His Wicked Kiss Part 23

Befuddled by the child's clamor, she let the Nipper tug her outside, but the moment she stepped onto the quarterdeck, she stopped in her tracks.

"Look!" The boy pointed, but Eden was already staring up at the sails in amazement.

Against a black and moonless sky with a wisp of fog, an eerie blue light danced along the spars and coated all the s.h.i.+p's sails.

She stared at it, frightened yet mesmerized.

The ghostly illumination was as bright as lightning, but clung to the canvas, hanging stationary, only wafting on the night's haze.

With a glow like blue flame, its brilliance illumined the humble faces of the crewmen on deck who were virtually silent with awe, marveling at the phenomenon.

Some blessed themselves with the sign of the Cross while others took off their caps and clutched them to their chests in superst.i.tious reverence.

Then she noticed something else. The strong wind of a mere quarter hour ago had stopped.

They were becalmed.

Looking around, she spotted Jack standing near the mizzen mast, his head tilted back as he, too, gazed at the unearthly lights. He was very still, his angular features bathed in the strange blue glow.

For a moment, Eden stared at the rugged captain of The Winds of Fortune, looming a head taller than all of his devoted crew. Drawn to him, she climbed the ladder to the p.o.o.p deck and walked toward him, ignoring the fact that he was angry at her. She had to be near him in this moment, she knew not why. Perhaps to share in the miracle with him. Perhaps fear of the unknown phenomenon drove her to his side, seeking him out for the instinctual sense of protection that she always felt when he was near.

As she strode toward him, she detected a strange charge of electricity fairly crackling in the air, like the change in atmosphere that came before a tempest. It made the hairs on her arms and nape rise, but the pounding of her heart was entirely due to Jack's presence.

He seemed unaware of her study. Warmly dressed to ward off the elements, he wore a thick brown corduroy coat with a woolen scarf wrapped around his neck, his hands encased in a pair of heavy work gloves. The dark scruff on his jaw was growing back in, giving him once again that rough edge that she secretly found irresistible.

Indeed, she hesitated, for at the moment he looked as large, remote, and forbidding as a rocky island in the middle of a cold, cold sea. He looked so hard, so tough, and so alone, she thought, though he stood in the middle of his crew. His expression was closed and guarded, his mouth a firm, unsmiling line. Then he looked over and noticed her there.

He stared at her as she approached with cautious steps; seeing the stony look in his eyes, a small corner of her heart despaired. Even if she gave him everything she had, she would probably never really reach this man, never make him stay.

In his own way, he had isolated himself from the world as thoroughly as Papa had. Papa had the jungle; Jack had the sea. Papa had science; Jack had work. Her father had turned his back on civilization because it had destroyed the woman he loved; Jack kept humanity at arm's length, coolly rejecting the world before it rejected him.

That had to be why he had gotten so angry, she concluded as she held his stare. He must have thought that she, too, would reject him on account of his b.a.s.t.a.r.dy. Those scars clearly ran deep. Rejecting Jack, however, was the farthest thing from her mind.

Closing the distance between them with slow, measured paces, Eden faced facts: She wanted to be with this man. So badly that it shook her. But even if he would have her, after coming all this way in her journey, how could she even contemplate linking herself to a husband who would only drag her along into his lonely exile, just like Papa?

She could imagine it now-life as Lady Jack Knight. Sailing across the globe from port to port. Never settling down. No solid home. No normal life. They would be nomads.

Rootless.

But at least I would be with him, she thought bravely.

Jack Knight, in all his dark, flawed glory.

He said nothing as she joined him. He merely reached into his coat and took out a cheroot. Though he put it in his mouth, as usual, he didn't light it. Cap'n Jack loved his cigars, but he allowed no smoking on the s.h.i.+p-after all, her hull was made of wood.

She looked up once more at the strange floating illumination. "What is it?" she whispered.

"Saint Elmo's Fire."

"But what is it, where does it come from?"

"n.o.body knows." Jack looked at her warily in the darkness.

"It's wondrous," she breathed. As she tilted her head back to study the weird blue light, she could feel him staring at her.

Then his voice reached her, low and deep. "They say the chance to experience it only comes along once in a lifetime."

She was afraid to look at him. "R-Really?"

"Aye." He, too, stared up at the sails in guarded nonchalance. "Conditions have to be just right. Even then, it never lasts."

"Oh." Her heart was pounding, but his final words had left her slightly crushed. "I-It doesn't last?"

"Not for me."

A slight s.h.i.+ft of the rocking deck set her slightly off balance; Jack steadied her, and the strange lightning seemed to leap between them.

She glanced up at him, mumbling her thanks as the spectral glow enshrouded them; she found him staring at her like a man who was stuck inside himself and didn't know how to get out.

She held his gaze with a lump in her throat, but she knew it was now or never. She had to let him know how much she cared.

"Jack," she whispered. "I realize you're embarra.s.sed I found out about your father-"

"Embarra.s.sed?" he echoed with a low, bitter laugh.

It stung her. "I thought it might help if I told you something embarra.s.sing about me."

A skeptical pause. "Like what?"

"That night we tended Peter Stockwell together, and I told you about how I yearned for so long to go to London. Remember, I said I wanted to take part in all the pleasures of the Season?"

He nodded.

"I'm afraid I wasn't entirely honest with you about why."

He slanted her a piercing look of question. The sharp, cool suspicion on his face left no doubt that his immediate a.s.sumption was some unworthy ulterior motive on her part.

"I couldn't come out and say it that night when we were talking because I didn't want you to think me a fool. But, Jack, the real reason I was so desperate to take part in the Season is simply because I-I wanted to find a husband. But not just any husband. Oh-blazes, this isn't coming out right." Her cheeks flamed.

Jack watched her with a look of fascinated distrust.

"The true reason I wanted to go back to civilization was to find-someone to love," she forced out before she lost her nerve. "Only, I-I think I may have already found him."

He stared fiercely at her.

Eden held his gaze, her heart pounding. She s.h.i.+vered in the cold, more naked now in her walking dress than she had been when he had ordered her to strip.

He looked away almost angrily.

Why doesn't he say something? I practically told him I loved him. Oh, G.o.d, why couldn't I keep my mouth shut?

Unable to bear his d.a.m.ning silence, she scanned the sails, wis.h.i.+ng any pa.s.sing whale might leap up and swallow her. "So, er, why is it called Saint Elmo's Fire?"

"Patron saint of sailors," he mumbled, avoiding her gaze just as studiously as she avoided his.

She suddenly frowned. "Is it dangerous? Could it not set the sails on fire?"

"No. Nothing like that. It is an omen," he added in a low tone.

"Of what?" At last, she forced herself to turn to him.

His shrewd gaze scanned the dark skies. "Storm." Even as he uttered the ominous word, the blue glow began to fade, gone in another heartbeat.

The night sky turned to black.

"Barometer's been dropping all day," he added.

The reverent hush lingered all around the decks; the men watched the sky in silence, waiting to see if it might come back.

Instead, the wind returned, rising with eerie speed. With a burst of frigid air, it warned them all of its malicious intent, aggressively flapping the sails.

"Comin' up fast, Cap," the quartermaster called. "She'll be a gale soon."

Jack sent the man a terse nod, then turned cautiously to Eden. "You should get below. Take the boy and stay out of the wind. We have to make our storm preparations. If it gets bad-and it could, this time of year-Martin will show you down to the lubbers' hold. It's the safest spot on the s.h.i.+p."

"Where will you be?" she asked anxiously.

"Up here," he replied, looking around at the decks. Then he glanced at the sails. "Up there, too, if it comes to it."

"Jack-be careful."

"Don't worry. We face foul weather on every trip." He started to walk away. "Tell the Nipper to put the dog in his cage, too, will you? Rudy hates storms. We've got a crate for him. The boy knows where it is."

One of his men called to him.

"I'll be right there!" he yelled back. The wind ran through his hair as he angled his chin downward to meet her gaze intently.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

"Go on," he murmured, nodding toward the quarterdeck.

Eden lowered her gaze, abashed at being dismissed like this after her reckless confession. She had practically told him she was in love with him, and it had made no visible impact on the man whatsoever. Well, she didn't wish to get in the way. Feeling a very naive and hopeless fool, she pivoted and strode back belowdecks to collect the Nipper and the captain's dog.

Jack remained where he stood a moment longer, watching her walk away.

All through the onyx night, the storm had chased them, churning closer, bearing down until Jack decided they could not outrun this March lion and gave the order to drop anchor.

He had hoped the gale might blow itself out if he could stay ahead of it, but it was moving over the water at a wicked clip. They were going to have to stand and brace to take their lashes, battening down the hatches and taking in most of the sails.

Jack fought the storm even as he fought himself, the ugly weather mirroring the confused currents tossing and clas.h.i.+ng inside of him. He knew he had a choice to make. Either he could go on fighting this-denying it-the ever strengthening bond between him and Eden. Or he could try to believe that someone could actually love him.

Him.

Not his money. Not his power. Not his flesh.

The man within.

G.o.d knew the chit was daft enough to brave it, too innocent to know any better, unsullied by the world. Eden did not look at things like other people did, so perhaps it was no wonder that she saw him in a different light.

All Jack knew was that she was the only woman on whom he could ever imagine risking his heart again, baring his soul.

A creature of such purity would not hurt him, surely.

But it was so hard to believe that, given the life he had led. All those years when he had been the Nipper's age and smaller, inexplicably rebuffed by the duke he had thought was his father.

Disregarded even by the servants who were supposed to be seeing to his needs-nurse, governess, tutor. They knew where their bread was b.u.t.tered; his brother Robert had been treated like a little prince, while Jack might as well have bedded down in the stable.

The worst, though, was being treated by his mother as though he didn't exist. The scandalous d.u.c.h.ess had been ashamed of her lewd dalliance with the Irish gladiator-at least for a while, until her next escapade. Her second son had been nothing but a constant reminder of her fall from grace.

That was to say nothing of the merciless way he had been treated by the boys at school, who had known of his true parentage before he did, thanks to their parents' gossip. It had been a hard way to find out that he was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. But at least it had explained why the neighbors had looked down on him for what he was-including Maura's parents, Lord and Lady Griffith.

And so, from these many sources, it had been ingrained in him from an early age to expect cruelty and indifference from the human race, and to guard against it-always.

He relied on himself, no one else, accruing fortune and power as if these alone could ensure a secure place for him in the world. On those lonely nights now and then when he ached with the need merely to have somebody to hold, he looked around for a girl whose face and figure he liked, and he paid her well for her time.

It seemed insane even to think about actually trusting again. But he knew if he ever found the courage, his choice would be Eden Farraday. Aye, he could either turn back or go deeper.

He hadn't liked her prying into his past, but on the other hand, she didn't really understand what he had been through. How could she know how cruel Society could be, raised as she had been in the wilderness, so sheltered from man's inhumanity to man?

She had never been exposed to the ton's little cruelties and he sincerely hoped she never had to learn them firsthand. G.o.d only knew what she'd hear people saying about him if and when she ever got to London.

Even if he made her his own, she might be condemned to share his fate as an outcast...

The storm raged on throughout the night, a dark, cold battle outside Jack and in him, too.

When dawn came, its hard pewter light revealed leaden skies and waves like mountains on all sides. But the fight, he saw, was far from over. Indeed, it was only then that the storm unleashed its full icy wrath, battering them from directly overhead-a beast of sixty knots with periods of even stronger gusts lasting up to five minutes each.

"Heave to!" Jack bellowed, his thick coat, hat, gloves, and scarf all soaked through, while his long, hooded oilskin flapped noisily in the gale.

His face was numb from the bitter cold. Driving rain had turned to wet, stinging snow, reducing visibility to nothing. Fury, however, kept him warm as whipping wind and towering seas tried to swallow his s.h.i.+p whole.

The Winds of Fortune groaned as she pitched and rolled heavily, facing the storm under shortened sail. A couple of reefed topsails flew aloft to try to steady her, but soon her stay sails were shredded to ribbons. From there, they rode out the storm under bare poles.

Her anchors dug into the depths like the fingers of a person clawing for purchase on the edge of a cliff. He knew they had already been driven off course. Tomorrow he could figure out where the h.e.l.l the wind had blown them to-if it was over by then.

Sheets of water sloshed across the deck, swells a few feet deep splas.h.i.+ng in through the forward gun port. Still more water poured in over the leeward rail. He saw that some of the hawse holes had come unplugged and roared at the men to plug them up again.

"This d.a.m.ned weather is getting the best of 'er pump, Cap'n!" the quartermaster yelled over the storm's howling as he received the report from belowdecks.