Pirate's Bride (Liberty's Ladies) (19 page)

“I understand, darling.”

He felt comforted that she did understand, and he watched as she crawled back into bed. Crane smiled at the modest vision she presented with the cover pulled up to her chin and those long raven tresses fanning his pillow. He loved Mavis so much that sometimes he actually felt a physical pain to imagine that she might be lying to him. that she really had sold herself for money. Still, he believed her. Though Mavis hadn’t been a virgin and had told him she’d given herself to a man she’d intended to marry, he found he couldn’t doubt her story. Something kept her from telling him the complete truth, and he realized Beth was most probably the reason for her reticence.

Sitting in a large chair, Crane sorted through the papers he’d taken from Captain Montgomery’s cabin the night the ship was confiscated. Even now,
Nightingale
limped far behind the
Black Falcon
, under the control of some of Hawk’s crew. Once they reached Windhaven the ship would be repaired and repainted, and no one would ever guess it had belonged to Briston Shipping.

Most of the paperwork consisted of bills of lading, invoices, and correspondence between Montgomery and one Thomas Eversley. Nothing of importance, and he almost placed the paperwork back into the brown box he used for storage, eager to join Mavis in bed. However, Crane’s expert eyes noticed a piece of cream-colored parchment bearing a most interesting name.

It was a letter to Nathaniel Talbot, Earl of Dunsmoor, from his most obedient daughter. The girl’s name leaped from the page at him. She’d signed her name with a flourish, causing Crane’s hearty laugh of amused disbelief to waken Mavis as it resounded in the cabin.

Mavis sat up and gazed sleepily at him. “What’s so amusing?” His eyes were filled with merriment now that the whole situation was so clear to him. Putting the letter away, he then disrobed and went to Mavis, pulling her warm and beautiful body next to his.

“My love, don’t worry about your friend Beth any longer. Believe me, she’ll come to no danger with Hawk. Allow them to find one another, because I believe that before this voyage is over, they will.”

“How can you be so certain?” she asked suspiciously.

Crane pulled the sheet from her, and before he began to kiss her breasts, he said, “Because Hawk has at last found his match.”

9

The next morning Bethlyn opened the door a crack and breathed a relieved sigh to find Hawk’s cabin empty. She didn’t relish the thought of being imprisoned in her tiny cabin until the bosomy Della left the privateer’s bed. Bethlyn couldn’t help but to sniff the air disdainfully. It reeked with Della’s scent. To rid the room of the smell, she pulled open one of the smaller windows and breathed in the fresh salty air.

Her gaze trained upon the bunk, and she noticed with a start that the covers were smoothly in place. Apparently Hawk and Della had finished their business quite early for the bed to be already made. Recalling the moaning sounds she’d heard the night before, the images which ran rampant through her mind, Bethlyn clenched her fists at her side and shook her head to dispel what she’d heard and imagined happened on that very bunk. The very idea that she’d given way to tears over the horrid incident caused a hard nail-like line to replace the soft curves of her mouth

“Better Della than me,” she muttered, but a niggling twinge of jealousy told her that she didn’t truly mean that sentiment, and to combat what she felt, she straightened her back ramrod straight. What Hawk did with Della was none of her concern, she convinced herself, and left his cabin to seek out Mavis.

Moments later, when Bethlyn hesitantly knocked on Crane’s cabin door and Mavis had bade her entrance into the room, she discovered that Mavis was still in bed. Bethlyn’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of her friend. With the sheet wrapped around Mavis’s ample breasts, the long dark hair falling wild to her waist, and those incredibly blue eyes shining brightly in her glowing face, Bethlyn realized that never had Mavis looked more beautiful. Could love really transform a person? Bethlyn wondered. Would such a love ever happen to her?

At that moment, Bethlyn envied Mavis, the daughter of a poor fisherman, and ached to know how Mavis felt. Bethlyn cleared her throat. “Perhaps I should return later.”

Mavis shook her head and got off of the bunk, clutching the sheet and bringing it with her. “No need, Bethlyn, Crane is on duty. Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, thank you.”

After Mavis poured the tea and handed Bethlyn the cup, she watched while she drank it. “You look wretched,” Mavis noticed. “You have dark circles under your eyes. Didn’t you sleep well last night?”

Bethlyn grimaced. “How is a person expected to sleep when the occupants of the next room are rutting?”

“No! Who was Hawk with?”

“Della, I think. It doesn’t really matter.”

Mavis gently touched Bethlyn’s hand. “It matters to you, a great deal more than you’re letting on. Are you in love with Hawk?”

“Are you crazy?” Bethlyn leaped to her feet and dropped the cup on the floor, spilling the tea on a small Persian rug by the bunk. “You’re insane to even suggest such a preposterous thing to me, Mavis. I loathe the man, despise the bounder.”

Calmly, Mavis took a linen towel and dabbed at the tea stain and placed the cup on a round oaken table. “Don’t act so hotheaded, Bethlyn. I only asked you a question. However, you don’t have to answer me.”

“I did answer you!” Bethlyn retorted, her brown eyes shooting amber fire at her friend.

Mavis laughed softly. “You told me I was insane, that you loathed and despised Captain Hawk. Not that you didn’t love him. To quote one of your favorite writers, ‘I think the lady doth protest too much.’ “

“I can’t love him.” Bethlyn grew weak-kneed and sank onto a chair. “The man is an arrogant, pompous beast, and if that isn’t enough, he’s an enemy of the Crown. Mavis, he destroyed one of my father’s ships.”

“But do you love him?”

Every instinct within Bethlyn told her that no, she could never love Hawk. Her mind reeled with all the reasons she shouldn’t love him, but her heart beat out the message that she might care for him more than she realized. She’d been jealous of his night with Della, her flesh had burned when she imagined that she, not Della, could be lying beneath his searching hands, enjoying his kisses. But she’d never know such pleasure, would never be happy and contented like Mavis in her newfound love.

“I have a husband,” she said lamely.

“Yes, you have a husband who has ignored you for seven years, who sends you baubles and trinkets. But those gifts don’t warm you at night, Bethlyn. Take my word on that. I’d never give up one moment of my time with Crane for a ruby necklace or anything else. I love him more than my own life, and treasure each and every kiss and touch. I want you to feel for Hawk what I feel for Crane.”

Love shone in Mavis’s eyes for Crane, and Bethlyn experienced that stab of envy once more. “I’m happy for you and your privateer, but Hawk detests me as much as I detest him. There’s no hope for either of us, I’m afraid. Besides, I must worry about what I’ll do once I’m off this ship and in Philadelphia. I can’t come to my husband as spoiled goods.”

“Do you think Ian Briston will care?” Mavis asked her gently. “Perhaps you should seize the moment, for no one knows what tomorrow may bring.”

Bethlyn gulped and managed a smile. “I hope it brings my freedom of this ship and Captain Hawk.” Quickly Bethlyn kissed her friend’s cheek and left the cabin, too overwhelmed to say anything more.

She hated to admit that Mavis might be correct. Maybe she did love Hawk, but she doubted it. For years she’d buried any true emotions, knowing the pain of loving when that emotion wasn’t returned. She’d loved her father until she sensed his hatred of her, and she could have loved Ian Briston, if only he’d have taken her with him to America. She was certain she’d have loved him. Beneath his disregard for her, she thought he was a kind man who’d come to care for her. Not like the arrogant Captain Hawk.

The object of her musings suddenly appeared on deck beside her. His masked face leaned down until he was but two inches from her lips.

“What a sour expression, Beth. You look like you didn’t sleep at all well last night.”

“I slept quite soundly,” she said, emphasizing each word.

Hawk backed away a bit and flashed her a wide grin. “Good. Glad to hear it. I’ve a job for you to perform.”

Bethlyn fairly groaned. What now? she wondered.

Before she could utter a word, he grabbed her arm and steered her in the direction of his cabin. When she started to protest, he threw open the door and, before her startled eyes, she noticed that the table he used for going over his paperwork had been transformed into a breakfast setting for two. She blinked her astonishment, not quite believing that fine, gold-edged china and Bavarian crystal sat upon a snowy white tablecloth. In the center of the table was a large gold candlestick, and the flickering candlelight melded into the warm sunshine which streamed into the cabin from a wall of windows. Beside the table stood a masked sailor who politely bowed and helped her into her chair.

“What is all this?” she asked Hawk, her bafflement plain to see.

“Breakfast. “

“But … but, I don’t understand.”

Hawk shrugged his massive shoulders and took his place across from her. “Nothing to understand, Beth. You must eat, and I must eat. I decided we should eat together. You don’t object, do you?”

Was he giving her a choice? Bethlyn couldn’t believe that he would, but from the hopeful way he leaned forward, she sensed that he was. “No, I don’t object.”

He motioned to the sailor to serve them, and after they’d eaten a breakfast of warm biscuits and oatmeal, which Bethlyn realized had tasted better than the eggs and sausages at Aunt Penny’s, topping it off with, of all things, a spicy-tasting liquor at eight in the morning, she couldn’t help but grin.

“What’s so amusing?” Hawk asked, and it seemed that he watched her closely, much too closely.

“I was thinking that you might be attempting to seduce me.”

“Do you find the idea of that so terrible?”

Bethlyn ran her fingernail around the rim of her glass. “You assured me that you would act like a gentleman.”

“I have, Beth.”

“Yes, you have,” she agreed, trying to cast out the image of Della in his bed and being unsuccessful. Did the man think that a breakfast and liquor would make him more appealing to her? If so, then he didn’t know her very well.

“I’m not so easily swayed by the trappings of seduction,” she said.

Sitting further back in his chair, he said, “Your words wound me. I didn’t intend for our breakfast to be taken that way.”

“Then just how am I supposed to take this?” she snapped. “For days you treat me wretchedly, and then to take that horrid woman to b—” She stopped herself and felt the furious red flush devour her face.

“I see.” He stood up and towered over her, appearing awesome and somehow more frightening in the clear light of day than on any night she could remember. Behind his mask she saw the pain in his eyes and knew that she was the cause of it. Bowing stiffly to her, she heard no trace of emotion in his voice. “I’m sorry to have offended you. Good day, Beth.”

He left her, sitting speechless and staring stupidly at the door he’d just closed quietly behind him.

~ ~ ~

For the remainder of the day Bethlyn didn’t speak to Hawk. A number of times she saw him, working on the rigging, issuing orders to his men, and more than once their eyes met. However, he never acknowledged her presence, and not only did she feel a strange sense of hurt by this slight, but guilt to realize that the cozy breakfast in his cabin was most probably his way of making amends for his treatment of her. She silently cursed herself and her snippish tongue.

After a lonely supper in her cabin, she walked on deck. The night breeze slid sensuously through her hair and gently molded the skirt of her gown to her body. Bethlyn had no idea of the pretty picture she made as she leaned against the railing, her face lifted towards the heavens.

“Look! A shooting star,” she cried and earned Sparrow’s attention as he stood behind the large ship’s wheel.