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Authors: Heart of the Storm

BOOK: Rexanne Becnel
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He’d never been able to use a whore with complete satisfaction as a result.
Thank God there were enough other women who were willing to lay with him without benefit of money, else he’d be as celibate as a monk.
If
monks were truly celibate.
A shiver wracked him but he ignored it. Somewhere ahead of him was the means to his revenge. Once he had Haberton’s son in his possession, Cyprian could finally begin to purge himself of the hatred that sometimes threatened to consume him. The boy would suffer as Cyprian had suffered: the pain of abandonment; the frustration and the helplessness; the humiliation of making his way as a child in a cruel world that made no allowances for childishness or weakness. And Cyprian would see to it that Sir Lloyd Haberton was kept informed of every sordid detail. From port to port they would move, and from each new place Cyprian would write Haberton.
The man would know how his beloved child shivered under a thin blanket, sleeping in the shed behind the home of his latest employer. He would be kept informed about how his son was reduced to fighting dogs for their food in order to fill his stomach adequately. Wearing rags on his feet when his one pair of shoes grew too small.
Cyprian gritted his teeth and his fingers-tightened on the wet rail as he remembered his wretched childhood. But he had learned to fight. He’d learned how to stay alive, and he’d grown stronger for it. So would this boy, cripple or no. It was Haberton who would suffer more. With every letter Haberton would die a little more, just as Cyprian’s mother had. The man would still be wealthy, well fed, and well respected in his own circles. But Cyprian knew he would be dying inside. Not knowing where his son was would destroy him.
It was a revenge Cyprian had relished all the years he’d searched for his bastard father—for that’s how he termed the man. Cyprian may have been born the bastard, but it had been his father’s choice, not his own. Nor even his mother’s. His mother had told him he had no surname. She’d lost hers, when her family disowned her, and his father had not given him one. So Cyprian
had named himself Dare. Even when she’d told him his father’s full name, he’d refused to take it as his own. Nor would he ever. He didn’t want the man’s name nor his wealth. Not a farthing of it. But his only half brother …
Yes, to control the destiny of Haberton’s one true heir—to steal Haberton’s pride and joy away from him —that didn’t seem an unreasonable payment for twenty-eight years of abandonment.
T
he river Thames and the long day they spent traversing its length to the sea made for as awful an experience as Eliza could remember. The rain came down intermittently so that they were confined to their chilly cabins. The view outside was of a dirty trash-filled waterway that looked more like a sewer than the greatest river in the land. And it stank.
“God in heaven, please save us from anymore of this … this odor,” Agnes intoned, clutching her prayer book to her ample bosom. First cousin to Sir Lloyd, Agnes lived on the meager allowance left to her by her own wastrel father. Sir Lloyd’s generosity to her these last eight years had been a blessing to her, and in her eyes at least, the man could do no wrong. Though she’d been terrified crossing the gangplank and now pressed a lilac-scented handkerchief to her nose, Eliza knew the woman would voice no harsher complaint than that murmured prayer.
Eliza, Agnes, and Clothilde shared a cabin that was not even a quarter the size of Eliza’s opulent bedchamber at home. The beds, though generously provided with plump pillows and thick coverlets, were nevertheless rather narrow. They were built into the walls with storage underneath and railings made to hold a sleeping
body in place no matter the pitching of the vessel. Their trunks were lashed to the outside wall and everything else—pitcher, bowl, chamber pot—was stowed in small teakwood compartments that had been specially sized with locking latches. A brass lantern hung from a hook in the middle of the coffered ceiling, and two glass prisms flanked it, bringing light down through the deck, though with this rain there was little enough light.
“Shall I unpack, Miss Eliza?” Clothilde asked.
Thank heaven for Clothilde, Eliza thought, sending her sturdy maid a smile. With her good sense and ebullient spirits to buoy them up they’d all do fine. “If you’d like. But not everything. Bed clothes. A few day dresses. Oh, and my tablet and pencils. I’d like to do some sketching when the weather improves.”
But the weather stayed grim and cold. They ate a light lunch in their room and then dinner in the captain’s cramped dining room. Aubrey sulked and Robert appeared put out with the boy. In the name of peace Eliza paired Robert with Clothilde and then put Agnes next to the captain so that he could entertain her. She sat next to Aubrey.
“How is your cabin?” she asked the child. “Ours is small but charming, and most cunningly designed.”
“Too small,” he muttered, sticking his lower lip out. “And it stinks.”
“By tomorrow we should be out to sea. The air will be clean and bracing there.”
Aubrey didn’t look up. He just pushed his leeks around the plate with his fork.
“I plan to sketch tomorrow. Will we pass Dover during the day?” she asked the captain.
“Aye, miss. The white cliffs will be just off starboard. And a magnificent sight they are.”
Aubrey looked at the captain too, though his expression didn’t improve in the least. “Are they truly white, then?”
“White as chalk, for that’s what they are,” Eliza replied. “I read that,” she added, glancing shyly at the Captain.
“Well, you read correctly, for they’re so white you can scarcely believe your eyes.”
“Perhaps you’d like to try some sketching also.” Eliza turned back to Aubrey. “I’ve scads of paper and pencils with me. You’re free to use as much as you like.”
“Not in that chair.” He poked at the leeks again.
“Now, Aubrey.” Cousin Agnes leaned forward and gave him an earnest look. “You know what your father said. A good bracing turn about the deck each day. Robert will push you—”
“No!” The fork hit the plate, and leeks and carrots flew across the table. “No rolling chair!” the boy shouted, his face going red and his eyes glinting suspiciously with tears.
Eliza hated emotional scenes like this. They always made her heart pound and her breathing come too fast. Yet she could see that someone would have to intercede. Cousin Agnes meant to carry out Sir Lloyd’s precise instructions as if they’d been sent down with Moses along with the commandments. And Aubrey would fight her just as fiercely as he’d been fighting his father at home. It was, unfortunately, up to her to keep some sort of peace between them.
“Once at sea, the pitching of the ship may make the rolling chair a trifle unsafe. Isn’t that right, Captain?”
He had leaned back in his chair at Aubrey’s outburst. Now he faced her. “Depending upon the swells, of course, it could certainly be a bit of a problem.”
“You see?” Eliza switched her gaze back and forth between the scowling child and the self-righteous Agnes. “To be safe we’ll have Robert carry—I mean help Aubrey above decks and settle him in a nice secure chair. That way Uncle Lloyd’s wishes shall have been
carried out and Aubrey will also be content. That is all right with you, isn’t it, Aubrey?”
“I want to go to my room,” he responded, refusing to answer her question. “Now,” he added, glaring at Robert.
So the day ended, with everyone grumpy and uncomfortable. But as Eliza lay in her unfamiliar bed a short while later she vowed that tomorrow would be better. She’d have to keep Agnes away from Aubrey and have the rolling chair he so despised stored out of sight. Why-ever had Uncle Lloyd thought his fussy spinster cousin the right chaperone for a ten-year-old boy?
Yet as her mind drifted toward sleep, it was not her young cousin or anyone else on the ship she dreamed of, but rather a tall, strong man holding her by the shoulders and bending down to kiss her. And in her dreams she smiled and stretched up on tiptoe to kiss him back.
 
“Your sketch
is
every bit as good as mine,” Eliza assured Aubrey.
“’Tis not. I can’t draw worth a fig.” With a frustrated cry he crumpled the paper and flung it away. It caught in the crisp sea breeze and flew out over the rail and into the choppy waters of the Channel. Fading off to their right were the cliffs. By tomorrow they’d reach the Channel Islands where they’d dock for just one night at St. Peter Port in Guernsey. But although their trip had just begun, Eliza was not sure she could endure even another day with Aubrey. He was extremely sensitive and angry at the world. It took only the slightest provocation to spark his volatile temper and then they all must suffer it.
“No one draws a masterpiece on their very first effort,” Eliza gritted out, trying to sound pleasant, though she felt anything but. “It requires a considerable amount of practice.”
“Well, I don’t want to practice!” He swung about on
the lounge chair Robert had settled him in and placed both feet on the ground. Before Eliza could stop him he lunged upright, then with a cry of pain, collapsed in a heap on the deck.
“Aubrey! Aubrey!” In an instant she was kneeling beside him. “Are you all right? Tell me you are. Oh, please.”
To her utter surprise, he burrowed into her arms and burst into tears. Gone was the dreadful little tyrant of only minutes before. Instead he was a frightened child, hurt and confused, sobbing in her arms. She gathered him up and pressed a kiss upon his dark curls.
“Hush, sweetheart. It will be all right. You’ll see.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It will never be all right again. I’m always going to be a cripple. A cripple! I’ll never be able to walk or ride or do anything at all!”
“That’s simply not true, Aubrey. There are lots of things you’ll be able to do. You just have to give yourself more time and try harder.”
“But I can’t. I can’t,” he sobbed.
“Yes, you can,” she vowed, waving a concerned Robert away. “Everything will require practice, however. Many hours of practice.”
“I don’t mean drawing,” he complained, pulling back from her and wiping his face with his sleeve. “Drawing is for girls—and sissies. I want to be like before. I want to walk and run—” He again burst into heartwrenching sobs but this time Eliza simply held him as he wept. What could she possibly say to console him? Any promises she made would be no more than empty conjecture. Hopeful thinking. For she did not know whether he would ever be able to do those things again.
She’d struck upon this journey with Aubrey as a way for her to escape Michael. Aubrey was merely the excuse she’d used. But everything had turned upside down since then. Aubrey’s plight was ever so much worse than hers. And as for Michael … she was as awed by him
as ever, but she actually was beginning to believe he cared for her. At least a little. Marriage to him might not be so terrifying as she’d previously feared. But there was still Aubrey and the next six months to muddle through.
“Now you just listen to me, Aubrey Haberton. I think we should make a pact, you and I. You shall act as my nurse, and I as yours.” She patted at his damp cheeks with her lace handkerchief. “For part of each day—say an hour—I shall be completely in charge of your activities, and for another hour, you shall be completely in charge of mine.”
“Wh … what do you mean?” he asked, hiccuping.
“I mean that we each have an hour a day to make the other do whatever we think is best for the improvement of their health.”
He thought a moment. “What’s wrong with you? You don’t look sick.”
What indeed? It was such a part of her existence that she often forgot. “I have an illness called asthma. It was much worse when I was your age. But my doctor advises me that I must always be very careful not to overexert myself. Breathing too deeply is not good for me at all.”
“Why?”
Eliza shrugged. “My lungs are weak. I was born that way. Sometimes when I was younger they would stop working altogether, and I would faint and then turn blue.”
“Blue?” He looked at her doubtfully.
“Well, that’s what LeClere and Perry have told me.”
“Is that going to happen to you while we’re on this trip?”
She smiled at his curious, almost hopeful tone. “I don’t think so. In fact, I haven’t had a full-fledged attack of that sort in, let’s see … four years or so. Now, do we have an agreement?” she asked, returning to her original idea.
He let out a great gust of a sigh, but he looked far cheerier than before. “Oh, I suppose. It’s only an hour. Besides, there’s nothing else to do.”
Together they managed to get him back up onto his chair, and just in time for Agnes came up from below decks, huffing from the short, steep climb. “Aubrey needs his medicine,” she announced, fishing a brown bottle from her pocket. “And it’s time for him to rest.”
Eliza stopped Aubrey from snapping at the older woman with a warning hand to his arm. “Give it to me, Agnes. I’ll see he gets it in a moment. We were just in the middle of a … of a geography lesson,” she fibbed. Anything to prevent another row between them.
To her relief, Agnes handed over the bottle without argument. Then the woman grabbed for the nearest railing when the ship slid down a steeper than normal trough. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear,” she murmured. “I don’t feel well. No, truly I don’t.”
Her face did look a trifle pale. Green even. Eliza signaled for Robert, and in a moment he guided the woman back toward her cabin. Poor Agnes, it must be
mal de mer
. But Eliza’s sympathies were cut short by a hoot of boyish laughter.
“She’s seasick,” Aubrey crowed. “What luck! She shan’t be ordering me about at all!”
Eliza had to force down her own giggle. It wasn’t really funny, but then, Agnes was rather stuffy. Aubrey was right. They
were
in luck.
She cleared her throat. “She may not be here to order you about. But I plan to do so for the next hour.”
 
The western sun was just dipping toward the sea the next day when they tied up at St. Peter Port in Guernsey. Though it was one of the Channel Islands and still good English soil, England was quite beyond their view. Instead it was the French coastline they’d seen off the port side of the ship earlier in the afternoon, and now as
Eliza peered out at the village that crowded the island’s shore, it all appeared quite foreign. More French than English, she decided.
“You’re not holding your breath,” Aubrey accused, drawing her attention away from the fascinating view of white-washed cottages, tiled roofs, and stone-paved streets. “I’m in charge. Remember?”
“Isn’t your hour almost over?” she asked hopefully. Aubrey had taken her proposal more seriously than she’d expected. He’d worked hard the past two days at every task she’d given him: counting the balusters of the side rail by pointing his toes at them; singing a song and conducting imaginary musicians with his injured foot. He’d let her look at his poorly healed ankle after only a brief objection, and he’d answered all his questions about what parts hurt most, what he could feel and what he couldn’t.
But eventually her hour had ended for today, and his had begun. It seemed he’d had her singing and blowing, and holding her breath off and on for much longer than sixty minutes. She’d even become dizzy once or twice.
“Just one more time,” Aubrey demanded. “Let me time how long you can hold your breath, and then we’ll stop.”
She dutifully took a deep breath then held it while he counted at a slow steady pace. At thirty she wanted to stop. At forty she crossed her eyes and he began to laugh. But he kept on counting through his giggles. At fifty, however, she released a huge gasp.

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