Island Flame (45 page)

Taking the bath sponge in one hand and the soap in the other, she worked up a vigorous lather on the skin of her arms and legs. One long tendril escaped from the mass on top of her head, and she tucked it up impatiently. Finally she scrubbed at her face, and then rinsed the soap away. Martha was ready with a towel as Cathy climbed out.

Cathy was wrapping the towel around herself when the door to the cabin was kicked open with such force that it bounced back on its hinges. Cathy gasped, clutching the towel to her, and turned startled eyes on the door. Martha was doing the same, and little Cray, his sleep disturbed, blinked once before starting to cry.

Her consternation was such that Cathy had no thought even for Cray. Surveying her grimly from the open doorway was Jon. Water dripped from the brim of his hat and his clothes were soaked, and looking beyond him Cathy saw that rain was falling steadily, making the already dark night look even darker. His mouth was set in an uncompromisingly straight line, and his eyes blazed at her accusingly.

“Good evening, Cathy,” he said mockingly when she only gaped at him. “I’m glad to see you’ve fared so well in my absence.” His glance raked her scantily clad, still damp body from head to toes.

In her return, Cathy swiftly inspected him. He was dressed for riding in dark breeches, caped coat that swirled around his knees, tall boots, and a wide-brimmed
hat. From the looks of him he had just ridden in from Atlanta, found her gone, and somehow traced her to the
Unicorn.
Cathy swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. All her plans, her preparations might have been for naught. Then she pursed her lips thoughtfully. This was an English ship, and her father was nearby. Jon could not force her to go with him.

While Cathy stared at Jon as if frozen in place, Martha gathered her wits and crossed the cabin to pick up Cray. The baby’s cries stilled as Martha rocked him comfortingly. Jon flicked a glance toward his son and the nursemaid.

“Martha, would you take Cray elsewhere, if you please? I would like to have a word with my wife.”

“Yes, sir.” Martha sounded subdued, and Cathy guessed that the woman found Jon almost as intimidating as she did. But such thoughts were rudely shattered when Martha turned a brief, triumphant look on her before sliding from the cabin. When the two were gone, Jon closed the door very softly, then shed his wet hat and coat with almost casual movements. The dampness of the night had pushed his black hair into deep waves, and he raked a hand through it impatiently before leaning back against the closed door, his arms folded over his chest.

“Suppose you explain to me just what the sweet hell you think you’re doing here.” His voice was still mild, but his eyes were leaping with anger. Cathy wanted to drop her own before that burning gaze. Instead she wrapped the towel more securely around her body, tilted her chin, and returned his look coldly.

“I’m leaving you. I should think that was obvious.”

“So you’re leaving me, are you? Just like that, without
a word, while I’m away earning a living for you and your son? Our son.” The gray eyes burned brightly at her. Cathy met them steadily.

“Yes.”

“Like hell.” His shoulders came away from the door, and he crossed the floor toward her in two swift strides, his hands clamping hurtfully down over her slender bare shoulders. Cathy held her ground, forcing herself to look up into that menacing face with a calmness she was far from feeling. His long fingers bit deeply into her soft flesh.

“You’re not leaving me.” The words were ground out from between clenched teeth. That tell-tale muscle was throbbing warningly in his jaw. His big body was tense with anger, his face dark with it. He looked as if he could easily do her an injury.

“You can’t stop me. Even if you were to carry me bodily off this ship, I’d find another sooner or later. You can’t keep me locked in, or watch me all the time.”

Her calm response seemed to infuriate him. He shook her, letting her feel the strength in his hands. Cathy’s hair tumbled down and the towel slipped. She caught the edge of it, holding it in front of her. He stopped shaking her, his eyes running over her nearly naked body almost savagely.

“Why? Have I beaten you, mistreated you in any way?” Cathy could tell he was holding on to his temper with an iron rein. She looked at him derisively. He had the grace to flush.

“You’re angry about the other night.” It was a statement, not a question. Cathy refused to answer, shifting her gaze so that she was staring stonily over his shoulder. His hands slid down to her upper arms, tightened.

“I’m sorry about that. Like you, I’d had too much to drink. Anyway, you can’t deny that you deliberately provoked me. You’d been teasing me for months, since even before Cray was born. What kind of response did you expect?”

“Not rape!” Cathy snapped, then wished she had been coldly dignified instead.

“All right, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise. What else can I say?”

“Not a thing.” Cathy pulled away from him as she spoke, and clutching the towel around her went to pull her wrapper from the trunk. She kept her back to him as she slid into it, but she could feel his eyes burning into her.

“Goddamn it, you’re not leaving me!” His voice cracked like a whip behind her. Cathy whirled to face him, golden hair flying, blue eyes flashing.

“Oh, yes, I am,” she hissed at him, tying the belt to her wrapper then clenching her fists. “And you can’t stop me!”

“The hell I can’t.”

“The hell you can’t!” Cathy was suddenly as enraged as he was. “You don’t own me, you know. And there is such a thing as divorce. Although there really isn’t much point. You’ve made this marriage such a hell that I’m not likely to repeat it!”

Jon drew in his breath sharply, his eyes darkening as if he’d been punched in the stomach. Cathy took perverse pleasure in knowing that she’d somehow managed to hurt him. He took a step toward her, then stopped. A thin white line appeared at each corner of his mouth.

“You want me to beg you, don’t you?” he asked savagely.
“That’s what you’ve wanted all along, to have me groveling at your feet. All right, you win. I’m begging you: don’t do this.”

The look he turned on her was hating. Cathy stared at him, feeling her mouth go slack with amazement. He was begging her. … Her proud pirate captain was actually begging her not to leave him! Hope began to beat suffocatingly in her breast. Was it possible … ? She had to be sure.

“Why do you want me to stay, Jon?” she asked softly, her eyes never leaving his. Angry red color seeped up under the flesh of his cheekbones. His eyes glared at her.

“God, you want your pound of flesh, don’t you?” he demanded ferociously. “All right, I’ll give it to you. I love you, goddamn it. So go ahead and laugh.”

“Say that again.” Cathy could feel the corners of her mouth quivering up into a smile. He saw it too, and his face tightened almost fiendishly. Cathy didn’t care. She was beginning to feel wildly, deliriously happy. She couldn’t believe it. He’d said he loved her and from the fierceness of him he meant it.

“So you think it’s funny, do you?” he growled, reaching for her and pulling her hard against him. “We’ll see how hard you laugh after this!”

His mouth was deliberately ungentle over hers, his arms around her like iron bands. The force of his kiss threatened to snap her spine. Cathy trembled in his hold, her arms sliding up to twine around his neck, hugging him tightly.

“I love you too, you dolt,” she murmured into the warm strength of his neck when he at last allowed her to draw breath. He went very still against her, his hands
freezing in their caressing movements. After a moment he caught her by the arms, holding her out at arm’s length so that he could look down into her face. Cathy smiled up at him mistily.

“What did you say?” His voice sounded hard, suspicious. His eyes were leaping with strange wild lights.

“I said I love you. If you weren’t so stubborn and suspicious, you’d have known it months ago.”

His eyes began to blaze, their hot depths searing her.

“If this is some kind of game you’re playing.…” He broke off, his teeth snapping together warningly. Cathy shook her head at him, her eyes warm and tender on his tense face.

“Is it so hard to believe?” she asked, gently teasing. “Of course, you can be a bully and a brute and you’re jealous and you have a vile temper, but there’s no accounting for tastes, after all.”

He closed his eyes, pulling her to him with shaking hands. She felt his mouth on her hair, and slid her arms around his waist, holding him tightly. He was murmuring love words, promises, endearments to the top of her head. They were all a low jumble of pure happiness to Cathy. She snuggled against his hard muscles, her mouth adoring his silk-covered chest, pulling his shirt out from the waistband of his breeches with hands that were not quite steady. She touched his warm flesh, ran her hands over the muscles of his back, her sensitive fingertips feeling the ridges of the scars he would carry with him to his grave. Her hands stroked lovingly, then stilled. He couldn’t still believe.…

“Darling, you believe me now, don’t you?” she whispered, pulling back from him a little so that he could hear her. He had to bend his head to catch her words.

“About what?” he smiled when she repeated her words. Cathy leaned back in the warm circle of his arms, studying his face lovingly. His eyes glowed at her, his expression gentler than she had ever seen it. She had tamed an eagle, she thought, intoxicated by the look and feel and smell of him, taught a fierce gray timber wolf to feed from her hand. The sensation was indescribable, the smile she returned to him dazzling. She was tempted to let all the unanswered questions slide until later, but she wanted to be sure that all the unhappiness was behind them.

“About what happened to you in prison,” she persisted softly. The muscles in the arms holding her tensed, the old guarded look returned to his eyes. Her heart was in her eyes as she watched these changes, and after a moment he relaxed with an effort and smiled down at her, although his face was still somewhat strained.

“You don’t have to find excuses for what you did,” he said steadily, his eyes burning with the flames of passion. “I deserved it, I know. What I did to you—kidnap, rape, forcing you to be my mistress—was unforgivable. If you love me now, that’s all that matters. We’ll never speak of what’s past again.”

Cathy uttered a sound that hovered somewhere between a laugh and a cry.

“But, Jon, darling, I promise you that I had nothing to do with it! I didn’t even know you were in prison, I swear. The
Lady Chester
sailed for England the day after you escaped! How could I have known?”

“After I escaped?” he repeated disbelievingly, his black brows drawing together in a frown. “What are you talking about?”

“After we were married,” Cathy reminded him patiently,
but accompanied the words with a reproachful look. “You escaped. You can’t possibly have forgotten!”

“My love, after we were married, and your father very properly knocked me unconscious for daring to snarl at you, I was in no condition to escape anywhere. I spent the voyage in the
Lady Chester
’s brig. When she docked in Portsmouth, I was taken in chains to London and thrown into Newgate Prison. A couple of days later I was informed that I had been sentenced to death for the crime of piracy without even the courtesy of being allowed to be present at my own trial. If not for my men, I would even now be rotting in a limestone pit in the prison yard. The only escape I made was in London, that night I came to your aunt’s house.”

“But I thought …” Cathy’s mind was in a whirl. How could this be? Before she could get her thoughts sorted a hard knock sounded at the door. Jon’s arms tightened around her, his eyes questioning.

“Are you expecting a guest?”

“No, of course not. It’s probably Martha—or my father.”

“Ah, yes. Your father. I have something I want to discuss with him.”

This speech was decidedly odd coming from a man who had only met her father once under unfavorable circumstances. There was something here that she did not understand. Cathy’s face puckered in a puzzled frown as she went to open the door.

“Daughter, I need to talk to you. There’s something you should know.…” Sir Thomas’s voice trailed off as his eyes went past Cathy to touch on the tall man who was regarding him coolly from the other side of the room.

“Hale. I want you to know I would have sent for you. That’s what I was coming to tell Cathy.”

“Papa, what are you talking about? Why would you have sent for Jon?” Cathy asked, bewildered, as she stood back to let her father enter. Sir Thomas ignored her as Jon’s eyes bore into his.

“It was a lie, wasn’t it? She had nothing to do with it, knew nothing about it.”

“Yes.” Sir Thomas’s face was ashen, his eyes almost pleading with the implacable figure before him. “She knew nothing.”

“Good God, man, I might have killed her!” The words were hissed from between clenched teeth.

“I know.” Sir Thomas sounded very tired suddenly. “I was almost out of my mind when she disappeared. I’d just been informed that you had managed to escape, and I knew you had her. I thought … God, what I thought! But you didn’t harm her, and I thank God for it.”

“You should. It was touch and go. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. But …”

“For goodness’ sake, will one of you please tell me what this is all about? Papa? Jon?” Cathy looked from one to the other of them. Their cryptic conversation could have been in Greek for all the sense it made to her.

Both men looked at her, small and fragile-seeming in the dim lamplight, long golden hair swirling about her blue silk-clad form, a frown marring her lovely brow. Jon’s eyes softened, glowed. Cathy smiled at him, a small intimate smile that she was barely conscious of. Sir Thomas watched them both, his eyes deeply troubled.

“I’ve done you a wrong, daughter.” Sir Thomas said
heavily. “But please believe that at the time I thought I was acting in your best interests.”

He paused, seeming to search for the necessary words. Cathy stared at him, faint suspicion crystallizing into a certainty. Jon crossed the room to stand behind her, his arms sliding around her waist as he pressed her back against him. Cathy’s eyes never left her father as she leaned back against the hard wall of her husband’s chest.