Jo Goodman (30 page)

Under the covers Jonna drew her knees up and pulled her shift over them. Doubly cocooned, she felt less vulnerable now. Decker was turned on his side away from her; the blankets lying loosely at the level of his waist. She stared at his naked shoulders and back. She had an urge to see her hand flat against his skin in the moonlight. Her splayed hand drew closer to his back. It hovered just above his spine before she pulled it back and curled it into a fist. She wondered if he had felt the heat of her palm before she had taken it away.

Why didn't he say anything? While she felt no regret, neither was she settled or sleepy. He appeared to be both. "Decker?" she whispered, nudging him with her voice. "I think we should talk."

It was an opinion he didn't share. He continued to give her his back and his silence.

"Are you in love with Mercedes?"

Of all the things he thought she might say, he hadn't considered this one. She must have known he wouldn't ignore this overture. He turned over. "No," he said calmly. "I'm not in love with my brother's wife."

Jonna's brows puckered slightly as she frowned.

"You don't believe me?" he asked.

It wasn't that at all, she thought. What bothered her was that she
wanted
to believe him. His answer was more important than she'd known it would be when she'd posed the question. Jonna smoothed her shift over her knees and suppressed her unease until her features cleared. "Colin told me that you saved her life."

"I think that's putting it too strongly."

"He showed me the hunting lodge at Rosefield."

So that was where Colin had taken her when they'd toured the grounds, he realized. Decker wished he hadn't.

"He said you gambled your own life to save hers."

"Have a care, Jonna." His tone was wry. "You may have to revise your opinion of me."

As he had intended, she remembered what she had told him only hours ago on the bridge. "There's no danger of that," she said coldly. "I didn't imagine that you helped Mercedes without considering how it might benefit you. I've only mistaken your motive."

He smiled, but narrowly and without amusement. "You thought I did it for love?"

"It occurred to me."

"And now?"

"I suppose you hoped to ingratiate yourself in some way. Did you know that Colin was your brother then?"

"I suspected."

"Did he share your suspicions?"

"Not at all."

That satisfied Jonna. "There you have it," she said. "He only knew you as a thief. You needed him to think better of you. What if you had shown him the heirloom earring and he'd only thought you had stolen it? You wouldn't have been welcomed into the family then."

"I wasn't precisely welcomed," Decker said. "I left England."

"Because you were awaiting sentencing. Mercedes told me how you met her in jail."

"It seems as though my family did a great deal of talking. Did they offer this information or did you ask for it?"

"They offered," she said. Then, because the lie did not go down easily, she added, "Mostly."

"Mostly?"

Jonna defended herself quickly. "I admit to some curiosity. I'm aware not everyone shares my opinion of you. Mercedes, for instance, finds much to admire."

"You shouldn't place too much emphasis on that. As you already noted, she has reasons for being biased in my favor."

"She cares more that you saved Colin's life than her own," Jonna said.

"She said that?"

"Not in just those words, but it was just as clear from the things she
didn't
say." Jonna searched Decker's impassive features. "Mercedes and Colin are very much in love."

Except to watch Jonna more closely, nothing about his expression changed. "Can't you be happy for them?" he asked.

It took Jonna a moment to understand what he was saying. Decker still believed her affection for Colin ran more deeply than a sister might feel for a brother. "I am happy for them," she said quietly. She counted on sincerity to speak for her. She would not defend herself in this regard. "Do you regret leaving England?" she asked.

"We haven't left yet."

"I meant before. Mercedes seems to think you were determined to make your own way."

His response was casual. "I believe I said something like that."

"Did your plans include a rich wife?"

"My plans always included a rich wife," he said dryly. "I only supposed that she'd be married to someone else." He caught her wrist as she would have turned away angrily. "You deliberately tried to needle me, Jonna. Don't be surprised when it's turned back on you." He released her and watched her draw her hand back quickly. He knew he hadn't hurt her, only stung her pride. "I don't regret leaving England," he told her after a moment. "I don't regret anything about it. You're right that I had a motive for helping Colin and Mercedes. It gained me my freedom."

Jonna was struck by the husky resonance of his voice. Here was a passion she had not expected, and Jonna wondered what to make of it. "I know you risked it for them," she said. This time when he said nothing the silence was powerful. Jonna had the oddest sensation that he didn't speak because he couldn't speak. "Decker?" Without thinking she reached out and touched his face. Moonlight gave a gunmetal cast to his blue eyes, and she found she couldn't look away. "You won your freedom and risked it again. Did it mean so little to you?"

"It meant so much," he said quietly.

Jonna stared at him wonderingly. She felt as if her heart were being squeezed. Suddenly it was difficult to breathe.

His fingers curled lightly around her wrist, and he removed her hand from his cheek. Her confusion was so palpable that her emotional struggle raised Decker's gentle amusement. "Perhaps you should sleep on it, Jonna. You may find I'm easy to despise again in the morning."

It would have been so simple to say she found him easy to despise at that moment. The words were on the edge of her thoughts, at the tip of her tongue. She would never know what held her back, but her discretion was rewarded by the flicker of surprise in his eyes. Her smile was vaguely smug as she withdrew her hand from his. Decker Thorne was not the only one who could respond in unpredictable ways.

Jonna turned on her side, away from him, and curled one arm under her head to support it. Reaching behind her, she found Decker's arm and brought it across her waist. Her fingers threaded through his. Several moments passed before she felt the tension wash out of him. He moved closer, and she found herself curving naturally into the cradle of his body.

Jonna had no idea what to make of this man or this marriage. What seemed clear to her now was that she liked being held by him, liked the heat and strength of his lean frame next to hers. This morning when she'd thought of sharing a bed with him she could find no comfort in the prospect. Just now it was difficult to imagine feeling anything else.

She closed her eyes. "When do we leave London?"

"At first light."

It would come too soon. In the morning she would be less certain of what she wanted. Jonna knew that now. It would be hard to justify that she found pleasure with him in this bed and that she had let him find pleasure with her. "Then you should sleep," she said.

He didn't think he would, at least not quickly, but the steady rocking of
Huntress
in her berth, and the even cadence of Jonna's breathing, brought him to that gentle state long before her.

* * *

Captain Thorne was on the bridge when Jonna saw him again. Framed in the doorway that led from the lower decks, she watched him for several minutes without being seen. His head was tilted upward as the first mate directed attention to something in the rigging. Jonna's eyes fell on his strong throat and his dark, wind-ruffled hair. He raised a hand to shield the sunlight. He might have been saluting the sky.

She liked the way he stood there, light and lithe, his body slightly arched to balance him on the rolling deck. He spoke to his first mate, pointed out something overhead, and waited for his order to be carried out. The last thing Jonna expected was for him to move toward the taffrail, make the graceful leap to its ledge, and climb into the rigging himself.

In spite of her fear she was compelled to move out of the doorway and follow Decker's progress onto the ropes.

All of her life she had been watching men do just what he was doing now and had never given it a second thought. Now she felt as though her heart was in her mouth. It didn't matter that his ascent was sure and swift, every step he took pushed her pulse a little faster.

Jonna didn't think she moved. She didn't think she could have. Yet something caught Decker's attention, and then he was peering down at her. It was the first time his foot faltered. He missed one of the cross pieces and hung there in midair upside down, his ankle caught but his grip having saved him.

Wind beat hard against the sails and flattened Decker's shirt against his chest. He thought he heard Jonna call his name, then realized it had to be a trick of the wind and water. He couldn't have heard her above the hand that was covering her mouth. She was pale as salt, and her eyes were huge. Decker pulled himself back into the rigging easily, but he knew it was too late.

Jonna fainted before he was out of the ropes.

Chapter 9

Jonna recovered from her faint as she was being carried to the cabin. Her lashes fluttered once, and she caught a glimpse of Decker's taut and impassive features. "You may put me down," she said.

"I may," he replied easily. "And I may throw you overboard. I'm not yet set on the matter." Seeing Jonna's lips flatten and the appearance of that elusive dimple, Decker smiled for the first time since she had collapsed.

Inside the cabin, he set her on the bed. She tried to sit up immediately, but the pressure of his hand on her shoulder kept her in place. "I assure you, I'm quite all right," she said. Indeed, she was more embarrassed by what had happened than physically discomforted.

Decker was not entirely convinced. He studied her face for a moment and then touched her brow and cheek with the back of his hand. "You're warm." His fingers grazed Jonna's throat. Her pulse was racing. "I think you should rest. There's some good reason why you fainted. You may be sickening."

There was a good reason, she thought. Decker had been dangling upside-down by his ankle twenty feet above her. That sight had been enough to stop the blood flow to her head and buckle her knees. "I don't feel sick," she said. Nothing could induce her to tell him what had gone through her mind before she fainted. He could put any construction he wanted upon her warm cheeks and racing heart as long as he didn't suspect the real cause.

Decker's thumb passed lightly across the hollow of her throat. "What possessed you to go topside?"

The truth served her well enough here. "Boredom mostly," Jonna said. "I can't bear it in this cabin any longer."

Her tolerance for those four walls had exceeded all of Decker's expectations, but something more had prompted her visit. "And what else?" he asked.

"I'm tired of being afraid." She stared him straight in the eye as she said it, daring him to laugh at this confession.

"Ah," he said softly, one brow arched. This was perfectly believable. "So you decided to confront your fear by stepping out on a rolling and pitching deck with no warning to anyone that you were about. You might have pitched yourself right into the Atlantic."

That had occurred to her only belatedly. "I didn't make it even half the distance to the rail. I'm not so brave as you might think."

Decker almost smiled. Failure did not sit well on Jonna's shoulders. "You're fearless to the point of being senseless." This observation was softened by the kiss he placed on her mouth. Her lips parted under his. Her breath was warm and sweet, and he had the sense the kiss was welcomed rather than merely suffered. He was of a mind to linger, to draw out the kiss in the hopes that it would become another and yet another, and eventually something more altogether. He liked the thought of making love to her in the daylight, of being able to see her pale skin made pink by sunshine, of watching her shadowless features respond to pleasure.