Merline Lovelace (3 page)

These very proper impulses gave way almost immediately, however, to the very
improper
one that frequently overtook Sarah at the most inopportune times. After a brief struggle, her sense of the absurd won out over other, more violent emotions. Lifting rueful brown eyes to the blue ones watching her with such lazy menace, Sarah gave a low, reluctant chuckle.

“Touché, Lord Straithe. Or, as my brother Harry would say, a neat riposte.”

A
t the sound of her low, musical chuckle, Jamie Kerrick felt his jaw tighten ominously. He was in no mood for laughter.

“You have a damned peculiar sense of humor, Miss Abernathy,” he growled.

She nodded. “I fear you’re right. I’ve been told on more than one occasion that it’s my worst fault Or one of the worst,” she amended with a small smile.

Jamie glared at her, unable to comprehend her levity. If the truth were told, he was having difficulty comprehending much of anything at this moment. His temples pounded from cup after cup of syrupy-sweet plum wine and his temper tugged at a short rein from hours of fruitless negotiation with the mandarin who controlled the port. More to the point, his loins ached in anticipation of what normally occurred in this chamber.

From the instant he’d turned and discovered that the woman waiting for him wasn’t his usual companion, his tenuous hold on his temper had grown more uncertain with each passing moment.

He’d identified her immediately, of course. There
weren’t many young Englishwomen in Macao with her generous physical endowments, and damned few who’d have the audacity to track him down to the House of the Dancing Blossoms. She was certainly her father’s daughter, Jamie thought sourly.

He’d met The Reverend Mr. Abernathy briefly the last time he was in port, just before his first mate pitched the missionary overboard. The crew of the
Phoenix
hadn’t taken kindly to the wild-eyed zealot who’d stormed aboard and tried to point out the error of their admittedly loose ways. Especially since they’d just completed a rough, three-month voyage and were far more interested in boat girls than baptisms.

Jamie had glimpsed the man’s daughter for the first time just a few days ago. She’d been taking the air on the Praya Grande with a lively young lad at the time. At first he’d mistaken her for a governess, given her dowdy dress and sturdy, no-nonsense walking boots. But even the unadorned green gown couldn’t disguise her noble feminine attributes. A man would have to be blind or dead from the neck down not to appreciate that prominent bosom, and Jamie was neither. The information that she was the missionary’s spinster daughter had quickly killed his incipient interest, however. He much preferred willing, experienced matrons or the delightful residents of the House of the Dancing Blossoms to dedicated, desiccated virgins.

Seeing her now at close quarters, Jamie wondered if he should have pursued his initial interest. Miss Abernathy possessed a mouth as full and generous as a man could wish for, a slender nose, and eyes that looked out on the world with a disconcerting directness. Fringed by thick, black lashes, their brown irises flecked with gold, they reminded Jamie of fine sherry
poured from a crystal decanter. At this moment, they glowed with the remnants of her surprising, irritating, and wholly unexpected laughter.

“I can think of worse faults than humor, Miss Abernathy,” he said slowly, drawn despite himself by her lively countenance.

“Not for a missionary’s daughter.”

“But then you’re a most unusual missionary’s daughter,” he retorted.

Her mouth quirked. “And are you acquainted with enough of us to have any yardstick by which to measure, Lord Straithe?”

The pert response took Jamie aback. “A damned unusual missionary’s daughter,” he muttered, as much to himself as to her.

“Well, yes,” she answered, her smile fading at his uncivil tone. “I suppose I am or I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

Tired of word games, Jamie decided it was time to rid himself of this audacious female and summon the delectable Mei-Lin to soothe his aching temples. Among other parts.

“I assume your presence has something to do with the notes you sent me, and not any desire to learn the intricacies of the Fluttering Butterfly.”

“The fluttering…?”

With a mocking grin, he gestured to one of the painted panels decorating the bed.

A wave of color washed up her neck. Lifting her chin, she glared at him. “Of course not!”

Prompted as much by his pounding, swirling senses as by the way she stuck her nose in the air, Jamie couldn’t resist taunting her just a bit.

“You might find it enlightening,” he suggested provocatively.

She pursed her lips, looking remarkably like the governess he’d previously thought her. “It’s no use trying to embarrass me, Lord Straithe. I’m well past the age of missishness, but I do wish you would refrain from any more suggestive, ill-bred innuendoes.”

Jamie took a perverse satisfaction in her prim, disapproving expression. The laughter that had so irritated him was completely gone from her eyes now. He refused to admit that he felt its loss.

“If you will meet with men in brothels, you must learn to accustom yourself to far worse than suggestive innuendoes.”

He strolled forward, intending to shock her and send her on her way. Lifting one hand, he ran a careless knuckle down her heat-stained cheek. The soft, creamy texture of her skin surprised him almost as much as his touch startled her.

She took a hasty step back. When she discovered that the bed blocked any further retreat, consternation flooded her expressive eyes.

“Lord Straithe! I must insist that you refrain from such…such…”

“Such intimacies?” he murmured, beginning to enjoy his game. “No, I think not.”

Her eyes widened at his deliberate response, and she tried to edge sideways. Jamie planted one hand against the carved teak bedpost, blocking her escape. He leaned forward until his lower chest brushed the enticing mounds of her breasts. Her very generous breasts. The contact sent St. Elmo’s Fire dancing along his nerves and heated blood still warm from several
cups of plum wine. Curling one finger under her chin, he lifted her face to his.

“Women who wait for a man in a room such as this, Miss Abernathy, must live with the consequences.”

The low words, half lazy threat and half challenge, hung between them. For endless moments her golden brown eyes held his. Then she gave her head a little shake, as if to clear it.

“You know very well why I’m here, Lord Straithe.”

“Do I?” he murmured, leaning down to nuzzle the springy curls at her temple. The faint scent of chamomile soap filled his nostrils, so different from the heavy mixture of jasmine and musk that usually assaulted his senses in this chamber.

She jerked her head away. “I do wish you would cease this ridiculous behavior. You must know that I only came here because you wouldn’t answer my summons to the Mission House.”

“At this point, Miss Abernathy, I don’t particularly care why you came.”

She put up both hands to push at his chest.

Once, James Kerrick had possessed a conscience that might have made him draw back at this point. But he’d long since put behind him the ideals of his youth where women were concerned. Moreover, he’d learned to read their contradictory signals all too well. A token resistance. A flutter of lashes over eyes that affirmed what soft lips denied. A trembling, breathless sigh that signaled surrender. All sent their own silent message.

Jamie hid a smile. The missionary’s daughter was most definitely trembling. He could feel the vibrations
from his chest all the way down to his toes. With an ease born of long practice, he bent and captured her mouth with his.

She tasted like sweet, warm honey, he thought in some surprise, before a combination of wine and reckless hunger banished all rational thought. Wrapping an arm around her waist, Jamie dragged her up against his chest. Her lush breasts pressed into his shirt. Her breath puffed out with a little sound that might have been a gasp or a sigh. With smug male assurance, Jamie decided it was a sigh.

He widened his stance, bending her back over his arm so that she had to cling to him to keep from tumbling onto the bed. A wild, pounding need rose in him, made fiercer by the way she twisted against the hardening bulge in his trousers. With the unerring skill of an experienced and generally considerate rake, Jamie rubbed his upper body against hers. He knew that the pleasure shooting through him from the friction would generate a similar sensation in the sensitive tips of her breasts.

It did.

Jamie felt hard little pebbles rise beneath her blue cotton robe. His muscles quivered with the need to lay the woman on the bed, to tug off her tunic and bare those rigid points to his touch and his taste.

As he lifted his head and stared down at her red, swollen lips, a faint echo of a long-forgotten code of honor sounded in the recesses of his mind. Jamie ignored it without any difficulty. Releasing her, he stepped back to rid himself of his shirt.

“If you’re quite finished, Lord Straithe, I wish you would compose yourself so we may proceed with the matter that brought me here.”

Jamie’s hand stilled on the ties of his shirt. He stared at her, sure that the brisk, no-nonsense voice couldn’t have come from those well-kissed lips.

It had. With an audible sniff, she tugged at the hem of her blue robe and settled it firmly around her hips.

“Really, my lord, you’ve wasted far too much of my time with this foolish attempt to scare me off.”

It took a moment for Jamie to remember that scaring this female off had been his original intention when he swept her into his arms a few moments ago. Somehow he’d forgotten that in the course of discovering what a delectable armful she was.

“Do sit down.”

“See here, Miss Ab—”

“At once, if you please!”

Jamie blinked. After years of captaining a crew composed of the most rowdy riffraff ever collected on one ship, he was more accustomed to giving commands than to being commanded. By anyone. That the determined Miss Abernathy would stand there and issue him orders in that schoolmarmish tone of voice astounded him. His temples pounding in earnest now, his blood still hot and heavy, Jamie debated whether to comply with her extraordinary order or toss the contrary female onto her back.

Sarah hid tightly clenched fists in the folds of her voluminous sleeves, praying that the black-haired rogue towering over her couldn’t see what effort it cost her to inject just that combination of exasperation and disapproval into her voice. Not by so much as a flicker of an eyelash did she betray the fact that his kiss had sent a rush of heat to every one of her extremities.

To her infinite relief—and secret, shameful disappointment—Straithe slowly lowered his long frame to
the edge of the bed. The rope springs creaked and groaned under his weight.

“All right, Miss Abernathy, I’m sitting.”

Sarah let out a long, shallow breath. It still trembled on her lips when Straithe smiled at her evilly.

“In approximately ten seconds, however, I’m going to be lying. Unless you wish to lie beside me, or under me, you’d best state your business and be gone in exactly that amount of time.”

“Ten seconds is quite enough,” she responded crisply, and plunged into the purpose of her clandestine visit. “I know that you plan to run cargo up the China coast in violation of both the East India Company’s restrictions and the Emperor’s edicts. I wish to go with you.”

He stared at her as though she’d suddenly sprouted horns.

“It’s a matter of some urgency, Lord Straithe. My father made a secret visit to the mandarin who governs Fukien. We must find him and bring him home immediately.”

His answer, short and succinct, brought Sarah’s chin up.

“Don’t be vulgar,” she admonished tartly.

“I’m going to be more than vulgar, Miss Abernathy,” he responded, rising slowly. “I’m going to—”

“In exchange for your assistance,” she interrupted, “I’ll secure you the services of a pilot.”

That caught his attention, she saw with grim satisfaction. He froze just a few paces from her, his blue eyes narrowing. For the first time since she’d entered this chamber, Sarah felt a measure of her customary confidence return.

“How the devil did you know I needed a pilot?”

“I do wish you would refrain from using such language in my presence.”

A low, strangled sound rose in his throat.

“Really, Lord Straithe, you needn’t growl at me like that. I’d like to conduct our business with some semblance of dignity.”

“We have no business.”

“Of course we do. My sources tell me that you’ve not been able to hire the services of a pilot to land your goods.” Her sources being Cook’s redoubtable and quite extensive network of blood relatives, in-laws and compatriots, of course. “Nor will you be able to do so.”

“It that so?”

“Yes, that’s so. You should know, sir, that word of your past smuggling activities has reached even the Celestial City. The Emperor sent a message sealed with his own personal chop to His Excellency, Lord Wu Ping-chien. He wants a halt to all illegal trading in general, and yours in particular. The decree has circulated throughout Mong Ha that anyone who guides the
Phoenix
to any port other than Canton will lose his head.”

Jamie stared down at her, his mind working furiously. So that was why he’d been kept dangling for the past three days. Why the mandarin in charge of ports had smiled and nodded and accepted the customary bribes with a gracious wave of his hand, promising all but providing nothing except plum wine. The wily old bastard!

Well, despite the Emperor’s edict, Jamie had no intention of sailing upriver to Canton. Other ship captains may dutifully load and unload their cargoes there,
under the watchful eye of the East India Company, but not Jamie. He’d been his own man too long to bow to the authority of a bunch of damned clerks.

As if beating up the South China seas just ahead of the monsoons and battling off hordes of pirates in the arduous journey out from England weren’t enough, ship captains flying flags other than that belonging to the East India House were expected to hand over a hefty portion of their anticipated profits to the Company for usage fees, then still more in bribes to Chinese officials.

A growing number of enterprising captains avoided this polite form of piracy by slipping up the China coast to unload their cargoes at ports other than Canton. Jamie was one of them. On his last two runs he’d spread enough “squeegee,” as the bribes were called, to ensure a blind eye at every illegal port he sailed into. The results had been spectacular. So spectacular, in fact, that he and the motley collection of former pirates and cashiered navy men he called a crew had sunk much of their profits from the previous voyages into the cargo now crammed into the hold of the
Phoenix
—a cargo that would soon rot in the steaming summer heat if Jamie didn’t get rid of it, fast. To do so, he needed a navigator who knew China’s coastal waters.