Chance the Winds of Fortune (61 page)

“I suppose they brought back memories to me of another time,” Rhea confided, walking to the starboard rail and staring out at the water that held her prisoner on board the
Sea Dragon
.

“At Camareigh?” Conny questioned, sensing his lady was lonely for her family. He didn't like to see her unhappy.

“Yes, I miss them so much, Conny. I want to go home. I have to return to England, to Camareigh,” she told him, for the memory of what nearly had happened last night made her feel more of a stranger to herself than ever before. She needed to return home, to become the Rhea Claire that she had once been.

“Hey! Lady! Want some more pritty flowers for your hair? Have many to choose from. Pritty colors, for pritty lady! How 'bout some sweet oranges? Got banana, real good too!” a voice called to her from a single boat floating close to the
Sea Dragon
.

Rhea stared down into the boat, wishing she were in it and being rowed to shore. Suddenly a thought struck her. It was so simple that she shook her head in disbelief. Turning away from the taffrail, she glanced over at MacDonald, who was still lost in his thoughts, oblivious to what was going on around him. And the rest of the crew, well, Rhea thought with growing confidence, they were fully occupied flirting and bartering with the boats on the larboard side of the ship. They had their backs to the starboard side, as well as to the ladder leading down to whatever might be alongside.

Rhea waved to the black man in the boat below, signaling him toward the entry port and side steps of the ship. Then she turned to a puzzled Conny Brady, her expression sad as she gazed into his wide, innocent eyes, feeling almost as if she were bidding farewell to Robin.

“Conny, I am going to get in that boat, and go ashore. I cannot wait any longer, Conny. You must try and understand what this chance means to me. If you care at all for me, then you'll not tell anyone. Please, Conny, can I trust you?” Rhea pleaded.

“But the cap'n, he would've taken ye ashore, m'lady,” Conny protested.

“No, Conny. This is a far better way, believe me, it is. This will save the captain having to bother about me. Will you say good-bye to everyone for me? Oh, and, Conny,” Rhea added, hesitating in embarrassment for what she was about to ask, “I haven't any money. Do you have anything you can spare? Just so I can pay the boatman for taking him away from his profit on board.”

Conny nodded, reached down into his pocket, and withdrew a couple of coins. “Here.”

“Thank you, Conny. I will never forget you. You will come and visit me at Camareigh, won't you, Conny?” she asked as she gave him a hard hug and pressed a soft kiss against his flushed cheek.

Conny Brady's eyes became blurred with tears, and when he cleared them, she was gone. She had disappeared, just as he'd always feared she would. Conny stood frozen to the spot. What was he to do? It didn't seem right not to tell anyone, especially the captain. He glanced over at Mr. MacDonald, but he was gazing far off to port. She should not have just gone off like that, without saying good-bye to anyone. Nor did it seem right her going into St. John's unaccompanied. Where would she go? he wondered worriedly, having been in enough port towns to know they were no place for a proper lady by herself.

Conny bit his trembling lip and glanced below at the boatman, who was pulling away from the
Sea Dragon
, a wide grin on his face as he pocketed the money given to him by the lady sitting in the prow.

* * *

“Well, Captain? What are you planning on doing about Lady Rhea Claire?” Alastair was facing Dante in the captain's quarters, a determined glint in his usually mild hazel eyes, since he'd decided to march up to the cannon's mouth.

The captain in question took his time slipping into his bluish gray frock coat, straightening the lace around his sleeves with irritating slowness. “What am I going to do about Lady Rhea Claire, Mr. Marlowe?” Dante repeated. “I should think you'd be so occupied with seeing to the cargo that you'd not have much time to worry about matters which do not concern you,” Dante told him silkily as he turned away from the desk, closing the logbook he had been checking.

“I would not ordinarily question you, sir,” Alastair began, swallowing nervously as those piercing eyes turned on him. He was beginning to feel some of the strain Rhea must have experienced when subjected to that steely stare. “But I feel it my duty to bring this subject up, not only because I am concerned on your behalf, Captain, but because I feel it is the only decent and gentlemanly thing to do where Lady Rhea Claire is concerned. I cannot believe that you still suspect her of working for Bertie Mackay, nor that you think her some strumpet off the docks in Charles Town. I think you believe she is exactly what she says she is,” Alastair concluded, breathless after his brave effort on behalf of Rhea.

“My, my,” Dante said with a smile that was not at all pleasant, “it seems Lady Rhea Claire has quite a champion in you, Alastair. I have always suspected that you had missed your calling. You really should have become a barrister, since you plead on her behalf most eloquently. Did she, perhaps, tutor you?”

Alastair's lips tightened, for the lashing of his captain's tongue was something he seldom experienced. But stand by his guns he would. “Captain,” Alastair began haltingly, not certain of what he was going to say, but knowing he would say something. “This is not like you, to act this way. To the best of my knowledge, you have never taken unfair advantage of anyone, and yet, forgive me, but you seem hell-bent on treating Lady Rhea in this callous, this…this…”

“Ungentlemanly manner?” Dante supplied, his eyes glinting.

“Aye, Captain,” Alastair agreed uneasily. “She is a fine, gentle-born lady, and she has been through hell enough without us adding to it.”

“Us?”

Alastair cleared his throat. “This voyage we are about to set out upon could be dangerous. Is it fair to jeopardize her life because of some strange fascination she seems to hold for you? Aye,” Alastair said more firmly as the captain raised a slightly curved brow, “you cannot deny it, Captain, for I've seen the way you watch her. She's bewitched you, but that is not her fault, is it? She does not belong on board the
Sea Dragon
, nor with us.” Alastair paused, as if what he had to say was painful to him, then continued, “We are not the proper people for her to be associating with. To see her, so gentle and refined, sitting in her bare feet, trying to tie knots with the help of an old pirate, a honey-tongued Irishman, and other assorted rough seamen, well, 'tisn't right,” Alastair concluded lamely.

“What you are so tactfully trying to say,” Dante said softly, “is that
I
am not the sort she should be associating with. You think the lady objects to keeping company with a smuggler and his band of cutthroats?” Dante demanded. But his thoughts returned to the night before and the passionate response he had finally coaxed from Lady Rhea Claire Dominick. He remembered the soft sweetness of her lips, and the way she had teased him with their butterfly touch before surrendering them to him. He was uneasy about the way he had left her last night and did not like that wounded look that had been in her violet eyes, eyes which only moments before had been dark with passion for him. But he would not worry about it overmuch, for if he had got her to respond to him once, he could do it again, Dante vowed, turning toward the light streaming from the stern windows and beginning to count the coins he had picked up from his desk.

“You can be most persuasive, Captain, and Lady Rhea is, after all, just an innocent young lady, certainly no match for your mastery in the arts of seduction,” Alastair said bluntly. He'd wanted to sound reasonable as well, but as soon as he had uttered those unfortunate words and seen the captain's narrowed gaze, he realized that he had said the very worst thing he could have.

As Dante stood staring out the stern windows, his back and broad shoulders suddenly seemed stiffer than ever to a worried, saddened Alastair; he had served with the captain for too many years now—respecting the man, calling him friend—to see that friendship destroyed because of a woman. But there seemed nothing else for it. Alastair would never be able to live with himself if Rhea Claire came to grief, either physically, or spiritually, nor could he have the same high regard for Dante Leighton that he'd had once if that happened at the captain's hands.

“It seems to me, at least I like to think so, that we have been of some invaluable service to Lady Rhea Claire. When she was in desperate need of help, we were there and lent a hand. But I fear, as fond as we are of her, that it is time that we went our separate ways. Fate put us in her path for this one act of kindness, nothing more. She belongs back in England, with her family. We don't have the right to deny her that, Captain,” Alastair said earnestly, trying to reach his friend. But it seemed to Alastair that Dante had not heard a word he had spoken.

But he was mistaken. Dante had heard every word, had listened thoughtfully, in fact. Alastair was right, of course. Leave it to Alastair to see clearly when another might stumble, blinded by…by what? The desire to possess something uncommonly lovely and pure? Was that so very damning of him? Why should some other man take what he, Dante Leighton, captain of the
Sea Dragon
, had nurtured and was beginning to cherish? Why should Rhea be allowed to give to another man the passion that she would ultimately give to him? Why should he be denied this happiness?

“But have we any control over our feelings, Alastair?” Dante asked him suddenly. “Are we thinking with cold-blooded logic, Alastair, when we fall in love?”

“Love?” Alastair said, feeling numb at the captain's startling words, unsure if he should be ecstatic or alarmed at the prospect of Dante being in love with Lady Rhea Claire. Lord help us if it's true, he thought suddenly, seeing the situation in a completely new light. There might now be a whole round of different troubles for Dante, and for Rhea Claire.

“You sound surprised, my friend, that I should be so frail as to fall in love, and especially with one such as Rhea Claire, who is so different. We are like night and day, are we not? Devil and angel? Saint and sinner? We began on a note of mistrust, which still exists, but perhaps now it is because of our vulnerability to one another. I have been cruel to her, frightened her intentionally, played with her, seduced her.” Then Dante added softly, “But the game has been well met, Alastair, for she has the power to hurt me far more than I have ever hurt her. I am in love with her.” Dante was voicing now what so far he had only dared to think. Last night, though, with the taste of her on his lips, the fragrance of her lingering on his skin, he had known that nothing like this had ever happened to him before. The realization had left him shaken.

“And Lady Rhea?” Alastair asked, stunned by receiving revelations from a man who had always kept his thoughts and feelings to himself.

“Given time, perhaps she could come to love me. She feels something for me, I know, but she is frightened of these emotions and—” Dante's words halted as he stared out the stern windows at an island boat sliding past. The object of his speculations was sitting in the prow and waving to someone on deck while she was being rowed toward St. John's.

Alastair was startled by the captain's sudden, harsh laugh. “It would seem as if m'lady fair has decided against giving me any more time,” Dante remarked tersely.

Alastair came toward him and followed his gaze out the stern windows. His eyes caught sight of the boat, but it took him a second or two to realize what had captured Dante's attention.

“Good Lord,” Alastair murmured as he saw Rhea's guinea-gold head and the deep fall of lace fluttering at her elbow as she waved back at the
Sea Dragon
. And for one horrible second, he actually thought she could see them standing there and was audaciously bidding them a fond farewell.

Alastair stood there a moment, feeling more uncomfortable than he ever had in his life. After all, here was the captain telling him of his love for a woman, who, at her first opportunity, had fled him.

Dante watched silently as the boat drifted out of sight of the stern windows, his gray eyes narrowed into little more than slits.

“What are you going to do?” Alastair asked diffidently, thinking perhaps the game had been won.

“What
we
are going to do, Mr. Marlowe, is to go into St. John's, as planned. You have a cargo to load and I have business with customs, and unless I am mistaken, Lady Rhea Claire is in for a difficult time in St. John's. She'll be quite shocked if she expects to be welcomed as some long-lost daughter,” Dante said grimly.

“What do you mean, Captain?” Alastair asked in confusion.

“Dressed as she is, unattended by a female companion, and having just arrived on board the
Sea Dragon
, as its only female passenger…” Dante speculated darkly. “I doubt whether anyone will believe her story of being the kidnapped daughter of a duke.”

Alastair frowned with consternation as he thought ahead to what might happen to Rhea Claire in St. John's. As beautiful as she was, she was bound to attract attention—but of the wrong sort.

“Now,” Dante said, turning from the stern windows and their expansive view of the bay, which was now empty of that islander's boat, “I should like to discover how Rhea managed to get aboard that boat without being stopped by someone and”—he paused, a black scowl lowering his brows—“who that was she was waving to on the quarterdeck.”

Conny Brady turned almost expectantly toward the companion ladder when he heard steps, although he knew even as he watched that he would not be seeing Lady Rhea's golden head appearing. Still, he was not quite prepared to see the captain's chestnut curls, nor the dangerous glint in his gray eyes as they settled on him.