Master of Seduction (14 page)

They fell silent for a few minutes. Then Tarik and Billy began playing a game of dice while Alice opened a small hemp bag and produced yarn and a set of knitting needles.

Lorelei watched as Alice set about knitting with expert skill and if she didn’t know better, she’d swear ’twas a baby blanket Alice was making.

“Do you do this every night?” Lorelei asked the small group.

“Aye,” Kesi said.

A soft breeze blew in from the ocean and the sounds of the waves enveloped Lorelei with a sense of peace. Though it was too bizarre to comprehend, she actually felt safe on board this ship of miscreants.

Was this how her grandmother had felt when she’d sailed on board her grandfather’s ship?

She’d often told Lorelei of card games and songs they’d sung all those years ago. But never had any of that seemed real to her. Her elderly grandmother hardly looked or acted the type of woman who would run off to sea with her lover. If not for Granny-Anne’s infamy, and her ability to handle a sword, Lorelei would have completely discounted her stories.

But they were real, each and every one. She knew that now.

“Hey, young Kit,” one of the sailors called from across the deck. Lorelei looked to see Kit and Jack climbing up to the main deck. “Isn’t it time for you to be in bed?”

Kit stuck his tongue out.

“Kit,” Jack said with a hint of laughter in his voice. “Don’t be rude.”

Unaware of her, Jack urged Kit toward a group of men playing cards while he talked with the man who had spoken. A few minutes later, Kit went rushing back to his father with a winning hand.

Looking at the cards, Jack smiled at the boy and congratulated him before he patted his back.

She smiled at the sight and warmth rushed through her. Whether he admitted it or not, Jack loved that boy. A boy who had no relationship to him whatsoever.

You know what I miss most, Lori
, she heard her grandmother say.
I miss your grandfather’s laughter. The way he could make me feel happy when I was doing nothing more than looking at him. One day, I hope you’ll know exactly what I mean
.

Lorelei tensed at the thought. Wherever had that come from? She certainly didn’t feel
that
for Jack. ’Twas Justin who made her happy.

Placing her knitting in her lap, Alice leaned over and said to her, “He’s a handsome man, isn’t he?”

“Who is?” Billy snapped, pulling his pipe out of his mouth. He scanned the crew as if looking for a man to pulverize.

“The captain, Mr. Bill,” Alice snapped to her husband as she wound her hand in another length of yarn. “And I’m not talking to you.”

Alice looked away from him and met Lorelei’s gaze. “You know, he once took a bullet for my Billy.”

“He took more than that to keep me safe,” Tarik added as he tossed his dice against the edge of the ship. “There’s not a man on this ship what doesn’t owe his life to the captain for one reason or another.”

“And I owe him for you,” Kesi said as she snuggled up into Tarik’s arms. “I’d have never known you if he hadn’t shown up at my father’s party uninvited.”

Tarik smiled as he stroked her chin. Their love for one another was more than apparent.

“
Pardonnez-moi, Mademoiselle
Dupree.”

Lorelei looked up at Henri, who was bestowing a handsome smile her way. He wore a pair of white breeches and shirt with a tan waistcoat embroidered in blue. His long hair was secured in a queue and he looked rather dashing and debonair.

“They are about to play a jig and I was wondering if you might care to join me for the dance?”

Lorelei wasn’t sure what to answer. The last thing she wanted was to be the center of everyone’s attention.

“Ah, go on,” Alice said, setting her knitting aside. “Kesi, Tarik, Billy, and I will all join you.”

Tarik looked up from his game like he wanted to argue, but one glance at Kesi’s arched brow stifled whatever objection he’d been planning to make.

You shouldn’t do this
. And yet the fact that Henri had gone to such efforts on her behalf made her refusal impossible. “I would be honored.”

He beamed, and held his arm out for her.

Lorelei took his arm, then warned him, “I’m afraid I don’t know how to dance a jig, Henri. I hope you’ll forgive me if I trample your toes.”

“’Twould be my pleasure to have you grind my toes to dust,
mademoiselle
. But then you are not so inept, I think.
Non
, you will be a most excellent dancer.”

“How can you tell?”

“Your
joi de vive
. Surely such passion as yours is not merely limited to your ability to paint.”

He took her hands in his and arched them up and away from their bodies.

“I certainly hope you’re right,” she said as the musicians began playing.

Lorelei did her best to keep up with the intricate steps, but still she trampled his toes about as much as Justin abused her own. Henri didn’t seem to mind, though. In fact, he merely laughed about it and kept giving her hints on how to improve. Even though she was doing a terrible job of it, she enjoyed trying to match his steps.

By the time the music stopped, she was breathless and completely disheveled. Exhilarated, she patted the wayward strands of her hair back into place, then straightened her skirt, which had shifted slightly while Henri had twirled her about.

Henri turned to her and whispered, “I hope you’re a better
artiste
than
danser, mademoiselle
.”

She laughed, until she caught sight of Jack, who had come forward to watch them. The raw hunger tinged by fury in his eyes froze her where she stood.

However, since Henri had his back to Jack, he was completely unaware of his captain’s displeasure. His face was alight while he gave her a stiff bow. “Thank you for humoring me,
Mademoiselle
Dupree. It’s been a long while since I had a proper woman dance with me.”

Deciding to ignore Jack, she purposefully directed her gaze to Henri. “It was truly my pleasure.”

He held his arm out for her.

Casting a “So there!” look to Jack, she curled her arm into Henri’s and allowed him to lead her back to where Tarik and the others were regrouping.

She forced herself not to look back to where Jack was no doubt scowling at her, and walked over to the railing. She leaned against it so that she could focus on the ocean. But in truth, she could still feel Jack’s gaze on her like a physical touch. Henri moved to stand by her side and then duplicated her pose, leaning his arms against the railing.

Henri was about as handsome as Jack and he was definitely kinder. Why, then, didn’t he make her heart beat faster, or her body ache the way Jack did?

Point of fact, why had Justin never made her feel that way?

Unwilling to examine that thought, she asked Henri, “How is it you learned to paint?”

“
Mon père
, uh, my father, he was a painter.”

“Really?”

“
Oui
, he studied in Paris. But like so many others, he could never make a living doing what he loved to do.”

“That’s a pity,” she said, feeling for the man. “I take it he taught you?”

Henri shrugged and looked a bit sheepish. “What can I say? He tried, but I…I was not an apt
étudiant
. I was determined not to make his same mistake. I listened to my mother when she said such things were a complete waste for a man, and so I ignored my
destiné
.”

It was obvious that it bothered him that he had forsaken his father’s work. Poor Henri. “Is that why you became a sailor? To make a better living?”

“
Non
,” he said with a hint of bitterness in his voice. “I was working the docks in Paris unloading ship cargo to help feed
maman
when a press gang caught me and sold me to an English ship that was in the harbor.”

“Oh, Henri,” she said, reaching out to touch his hand and offer him comfort. “It must have been terrible for you.”

“
Mais oui
.” He gave her hand a gentle pat. “Worse so, for I spoke no English at the time. I had a hard time learning what it was they wanted from me.”

“Did one of the sailors teach you?”

“
Non
, a few lashes of the whip along with a few kicks of the boot and I learned very fast what it was they wanted me to do.” He shook his head and sighed. “At the time, I thought, Henri, you
stupide
fool, for this you gave up art.”

Her heart went out to him and all he’d suffered. “How is it you became a pirate?”

The right side of his mouth quirked up and he laughed. “Captain Jaques took the English ship a few years back. He offered freedom to those of us in chains if we swore ourselves to his service.”

“And for that you were willing to have yourself hanged by the authorities if you are ever taken?”

He tilted his head. “Better that than to serve the English crew who paid me nothing and treated me like a dog. After the horrors I witnessed, one day of freedom is worth the possibility of death. I would rather die a free man than die a slave.”

She knew numerous men who felt the same way. Numerous men she’d grown up with who were fighting a war at home for just that ideal.

Henri turned slightly sideways so that he could look at her. Lorelei kept her gaze on the waves and the ever darkening sky. “I think,
mademoiselle
, that you understand that need?”

“I do,” she whispered. “Much more than you would think.”

Henri reached out and smoothed a strand of her hair which had come free of her braid. “You are a brave woman, Lorelei.”

“Not half as brave as you, Henri,” Billy said, drawing their attention back to where he sat on the deck with Alice.

Billy inclined his head in the other direction.

Lorelei turned to see Jack glaring at them with a fierce scowl.

Henri quickly removed his hand from her.

Billy clucked his tongue. “He hasn’t looked that mad since we heard of what Wallingford did to the
Dove
.”

That drew Lorelei’s attention away from Jack and his temper.

“What did the admiral do?” she asked, hoping he would be more forthcoming with the information than Jack had been.

Billy exhaled a wreath of smoke, then tapped his pipe against the deck of the ship. “After he took the ship in battle, he ordered the crew tied up and the ship burned.”

Her stomach lurched. Lord Wallingford? Surely not. “Nay,” she argued. “He would never do such a thing.”

“The one they call ‘Butcher Gabe’ has done much worse than that,” Henri said, drawing her attention back to him. “I heard he captured a colonial merchant slave ship and when his men found guns he suspected were for the Patriots, he ordered it burned as well.” Henri’s eyes turned dark, angry. “There were over eight hundred men and women chained below the deck. It is said you could hear their screams for leagues.”

Lorelei tried to reconcile their stories with the fatherly man she knew so well. It was true the admiral was quite stern, but could he truly be capable of such atrocities?

Before she could think better of it, Lorelei looked at Henri. “Haven’t any of you ever done such?”

The entire group looked offended. “We don’t kill defenseless men and we’ve certainly never butchered women,” Tarik sneered. “You’ll find no cowards on board this ship.”

“I’m sorry,” Lorelei quickly amended. “I didn’t mean that, it’s just I’ve heard similar stories of Captain Rhys and his crew, about how unmerciful all of you have been to captives.”

“You can’t believe all you hear,” Billy said. “Most of us are here simply to make enough money so that we can leave piracy behind and be wealthy men who live to a nice old age. We do what we have to do to survive, but we do no more than that.”

“Then how do you know the stories of the admiral are true?” she asked.

“I used to sail on Wallingford’s ship,” Billy confessed, his lip curled by repugnance. “And I can tell you firsthand that we’ve never done half an act as heinous as what the
good
admiral would order on a daily basis. Wallingford has it in his head that he is acting on God and king’s orders so any crime he commits is divinely ordained.”

Dumbfounded, Lorelei stared at him. She’d actually heard the admiral say something very similar to that on several occasions.

Still, it couldn’t be true. Could it?
Could
the man who’d held her as a young girl, and often referred to her as his adopted daughter, really be capable of such atrocities?

The hatred blazing in Billy’s eyes was too sincere to be anything other than truth.

An ache started in Lorelei’s head.

What of Justin? Was he what she thought?

You know Justin as well as you know yourself
.

Or did she?

“
They’re just servants and slaves, Lori. Here to serve
us,
not the other way around
.”

She remembered those words from the day her governess, Gertie, had taken ill. Lorelei had been fetching extra blankets when Justin scolded her for it. At the time his attitude had irritated her, but she hadn’t paid it much attention.

Until now. Was that the attitude he showed to people when he wasn’t with her?

Justin is noble! He loves you
.

“
You know, Lori, if you ever want me to offer marriage to you, you’ll have to change your ways. I can’t have my wife seen toting blankets to a mere servant. Good Lord, woman, you’ve a house full of people to command. Call one of them and order the blanket be taken. Really, next you’ll actually be cooking a meal
.”

Pressing her hand to her forehead, Lorelei squeezed her eyes shut. There was nothing wrong with Justin’s words. Her own father had said as much to her.

Jack had tried to confuse her since the moment she first met him. Now his crew was taking up his cause. She shouldn’t listen to them. Justin and his father were good men. They had to be, or else everything she’d ever believed in was wrong. And she didn’t want to be wrong, especially not about something that was going to affect the rest of her life.