A Brother's Honor (16 page)

“Abigail?”

In her panic, she did not recognize the voice. She did not care who held her. She only wanted someone between her and the savage storm. “Help me,” she whispered, clinging to the strong body that was her only bastion against the storm's wrath.

“Come here,
chérie.
”

“Dominic!” She pulled back. “What are you doing here? You should—”

Thunder cracked like a branch being snapped over a knee. Abigail closed her eyes. A shiver coursed through her, and she pressed her hands to her face.

“Abigail?”

She opened her eyes and stared up into Dominic's face. Even in the faint light of the single lamp he had lit, she could see concern and bafflement rutting his forehead. “Dominic?” she whispered.

“Are you all right?”

“I am fine. I—” She gasped as he lifted her to sit on her bed. Pulling away from him, she groped for her wrapper and struggled to push her arms through the sleeves. “What are you doing here?”

“I came when you screamed.”

She faltered, no longer certain of anything. “I screamed?”

“Yes. I came in here, and you cried out something about the dark smothering you.”

She shivered. “Yes. It is dark in here. Mayhap if we lit a few more lamps.”

“That is simple enough. If you are frightened of the dark, you should leave on more than just one turned low.” He lit the other lamps in the room.

“Afraid of the dark? I am not afraid of the dark. It is the storm …” Lightning flashed, making the trees ebony against the white sky.

When Abigail sobbed and buried her face against his chest, Dominic enfolded her to him. “I recalled you saying how frightened you are of storms. I guessed you would be upset by this one.” He sat on the edge of the bed, and she nestled against him.

The sky glowed with more lightning, and she moaned.

“It is all right,” he murmured. “Hush, it is all right.”

“Don't leave me, Dominic. Please don't leave me.” She hated her own weakness, but she could not help her fear as thunder crashed overhead.

He tipped her face back. When her hands slowly rose to his shoulders, he captured her lips. The storm's power flowed through her as his kisses became more demanding. She forgot the tempest overhead as she was swept away by the thunderous pulse of his desire. When his lips brushed a ticklish spot along her neck, she began to laugh.

He drew away. “What is so funny? I must say, this is the first time a woman has laughed when I kissed her.”

“Oh, Dominic,” she said through her chuckles, “forgive me. It is just … just …”

“Just what?”

“'Tis just that I could begin to love storms if you spent them with me like this.” Her laughter eased as she stroked his cheek. Her voice thickened with desire. “You make me feel so safe.”

With a scowl, he pressed her back against the rumpled covers. “I do not want you to be safe with me,
chérie
. I want you to fear that your mind will be stripped away by the madness of ecstasy.”

Just as his lips touched hers, thunder cracked overhead. She cringed and hid her face on his shoulder. “I am trying not to be scared,” she whispered.

“Do not be ashamed. We all fear something.” He smoothed her hair back from her face.

“What are you afraid of, Dominic?”

He smiled. “Of being away from the sea. Of being unable to delight in the wind on my face and feel my ship dancing with the rhythms of the water.”

“I had no idea.”

“How could you?” He tweaked her nose. “After all, have we ever spoken of the fears deep in our hearts? Usually we spit at each other.”

“I am sorry that you are so far from your
La Chanson.
”

“Give me no sympathy,
chérie
, for soon I shall be sailing
La Chanson
again.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I must.”

Lightning flashed. Despite her efforts, Abigail quailed from the thunder that ached through her head. She was glad to have Dominic's arms around her.

When he gathered the pillows against the headboard, she smiled as he leaned against them. She rested her cheek against his chest. Rain struck the window, and she sighed with relief. The arrival of rain usually signaled the end of the lightning and thunder.

Amusement tinged Dominic's voice. “Have you always been so afraid of storms?”

“Always. Aunt Velma tried to cure my fear with stories she invented about the thunderstones where lightning was born.”

“Thunderstones?”

At his shocked gasp, she looked up. She could see his eyes' shadowed depths, but could not guess what hid there. “You know about thunderstones?”

“Yes, but I have never heard anyone use that term in English.”

“'Tis an old word my aunt learned from her grandmother. She told me tales of magic elves who brought the sun's power to the thunderstones, which crashed to earth in the midst of a storm.” She sat and leaned her chin on her knees. “Even that did not help ease my terror.”

He stroked her hair. “I was scared of storms when I was a child, too.” He wrapped his arms around her. “My
maman
held me like this and sang French lullabies.”

“I cannot imagine you frightened of anything.” She laughed softly. “How your mother must worry about her son the pirate.”

“The privateer.” When she laughed again, he squeezed her shoulders. “
Maman
long ago learned that her son was born to a life of adventure. In that way, she says I am much like my father. Apparently, he found it as hard as I do to compromise his ideals. She is pleased that I serve my country this way. The other choice would be to find myself in the infantry marching across Europe.”

Her laugh disappeared as another boom of thunder invaded the room. “Isn't that storm ever going to leave?”

“Hush,
chérie.
” Putting his finger under her chin, he brought her lips to his. Her arms encircled his shoulders as he lowered her back to the pillows and leaned over her. “Don't think of the storm,
chérie
. That is not part of our lives anymore. We are apart from the rest of the world, for how else could a lovely American lady be kissed by the captain of a French privateer and not be filled with hatred?”

“Mayhap this night is a magic one.”

“Aye, and you are the sorceress who drives me crazy with her spells.”

As the thunder vanished into the distance, Abigail did not hear the last rumbles. His kisses rained against her skin as fiercely as the storm threw itself at the windows. His fingers stroked her eagerly, as did his lips. Through her rose a heated wave which threatened to drown her in desire. She touched him, learning the shapes of his body which were so different from her own.

When his fingers moved along the upsweep of her breast, she gasped against his mouth. Trembling with the need as compelling as the man who invoked it, she tangled her hands in his hair. Her ragged breath was loud in her own ears when his lips explored the skin above her nightgown's neckline. Deep in her, an aching emptiness beseeched her to press closer to him.

Suddenly something moved along Abigail's leg. She cried out in horror.

Dominic pulled away and put his hand over his ear. “What in hell are you screeching about now?”

“I thought … But 'tis just rain. It is blowing through the window. I must not have closed it completely.”

“Then close it now,
chérie
, and come back to my arms.”

“No,” she whispered. “Give me time, Dominic.”

Holding her face between his hands, he murmured, “I do not know how much time we have.”

“No one seems to suspect the truth.”

“But the truth has a way of becoming known.” He ran a finger along her arm and whispered, “But it is not just that. I want you, Abigail. I want to touch you without anything between us. I long to taste every inch of your slender beauty. When I pulse within you, you will understand how you seduced me to heed the longing on your lips instead of the words you speak.”

Unsure how to answer, she whispered a good night. He stood and gazed down at her. All she needed to do was reach out to him and he would stay. She could not—not when she recalled the words spoken in the carriage. Her fingers rose to touch his face.

He caught her wrist in a tight grip. His voice was as taut. “
Chérie
, be certain of your choice.”

A knock sounded on the door.

Abigail slowly drew her hand out of his. Going to the door, she opened it to see a maid.

“Lady Sudley wished to ascertain that nothing is amiss,” the maid said with a quick curtsy.

“You may inform her that everything is as it should be.” As she closed the door, Abigail turned to see Dominic by the door to his room. “That is the biggest lie I have ever spoken.”

“Mayhap it is just as well, for it is clear that our hostess is being most attentive.” A whisper of a smile tilted one side of his mouth. “She would be quite shocked if you were no longer my oblivious wife who sleeps here alone, but my lover who expresses our pleasure with her not-so-soft sighs.”

She was not sure how his words managed to crawl beneath her skin to quiver there like a bolt of lightning. They stirred through her, whetting her longing until it became an ache she could not ignore. She gripped the latch on the door to keep her feet from carrying her into his arms.

He must have mistaken her silence for anger, because he said, “Good night,
chérie
. If another storm sweeps down on us, you need only to come to me.”

And if a storm does not arrive, I still can go to you
. She could not silence that thought, but replied, “Good night, Dominic. Thank you.”

He was gone, the door clicking closed behind him, before she could be stupid and say what she really wished to. She climbed into her bed, which seemed so empty. She loved how he made her feel when his gaze roved along her. Then she forgot the eye-scorching color of her hair and the freckles that dotted her nose. When his finger traced the planes of her face in the seconds before his lips touched hers, she believed she was as lovely in his eyes as he whispered against her ear.

If the rain had not interrupted, she might have succumbed to Dominic's promise of delight. What scared her more than even the thunderstorm was how undecided she was if falling in love with her father's most hated enemy was right or wrong.

Chapter Twelve

Watching Clarissa arrange the flowers in a bowl on the table in the sitting room, Abigail tried not to let her boredom show. She was accustomed to the busy life in her aunt's house where there were always chores to be done. Even on the ship, she had helped her father with some of the tasks he despised.

She made some excuse to Clarissa and went outside. The fine house seemed too close, although she had expected to delight in the comfort of four strong walls and a roof after days of sleeping in the thin shadows and nights of walking along a country lane.

“Escaped?”

Abigail whirled to see Dominic rising from a chair on the terrace. She smiled when he walked more easily than he had since the
Republic
was sunk.

“I should not say yes.” She laughed.

“But that is the answer.”

She nodded, admiring how the sun danced with blue fire off his hair. In the fine clothes that Lady Sudley had taken from her husband's dressing room, he could have been a country squire himself, enjoying this sunny day as he kept an eye on his estate.

Walking to the edge of the terrace, Abigail leaned her hands on the stone rail. She was silly to have such thoughts. There would be only one place where Dominic St. Clair belonged, and that was on his ship.

“You seem aimless,” Dominic said as he sat on the rail beside her.

“I am.”

“Mayhap it is wiser to look at this time and this place as an opportunity to give ourselves a chance to catch our breaths before …”

She faced him. “My breath is well caught. Several days ago. Now I am at wits' end trying to keep from losing them.”

Dominic laughed. “Is that your very polite way of saying you are suffering from ennui?”

“You are assuming the vocabulary of the Polite World with incredible speed.”

“As you are.” He laughed again. “A few days ago, you would not have known what the term Polite World meant. Now listen to you. You could be a miss about to enjoy her first Season.”

“I fear I am too old.”

“You?”

“When her mother is not about, Clarissa laments endlessly that she will be left on the shelf because Lord Sudley insists that she wait another year before she is fired-off.” Abigail sat next to him and let her feet rock against the wall. “You are right. Listen to me.”

“I am, and I am glad you have such a quick ear for the language that may be our best guise in London.” He paused as a bird shrieked overhead, then added, “Such skulduggery is not easy for an honest man like me.”

“You seem to be as quick at learning that as I am with the cant of the
ton.
”

“Fortunately for both of us.”

Abigail gazed up at the trees where two birds seemed to be having an argument. She listened to their squawks, which ended when they flew away in opposite directions. With a sigh, she ran her fingers along the uneven stones.

Dominic's hand lightly settled over hers, following the sinuous motion her fingers made across the edges of the stones. She looked at him and knew she did not want to look away. The enticing curve of his mouth, the heated sparks in his eyes, the gentle caress of his rough skin on her hand, all offered an invitation that echoed within her heart.

His other hand came up to cup her cheek as he whispered, “I could not ask for a better partner in this adventure.”

Abruptly he stood and looked toward the road that wound from the gate to the house. Several riders were coming at top speed in front of a carriage.