My Lady Pirate (38 page)

He saw her, facing him with her back against the bulkhead, her breasts thrusting against her shirt and her face white with rage. She was holding a pistol, pointing it at him. Her hands were shaking. Her throat was working. He went right up to her, seized her collar, yanked her forward, and drew her up to within an inch of his face.

“I have one thing to say to you,” he growled, holding her so close that her breath touched his cheeks, “and one thing only—”

“Say it!”
she screamed.

He smiled, his teeth flashing white in his swarthy face. “I love you.”

And then his head bent and he claimed her lips with his own.

She melted beneath the sheer force of the kiss, the fury and love and desperation with which he drove his mouth down against hers. The pistol fell from her hand, but she never heard it hit the deck. He forced her backward, crushing her between his body and the bulkhead. His tongue plunged into her mouth, and she smelled salt water in his clothes, tasted it on his lips.

Gasping, she tore her lips from his. “How dare you think you can just come in here and—”

Her tirade was effectively cut off by his mouth slamming down on hers once more. He

kissed her with an almost brutal desperation, robbing the very breath from her body, the strength from her legs, the resolve from her will. She could not resist him. Had never been able to—

She came up, dazed and gasping, her eyes glazed with desire.

“I’ll dare anything I damn well please,” he ground out, his dark face just inches from her own. He reached up, tore the hat from his head, the sword belt from his waist, and flung both to the deck. “Tell me you love me, Maeve.”

“I—”

‘‘Tell me!”

“Aye, I love you, but I’ll not marry you! I’m a bloody
pirate,
remember? A vile, despicable, thieving,
murdering
pi—”

His lips came down against hers yet again. Struggling, Maeve felt his tongue stabbing into the warm recesses of her mouth, his hot breath burning her cheeks. It was no use fighting him. It was no use fighting how she felt about him. Sighing, she sagged against him, even as his hands caught the collar of her shirt and, with one savage yank, ripped the blousy garment from her body. Her breasts filled his hands and she moaned as he tore his mouth from hers and left a hot path of kisses simmering the length of her neck, capturing first one nipple and sucking hungrily on the hard bud, then the other, until she was writhing with delight and despair.

“Dammit, Gray . . . I cannot resist you . . . You cannot resist me . . . Does it have to
be
this way?”

He bent his head, licking, tasting, suckling, her breasts, while all the while his hand strayed lower until it found the hot core of her womanhood and made her writhe with the pressure he exerted there. Her knees went to liquid, but she was able to hold her balance, pinned as she was between him and the bulkhead. Dark spots swam before her eyes. His hand drove beneath her waistband, yanking the trousers down and off; she felt his fingers sliding inside of her, and on a half sob of anger and defeat, sank down against his hand.

“No Maeve, it
doesn’t
have to be this way,” he muttered, against the damp hair at her temple. ‘Two people who love each other ought to be together. Not fighting each other.”

He stepped back and caught her as she fell. She felt herself being hoisted up in his arms, but he never made it to the bunk. Halfway across the cabin he set her down, tore off his coat, laid her down atop it, and kissed her until she couldn’t see straight, think straight, even remember her name. His body covered hers, seeking, driving, wanting. Her hands clawed impatiently at his shirt, found the damp skin just beneath, then downward, the flap of his breeches. His mouth drove against hers and his body crushed her, forcing her head and spine against the deck. But she never felt the pain, never felt anything but the boiling cauldron that was her blood, the hot length of his arousal swelling against her hand.

The climb was short, fast, hard, and brilliant. He drove himself into her, and took her with a savage intensity that nearly impaled her to the deck upon which she lay. And when it was over, she lay bathed in sweat and the ashes of her anger, clasping his body fiercely to her own. His breathing was harsh and fast above her; his curses, soft and angry. He reached up, and pushing his hand into her hair, stroked it gently, over and over again.

“I can’t believe I just did that,” he muttered. “I feel like a bloody animal. God, Maeve, tell me I didn’t hurt you.”

“You didn’t.”

He raised himself up, taking his weight on his forearms so as not to crush her. He was silent for a moment and then he asked, “Can you forgive me, Maeve?”

“There is nothing to forgive you for, Gray,” she said. “You have made love to me. Never

apologize for
that
.”

“No, no, you don’t understand.” He dropped tender kisses on her brow, her cheeks. “I turned away from you after you killed el Perro Negro. After you’d saved my life, for God’s sake. I was wrong, Maeve. Wrong to expect you to behave like a fainthearted bit of fluff, wrong to be angry with you for showing the bold courage that first attracted me to you. Here you defended me, saved my life, and how did I thank you? By turning away.” His voice was anguished. “I feel like a vile, undeserving
wretch
.”

“You are.” She grinned at his helpless look, then reached up to touch her finger to his nose.

“But I forgive you, Gray.”

“Do you, Maeve? Do you, honestly—”

“I
forgive
you, Gray,” she said again, kissing him.

“Then you will give up your life as a pirate and marry me?”

“I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“For God’s sake, Maeve—”

“Gray, I told you, I have
obligations
.”

He stared down at her for a long, frustrated moment; then, his eyes went black with

hopelessness and he lunged to his feet, leaving her lying there on the floor with his coat beneath her back. He buttoned his breeches. Picked up his sword belt. Retrieved his hat.

“Gray, please, you don’t understand!”

He shook his head. “Belay it, Maeve, I don’t want to hear it. I offer you everything I have, and still you throw it back in my face. Go find some thieving scoundrel like the one you just disposed of, if that’s what you want. Because you sure as hell don’t want an officer, despite whatever rubbish you once told me about
Gallant Knights
.”

“But why must you
marry
me?” She got up, hugging her arms to skin that was suddenly cold where he had earlier touched it. She felt empty inside, scared. “Must you own me, Gray?

Can’t we just be lovers?”

He spun around, his eyes blazing. “I wish to marry you, Maeve, because I’m an honorable

man. I wish to marry you because you are everything I ever wanted in a woman. It has nothing to do with
ownership,
I wish to marry you because, dammit,
I love you
!”

He snatched his coat up from the deck, and donned it with angry, jerky movements that

nearly tore the lining out of the sleeves. Maeve caught her lip between her teeth to keep it from trembling, to keep herself from saying the words she longed to say, that he longed to hear.

But then she thought of her family of pirates she would be deserting, and the words just

wouldn’t come out.

“Good day, madam,” the admiral said coldly, and turning on his heel, strode swiftly from the cabin.

###

The two admirals walked
Victory’s
stately quarterdeck, working off their suppers and listening to the band playing “Hearts of Oak.” They were a familiar sight, Sir Graham munching a biscuit and staring glumly off at
Kestrel,
Nelson fretting with his empty sleeve and staring anxiously out to sea. Tonight, like every night for the past week, they were together, commiserating over their mutual despair.

For Nelson, the likelihood of catching up with his panicky nemesis Villeneuve grew more

and more remote the closer the British fleet got to Europe. His face was pale and haggard, and he was in desperate need of rest. His nights were hellish, and he managed no more than two hours of sleep before violent coughing spells woke him; then, huddled in his coat against the damp night air, he would go up on the lonely quarterdeck and stare dismally out over the darkened sea.

His thoughts were sadly transparent. He had crossed the ocean in search of an enemy, and

failed to find and destroy him. He had let England down. He would no longer be a hero.

Villeneuve was still loose, and probably safely back in some French or Spanish port by now. But the threat of invasion still remained, and Nelson could not sleep, could not eat, could not think of anything but his frantic desire to
annihilate
the enemy fleet—and the brilliant new plan he was working out for doing just that.

“You think it amusing, do you?” Gray was saying. “The one woman in the world I have ever

truly loved, and she won’t have me.” He stared off at the distant schooner. “By God, sir, I don’t know what else to do to convince her of my love for her.”

Poor Falconer,
Nelson thought. He would not have a practicing pirate for a wife, and she would not have an admiral for a husband. Two stubborn people, neither willing to make

compromises . . . a fine mess, the two of them were in.

“Persist in your chase, Gray, and I daresay you’ll be up with her soon enough!”

“No. She refuses to give up her life as a pirate.”

“And it is unthinkable, of course, for you, as an admiral, to marry one.”

“I don’t know what to do, dammit.”

“She’ll come around.”

“I don’t think so.”

“For God’s sake, Falconer, the girl’s in love with you! If only you could have seen the state she was in when she came to me with the news you’d found the enemy fleet.”

Gray perked up, ever so slightly. “Really?”

“Aye, really.” Nelson smiled with remembrance. “’Twas quite affecting, if I do say so

myself.”

Victory
hit a swell, and spray hissed along the great hull. Nelson thought of the letter he’d sent the girl’s parents when she’d lain so close to death, and wondered idly if he should mention it to Gray. But maybe some matters were better left alone.

“Well, she still refuses to marry me. You’d think that any woman would want the life I can give her, but no. Not Maeve. She refuses to exchange her life as a she-wolf for one of

comparative dullness, boredom, and wealth.”

“Sarcasm does not become you, Gray.”

“No? Well, I have been chasing her as ardently as you have the French with the same

fruitless results!”

Nelson sighed, stopped, and looked the younger man straight in the eye. “Let me tell you a little story about the French, Gray . . .”

Just off
Victory’s
weather quarter,
Triton
awaited her admiral’s return. Framed in the space between bowsprit and forecourse, Gray could just see
Kestrel,
a lone speck on the horizon.

Maeve,
he thought, bleakly.
What will it
take?

“For two years I blockaded the enemy at Toulon,” Nelson was saying. Then, irritably:

“Damn you, Falconer, are you listening to me?”

“Why yes, sir, of course—”

Nelson pursed his lips and made a noise of impatience. “For two years,” he said again, “I blockaded the enemy at Toulon. Call me impatient, but I was not happy keeping them bottled up, safely in port.
I wanted them to come out so I could fight them
.”

Gray looked at his friend. Nelson was staring out to sea, his sharp face in profile, his bold nose as straight and true as the tiller of a sailboat.

“And?” he prompted in mild annoyance, wondering what Nelson was getting at.

“And so I devised a scheme to tempt them out.” The setting sun turned the sea to molten

gold. Nelson stared at the fiery orb, his poor, abused eye beginning to water helplessly. “The French admiral was like a mouse playing bo-peep at the edge of her hole, creeping out to see what I was up to, darting back in, tormenting me, teasing me—” He paused, seized by a spell of coughing, then he turned to Gray, his eye penetrating and fierce.
“And I knew that as long as I
hovered near her hole, that mouse would never come out.
So you know what I did? I shall tell you! I took my fleet out to sea, and in so doing, I
tempted the mouse out of the hole!

“Veal-noove,”
Nelson declared, wagging his finger before Gray’s nose, “may have escaped me at Toulon, but when I catch up with him—
as indeed I will!
—I shall pounce, I shall destroy, I shall
annihilate
him! And to that end, Falconer, it is time for me to tell you about my plan, my plan to defeat him and any hopes that devil Bonaparte has of invading England. Now come with me, and I will explain it to you!”

With Nelson leading the way, they strode beneath the poop deck—and it was there, in the

gloomy shadows, that Nelson revealed the true magnitude of his genius.

“Now pay attention,” he snapped.

Snatching up a pencil, the little admiral flipped over a chart and drew a line of ships while Gray leaned over his shoulder, watching with growing attentiveness. “The British navy,” Nelson said, sketching madly, “has always put its ships in a line alongside that of the enemy, the victor being determined by whichever side has the superior force of guns. But I am devising a
new
plan, Gray, a singular, brilliant plan which
cannot fail.

“This is
Veal-noove’s
fleet”—Nelson dashed off a line of wedges representing ships—“all sailing in the traditional line-of-battle formation. And these”—he penciled in three short columns, all spearheading toward the long enemy line on a right-angled collision course—“are
my
ships. I will break the line, Falconer. I will smash it in three places and thus overwhelm them!

Do you understand, Gray? Tempt the mouse out of the hole, then divide and conquer! It is the only way . . .
and it
—
can
—
not—fail!
”