worried him as Hay, standing within earshot at the helm. The mate had not taken his gaze from Jerusa since he’d come on deck, watching her with the same hungry admiration that she drew from all men.

But morbleu, was he any different himself? With the wind in her loose black hair and her skirts dancing gracefully about her long legs, she was the most desirable woman he’d ever seen, as free and wild as the ocean itself. Only when she lifted her eyes to him did he see the misery he’d brought to her soul.

“Surely you don’t mind, sweetheart?” she asked again, silently begging him to agree, to set her free if only for an hour. “You know I’ll be quite safe with Captain Barker.”

And against all his wishes, he nodded, and left her on the arm of another man.

Listlessly Jerusa pushed the biscuit pudding around her plate with her spoon, hoping that Captain Barker wouldn’t notice how little of it she’d eaten. Despite his size, Barker’s appetite was as prodigious as his voice, and he was rightly proud of how the Swan’s cook could send out course after course to grace his table. Already she’d disappointed him by refusing the partridge and barely tasting the lobscouse, and she’d let him plop the huge, quivering slice of pudding onto her plate only to keep him from once again declaring she ate less than a wren.

Lord knows she should have been hungry. She’d spent the entire day following Barker around the Swan, clambering down companionways and squinting up at rigging as he’d lovingly pointed out every feature of the little brig. But though she’d oohed and aahed in all the right places, she’d hardly heard a word the captain had said. How could she, her conscience so heavy with what Michel had told her?

She dared to glance across the table at him now. He was listening intently to some interminable seafaring story of the captain’s, or at least he was pretending to, just as she was. He had shaved and dressed, his hair tied back with a black ribbon. He was the model Mr. Geary again, and more handsome than any man had a right to be. How could he sit there like that, just sit there, after everything he’d told her?

Tears stung behind her eyes, and abruptly she shoved her chair away from the table. “Pray excuse me, gentlemen,” she murmured as the three men rose in unison. “I—I find I need some air.”

“Let me come with you, my dear,” said Michel as he laid his napkin on the table, but without looking in his direction, she shook her head.

“There’s no need, Michael,” she replied, barely remembering to anglicize his name. “You continue here. I shall be quite all right on my own.”

On the deck she braced herself against the mainmast with both hands, gulping at the cool night air as she struggled to make sense of her roiling emotions. She loved Michel—that hadn’t changed—and in her heart she believed he cared for her, too. But though he’d shown her in a dozen ways, he’d never once told her he loved her. Instead he’d told her he had sworn to kill her father, and her blood chilled and her eyes filled again when she remembered the look on Michel’s face when he’d said it. If she could only convince him to leave the past alone, that what had happened so long ago had nothing to do with them now!

“Mrs. Geary?”

With the heel of her hand she swiftly rubbed her eyes free of tears before she turned to face George Hay. He was standing self-consciously at the top of the companionway, turning his hat in his hands around and around in a three-cornered circle.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked. “I’ve no wish to pry into your affairs, of course, but when you left the cap’n’s cabin so quickly—well, I couldn’t help but wonder.”

Jerusa forced a smile. “I thank you for your concern, Mr. Hay, but I’m quite well. In fact I was just on my way to return when you appeared.”

She came toward the companionway, but he blocked her way. “I didn’t mean just now, ma’am, but in all ways. To my mind, things don’t seem to set well between you and Mr. Geary, and if there’s anything amiss that I can help, well, ma’am, here I am.”

She looked at him strangely, remembering Michel’s warning. “Are you often in the habit of interfering between husbands and wives, Mr. Hay?”

“I’ll do it if I believe the lady needs a friend, aye.” He fumbled in the pocket of his coat until he found a crumpled paper. He smoothed it over his thigh before he handed it to her. “You’ll forgive me if I ask you to read this, ma’am, and then tell me again that I’ve been meddlesome.”

A handbill of some sort, she thought as she took it, for the printing was coarse and smeared, and there were holes in each corner where it had been nailed to a tree or signboard. What could it possibly have to do with her? Perhaps it was some sort of warning about coming salvation, and Hay the kind of pious busybody who worried too much for his neighbors’ souls. Reluctantly she tipped it into the light of the binnacle lantern to make out the smudged type.

But what she read had nothing to do with religion. Instead it was a poster announcing the “Unfortunate disappearance of a Certain Miss Jerusa Sparhawk, a Young Lady of Newport, Aquidneck Island, lost to her grieving Friends on the Evening of 12 June.” Everything was there and all of it true, from the circumstances of her wedding to a description of her person, down to the color of the garters she’d been wearing for her wedding. And finally, at the bottom, beneath her father’s name and address, was the bold-faced promise of “Reward to be Given at Miss Sparhawk’s Safe Return.”

“Since you came aboard this morning, ma’am, I’ve thought of nothing else,” said the mate doggedly. “I couldn’t help but remark the likeness. But you tell me, ma’am, and I’ll abide by your wish. Is there anything amiss between you and Mr. Geary?”

Numbly Jerusa stared at the paper, pretending to read though the letters swam before her eyes. Dear Lord, had her prayers really come to this? All she needed to do was tell this earnest, greedy young man before her who she was, and all her troubles would be done. They would take her home. She would be returned to her family, her father would reward Mr. Hay every bit as handsomely as he expected, and her life would begin again where it had left off.

And Michel would be bound in chains by the crew of the Swan until they put into port and he could be given over to a constable, and the nightmare she’d envisioned of his hanging would come true.

All with a word, only a word, from her.

Carefully she refolded the paper into neat quarters. “How did you come by this, Mr. Hay?”

“It was in the mailbag, south from Boston. I’ve a cousin there who often sends me curiosities for amusement.” He was watching her closely, ducking a bit as he tried to see her face more clearly. “Mrs. Geary, ma’am? Miss Sparhawk?”

Though her breath caught in her chest, she only smiled evenly as she returned the paper to him. Did he really believe he’d trap her with so obvious a trick? He’d have to try a good deal harder than that, for she’d been traveling and studying with a master.

“I can see why your cousin sent it to you, Mr. Hay.” Did he mean to share the reward with his cousin, she wondered, or keep it all to himself? “The young lady’s tale is passing sad, and I shall pray that she is returned, unharmed, to those who love her.”

Still the mate blocked her path, clearly unconvinced. “I only wish to see that right is done, ma’am.”

“An admirable virtue, Mr. Hay.” Though she smiled at him, her voice turned sharp. “But I’ll advise you to keep your fancies to yourself, and from my husband in particular. You would not, I think, wish to find yourself in a discussion with him.”

She swept by him, her head high, and down the narrow steps, into Michel’s chest.

“Are you all right, chère?” he asked softly, taking her arm, and from the way he’d slipped back into the French, she realized how worried he’d been. “I left Barker as soon as I decently could. Where’s Hay?”

She didn’t answer, instead laying one finger across her lips and cocking her head toward the deck, and Hay. Understanding at once, Michel nodded and led her back toward their cabin.

Until she felt Michel’s hand on her arm, she hadn’t realized how much the mate had upset her. Her heart was still racing, her palms damp, and as Michel lit the lantern in the tiny cabin, she sank down on the edge of the bunk before her legs buckled beneath her.

She’d done more than refuse Hay’s help. She’d chosen her loyalties, and God help her, she prayed she’d chosen well.

“Mr. Hay knows,” she said hoarsely, hugging her arms around her body. “He knows who I am, and he’s guessing at the rest.”

Michel looked at her sharply and swore. “You told him?”

The accusation stung. “He had a handbill. My father has offered a reward. And I didn’t tell him, Michel. Truly.”

“You must have told him something in all that time.”

“Only that I was Mrs. Geary, and that if he didn’t leave me alone he’d have to answer to you.”

He stood very still as he realized what she’d done. “You lied because of me?”

“I had to, Michel.” She tried to smile, but after an endless day of trying she finally failed. Why, why didn’t he understand? “I didn’t want to go with him.”

“Then take care you’re not alone with George Hay again, chérie,” he said. “I’ve brought you this far, and I’m not about to give you up to some two-penny bounty hunter.”

“Damn you, Michel, is that all?” She stared at him, her heart pounding. “After everything we’ve shared and done, that’s all you’ll let yourself say? That all I am to you is something to be kept from another man?”

Briefly he glanced down at his hands, unable to meet her eyes. She was right. She deserved more from him than he’d ever be able to give. She deserved a man who was free to love her.

Wearily he looked back at her. “I’m sorry, Rusa,” he said hoarsely. “I’m sorry for everything.”

For what seemed to him an eternity, she didn’t answer, sitting on the edge of the bunk with her hands clutching tight to the mattress and her eyes enormous. She’d every right to be angry and hurt, but could she guess that he was frightened, more frightened than he’d ever been in his life?

Mordieu, she wasn’t his and never would be. But what would become of him if he lost her now?

Then, with a sigh that rose from the depths of her heart, Jerusa came to him, slipping her hands around his waist as he folded his arms over her shoulders. Whatever her own sorrows might be, they were nothing compared to what he suffered. With her cheek against his chest, she closed her eyes and listened to the steady rhythm of his heart, and prayed that sorry would be enough.