Into His Arms (9 page)

“Aye, miss, a bag of gold doubloons. ‘Course, the cap’n doesn’t drink as much as most, and he never gambles. He spends a bit on wenches when he can, but there’s little else he does with his booty. I imagine he can afford more than that if there’s a need.”

Her head swam at the thought. How many doubloons had there been? She assumed her aunt and uncle to have some means, for sugar plantations were known to produce considerable wealth, but they were yet strangers. She could never ask them to repay such a sum! She looked up at the cook, who looked back with a worried expression.

“Have I upset ye, miss? The cap’n said ye knew the whole of the situation.”

“Nay, you’ve done nothing wrong, Thomas. The captain told me that he had paid for my passage,” she answered breathlessly.

Thomas blushed and said, “Forgive me, miss. ‘Twas a crude thing to say. O’ course the cap’n paid yer passage; he didn’t pay fer ye. Why, ye’re not a slave nor a whore—er—horse, nor nothin’ like that.” He gave her a nervous smile and nodded his head with its thin wisps of gray hair. “Ye just eat up, and I’ll be down soon.”

He left in a dither, and Faith paced the cabin furiously, unable to touch her plate. She could never raise enough money to repay the captain, and a man like him did not part with that much gold with no expectation of a return. What was it Thomas had said, he only spent his money on wenches? She could only imagine what they did to repay him, but she knew that was impossible for her.

She stood at the window and found she could just make out the gentle swells of dark waves as they moved against a somewhat lighter sky. Still, it seemed darker than it ought, and she wondered if the ocean would pitch them about and make her sick again. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was the source of some divine amusement. It seemed that every time she concluded that her situation was not intolerable, that God had, in fact, granted her a reprieve, it took a turn for the worse! Reverend Williams would assure her that she was but reaping the rewards of her evil behavior.

She could almost hear his supercilious tone. “Do you see what becomes of a woman who scoffs at her Commandments and thinks herself above a very minister!”

“I did not scoff at the Commandments! Granted, my father did not want me to do this, but I am honoring my mother’s wish.”

“Your mother did as a dutiful wife should,” the illusory voice preached. “She and your father agreed that you would wed me. They said as much when you returned from Boston.”

Faith buried her head in her hands against her imaginary accuser. “But it was my life! I had no choice but to disobey them. I could not live with you, you hated me!”

“Nay, Faith, it was you who spurned me! A plain-faced, plainspoken man of God was not enough compared to a dashing ship’s captain in a velvet coat and lace cravat. Even now, you pretend righteous indignation, but in your heart, being in his debt and lying in his bed gives you shameful thoughts!”

“Nay, that is not so!” she cried aloud, uncovering her eyes in the empty room.

He was not there. Of course not, she told herself. She had left Reverend Williams far behind. Where then, had that accusation come from?

The door creaked open behind her, and Faith nearly jumped out of her skin, sure the horrid clergyman had somehow boarded the ship. She felt no relief at all to see that it was the captain followed by the cook.

“Can you not think to knock!” she cried, more shrilly than intended. She was too distraught even to care that she had shouted at him. Thomas quickly scuttled in and looked quizzically at her untouched food. “Take it!” she snapped. The older man looked at his commander in confusion, but did as Faith bid him and retreated.

Geoff simply smiled. He had no idea what had raised her ire, but she was a fetching sight indeed when she was angry. Her pale cheeks bloomed with roses and her eyes shot sparks. “‘Tis my own room,” he answered calmly, “and I’ll see naught that I haven’t seen before.” His eyes traveled slowly over the sheet that covered her as though it were not there.

Refusing to fall prey to his attempt to embarrass her, she placed her hands on her hips. “That’s entirely unfair, and well you know it!”

“Aye, it is,” Geoff agreed. He moved as if to unfasten his breeches. “Mayhap I can put us on even ground, let you see all I have to offer as well.”

She grabbed at her linen shift and indigo gown that were draped over his arm. “Nay, ‘twill make nothing even at all, since I have no intention of offering you one thing that you saw. May I have my clothes, please?”

He moved the garments just beyond her reach and with a roguish grin said, “There’s a price.”

“Ah!” she cried. “I knew it! You know I haven’t even the usual amount required for passage, much less a bag of gold doubloons! You did not ‘lay claim’ to me! You bought me! Well, I didn’t ask you to! I didn’t want you to. And I don’t want to be your, your—whore, or wench, or whatever you call it! I don’t!”

He held his hands open in gentle supplication. “There now, love, don’t fret. I haven’t asked you to do any such thing, have I? All I’ve asked is a decent night’s sleep in my own bunk without feeling guilty for putting you out of it. I had thought to ask to accompany you on your stroll about the deck, but if that’s too much, I’ll not press you.”

“Aye, that’s all you’ve asked for now, but you cannot tell me you weren’t expecting more.”

He dropped her clothes upon the bed and gave her a serious look. Oh, she hated it when he looked like that! He was scary, and masculine, and something else. And it made her feel small, and vulnerable, and something else. Something that defied description sent tiny jolts of alarm through her. She ducked her chin and shut her eyes, but his low growl reminded her that she angered him when she did that. It took all the courage she possessed to fix her eyes on his.

“Did your father beat you that you cringe and hide every time you show a little spirit?” he snapped.

She lifted her chin in defense of her father. “Certainly not! He raised me to be a proper Christian woman and to keep my place, but ‘tis sure he never beat me!”

“What does that mean, a proper Christian woman?” he sneered. “What was your place in that ivory tower that religious zealots call Massachusetts?”

How was it that this man could hit the mark with her so unerringly? He gave voice to the very questions that had been plaguing her. Refusing to let him see the cracks in her fortress, she replied, “I am the mistress of my emotions! I am not controlled by passions like anger, and...” she searched for another example.

“Passion?”

“That’s base.”

He moved slowly toward her, and Faith was struck by how very confined the cabin was. “Do you never have feelings that are ‘base,’ Faith?” he purred.

“I’m human,” she stammered, backing up, though she held his gaze, “and wickedness is our nature, but through God’s grace we can rise above our wickedness and find purpose and joy!”

He stopped less than a foot away from her when her back came against the barrier of a cabinet door. “And have you found that, ‘purpose and joy’?”

“What?” she asked. She could feel the heat of him, breathe the masculine scent of sea and sweat. She glanced to the side, seeking escape.

He placed a hand on either side of her, blocking any retreat. “What was it you sought when you crept onto my ship in the dark of night? What do you think you will find in the warm, sultry air of Jamaica?”

“Jamaica?” she asked. How had the conversation ended up there? She was befuddled, her mind wrapped in some hot mist that emanated from the man whose heat surrounded her. Faith stared into his golden eyes, and they bored into her, seeing into the darkest part of her heart.

“Jamaica is not the cold, emotionless land of the Pilgrims, love. It is a violent land, a land of passion and death, where men throw away fortunes for a night’s pleasure and slaves die for the sugar to make cheap rum.” His voice was deep and intense, and his eyes devoured her.

“You confuse me,” she whispered, looking at his bare feet but a step away from her own.

He pulled her face back to his. “You are confused, Faith, but not by me. What do you want?”

She turned and gazed out the window at the gathering darkness. She braced herself against the cabinet, and realized that the ship was rocking more intensely. “I do not know. I only know what I do not want.”

“That’s a start.”

She turned to face him and pushed him away, ducking beneath his arm. “I do not want a man who hates me. I do not want to spend every minute of my day trying to be perfect, dutiful, obedient, only to be told that I am wicked all the same. I do not want to owe you more money than I can ever repay, and I do not want to sleep with you because of it.”

He continued to look at her, now with that unreadable expression he often adopted, but she didn’t feel a need to look away. It was enough that it was not a look of disapproval. It was
that
that had commanded her whole life, fear of disapproval. Fear that she might not fit the conception everyone held of her. Fear that really, deep inside, she was a fraud.

Geoff sighed and crossed to sink onto the bunk. This was why he avoided respectable women. They were impossible to understand. “I don’t want you to sleep with me because of the money. I’ve given tavern wenches baubles worth five times that just to see the pretty smile they cause.”

“Just for a smile?” she asked skeptically.

He grinned, and she relaxed. “Well, I always get more than a smile, but I’ll have you know I’d have gotten their favor without the jewels. A coin or two is plenty for a man of my skill!”

He so resembled a puffed-up peacock she couldn’t help but laugh. “How comes it, then, that I find you so very resistible?”

With a wicked smile and a careless shrug, he answered, “I cannot fathom it. Mayhap it is because you know not what you’re missing.”

He moved to rise, and she retreated to the opposite side of the desk. “Nay, stay where you are! I did not ask for a demonstration!”

Smugly, he stretched back out upon the mattress. A lock of gilded brown hair had come loose from its queue, and his skin was dark where the sleeves and collar of his loose, white shirt fell away. The sight of his tanned, bare legs and feet suddenly seemed painfully intimate, and she felt her cheeks grow warm.

“What thoughts bring that color to your fair face, love?”

Tired of ever being at a loss, she used a weapon that had never failed when a boy in the village looked at her too boldly. “Whatever would your mother think, Captain Hampton?”

To her amazement, he only laughed. “She would think you were a fool to pass up a prime opportunity.”

“I think not!”

“She was a whore, Faith.”

“Captain, you mustn’t speak so of your mother!” She cast an anxious look upward, half-expecting lighting to strike the main mast of the ship.

“If I called the woman a bitch, love, that would be disrespectful, although I’ve described her that way from time to time. As it happens, I do but state a fact. She may have been expensive and well educated, but a courtesan, as she preferred to call herself, is a whore, nonetheless.”

Faith was not entirely ignorant. The Bible referred to harlots, and she had heard vague rumors about some of the women who frequented the docksides of Boston harbor. Still, such a thing was only a concept, far removed from her reality. She could not even imagine what his life had been like. She had grown up in a happy, wholesome home with loving parents. Why, did he even know who his father was? She did not ask.

“How awful for you,” she murmured.

He sat up and rested his arm across his knee. His casual air of belonging emphasized that the bed she had come to think of as hers was, in fact, his.

“What is so awful?” he asked. “I grew up knowing what men and women have to offer each other—no pretense, no pretty frills complicating it. It was all very straight forward, and no one got hurt.”

“Did you ever ask your mother that? If no one got hurt?”

“Well, if there was pain involved, the price was much higher,” he teased, but was disappointed to see that he had only confused her.

Dear God, she really was naive! Still, it intrigued him. What would it be like with a wench who had never known a rough hand, who had never known any hand, save his? He shook his head to clear it. It would hardly do to get sentimental. He’d seen men go soft for innocents before, but sooner or later, innocence was lost.

As he looked at her, his eyes darkened and his face fell serious again, though somehow not so frightening. “I wouldn’t hurt you, Faith. If ‘tis joy you seek, I can give you that.” His gaze sent heat pouring through her.

So this was temptation, she thought. It was indeed powerful force. “Where is your mother, now?” she asked.

“Dead.”

“How?”

He paused, and whatever storm was building between them abated. “The pox.”

Her breath caught in her throat, and she looked at him with pity in her eyes. Softly, she replied, “But no one ever got hurt, did they, Captain?”

Chapter 8

If the storm in Geoff’s body had calmed, the squall that swept in on the ship did not. The rain was cold and the sea turbulent, but it was short-lived. Faith postponed her trip to the deck above and concentrated on keeping down what little food she’d eaten. She lay in the dark, still wide awake, when the motion of the ship steadied and Geoff returned, carrying a lamp. She closed her eyes and forced her breathing to remain steady and deep.

Clothing rustled faintly, and something wet snapped when crisply shaken. More rustling, another snap—was he naked? She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and fought the urge to bolt from the bed and flee the room altogether. Only the knowledge that the floor beyond the cabin was littered with disreputable men stopped her.

In the candlelight, Geoff draped his wet pants over the back of the chair and smiled at the blush that stole across her cheeks. She was a prisoner of her own ruse. If she weren’t pretending to sleep, she could insist he don dry pants, at least. As it was, he took roguish delight in lying naked on top of the covers next to her, pulling the extra linen and blanket across him.