DARE THE WILD WIND (51 page)

"You went aboard with him willingly enough," Drake fired back.  "Everyone in the village was witness to that.
"

"Yes, I went aboard with him," Brenna repeated in a rush.  "I thought it was Iain on the beach.  But it was
Cam, and he was alive.  How can you think I wouldn't be overjoyed to see him?
"

"That I don't doubt.
"

"I only wanted to talk to
Cam, to try to tell him how I'd come to Penherion.  I begged him to turn back when I realized the ship was under way.
"

"I find that a good deal harder to credit.
"

Brenna stiffened at the scorn in his voice
.

"Whatever you choose to think, I never betrayed the vows I took with you.  I don't expect you to forgive me for disgracing you at court.  I can't make amends for that, but I've always told you the truth.
"

"Always?" Drake challenged.
 

Brenna stared back at him, uncomprehending.
 

His eyes went to the narrow span of her waist.  "Considering the reported state of your health, you seem remarkably fit to travel.
"

A painful chord went through her.  He knew.  And his observation was more lacerating than any accusation
.

"Did you think your maid wouldn't tell me?" he asked caustically
.

Brenna felt her face twist.  Whirling away, she struggled against the final humiliation of tears.        

“I didn't have time to tell you."  Her words were choked.  "I meant to tell you when you came back from Truro." 

Then she knew she couldn't play the coward now.  She turned to face him again
.

"I lost the baby," she said in a low dead voice.  "T
here was a storm, a day out of Nantes.  I was thrown, and something broke loose and hit me."  She drew a shallow, ragged breath.   "The ship's surgeon saved my life.  Bartholomew Fletcher is...was...Cam's second  in  command.  If  he's survived the fighting, I'd be grateful if you could spare him.  And the cabin boy, Tad.
"

Drake was silent for a second.  Then he let out an odd, disbelieving sound. 

"How like you to tender a list.  Who else should I spare for your sake?
"

"I don't ask anything for myself," Brenna said, grateful to find her voice steadier. 
 

Drake's deep
  set eyes studied her, and she saw a flicker of something she couldn't name in his expression.
 

"Do you ever ask anything for yourself, Brenna?" he said, his tone probing.  "Are you determined
to forever rescue everyone but yourself?
"

A spark of anger kindled in Brenna.  If he wanted to punish her, why couldn't he speak plainly and end his cruel game
?

"Have done taunting and tormenting me," she burst out.  "Don't you think I've suffered enough?  You didn't cross the
Atlantic to rescue me," she said with bitter emphasis.  "You sailed from England because you thought I was carrying your child.  

"An heir is all that's mattered to you from the day we were wed.  You'd never have married me if Caroline Scoville was free.
"

For a brief instant, Drake's face went blank and incredulous.  Then, incredibly, he laughed
.

"Caroline?" he echoed.  "You think I'd choose any woman as capricious as Caroline for a wife?  Lady Scoville has her charms, and certain virtues suited to a mistress, but we'd hardly get on two days together in the same house.
"

And when had
they
ever gotten on together in the same house
?

"At least you admit she's your mistress," Brenna snapped
.

In two strides, he took her by the arms
.

"Caroline
was
my mistress.  We parted months before you led me on that damnable chase in Scotland.
"

Brenna tried to jerk away, mortified at the jealousy she had exposed.  But he forced her to look at him
.

"Do you really believe that I only came after you because you were carrying my seed in your belly?"
 

Inches from hers, his face was drawn in tight, strained lines, and ashen in the wavering light from the sconces ringing the room
.

Brenna felt a weakness dark as wine wash through her at the male heat of him, the feel of his body so close to hers.  With an effort of will, she glared back at him.
 

"You made that plain before we were well out of the church.
"

The memory registered in Drake's eyes.
 

"My God, Brenna.  I was joking."  He shook his head as if to clear it.  "Did it occur to you that I was nearly as nervous as you were?
"

"A man of your vast experience with women?
"

He set his teeth, and for a heartbeat the fingers that gripped her arms tightened with bruising pressure.  Then, abruptly, he released her, and fell back a step or two from her, as if he didn't trust himself to remain too near.
 

"What did you expect?  I knew why you'd agreed to marry me.  I knew I'd very likely played the fool, and you ended by proving it.
"

"And that's why you really came, isn't it?" Brenna challenged.  "You wanted your firstborn, and you wanted revenge.  And you have that much, don't you? 
Camis dead, and you can dispose of me as you like."
 

She reached for the support of a chair, resisting the urge to slump against it.
 

"You can't grieve any more for the child I lost than I do.  All I want is an end to this, for you to tell me what you mean to do now.
"

Drake was silent for a moment that stretched between them.  He wheeled to stare out an open window into the night
.

"I did set out to repay MacCavan for sailing off with you," he said heavily.  "And I won't deny when your maid told me you were carrying my child, I was even more determined to bring you back.  But I know now that I can't keep you at Wellingbroke or anywhere else if you don't want to stay."  He took an uneven breath.       
 

"We haven't landed in Saint Domingue with the blessings of the French authorities.  I've given Captain Sebastian orders to set sail again on the next tide.  I wouldn't advise you to remain on this island, or anywhere in the
Caribbean.  These waters are alive with pirates and raiders, and safety for any woman is an illusion here.  Any well armed ship can do what we did today.
 

"I can take you back to
England, or, if you prefer, you can return to Scotland.
"

Despite the sticky heat of the tropical night, Brenna shivered with a sudden chill.  Drake might not succumb to the temptation of another man to beat her senseless or lock her away in a tower on some remote estate, but she would be exiled.  He wanted no part of her now.
 

"Back to Lochmarnoch?" she repeated.  "How can I live under the same roof with Malcolm?
"

Drake turned slowly to face her.  "Your brother is dead.
"

Brenna searched his face in disbelief and shock.
 

"A matter of eating three tainted brace of quail."  He went on in a quiet voice.  "I had word of it just before we set sail from
London.  According to the letter from your steward, there were some ready to attach blame to the keeper, but I don't put great faith in poison and plots.
 

"Quail are known to eat noxious plants, and they have a taste for hemlock.  And the woman was your brother's own nurse.
"

"Morag?  But how did she come to keep Malcolm's quail?"    
 

"That's a story she can tell you herself.  I sent for her to prevent any undue mischief.  She can go back with you to
Scotlandif you choose.  There aren't any other male heirs, and Lochmarnoch falls to you now.
"

Brenna tried to take in what he said.  Malcolm had been a glutton for quail since they were children.  To die so horribly made her shudder, despite their longstanding animosity.  But she could feel no relief that he was gone, that she could return to Lochmarnoch as its mistress. 

"Which will it be, Brenna?  England or Scotland?
"

She heard tightly
  reined tension in his voice, and saw he watched her face closely.
 

"What is there for me in
England now?" she asked in a bleak despairing voice, conscious this time she was on the edge of tears.  "You don't want the embarrassment of an errant wife, and the dowager countess would see me pilloried and whipped before she'd allow me back at Wellingbroke."
 

She heard a low sound deep in his chest.  "Is that what you think, Brenna?  That talk at court would keep me from taking you back?
"

Before she could speak, he crossed the distance between them.
 

"Don't  you think I want you back?"  His hands went to her face, and he cradled it gently in his palms, the tips of his long fingers tangling in the wild disorder of her hair.  "Don't you think I still want you in my bed?  Good God, if I could turn you out of my door, I would.  

"Pride isn't the issue now.  If you want me to let you go, if you want me to stay away from you, you have to speak."  His words were low and hoarse, as if he found them difficult to say.  "Whatever you decide, I won't hold you against your will.
"

Brenna saw her own anguish reflected in his eyes, in the bluntly
chiseled lines of his face.
 

"You never have," she said in voice that trembled with the long
  dammed emotion that surged up inside her.  "I never wanted to leave you.  I don't want to leave you now.
"

Drake blinked, as if he had braced for a different answer, and his hazel gaze probed hers, as if he still wasn't sure he had heard aright.
 

"I didn't know that until I saw Penherion sliding away from the
Red Witch
, until I realized I might never see you again."  She felt deep shame at a pride that had outdone his.  "I was every kind of a fool not to admit it before.  Every kind of a fool to hang onto the past with you beside me.
"

Drake's hands slid to her shoulders, and he drew her body tightly, fiercely, against his.  Brenna felt a tremor go through him as she melted willingly and bonelessly against him.
 

"Don't deceive me now, Brenna," he said in her ear.  It was a whisper, husky and deep.  "Don't lie to me or flatter me.
"

Brenna nestled with aching pleasure in the warm
solid refuge of his arms. 

"I told you b
efore," she said softly.  "I'm much too stubborn to lie.
"

She felt an abrupt upheaval in his chest, and a small explosive gust of breath tickled at her hair.  Tilting up her chin to look at him, she saw a reluctant twist of laughter on his face
.

"And much too tempting to parade in front of the
Trident’s
crew in that torn gown."  He swung her off her feet and into his arms.  "I suggest we try to discover something more modest upstairs.
"

A tingling heat spread through Brenna at the familiar glint she saw in his eyes.  "Where do you think we should look?" she asked in a small, playful voice
.

Now a laugh rumbled out of Drake's chest.
 

"In the bedsheets to start," he said with a wicked slant of a smile.  His mouth bent toward hers.  "It could take us nearly till dawn if we make a proper job of it."

Epilogue

Brenna lay tangled against Drake in the shadowed dark before the first faint streak of dawn.  A single candle guttered low on the stand by the bed, and she knew soon they would have to rise to catch the tide. 

Wrapped in a drowsy haze of pleasure, Brenna couldn't bear to stir from him yet.  Softly, cautious of waking him, she burrowed her nose deeper in the curling gold thatch on his chest.  The smell of him was nectar
,  a seductive mix of the sharp scent of clean male sweat and the musky perfume of love.  And the faint distinctive smell that belonged to Drake alone.  

Without sight or touch, she would know him by that
, by an instinct more primitive than she had ever imagined she possessed.  But she was blissfully grateful her other senses were intact.  She reveled in the heat of his body, in the powerful swell of muscle in his broad chest and the hard columns of his legs, in the feel of every curve and angle of him.

Laying her cheek back in the hollow of his shoulder, she let out a small contented sigh.  And felt him quiver and stretch beneath her.