Sparhawk's Angel (16 page)

So why the devil was he speaking of Newport like this now?

Why was he remembering the scent of the roses in his mother's garden that overlooked the harbor, and the singsong voices of his sisters, playing with their dolls beneath the table in the kitchen to keep out of their bustling mother's way, and the fat-cheeked cherubs carved into the paneling in the front parlor that he'd reach up and rub for luck when no one was looking, and the secret place he'd made his own in the attic, high up under the eaves, where he'd go with a fistful of gingerbread to dream of all the places he'd sail to when he was old enough, while the rain drummed a drowsy rhythm on the shingles overhead?

"Perhaps one day I'll be able to visit Newport," Rose was saying, her face no more than a blur through the haze of his lost past. "I should like to see the town that's your home."

"You can't," he said, turning to stare out at the black water. "It's gone. The British saw to that last year. Everything the way I remember is gone."

And when he looked again for Rose, he found instead he was alone. Not that he'd expected her to stay, or deserved her to, either, considering how he'd been rambling on like some doddering graybeard in his chimney corner, not—

"Oh, stop feeling so curst sorry for yourself!" said Lily impatiently. "Melancholia doesn't become you. It doesn't become anyone, really, except perhaps consumptive poets in moldering garrets."

"Perhaps that's what you should make of me next." He barely bothered to glance to where she sat, perched on the rail, swaying gently with the ship's motion.

"You are dressed for it, I'll grant you that," she said, hugging her skirts over her knees in the wind. "The unshaven jaw, the filthy shirt, your hair blowing every which way like a madman's. Which, you should know by now, you most certainly aren't, so you can stop feeling morose over that, too."

"Why, thank you, Lily," he said wearily. "That's most reassuring. I'm certainly not a madman, but I do talk to meddlesome angels that no one but I can see."

"So you do," she said promptly, "but you also have another ship to chase and capture, don't you? I vow at first I didn't care for you taking advice from another woman, and a powdered and patched strumpet such as Cassandra Morton at that, but I've come to rather like your friend Cassie. Besides, you've offered to give her a share of your profits, something you wouldn't have done for anyone a year ago, so of course you must go take this prize for her."

His expression was skeptical. "You're not going to split all my canvas when I come within range?" he asked. "Or block up my carriage guns so they misfire?"

She tipped her head and pursed her lips with an arch little moue. "I wouldn't do such things
to you
, my dear captain. I told you, I favor this particular venture of yours."

"None of your parlor tricks?"

Her mouth curled into a smile. "Not a one. But while I heartily approve of your generosity toward Madam Morton, I am not nearly as pleased by your doing the same with my sister." The smile flattened into something less agreeable. "Whatever were you thinking of? Treating Rose like some common sailor, telling her you'd give her a share of your profits if she stood by your side!"

"I wanted her there," he said, surprised by his own defensiveness. "I still do. The business about the shares was only a jest, that was all. I'll take it from my own earnings as owner and captain, not from the pockets of the men. Where's the harm in that

"Because of the harm that could come to her," said Lily firmly, all traces of good humor gone. "Nick, how many times must I remind you that I watch over you, not Rose? I'll keep you from any ill today, but who's going to see that she's safe if this other ship turns out to have more teeth than you've been led to believe? Remember, dear captain, how we first met. Gunfire and explosions and heaven knows what else. Do you care so little for Rose that you'd put her into danger like that?"

Nick scowled, looking down to rub away a smudge on the polished brass of his spyglass. "Ah, she won't come on deck if there's an out-and-out battle. Rosie knew I never meant for her to do that. Besides, she's a lady, gently bred, and I expect that with the first broadside she'll be cowering in the hold where she'll be safe."

"Then your expectations are most barbarously wrong," declared Lily. "Maybe she would have behaved that way when she was still pinched under our father's thumb, but not now. And since when has her
gentility
been of any concern to you? You, who took this 'gently bred lady' to the most notoriously low house in Charles Town with the express purpose of seducing her, letting her be mauled and terrified in a common street brawl in the process?"

Nick's scowl deepened. He couldn't deny what she said because, hell, it was true. "Rosie wasn't hurt," he said, knowing his defense was a lame one. "You've seen her. I'd wager she even enjoyed herself."

"My point exactly, my dear, darling captain." Despite the wind that tugged at Lily's hair—the ship had the wind at her heels, and was racing fast as the thoroughbred she was—she still managed to sweep open her fan with practiced grace.

"Rosie, Rosie," she mused. "Did you know no one else has ever called her that? Yet still you haven't answered my question. Is it because you care so little for her that you continue to risk her life?"

"Damnation, Lily, it's not like that! It's not like that at all!" He shook his head in fierce denial. "Well, perhaps in the beginning it was, but not now. She's not like any other woman I've ever known. You wouldn't know, being her sister, but kissing her—only kissing her, mind—was better than a whole week with Cassie's girls. I swear the room spun clear around my ears."

"Clear around?" Lily's brows arched higher. "I should like to see that."

"Nay, Lily, that's but the half of it!" He struck his fist on the rail for emphasis. "Your little sister likes to gamble, same as I do, and not just over draughts, either, and she speaks her mind plain and makes me laugh, and she has more courage than a good many men I could name, and—and she needs me, Lily. Strong as she is, she needs me, and even when she had the chance, she didn't leave."

"My, my, goodness." Lily clicked her tongue as she snapped her fan shut. "And here I thought all Rose was worth to you was six hundred of Papa's hard-earned guineas!"

Even as he smiled, he swore softly under his breath. She laid a good snare, he'd grant her that. "You've caught me up again, haven't you, Lily?"

"Perhaps I have," she admitted, already fading into the pale light of the coming dawn, "but I'd rather believe you've caught yourself."

She was a coward, a hopeless, weak, appalling coward.

Furiously Rose ripped the hairbrush through the tangles in her hair, wishing for all the world she could relive her parting with Nick. She wasn't greedy; the last two minutes would make difference enough, and, oh, what she would say and do instead!

So much for her cleverness and understanding. Here poor Nick had showed her a part of his soul that she hadn't even suspected was there, and when he'd come to the worst, how the English had destroyed the home he clearly loved so much, she'd run away. Turned tail and fled, exactly as she had when the thieves had attacked him in the street, running with all the haste and speed that's granted to true cowards.

She groaned and bent her head over the hairbrush clasped in her hand. What could she have said to comfort him? She was one of the enemy, and what her countrymen had done to him was unimaginable to her. Safe as she'd been in Portsmouth, this colonial war was so far removed from her world that, before the
Commerce
had been captured, she'd scarcely been aware of its occurring. For all she knew, Nick's own home had been destroyed, his family murdered, perhaps even a wife and children. She remembered how he'd spoken of his father and an older brother with a certain reluctant affection, but it had always been carefully worded to stay in the past.

She thought of how he'd returned her belongings to her, how he'd chosen not to keep what was by the rights of war his to sell. Nothing remained of his beloved Newport, yet instead of retaliating against the bride of a British officer, he'd ordered her things kept separate. He'd returned her clothes and left her her mother's jewels untouched.

And then there had been the other gifts he'd shared with her, gifts of himself that no one else would ever see and infinitely more precious to her than all the cold, hard gold sewn into her coat. She smiled to herself when she thought of how his green eyes lit when he called her his Rosie, and she shivered when she remembered the fire his dark caresses had brought to her blood. For her the legendary, ruthless Captain Black Nick Sparhawk was only her Black Nick, hers as long as she'd be his White Rose.

And Lord help her, how she had repaid his kindness! The first time he had
turned to her, when in despair he'd asked her to believe in Lily's spirit, she
had hidden her feelings in denial. Then this night, when the bleak, empty look
in his eyes had shouted his suffering to her, begging her to listen, she'd been
too frightened of what she might learn that she'd slipped away before he could tell her. To listen would be to admit to caring, and to care would be to admit to feelings that would make her sham of a wedding impossible.

Coward, coward,
coward
!

With a loud sniff she sat upright on the bunk, squaring her shoulders in her boy's clothes. Twice was enough. She wouldn't fail him again. This time she'd be as brave as he needed her to be.

She listened to the noise from the deck, the subtle, excited change in the men's voices and footsteps overhead. They'd cleared for action an hour ago, but now, at last, they must have sighted the other ship.

Swiftly she finished brushing the tangles from her hair and braided it into a single, tight plait that she tossed over her shoulder. Since she'd lost Johnny's cap, she tied a scarf across her head to keep her hair from her eyes. Finally she reached inside her shirt, feeling the heavy weight of the necklaces still against her skin. She hadn't taken them off, remembering how Nick had liked the wanton display of the gold and sapphires against her bare skin, but one piece she'd do without. She lifted the loop of ribbon with Lord Eliot's ring from around her neck and stuffed it unceremoniously into her trunk. Heaven knows it was wrong of her to do it, but as soon as she had, she couldn't help but smile, her neck and her soul feeling instantly, endlessly lighter.

Her hand was already on the latch of the door when she heard the knock on the other side. Instantly her heartbeat raced, as she hoped irrationally that it might be Nick, but when she threw open the door she found instead Gideon Cole.

"Don't look so downhearted, lass," he said wryly, offering his arm crooked out for her to take. "The great man has his hands full topside, and so he sent me with his regrets and to shepherd you down to the hold."

"Nick's unharmed, isn't he?" she asked quickly. "I haven't heard any gunfire, but still he could—"

"He's never been in better health, Miss Everard. We're scarce in firing range, and if our fortunes hold, they'll strike their flag to us without our firing a single shot." He nodded sagely, though his eyes kept their wry twinkle. "And don't waste your worry on Black Nick, Miss Everard. By rights the man should have died a score of times already, but I tell you his life is charmed. The devil watching out for his own, eh?"

The devil, thought Rose uneasily, or someone even more unpredictable, someone who favored white silk taffeta and pearls with a Roman cameo.

"Now come, lass," said Gideon patiently. "You've just time to gather any little trinkets you'd like to keep with you, then I must take you below."

Rose smiled sweetly. "That's most kind of you, Mr. Cole," she said, beginning to sidle past him, "but quite unnecessary, for I'm going on deck to be with Nick, the way he wished."

Deftly Gideon shifted to block her way, reaching out again to take her by the arm, though now with less gallantry than determination. "He didn't mean that, Miss Everard. Oh, he'll likely grant you the gold if you make a fuss for it, but now he wants you below, where he won't have to worry over you."

Undaunted, Rose swung her hips gently from side to side the way that Lily always had when she wished for a gentleman's attention. Her hips weren't as lushly provocative as Lily's, but the snug-fitting breeches more than made up the difference, and automatically Gideon's gaze dropped away from her face. Instantly Rose darted past him and up the companionway steps to the deck, and didn't stop until she'd skidded to a halt before Nick, standing beside the helmsman at the wheel.

"I'm here, Nick," she announced breathlessly. "Just as you wished me to be."

But the ominous look on his face was far from welcoming. Since she'd left him earlier he'd changed into a dark gray coat and a black hat pulled low over his brow that made him look grim as a preacher, forbidding as the devil and, to Rose, achingly handsome as sin.

"You don't belong here, Rose," he said sharply. "I told Gideon to take you down into the hold, below the waterline, where you'd be safe."

Her gleeful grin wobbled and faded. She shouldn't have left him alone before; now he wasn't going to forgive her. She'd waited too long, and she was too late.

Lord, dear Lord, let him give me another chance!

"I'm rated a gentleman volunteer," she said, fighting to keep the panic from her voice. "Don't you remember? You said you wished to keep me by your side, so you added me to the crew. You said you wanted me here, Nick, so I've come."

Her timing, thought Nick dismally, could not have been worse. The Tory planter's ship had turned out to be every bit the prize that Cassie had promised, a heavily laden deep-water brig that looked close to new. But along with the cargo that made the brig sit so low in the water, the planter had outfitted his vessel with eight four-pounders that, with even a moderately capable gunner, would stave off most attackers. They meant that the captain had orders to fight rather than strike outright.

Nick hadn't counted on the guns, but he wasn't about to let the brig slip past him, either. He had the faster ship, the bigger guns and the crew to use them, and the wind was in his favor. If he kept close to the brig's weather quarter, he could worry her with a broadside or two to stop their guns, then board. He'd never been afraid of a fight, and the brig and her cargo would be worth it.