The Pirate's Tempting Stowaway (16 page)

With a hearty cry, the crew rushed forward and hurled all of the Corsair’s rocks overboard.

“Chests ain’t too shabby,” said one of the swabs. “Better’n the ones we got below.”
 

“Bit less secure now,” said another. “Without the locking mechanism and all.”

Steele hooked his cutlass on a post. “Take them wherever you wish, boys. Just get them out of my sight.”

Clara stepped forward and touched her fingers to the tightly coiled muscles of his arm. “You won, darling.”

“I didn’t win. He’s still out there.”

“You won
today
. You’ll find him tomorrow, or the next day.”

“You’re right.” Steele pulled her into his arms for a bruising kiss. “You’re always right.”

She gave him a crooked smile. “It’s not a matter of being right—it’s a matter of knowing
you
. Nothing stands in your way for long. You fear nothing. You search for what you want, you fight for what you want, and you take it. That poor Corsair hasn’t a chance.”

He grinned. “I’ll drink to that. No matter where he might scurry, no matter how long it might take…
I
will find him.”

Clara wished she could grin back, but his words left a hollow chill in her belly. Steele
would
find that despicable Corsair and bring him to justice. But he would do so alone. With his crew, not with Clara. She would not succeed at stowing away a second time.

Yesterday, the excitement of the moment, the thrill of adventure had given her the illusion that they were a team. Partners fighting together. Loving together. Them, against the world.

But it was not them against the world. It was Blackheart against the Crimson Corsair. Mrs. Clara Halton against the deafening loneliness of dowager quarters.
 

She had no doubt Steele would eventually find his quarry, but the hunt might take months. Years. How long had it been already? Even were she foolish enough to contemplate stowing away for one more journey, it was not at all a practical solution. Clara was no adventuress. Her daughter was in England. Recently wed. Children would be coming soon.

She wrapped her arms about herself and leaned against Steele’s chest while she still had him. Her fingers grew cold. Soon enough, she would be back on land. An independent widow. Perhaps a forty-year-old grandmother.
 

Whereas Steele would roam the seas until his dying breath, she had no doubt. He was meant for this life. Thrived in it.
 

She couldn’t keep him. No one could. He was freedom incarnate.
 

It was one of the many things she loved about him.

Loved and hated.

Chapter 19

If someone would have predicted that Captain Blackheart might be content to spend an afternoon promenading in the company of a respectable woman, Blackheart—and his entire crew—would have had a hearty laugh at the oracle’s expense.

However.

Given that the woman in question was the inimitable Mrs. Clara Halton, and that the afternoon promenade wound through the various nooks and crannies of the
Dark Crystal
, the idea became less preposterous and more…homey.
 

Having Clara aboard the ship had begun to feel as normal and as necessary as the presence of a boatswain or a master gunner. His conversations with her differed radically, of course. Steele never had to explain to the swabs or the riggers whether a nine pounder was better or worse than an eighteen pound cannon, and why brass might be an advantage over iron.
 

“And those?” she asked, pointing amidships to a pair of nested boats. “They seem smaller than the whale boat, but larger than the jolly boat that I…borrowed.”

His lips quirked. Clara was certainly as fearless as any pirate. “Correct. You’re looking at a yawl with a cutter inside.”

“Yawl,” she muttered as she ran the tip of her fingers along the skids.

He hadn’t the least doubt that she would soon be able to identify every crosstrees and capstan aboard the
Dark Crystal
.

The sparkle in her green eyes enchanted him as she asked sailing questions or practiced nautical terminology laced with plenty of sailors’ cant. He loved that the infinite ways life aboard a ship differed from life on land never failed to intrigue or delight her.

But the greatest reason Steele couldn’t help but look forward to their frequent walks amongst the guns or through the casks was because he simply enjoyed spending time with her. Her presence had fundamentally changed his life, but not in the way he’d feared. Rather than slow him down or get in his way, she’d become a cohort. A friend. A partner.
 

Every escapade was even
more
fun with her along for the ride. Even when they weren’t adventuring, having her near—and never knowing what she might say or do next—kept his equilibrium off center and his blood pulsing. As far as his body was concerned, being around Clara was just as heady as pirating. Just as tempting.

Just as dangerous.

He leaned against the mizenmast and narrowed his eyes at her. “How did you end up in America?”

She turned toward the railing. “It’s a long story.”

He smiled. “We won’t reach shore until morning.”

She stared out at the horizon as if his words had been lost at sea.
 

He had no business inquiring into her private life, but the mere fact of refusing to answer only heightened his curiosity. He joined her against the rail. “How old were you when you left England?”

“Seventeen,” she said after a moment. “Disgraced, disinherited, and three months with child. Not heavy enough for my condition to yet be obvious, but far enough along to have dashed my mother’s dream of her daughter being accepted into Society.”

“Your come-out did not go well?”

“It was an unmitigated success. Or so I thought.” Her lips tightened. “I was seventeen. My parents’ money was new, and came from trade. When I was whisked into a darkened corner at my very first ball, I assumed a wedding was a foregone conclusion.”

“I presume the ‘gentleman’ in question thought otherwise?”

Her lips twisted. “I was Cinderella, but I hadn’t found a prince. Yet.”

He lifted his brows. “Did you eventually?”

“I did.” Her smile softened. “A young doctor. He married me intending to raise Grace as his own. We were a family. We were
happy
. Until he was caught in someone else’s fight and never made it back home.”

“War?”

She shook her head. “The whiskey insurrection. He left home to attend a sick child and was shot twice in the chest. Grace was still a baby. She never knew her father. And I lost the best man I had ever known.”
 

Steele said nothing.
 

She lifted a shoulder. “My husband’s death was senseless and tragic, and taught me that anything I love can be ripped away from me at any time. That’s why the only thing I let myself love is my daughter. And it’s why after this adventure is over, I’ll settle in a pretty little cottage and never step foot on a boat again.”

“Fear of losing your life?” Over his dead body. His fists tightened. He would die to keep her safe.

Her smile was crooked as she met his eyes. “Fear of losing yours.”

His eyes widened as he stared back at her in surprise. He did not fear for his life. If anything, he hoped it would end at the height of some grand adventure, and not at the hands of disease or old age.
 

Clara didn’t just deserve better than that. She deserved
anyone
else. Someone who didn’t just return home on occasion. Someone who
stayed
there. Who never made her worry, or wonder, or fear. Someone who wouldn’t leave her a widow all over again.

“I want a home. A place where I belong,” she said softly.
 

Steele’s throat dried. As much as he wanted to pull her into his arms, he could not allow himself to do so.

She deserved everything she wanted. Stability, security, comfort in knowing one would awaken every morning in the same person’s arms. Someone other than Steele.

He was a man of his word, but he was not a man of promises. Of planning futures.
 

“A house will make me feel safe. Secure. Like I have somewhere to belong.” Her smile trembled. “A view of the sea will make me feel like we might meet again.”

He nodded, but he knew it would never be more than a pretty dream. He couldn’t see her and not have her. ’Twould make it worse for both of them. Once he returned her to her family, he would simply do what he did best.

Sail away without looking back.

Chapter 20

After taking supper with Steele and the crew, Clara slipped away to stare out over the waves at the coming sunset. She dreaded seeing land and yet yearned for it. Not because she wanted her adventure to end—a part of her wished it never would!—but because she could not continue in this wonderful, terrible, breathtaking, make-believe world.
 

She couldn’t live with such uncertainty. With never knowing if the
next
bloodthirsty pirate or hidden traps or rocky cliff would be the one to whisk Steele away from her forever. It had taken her decades to overcome the loss of her first husband. Her heart had been crushed anew when she’d sent Grace off to England, never expecting to see her again. Clara’s heart could not withstand another blow. With a man like Steele, such an eventuality would be imminent. Every farewell might be the last time she saw him.

And yet she did hope to see him again. They could never be a couple, not in the way Clara would need them to be, but that didn’t mean she was eager to say good-bye. Anything but. The very idea stole her breath and squeezed her heart. He was part of her now. She would never forget him.

She did not think she had hinted too subtly that she would like very much for their paths cross. He was a smart man. He had taken her meaning quite plainly. His lack of a reply
was
his reply. And the response she’d expected all along.

And yet, she was still as foolish as she had been at seventeen, because a part of her had dared to hope…

She pushed away from the rail and into the cabin at the rear of the ship. She didn’t want to taste the sea and drink in the ocean and dream of things that could never be. They would be in England soon. She needed reality, not wishes. She was no princess in a fairy story. She was a widow, a mother, a woman about to live the rest of her life wondering where she might be if circumstances had been different.

The darkness of the empty cabin matched her mood. The four walls, the tiny space, the wooden table devoid of signs of life. ’Twas what her cottage would be like. Serviceable and dull. She would visit her daughter as often as was reasonable, given that Grace needed space to live her own life. And Clara needed an opportunity to rebuild her own.

Somerset would be good. Somerset would be splendid. She would have access to people and privacy and everything in-between. She would find hobbies. She would make friends. Perhaps even find a sweet, caring, respectable gentleman with a romantic heart and an utterly risk-free life.

Captain Steele would probably only cross her mind once a…day. Or so.

With a sigh, she turned to contemplate the cot slung against the cabin wall. Perhaps she needed to rest. To quiet her mind. Or perhaps what she needed was a drink. Nothing facilitated forgetfulness like a few too many glasses of port. There was probably more alcohol than gunpowder on this ship.