His Wicked Kiss (32 page)

“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 ship.”

“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 clashing 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.

God 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 buttered; 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 duchess 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, t
hank
s to their parents’ gossip. It had been a hard way to find out that he was a bastard. 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. God 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 ship 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 hell the wind had blown them to—if it was over by then.

Sheets of water sloshed across the deck, swells a few feet deep splashing 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 damned 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.

“Tell the carpenters to get down there and check for any leaks!”

“Aye, sir!”

“We got to get the spars down!” he ordered grimly. “They’re putting too much pressure on the masts. Strike the topgallant and topsail spars!”

The quartermaster and the bosun exchanged a grim glance, but they, too, knew it had to be done.

“Aye, sir!”

The bosun relayed the order, and the bravest of his tars got their tools together and dutifully began climbing the shrouds.

Jack hated with all his heart to send any of his men aloft in this. Disassembling the spars from the masts was back-breaking work, even without the wind trying to peel a man off the rigging, and the foot-lines he stood upon coated with ice.

But if they didn’t take those huge, heavy yardarms down, they risked being dismasted. The violent pitching of the ship was making all three of his masts bend. They had been massive trees once, after all, and could give somewhat in the wind, but the mighty crossbeams of the spars added so much weight to the top portions of the masts that they could snap in half and come crashing down on them. If that happened, they all would then be at the mercy of the cold
Atlantic
.

Watching his sailors ascend slowly and carefully much in contrast to their usual carefree speed, Jack could not have been more proud of his crew. He stared at them as the weather dripped down his face.

Any captain’s heart would have lifted to see his men working in splendid unison, neat as clockwork, stouthearted and very well trained. They held their posts without flinching or complaint; if one got into trouble, the nearest few rushed to help. No man, after all, could stand alone against the weather and the sea.

As he watched them, Higgins lost his footing and dangled for a moment over the decks, but the two men nearest him grabbed him and pulled him back onto the slick shrouds.

Jack exhaled slowly, his heart pounding. By God, he would not lose a single man to this bloody storm.

Scowling at the tossing sea, he strode across the quarterdeck and took the wheel himself, relieving the helmsman. He threw his full weight against it, refusing to let the wild waters take control of the rudder.

Gritting his teeth, he held it steady ‘til his arms shook.
Should’ve been a bloody lawyer
.

Belowdecks, deep in the lubbers’ hold,
Eden
wasn’t faring much better. Martin was violently seasick, Peter Stockwell, moved there from the sickbay, lay moaning in his cot, Rudy the dog was barking nonstop in his cage, while the Nipper complained continually.

“I can’t take it anymore in here! It smells like puke!”

“Phineas, you are forbidden to leave here and that is final.”

“Why can’t I go see Cap’n?”

She had lost patience after the twentieth repeat of the question. “Because I said so.”

“I ain’t gotta listen to you!”

“Oh, yes, you do. Lord Jack put me in charge of you. You can take the matter up with him
after
the storm if you like. For now, you are absolutely staying here with me. Why don’t you make yourself useful by calming Rudy down? If anyone can get him to be quiet, you can. Will you try?”

“Fine!” He snorted and scowled at her, but bent down with a sulky look and began talking softly to the bull-terrier, poking his fingers through the mesh cage in an effort to pet the dog.

She realized the Nipper’s insistence on seeing Jack was simply due to the fact that he was scared—they all were—and being near Jack made the child feel safe. But right now Jack had a job to do, and all of their lives depended on him.

She turned away, satisfied that she had distracted her charge for the moment, and gave poor Martin a washrag soaked in diluted vinegar for the mal de mer. She winced as he retched again, but there was nothing left in him to throw up.

As he sat back against the bulkhead, she molded the vinegar-soaked cloth across his green-toned forehead. “You poor thing. Hang on, dear. It can’t last forever.”

Peter Stockwell groaned and she went to check on him next.

Because her back was turned for that brief moment, she did not see Phineas wedge Rudy’s cage open a few narrow inches. The boy reached one small hand in to pet the dog, determined to calm him, but just as Eden turned around, Rudy shot past the Nipper and ran straight for the door, which Eden had propped open with a chair because of the poor ventilation.

She gasped as the dog flashed out in a streak of white with Phineas right behind him.

“Rudy, come back here!” the boy shouted, chasing the animal.

“Phinney!” She flew to the doorway.

He was gone.

“Oh, I’ll wring his neck,” she breathed, then rushed down the dark passageway after the boy.

She berated herself with every step, awash in guilt and rising panic. Where had they gone? It was so dark belowdecks.

The companionway ahead of her pitched to and fro, spilling Eden into one wall and then the other as she hurried down the narrow passage on a zigzag path. The lanterns above rocked from side to side, and any of the furniture that wasn’t fastened down traveled back and forth across the planks.

She winced at the motion, her stomach protesting. She had to hold on tightly to the bannister of the gangway as she climbed up to the next deck. She could hear, feel the deep vibration of the sea battering the hull, the ship’s creaking like a human utterance of pain.

The men hurried past her, back and forth, with barely a glance. She stopped one of the carpenter’s mates. “Did you see the Nipper come this way?”

“No, ma’am. If you’ll pardon—”

“Of course.” She let go of him.

Finally making her way to the middle deck where the livestock was stowed, she found a good number of frightened animals—chickens, ducks, rabbits in their cages. In the central pen, goats and pigs huddled in the hay.

But no Nipper.

Once more,
Eden
was zigzagging up the companionway, climbing the gangway stairs and holding on for dear life as the ship bucked and rocked.

A blast of nature’s sound and fury greeted her as she stepped outside, instantly wishing she had worn her new-made coat. Accustomed to tropical heat, she could barely catch her breath in the bone-chilling cold. She glanced up in wonder at
The Winds of Fortune
riding out the storm under bare poles, a few shredded sails flapping like pennants in the violent wind.