The Admiral's Heart (2 page)

With a hastily murmured apology, she turned
on her heel and fled.

Chapter
2

“I must say, Admiral, you have quite an
interesting effect on women,” the duke of Blackheath mused,
nonchalantly finishing his bit of cheese.

But Elliott was already heading out of the
ballroom, determined not to let his quarry escape so easily.

He saw a flash of blue ahead as she rounded
a corner, and broke into a run. He would not lose her. Even if he
had to chase her from here to London.

And he’d be damned to hell and back if he’d
allow Sir Geoffrey, or any of his subordinates to know that he felt
dismasted, in irons, as stricken as a brig that had just been
smashed beneath a salvo of chain shot, and he damn well didn’t need
the young Captain Merrick, whose arm had been so conveniently
placed beneath Pippa’s hand when he’d come upon the little group,
trying to make himself useful. Elliott was on the distant side of
thirty. The far distant side. He had enough aches and pains when he
got up in the morning these days, and though his sandy blond hair
was still thick and rich and showed no sign of either thinning or
gray, the lines that bracketed the corners of his eyes, carved
there by sun and salt and the passing of years, were an all too
blatant reminder that he was no dashing young buck like the
handsome Captain Merrick or even that pink-cheeked pup, Oliver
Heathmore.

Pippa.
Of all people to encounter
here. Of all people to run up against when it had taken him ten
years to forget her.

Of all people.

There, ahead, a door, ajar. He pushed it
open.

Nothing.

He kept going, moving faster now.

Another door. Closed.

He shoved it open and there she was,
standing by a window with one hand anchoring herself on its sill. A
candle in a glass globe stood on a small table nearby, striking
gold into her beautiful face.

“Elliott,” she said weakly.

He stopped in his tracks, one hand still on
the door, just looking at her.

She was beautiful. Heartbreakingly so.
Certainly, the years had treated her kinder than they had him. But
then, the one doing the jilting wasn’t usually the one who did the
suffering. And by the looks of her, she hadn’t suffered one bit.
Skin that was still clear and smooth. Full, pink lips, now parted
in surprise or shock, making him ache to kiss them, and a mouth
that used to be able to quirk up just a fraction on one side, as
though she found life perpetually amusing and expected others to,
as well. Kind, gentle, blue eyes, heavily lashed and slightly
down-turned at the corners like those of her de Montforte cousins,
and a tiny, nipped waist that just begged him to span it with his
hands. She wore a beautiful gown of shimmering cobalt silk, the
skirts overlaid with white lace and the fitted bodice embroidered
with gold thread that caught the light of the candle.

Blue and white and gold.

Naval colors.

Surely it was a coincidence.

Somewhere off over his shoulder, and coming
down the hall toward them, he heard voices. Without a second
thought, Elliott kicked the door shut behind him with one foot. The
abrupt sound it made as it slammed was immensely satisfying.

He leaned back against the wall, glad that
she could not hear the pounding of his own heart, a heart that had
never stopped beating for her, and her alone.

He stared at her.

She stared back, a thousand emotions
flitting across her lovely face.

Then she went to the chair in the corner,
and sat down on its edge. Beneath the hem of her gown, her
slippered feet peeked out. They were as tiny and delicate as he
remembered. He longed to cup them in his hand, to admire their
grace and beauty.

They had made love once. Just once. But it
had been enough to whet his appetite for more, to set about
pursuing her with as much zeal as he’d ever given chase to an enemy
frigate, to dream of having her by his side as his wife for the
rest of his life.

One night of magical, all-consuming
passion.

And then she had left him without
explanation.

“So, the years have treated you well, then,”
he said, at length.

“Well enough, thank you.”

He gazed at her, thinking she was even more
beautiful than she had been as the girl he had fallen in love with
all those years ago.

She looked back, then, with a sad little
smile, stared down at the hands she kept so tightly folded in her
lap. She was fidgeting with a fan, her discomfort almost
painful.

“It’s been a while, Pippa,” he said, at
last.

She didn’t look up. “Ten years.”

“And five months and fourteen days.”

“Thirteen days, actually.”

It was an awkward moment. Her head remained
bent, and she traced the design on her fan with one finger as it
lay in her lap.

“Blackheath throws a great party,” she
said.

“Indeed, he does.”

“Had I known there would have been so many
naval officers here, perhaps I would not have come.”

“And why not?”

She just looked at him, flatly. Hopelessly.
“Do I really need to explain?”

“You might try. Though there are other
things that I’d rather have an explanation for, Pippa.”

She winced as if he’d struck her, and
despite himself, he felt bad. He was not in the business of hurting
people. Well, not unless their ship flew an enemy flag and had no
business being, or doing, something he had the authority and
ability to put a stop to. But that was different. They were the
enemy. But this . . . this was Pippa.
His
Pippa.

No enemy.

But why did just seeing her again after all
these years hurt so much?

Have him completely in irons?

“They say time heals all wounds,” she
murmured, her eyes suddenly sad. “I guess we needed more of
it.”

“There are some wounds that never heal, no
matter how much time they are given.”

“Forgive me, Elliott. You deserved better
than me. I was young, foolish. Insecure. Dreadfully insecure.”

Outside, from beyond the closed door, came
the distant sounds of music and laughter. Moments passed. The
candle in its glass globe burned on. Elliott was acutely aware of
everything about her—her dark brows beneath her powdered, upswept
hair, and the fact she needed no white lead paint to enhance her
milky-smooth complexion. The scent of her; something floral.
Lilacs, perhaps. The way the soft glow from the candlelight brought
out the depths in her eyes, the valley between her breasts, and
played upon the delicate hollows at her throat.

He wanted to kiss those hollows.

Put his lips against the soft swell of her
breasts.

He cleared his throat, and turned away. “I
was sorry to read about the death of your husband last year.”

“Thank you. He was a good man, Walter.”

He felt a momentary stab of jealousy, that
this Walter had had what he had coveted, what he had thought was to
be his. That Walter had taken her to his bed, night after night,
woken up to her sweet face in the mornings, loved her, shared the
years of her youth.

Years that should have belonged to him.

“And look at you now. Confident. Poised. All
grown up,” he murmured.

She met his gaze, and some of the
guardedness in her eyes softened. “And you . . . going off,
becoming a famous hero . . . knighted by the king, given command of
a fleet, and your name known to the whole of England. What an
exciting life you have led.”

“Nothing is exciting when one is alone,
Pippa.”

She looked down. “Why didn’t
you
marry?”

A heavy silence hung between them. Quietly,
he walked the few steps across the room to the window, pretending
to look out into the darkness when all he really wanted was to be
that much closer to her.

“Why do you think I didn’t, Pippa?”

“You could have your pick of any woman in
England. You, decorated, handsome, famous. And the eldest son of a
noble family”—

“The reason, Pippa, is that I never found
anyone I loved as much as I did you. Nobody who stirred my blood
and captured my heart, as you did. Nobody.” And then, tightly: “Why
did you leave me?”

The question was sudden, abrupt, baldly
delivered. Pippa sighed and bravely met his gaze. Leave it to
Elliott not to mince words, nor to waste time in getting to the
point.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

She took a deep breath. Now all these years
later, it seemed like a paltry reason to leave the man that one
loved, and she doubted he would understand.

Memories filled her mind. Of that same sunny
day, with a sky the color of flax and green lawns of pastoral
beauty. He, who had come to call on her. She, going into the house
to fetch a shawl, for it had been springtime, and there was still a
decided nip in the air. He had brought his dog with him, and
returning, she had come across him lying on his back in the grass
beside the pond, reading a book, with Albion, dripping wet from his
swim, standing over him with tail wagging. Albion, with his long
golden fur, happy brown eyes and floppy ears, wanting his master to
throw more pebbles. Albion, with his undying love, for Elliott. And
Elliott, the book in one hand, pretending to be ignoring the dog,
before its tongue took a sudden swipe at his face and guffawing, he
had tossed down the book and wrestled the canine to the grass,
where each had been laughing in their own way. . .

The memory was enough to make her heart
hurt.

“Well?”

He was still waiting.

“You had a dog, then,” she said. “Do you
remember?”

“Ah, Albion.” She could see his smile in the
candlelight, reflecting off the cold black pane of the window. “I
loved that dog.”

“Yes, I know you did.”

“God, Pippa, you weren’t jealous of Albion,
were you?”

“No, of course not. He was a nice dog.”

He had turned and was looking down at her,
so very tall, his broad shoulders filling that splendidly handsome
uniform. One could rest the whole of England on those shoulders,
and she imagined that more times than not, that, exactly, was what
had been done. He was a hero. He could have been
her
hero.
She looked at the hard, sculpted line of his lips, and remembered
what it had been like to be kissed by them. He was older, yes,
wiser, experienced, a hardened sea warrior; no longer the zealous
youth he had been, full of ambition and dreams. How could she
expect him to understand?

“I was so in love with you,” she said at
last, and looked down at her hands folded so quietly in her lap. A
little smile of remembrance touched her lips. “But I was young
then, Elliott. Painfully shy, and dreadfully lacking in confidence.
I was ashamed of how I looked in my spectacles, which is why you
never saw me in them, and why you must have thought me a clumsy
fool, always bumping into something. I was so self-conscious about
my appearance. And”—she felt her cheeks beginning to warm, because
here came the hard part, here came the part he would never
understand, “Whenever I was near Albion, or you, after you had been
petting him or playing with him, my nose would run, my eyes would
itch and water, and I couldn’t breathe. I was . . . I was terribly
afflicted by him. But I didn’t know how to tell you without hurting
your feelings.”

“You are right, Pippa. I don’t
understand.”

She got up then, and quietly moved to join
him at the window. The girl she had once been, so shy, so painfully
insecure about her appearance, so totally undeserving—or so she had
thought—of a dashing young captain in the service of his king,
would never have reached out and taken his hand.

But Pippa was no longer that girl.

She reached out . . .

And took his hand.

A jolt of feeling went through her. Emotion
clogged the back of her throat. It was only his hand, but she had
not held this particular hand in some ten years, had not touched
this man she had loved so much that she had made the single biggest
sacrifice of her life so that he would not have to make a painful
choice, and here she was, touching him now, holding his hand.

Oh, Elliott.

“One day when you had come to call on me, I
went into the house and returned to find you playing with Albion,
next to the pond. You never knew that I stood there and watched you
for a long time . . . you never knew that in that moment, I saw how
very much you loved your dog, how devoted you each were to one
another, and I didn’t want to put you in the position of having to
choose between him and me. I loved you too much, Elliott . . . and
I didn’t think it was fair to ask you to possibly give up something
you loved so much, on account of me.”

“Oh, Pippa . . .” He shook his head, his
eyes darkening with pain and disbelief. “You left me because of my
dog
?”

“I know it sounds silly, Elliott, but you’ve
never been a shy young girl who didn’t think she deserved the
handsome golden god. You don’t know the embarrassment, the
humiliation, of having a constantly running nose and reddened eyes,
in front of the man you’re trying so hard to look your best, for .
. . so hard, in fact, that you wouldn’t even wear your spectacles.
It got to the point I was afraid to have you even see me, I was so
ashamed of my body’s reaction to your dog.”

He just shook his head. “And all these
years, I had thought you left me for another man . . . or because
you couldn’t tolerate the idea of a husband away at sea . . . “

“I left you because I didn’t want to put you
in the painful position of having to make you choose between the
dog you loved . . . and me.”

“And you think I didn’t love you? That I
wouldn’t have given up the dog? My parents adored him, they would
have taken him.”