Seize the Fire (15 page)

"Oh…no…" Her body was trembling, moving under his with an enticing confusion of invitation and denial.

He brushed her lips with his and smiled at her, finding her virginal foolishness to be fiercely seductive. He wasn't much of a hand at virgins—had never had one, in fact; had always claimed they were overrated and too damned expensive—but the feel of her, the flutter of her breath on his cheek, the fresh cushion of her skin beneath his lips…he felt his wits slipping, a distant sense of dismay; Palmerston and Claude Nicolas and dying young be damned. He wanted her. Before she could speak, he outlined her mouth with tiny kisses, blowing delicately between each one. "Silly…soft…beautiful…princess…"

"Don't!" A new and desperate note came into her voice. "It is unkind, and I know you can't mean to be cruel."

He nibbled her lower lip lightly between his teeth. She began to struggle like an imprisoned rabbit, pushing at him with her hands and knees. But he had all the advantage, and he used it. It was no trouble to catch both her hands in one of his and pin her lightly beneath him. He slid his free hand down her side and discovered that she'd succeeded in working her dress up high on her thigh. When he touched bare skin, he lost all track of the diplomatic importance of preserving the royal purity.

She was squeaking protest while he shaped the round curve of her thigh. He kissed her again, to keep her mouth busy, and moved his hand up until his fingers found her lovely plump belly. Excitement surged through him; he spread his hand over the luscious swell.

"You're beautiful, Princess." Against her lips, he heard his own voice, husky and intense. He frightened himself with how much he meant it. "So goddamned bloody beautiful."

"No!"
She twisted wildly, breaking his hold. Her elbow caught him a violent club on the temple as she flung herself away. He grunted, seeing stars for an instant before he blinked and focused.

When he could look again, he found she'd curled herself into the comer of the berth, pulled down her dress and burst into tears. "How could you?" she cried. "How could you? I know I made you angry, but it's beneath you to mock me so!"

He nursed his bruised face and stared at her.

"I know I'm not beautiful! Why must you make a joke of it?"

"A joke!" He rolled back onto his elbow. He touched the comer of his eye gingerly and winced at the sting, directing a dark stare at the far wall. "A joke," he muttered.

She sniffed and gave a little sob. "I suppose you meant nothing by it. I just never thought that
you
would—I mean, you are so good and kind and honorable; you've gone to so much trouble on my behalf, and after what you did today—you saved all of us from bloodshed, I know it. I see now that I botched everything." Her shoulders drooped abruptly. She looked down at her knees. "But I think if I must be punished somehow, I would rather be whipped than ridiculed—like this!"

He glanced toward her sharply and sat up. "That," he said, "is the most precious pack of rubbish I've been privileged to hear in a lifetime." He caught her by the arms and hauled her upright in the berth. "Listen," he snapped, holding her still. "Stop sniveling and listen. Hear that?"

She took a shuddering breath. Over the sounds of the ship and the water came the faint pitch of a human voice, a yelp and a cry, just discernible, then an instant of silence and another distant shriek.

"Hear it?" he demanded. "If it's whipping you want, madam, toddle on deck. You can get yourself seized up and flogged along with the rest of 'em."

Her eyes grew wide. "Dear God," she whispered.

He released her and sat back, crossing his arms and propping one boot on the mahogany trimwork. "Go on! The captain won't really touch you; he's too much of an old woman for that. But you'll want to nurse their bleeding backs and weep on their noble necks, I imagine."

She clasped her hands until her fingers turned white, staring toward the door. From his position slightly behind her, Sheridan could just see her chin trembling dangerously. Her bent head revealed the nape of her neck beneath the heavy twine of rusty-gold hair.

"Don't have the stomach for it?" he asked. "And I thought you were all eagerness for violence in the name of the cause!"

She reached up and wiped at the stream of silent tears that dripped from her chin. After a moment, she put her fist to her mouth and shook her head.

Sheridan snorted. "I see. Only for 'next time, hmm?"

She rocked from side to side, a pudgy little huddle of misery. He watched her, meditating on what a naive, foolish, high-minded piece of humbug she was, just the sort of crusading missionary he could well do without. It was her kind that started wars, with their preaching and prodding and stupid philosophizing, until his kind ended up stating down the sights of a loaded cannon.

Clearly, it wasn't going to work. Traveling with her was about as safe as chaperoning a powder keg through a house fire. Really, he thought bitterly, he ought to slip her overboard when nobody was looking; it would be doing Oriens and the rest of the world a favor.

For a long minute he gazed at her. Then, for no reason he could identify, he reached out and touched her hair. She flinched, turning those wide, wretched eyes on him. Sheridan looked into the swimming forest depths: the shadow-green intensified by tears, the lashes spiky and clinging together.

He heaved a sigh and pulled her down against him, letting her bury her face in his neck and weep for lost and silly dreams. He supposed he must have had some dreams himself once—even if he couldn't remember now what the devil they ever were.

Their first evening on Madeira, Olympia could not sleep. She'd tried, but her natural inclinations hardly fitted the role of invalid sister who went to bed before dark. She pulled the filmy lace of her dressing gown around her and stepped onto the terrace outside her island bedroom.

Red reflections of late afternoon dyed the sea and the whitewashed houses, set the town of Funchal glowing against the steep plunge of the island. The air felt like silk on her skin. Below her, the leafy tips of orange trees and banana plants rustled, and from very near came the soft ripple of notes on a Spanish guitar.

The English wine merchant had insisted on offering them his home as soon as he learned Sir Sheridan and his sister were pausing in Madeira. Traveling incognito—at least for the Hero of Navarino—was over. As soon as the mail packet docked, it seemed the whole town knew that Captain Sir Sheridan Drake was among them. Olympia's cheeks ached from smiling and accepting well-wishes.

Mr. Stothard's hospitality was enthusiastic. Dinner had turned into a party in Sir Sheridan's honor, as everyone of any stature in the English community on the island came to be introduced to one of their country's gallant champions. She could still hear the murmur of lingering guests in the garden below, though no one was visible from her lofty point of view.

Along the terrace, other doors stood open to admit the breeze. She realized as she listened that the sound of the guitar emanated from one of them instead of from the garden. A single door down from her own…the room where Sir Sheridan's baggage had been placed.

She slipped closer on silent feet, crossed her arms to hold her dressing gown tighter and peered suspiciously around the doorframe.

It wasn't the dawdling servant she'd expected. It was Sir Sheridan himself—sitting propped up on the bed, his feet and chest bare, his dark head bent over the instrument as he picked out a cascade of notes.

Olympia pulled back hastily. She'd thought he was still down in the garden with the others. Her heart thumped with a wildness out of all proportion to the mild surprise. For a moment she leaned against the whitewashed wall, cooling her skin against the stone. Then she moistened her lips and peeked again, watching him through the crack between the frame and the open door.

Sunset radiance flooded the room. It caught his face in strong profile, shadow and ruddy light, his eyes a clear gray beneath black lashes. He left off playing and shifted his shoulders into a more comfortable position. Before Olympia could pull back, he looked up and saw her.

He smiled—a sideways smile, a glance like a secret shared between them, brief and heartrending. It sparked a pleasure so swift and fierce that she felt bruised inside instead of glad.

Instantly, those moments with him in her cabin rose up to make her cheeks flame.

She'd tried not to dwell on the extraordinary memory. If she allowed herself to think of it, she could still hear him whisper she was beautiful, still feel his open palm sliding up her leg, still experience the ragged breath and mortifying surge of pleasure when he touched her naked skin.

The thought of it made her want to sink through the pavement. What if he'd guessed? What if he'd realized that her reaction had been a flood of dark hunger so intense that it still haunted her every time she looked at him? She hung back, wondering if she could just slip out of sight without saying anything.

"Polishing up on your skulking?" he asked. "I daresay that'll come in handy for the next political intrigue, but I wonder if I ought to tell you that you're about as invisible as a camel in a chicken coop?"

She held the dressing gown around her as closely as possible and stepped into full view. "Excuse me. I heard the music, and I thought perhaps someone was in your room. Someone who shouldn't be here."

"Musical thieves." Making no move to rise, he lifted the instrument and stood it against the wall. "Dastardly fellows," he added dryly. "I'd advise you to avoid violoncellists in particular; they'd as soon rob you as play a fugue." He sat up on the edge of the bed and regarded her with leisurely intensity—a faint insolent smile on his lips as he took in her dressing gown and loosened hair.

Olympia hugged herself. "Well," she said, "I shall bid you good night, then."

But she didn't move. Somehow her feet seemed rooted to the floor.

He stood up. "Good night," he said evenly.

She kept staring at his chest, at the way the sunset drew a line down the center, outlining muscle and easy strength.

"Princess," he murmured, with a strange note of emphasis in his voice. "Good night."

She drew her gaze up, to his shoulders, his jaw, his smoky eyes.

"Do you really think I'm beautiful?" she blurted, and then put her hand over her mouth in horror.

"I think," he said softly, "that if you don't take your transparent gown and your green eyes and your suggestively loose hair and get out of here, we'll both regret it."

She curled her fingers and pressed them against her mouth. "Perhaps—would you mind—" She dropped her hand and hugged herself. "I can't sleep. Might I stay a while?"

He closed his eyes with a sigh. "Lord deliver me. We wouldn't want anything to be easy, would we?" His hands opened and closed, as if they needed to crush something. "Olympia, assume that I am giving you this advice in a friendly, avuncular tone.
Get yourself the hell away from me."

He stood for a long moment with his eyes closed and his jaw set.

"Are you gone yet?" he asked.

"No."

"Naturally." He exhaled with resignation. "However, I am going to ignore the fact. I am going to lie facedown on my bed. I am going to go to sleep, because I happen to like living, and I'm afraid there are a few influential people who would be interested in my painful demise if I gave you what you're so prettily asking for."

Without looking at her, he turned his back and threw himself full-length on the bed, drawing the pillow over his head.

Olympia took a step toward him and stopped. He was right, of course. She shouldn't be here. It was insane. She had no idea what she was doing or what she expected of him. But the tight trembling inside her would not relax, the memory of his hands on her skin would not recede. She looked at the long line of his body, from his bare feet and strong ankles to the shape of his legs, his hips and his broad back.

Her gaze paused. She frowned. The angled light caught something she had not seen in the gloom of Hatherleigh Hall—a very faint tracery of pale scars across his shoulders and back.

She moved closer. With one finger, she touched him. His skin was warm and smooth. She followed the line of a vertical slash across his shoulder blade and down the taut muscle over his ribs.

He shuddered. "God," he said into the crook of his arm. "Must you do this?"

"You've been flogged," she whispered. "Someone's whipped you."

His torso moved beneath her palm as he heaved a sharp sigh. "My memory is perfectly clear. You needn't think you must provide me with a concise history of my life."

"Who flogged you?" she demanded furiously. "Why?"

He knocked the pillow aside, rolled over onto one elbow and scowled at her. "Why? Because I was a dumb bastard once upon a time. World's full of fools. I'm looking at one now."

She pressed her lips together and stayed where she was. But her cheeks burned.

His gaze lingered on her face and traveled downward. He dropped his head back on the pillow, his hand over his eyes. "Let me put it this way." He looked at her under his palm. "I had a moment of madness the other night, but you're poison, my dear. Purest poison. Go away."

She stepped back as if he'd struck her. "I'm sorry. Of course. How stupid of me!"

Of course. Of course she was poison. She'd never thought she was beautiful.

"Good night," she said quickly, walking out onto the terrace, blinking hard against the sunlight. She paused at her own door, leaning against the smooth blue-painted wood, tugging the gown around her. She could feel the plump shape of her body beneath the lace. How Mrs. Plumb's exquisite lips would have curved in that pitying smile if she'd witnessed the humiliation of this moment! How she would have shaken her head, and said Olympia had brought it on herself, always dreaming of things that could not be.

She sank down on the cool tile at the foot of her bed. She bowed her head and clasped her fingers, said her daily prayer in a mumbled rush and then knelt there, her face hidden in her arms, wishing she could grow fainter and fainter until she disappeared entirely into the soft evening air.