For Love of the Earl (25 page)

He turned around, prepared to go down the stairs to the main deck to see if he could find his way back down to the lower levels when he ran squarely into a barrel chest so completely solid he bounced off.

And smiled.

"Reggie," Alec said, backing up to get a better look at the man who had fought beside him on the continent.
 
"Playing at pirates, are we now?"
 

Reginald Davis looked every inch the pirate right down to his wooden peg leg.
 
He fit the picture of any child's fantasy of buccaneers on the high seas, and Alec stopped to enjoy the sight.
 

"I wouldn't have thought you would make a good seaman," Alec said.

Reggie sneered.

"I wouldn't have thought you would make a good spy," Reginald Davis said in return.

Alec would have laughed if he were not already moving in the direction of the stairs.
 

"Life is full of unexpected things, is it not?" he said.

"Your dear brother wants you off this ship," Davis called after him as his foot hit the first stair.

"I'm not going off the ship without my wife," he shouted back and dropped more than walked down the remainder of the stairs to the main deck.
 

There were more English soldiers here than on the quarterdeck, and the numbers of them alone took care of what little resistance there was still left in the paid mercenaries and the weary French sailors.
 
The noise of battle grew louder than the sound of the sea around them, and Alec welcomed its confusion.
 
He needed to find Sarah, and he needed to find her quickly.
 
If not for her own safety, then for his own peace of mind.
 
It had been too long since he had seen his wife.
 
Any number of things could have happened to her, and he had imagined just about all of them.
 

He rounded the bottom of the stairs to look back along the ship for any signs of a hatch when a hand descended on his shoulder.

"Get off the ship."
 

Alec looked at his brother the pirate.
 

"I need to find Sarah," he said, turning back to scan the stern of the ship on this level.
 

Nathan spun him around.
 

"You get off the ship.
 
We'll find Sarah.
 
It's too dangerous for you to stay on board."
 

Alec pulled his shoulder away.
 

"I'm not leaving without her."
 

Nathan pulled off his elaborate hat with the excessive peacock feather dangling from one side to scratch violently at his scalp.
 

"Why people wear these infernal things, I cannot fathom."
 

He jammed the hat back on his head.
 

"Now listen, little brother.
 
I did not race across the blinking English countryside to play dress up like a little girl to have you get yourself killed because of your stupid pride-"

"It's not pride, Nathan," he said, cutting off his lecture.
 
He knew when Nathan referred to him as
little brother
that the rest of the speech would not be decent in the least, and he did not have time for it.
 
"I love her, and I'm not leaving her."
 

Nathan stilled even as the ship rocked.
 

"You said that out loud, you know."
 

Alec nodded.
 

"And I said it out loud to Sarah as well."
 

"No, you did not," Nathan returned instantly.

Alec raised an eyebrow.

"I most certainly did.
 
And I'll say it again just as soon as I find her to do so."
 

"You told your wife that you love her?" Nathan asked.
 

Alec felt his frustration growing.
 
Both at being prevented from finding Sarah as well his brother being unable to believe him when he said he had told his wife that he loved her.
 

"Yes, I told her that I loved her."
 

"And?" Nathan prompted.
 

Alec sighed.

"And I think she's beginning to believe me."
 

Nathan tilted his head, adjusting the way he looked at Alec. Alec raised his chin a little higher.

"Did they hit you on the head with something?"
 

Alec only blinked and turned away to go back to his search for Sarah.
 

"Hang on there.
 
Hang on there just a minute," Nathan said even as he spun Alec back around with a hand to his shoulder.
 

Although they were nearly the same size, there was something about Nathan having always been the big brother that made Alec succumb to his prodding.
 
He wished he would not do so now, but it was a hard habit to break.
 
Especially when he was counting on that brother to save them.
 

"You said she's beginning to believe you," Nathan said.
 

Alec nodded.
 

"Yes, I believe that to be true."
 

Alec looked over Nathan's shoulder at the battle being raged behind them.
 
Although most of the mercenaries had fled to the bowels of the ship, there were still a few dozen sailors doing their best against the highly skilled English pirates.
 
This was not the most opportune moment to have this conversation, but it appeared it would continue.
 

"Perhaps she didn't understand that statement."
 

Alec looked back at his brother.
 

"Didn't understand the statement?
 
What the bloody hell does that mean?
 
What is there not to understand about
I love you
?"

"I love you, too, little brother," Nathan grinned at him.

Alec rolled his eyes again.
 

"Will you please just let me go find my wife now?"
 

Nathan grabbed his arm again, dragging him in the direction of one of the grappling lines.
 
Alec fought back with everything he had, fueled by an instinct so natural and strong, he doubted anything could break it.
 
He wrenched free, shouting at Nathan.
 

"I told you.
 
I am not leaving this ship without my wife."

He had never yelled at Nathan before, and it stopped his brother mid-step.

"I'm sorry, Alec.
 
I cannot let you do that," Nathan said, stepping forward, arms raised as if to get Alec in a hold to bodily carry him off the ship.
 

Alec raised his fists ready to fight back when Sarah suddenly stepped between them.
 

"Well, aren't you two just a fine example of British intelligence," she said, and Alec dropped his fists, the air rushing from his lungs.
 

She was all right.
 
She was fine actually.
 
Standing perfectly erect, no sign of injury or duress.
 
Absolutely beautiful in the weak light of the moon.

"Would you mind continuing this wrestling match later?" she asked, "I, for one, would very much like to get off this ship."
   

~

She stared at her husband

At first she did not believe what she had heard.
 

And then she thought it likely her husband had gone mad.

Perhaps they had tortured him incessantly in the time they had been separated, and it had done something to his mind.
 
Perhaps he had snapped just to cope with the physical agony.
 
That could be the only explanation.

She stood on the deck of the ship that had been their prison, in the middle of a full battle that appeared to be occurring between French sailors and pirates in the middle of the English Channel, and she just stood there, letting the wind whip at her hair and tear at the ragged remains of her dress.
 
She stood there and stared at her husband, not knowing what to think.
 

"You didn't leave," she said, and despite the noise about them, she whispered the words, afraid to speak too loudly lest the moment vanish and her hopes vanish with it.
 

Alec stood in front of her, the wind pulling at the lapels of his soggy jacket.
 
He was fine.
 
He looked fine.
 
Not hurt, not tortured, not-

Something far worse for which she had no name.
 
He was just Alec.
 
And he was all right, and he was not leaving.
 

He was not leaving
her
.

It was as if something weighty and solid slid into place in her head and more importantly, her heart.
 
It was as if something that had been not quite right for so long, something repressed and denied was suddenly let free, let free to move around on its own.
 
Free to be as it was.
 

And what it was was love.
 

She knew that now.
 

Standing there on the deck of a French ship, if not in absolute peril at least close enough to it to not be simply standing there.
 
But she could not move.
 
She could only stand there and stare at her husband, listening to the echo of his words in her head.

I am not leaving this ship without my wife.

"Alec, I-"

"I'm not leaving you, Sarah," he said, suddenly springing forward to grab her hands in his.
 

His hands were icy and rough, but she did not flinch from his touch.
 
She looked at the tangle of their hands and felt an incredible warmth spread through her, seeping slowly and certainly into her core.
 

"I should have listened to you.
 
In the park.
 
When you threw my watch in the water.
 
I should have listened to you then, but I didn't, and I'm sorry.
 
I promise I will listen to you from now on.
 
If you just give me a chance."
 

Her mind had been in a completely different spot than their fight in the park, and she had to stop to catch up to him.
 
She blinked in the wind and the drizzle of rain and tried to see her husband more clearly in the muted dark of the night.
 

"All right," she said, because the things he had said were the things she had been trying to tell him, but just then, she could not say more.
 
She would say more later when they were on land and safe and not likely to be killed, by pirates or otherwise.
 
"I know what laugh means," she said, her voice just as breathy as when she first started speaking, having gained no further confidence from Alec's words, still stunned by his words as she had pulled herself through the hatch in the deck.
 

But Alec's face folded into confusion, and she realized that what she had said was not a real sentence.
 
She shook her head, trying to find herself deep within her own confusion.
 

"I'm sorry, Alec.
 
I'm not saying this right.
 
I know it was you, Alec," she said, looking back up at him.
 
"It was you that night in the gardens.
 
You were trying to make me feel better by making me laugh only I-"

She stopped, raising her fingers to his face, realizing she was shaking even as she did so.
 

Alec smiled, raising his own hand to take her shaking one back into the cocoon of his.
 

"You walloped me a good one, love," he had stepped closer, his head bent.
 
"I hope you will not do that again if I tell you I love you."
 

"I love you, too," she whispered even though that was not quite what he had said.
 

Someone cleared his throat.
 

"As much as I appreciate this show of affection after four bloody years of watching you two tear each other apart, this is not our ship, and it would be best if we were to leave."

Sarah turned to look at Nathan.
 

"That's not really your color," she said, pointing to his pirate garb.
 

Nathan only raised his eyebrows at her.

"Are you all right, Sarah?" Alec said, and she turned to look back at him.
 

"Quite.
 
How are we going to go about getting off this ship?"
 

Alec looked up at the grappling lines even as she looked down at her tattered skirts.
 

"I suppose propriety is no longer a concern, is it?" she said, looking up at him.
 

"Afraid not, love," he said, and she watched the wicked glint return to his green eyes.
 

"Would you be so kind as to help me with my skirts, my lord?" she said, turning her back towards him.
 

"It would be my pleasure, my lady."
 

He quickly bent over and once more pulled the back of her skirt through the front of her dress, capturing the ruined fabric in a sack.

"As lovely as that scarf is, dear brother, would you mind lending it toward a worthy cause?"
 

Alec pointed toward the elaborately tied scarf of magnificent crimson around Nathan's neck.
 

"It will ruin my pirate outfit," he said but obligingly took it off.

Alec wrapped it about her waist, capturing the folds of cloth until she was free to move without the encumbrance of skirts.
 

"Did you climb trees as a lass?" he asked.