The Notorious Lady Anne: A Loveswept Historical Romance (16 page)

Nicholas might have said Emmaline knew exactly what she was doing, and was most excellent at it, but his damnable honor kept his mouth shut.

Phin slanted him a glance, as if reading his thoughts. “She doesn’t know the
implications
of what she was doing. Blast you, Addison, she may be a damn good pirate and sea captain, but she knows nothing of …” He waved his hand again as if he couldn’t voice his thoughts.

But Nicholas understood. “There are no implications.”

Thunder rolled across Phin’s face, and inwardly Nicholas winced, realizing how that sounded. “You best watch your tongue, you rutting tomcat.”

Nicholas held up his hands in peace. “That’s not what I meant. My intentions are honorable.”

Phin forced out another laugh, clearly not believing Nicholas. “That’s not what it looked like.”

“Phin, leave him alone.”

Both men turned to the door, where Emmaline was standing in a bloodstained shirt and those damned breeches, her hair in disarray, testimony to how well she’d been kissed.

“Anne, this is inexcusable.”

For the first time in hours, her eyes flashed with something other than weariness and despair. “I said leave him alone.” Her voice was soft, but the words were deadly accurate, silencing Phin better than a dagger to the throat could. “What happened here is none of your concern.”

“Anne—”

“Enough.” The command rang through the silent room. Shamus shifted, but didn’t awaken. Emmaline turned a curiously blank expression to Nicholas. “You can go to your cabin now. I’ll send someone to watch Shamus and keep me apprised of his condition.”

Nicholas bristled at the authority in her voice, commanding him back to what was no more than a prison, dismissing him as if nothing had happened between them. As if they hadn’t struggled for hours to save a man’s life. As if she hadn’t shared her soul with him.

As if they had never kissed at all.

She was back to being Lady Anne, and he despised it while he also grieved over it. The kiss had changed nothing. She would never be the quiet, docile woman he’d always imagined he would be with. She would always be a woman who took charge, who ordered unruly pirates around, and who plundered ships and harassed innocent sailors.

No, the kiss hadn’t changed anything between them, even though it changed things within him.

Nicholas shot a fulminating glare at Phin before marching toward the door. He didn’t even make it to the threshold before Phin slammed him against the wall, his forearm pressing against Nicholas’s throat, cutting off his air.

“Sod off, you bastard. Leave her alone.”

Phin’s eyes widened when the tip of his dagger pricked his stomach.

Nicholas grinned, pressing the pilfered dagger into Phin’s soft underbelly.

“Or you’ll what?”

“Enough!” Emmaline yanked on Phin’s arm until he loosened his hold and backed up. She slid between them, a hand pressed to each heaving chest.

“Captain Addison, give Phin his dagger back.”

“Not on your life.”

She sighed, clearly exasperated. “Give him the dagger back, Nicholas.”

He clenched his back teeth, hating that she used his given name at the time he most didn’t want the familiarity. But he handed the dagger to Phin point first, knowing when he was outflanked. Now was not the time to stage an escape. Except the thought of escape hadn’t entered his mind in all the time he and Emmaline nursed Shamus.

Phin snatched the dagger from him, and for a frozen moment Nicholas was convinced the man was going to plunge it into him. There was a manic light to his eyes Nicholas had seen in men pushed past their limits.

“Phin,” Emmaline warned, obviously seeing the same thing.

With a snarl, Phin resheathed the weapon, and Emmaline dropped her hands from their chests. Nicholas had an almost irresistible need to rub the spot where her fingers had rested.

“Go back to your cabin, Captain Addison. Phin, fetch Henry. He will sit with Shamus. I expect you up top immediately. I need to speak to you.”

Everything inside Nicholas rebelled at the thought of Phin and Emmaline together, but he clamped down on the fierce jealousy raging through him. She wasn’t his to command, and apparently she wasn’t Phin’s to command either. It gave him some satisfaction.

“I’m not leaving until
he
leaves.” If they were able, Phin’s eyes would have burned holes through Nicholas.

Emmaline clamped her jaws together. Nicholas pushed away from the wall and sauntered out, his skin prickling at the very real possibility of that dagger imbedding itself in his spine.

He made it to his cabin without harm, and found fresh water, clean clothes and a blade for shaving.

The items stopped him cold as nothing else could. His bare chest was covered in Shamus’s
blood, his cheeks and jaw itched for a shave and he hadn’t bathed in almost ten days. But what caught his eye and held it was the pitcher of fresh water. And sitting innocently beside it, the shiny blade.

While waiting for Phin, Emmaline paced the quarterdeck, Nicholas’s words repeating themselves in her head.
There are no implications
.

Of course there weren’t. The kiss was simply a kiss, nothing more. It didn’t mean Nicholas had feelings for her or she had feelings for him. It’d simply been two people coming together after a long day and night of fighting for Shamus’s life.

No implications whatsoever.

None.

The sound of Phin’s booted feet, angry and precise, had her turning around. His expression was like stone, unreadable until he drew closer and she saw the fury lurking in his eyes.

“Anne—”

She held up her hand. “I don’t want to discuss this with you.”

His shoulders tensed, his hands balled into fists. “We need to talk.”

“Why? What concern is it of yours?”

His brows rose. “Do you have to ask that question? For one, he’s the brother of an earl. Two, he’s in the employ of a marquess. Three, he’s a captain for Blackwell Shipping. Four, the crown will be searching for us when it becomes known he is our captive—
when
, Anne, not
if
. Five—”

“Enough, Phin. I am fully aware of the danger.”

“Five.” He spoke over her. “You have no experience with …” He ran a hand through his hair, discomfort replacing the anger, but only for a moment. “With men. Six—”

She spun away and marched across the deck to the starboard side, not wanting to hear six or seven or eight. Phin could go on and on. There were hundreds of reasons she shouldn’t get
involved with Nicholas Addison. She knew all of them.

“Five is a lie.”

Phin’s lips thinned and his eyes narrowed.

“I have experience, if you remember.”

“I remember.”

She sighed and lifted her hands in the air, only to let them fall. “What is this about, Phin? Is this about us and what we had together?”

“No.” But his eyes flickered away, proving him a liar.

“We both agreed it would never work between us. We’re both captains, and a relationship needs a captain and a quartermaster.”

“He’ll hurt you in the end, Anne. He can’t stay here and be a pirate with you, and you certainly can’t be his lady wife.”

“Who ever said anything about me being his wife?”

He quirked a brow, and it was Emmaline’s turn to look away.

“I never said I wanted to marry him,” she said.

“You didn’t have to.”

She made a disgusted sound and waved her hand in dismissal. “You’re reading too much into things you know nothing about. I certainly want nothing to do with marriage. You know that.” Her own parent’s marriage had been a disaster.

“Six.” Phin stepped up beside her and she closed her eyes. If she tossed him overboard he would bob along the waves and continue counting. The man was that stubborn.

And right.

“Stop, Phin. Just stop.”

“Six. I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he said softly.

“Thank you. I appreciate your concern, truly I do.”

Phin crossed his arms and glared at her. She’d seen the look numerous times, usually directed at one errant sailor or another.

“What?” she snapped. “I believe you made your point. Six of them, to be exact.”

“You’re not listening to what I’m saying. He’s your captive, Anne. He’ll do anything to escape.”

She reeled back. Pain cramped her belly and her throat dried up. How had she not seen it? Her, a pirate who used every advantage given to her to get what she wanted. If
she
were held captive she’d certainly use her … wiles … to reach for freedom. Why should Nicholas be any different?

“I apologize. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said. “But someone has to point out the truth.”

“No. You’re right. I should have seen it myself.” Only a fool wouldn’t have, and Lady Anne was not a fool. Not anymore.

Nicholas made his way toward Shamus’s cabin. Not even a fortnight ago, he’d been struggling down the same corridor, sloshing through ankle-deep water and wondering if he was going to die in the storm a prisoner.

He didn’t die, but he was still a prisoner, and his captor had run away to one of her other ships two days ago and had yet to return.

What did that mean for him?

Why had she run? It was a question that circled his mind constantly. He told himself to be happy she was gone, for she was a distraction he could ill afford. But what his mind said and what other parts of him said conflicted.

Each morning he found himself waking with the hope that overnight she had returned to the
Delilah
, and every morning he ate breakfast disappointed. Was she avoiding him? Why? They’d shared a kiss before, and she hadn’t avoided him then.

Soft voices came from Shamus’s cabin, and Nicholas slowed his steps, straining to hear, curious because Shamus spoke so rarely. Nicholas peered into the cabin and his heart thudded.

Emmaline sat in the chair beside the bunk, her bare feet tucked beneath her. Wet hair hung down her back, leaving patches of her shirt nearly transparent. Her head was bent to a book as she read aloud to a sleeping Shamus.

Nicholas slipped into the room and leaned against the wall, content to study her and listen to the melodious rise and fall of her voice, reciting the words of the popular book
Robinson Crusoe
.

Something must have alerted her that he was there, because her head jerked up and their gazes met. Dark semicircles smudged her eyes, and her shoulders drooped with weariness. Had she not slept either? Had she tossed and turned on her bunk thinking of him, as he tossed and turned and thought of her?

He wished. More than likely she’d worked hard to repair her damaged ships, and hadn’t given her prisoner a single thought.

“Defoe has quite the imagination, does he not?” He nodded toward the book in her hand.

She closed it, keeping her finger between the pages. “Quite.”

“Do you think Crusoe will learn anything all alone on that island?”

“Doubtful. Men are hardheaded creatures.”

“True.”

What happened, to put the clipped tone in her voice? Where was the woman who sat on his lap and cried on his shoulder? Who had kissed him with such wild abandon?

I missed you
. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he held them in check, shocked he thought them at all. But if he were honest with himself, he
had
missed her. Terribly. He was pleased Shamus was on the mend, but sad there would be no more quiet hours spent with her in this cabin.

“Henry said Shamus is doing well,” she said.

“Aye. He awakens periodically and we’ve been able to get some food into him.”

“Good.” She looked at the book in her lap.

“Emmaline—”

“Land ahead!” The call from the upper decks had Emmaline jumping out of her chair and Nicholas pushing away from the wall. They’d spotted land? Dare he believe it?

They hurried down the corridor, Emmaline leading the way, to the quarterdeck, where most of the crew was standing at the port side rail, cheering.

Nicholas drank in the view of a small hump a long distance away. ’Twas merely an island, but it was the first land he’d seen in weeks, and his heart lurched at the thought of possible escape. Surely he’d find an English ship willing to take him back to London.