Tides of Love (Seaswept Seduction Series) (17 page)

Elle chewed her lip, her suddenly tight clothing making her hot and itchy. "I didn't mean, that is to say, without doubt, I don't care what he does. This was simply a—a slip."

"A slip? What proper women call almost making love in an alley? Okay, honey, a slip." Christabel flapped her apron, her lips pressed to hold in a smile. "Now, get going. And, just in case Noah decides to
slip
with you again, dabble some toilet water between your breasts and put on a pretty dress. Maybe comb your hair."

Christabel's laughter, and her blasted advice, needled Elle the entire walk home.

Chapter 7

"Forms of representative species are similar, often

only to be distinguished by critical examination."

C. Wyville Thomson

The Depths of the Sea

Elle angled the paper into a shaft of moonlight and read the letter for the fourth time.

April 2, 1898

My Dearest Friend:

I have enclosed an application for the scholarship program I mentioned in my previous letter. As you can see, each year the fund lends money to permit a promising young woman to attend college. Our last recipient chose Cornell. I know you considered returning to Bryn Mawr, but just look at the marvelous number of universities included in the program.

I admit to rallying behind you at the scholarship meeting last month, and dearest Elle, you are so deserving. Many on the committee feel your extremely high entrance scores are an added benefit as well as your proven dedication to furthering women's education. I am confident a completed application is all that is standing in the way of your dream.

Now, my friend, I can see you shaking your head and telling yourself the school cannot survive without you. Actually, Elle, I have felt a fair measure of discontent lately, an urge to accomplish more than I can in New York City. I hope you consider my offer to manage the school in your absence a serious one. I would be proud to work with your students.

I am speaking at a reform meeting tonight and hope to encourage the audience members to contribute generously.

To friendship,

Savannah

The scholarship provided a grand opportunity to change her life, Elle thought, folding the letter and slipping it into her pocket. The application lay on her marble-top washstand, four pages of essay questions and personal queries. If she found additional means of income, even meager, she could survive.

In her entire life, she had only wanted
one
thing more than she wanted an education. She glanced at the darkened window of the coach house and realized no hope of that remained.

Reclining on the grass, she hooked her arms beneath her head and stared into a sky ripening from pitch-black to predawn blue. Birds had started to twitter, the only noise besides the distant roar of the ocean. No, not the only. She tilted her head, the thump of barrels being unloaded on the dock and a bell announcing a ship entering the harbor.

She rubbed her hand across her nose, the fragrance shooting a dart of chagrin through her. Sentimental absurdity to dab perfume between her breasts and behind her ears. A lone tear trailed down her cheek, and she scrubbed it away. How could she do this? Hadn't she learned her lesson years ago?

For her, Noah Garrett would always mean heartache.

He was not coming home, that was obvious. Elle could not picture Noah dousing his confusion in whiskey and cheap cigars. Nonetheless, Christa understood men better than she did.

Frankly, she was surprised he had not removed his possessions from the coach house. Fled to safer ground, as he would in preparation for a deadly hurricane. Losing control posed as grave a disaster in his mind. Perhaps he'd deemed it too much trouble to move the multitude of glass tubes, research books, and curious gadgets. In a sorrowful testament to her weakness, she knew they still littered every vacant surface. Darkness had provided the courage to climb the flight of stairs and peer inside. Unfortunately, a shift in wind startled her, causing her to knock a jar filled with murky water and a piece of gnarled driftwood from the landing. The driftwood she had put back in its place, the jar lay in pieces in the bottom of her garbage bin. She hoped she had not ruined an important experiment.

What had she been thinking? She twisted the damp edge of her dress in her fist. To let him kiss her as he whispered "friends" in her ear, to kiss him back, starved for his touch. Exposed, her mouth eager and open. This didn't make sense. She let him go the other night, stressing she would not fall in love with him, telling herself she was finished with men.

In fact, she told Daniel Connery the same thing not a day before. And she meant it.

Rejecting Noah had never occurred to her. She had raced into his arms. A reckless, gullible fool hoarding a vestige of absurd hope—imagining a twenty-seven-year-old man was innocent. Oh no, not after, not after the little—she groaned, but the memory loomed, terribly clear—
rubbing
incident. He had known exactly where to focus his energy, setting her atop his hard thigh, grasping her waist, and....

Where had he learned such a thing? And how many encounters had it taken to perfect his technique?

The image of Noah touching another woman made her queasy. He had obviously touched
many
. Mrs. Bartram of the scented letters, for one. He understood a woman's body too well. Living in a depraved city, who knew how many shared his bed? Elle closed her eyes, a sharp pain seizing her, riding hard from her toes to her head.

She rested her cheek on the prickly cushion of grass, images of Noah's hands upon her spinning round her mind like the phonograph in Christabel's parlor. The kiss represented a trifling part of what they could do. Even in her ignorance, she realized that. Too, she understood he had done much more at some point in his life. The presumption only made her sob and bury her face in her hands.

Damn and blast,
she didn't need to wallow in the dirt when she owned only three decent dresses, and the one she wore represented the best of the lot.

Tears had never come easily or often, and they dried quickly. Crying answered no questions, abated no fears. Swabbing her face, she rolled to her back as the first delicate streaks of red and gold spread like a blush along the horizon.

I wish Noah was here to share this with me.

"I still love him," she whispered. "You fool, you still love him."

Sitting up, she pressed her hand to her chest, willing her heartbeat to return to normal.
Oh, blast. I still love him.

A man armored against emotion.

She slipped her hand into her watch pocket and fingered Savannah's letter with a renewed sense of anticipation and dread.

* * *

The pounding ripped Zach from sleep. Shoving to his elbows on the bunk, he drew a hitching breath and let his head flop back. The muscles in his arms quivered; his heart raced. The dream returned in a series of flashes. Blood staining the sheets... Hannah's shrill, weak cries... his lungs burning as he went for the doctor... lifeless blue eyes and cold, stiff fingers.

A dream, Zach. A dream. The salty burn of tears stung, and he swallowed.
Am I going to dream about her dying for the rest of my life?

Another round of knocking shook the door in its frame. "Coming," he shouted, praying a ship had not gotten beached on Diamond Shoals. He would have to check his list to see whose turn it was to patrol. They had been lucky lately, but luck, Zach well knew, always ran out. His certainly had.

Flinging the thin woolen blanket to the floor, he found his coat hanging on the back of a chair and was just pulling his arms through the sleeves when he reached the door.

"Cap'n Garrett, open up."

The smell of smoke and whiskey drifted in the open door, attached to Bigby Dixon, Christabel's manservant, for lack of a better description. The hulking man stood beneath the jail's narrow lean-to, broad shoulder braced against a timber post, hooked grin riding his face. Zach's shoulders slumped. Bigby helped him organize the safety drills and scrubbed salt from the breech buoys on occasion, but he did not patrol the beach on a regular basis, and never alone.

"You might better come, Cap'n." Bigby dabbed his boot in the circle of light cast on the planks. "Miss Christabel sent me for you."

Captain. Zach had ceased being a captain before Hannah died, but Bigby would hardly know it. "Who is it?" he asked, digging in his pocket for his ring of keys, knowing exactly who it was.

Bigby's held tilted quizzically. "Ah, you know, Cap'n. Your brother."

"Of course." Zach crossed the street at a fast clip, Bigby trailing in his steps. They stopped twice. To look at a frog flattened by a wagon wheel and to count the masts rising above the peaked roofs of the warehouses. Zach reminded himself, gazing into Bigby's joyful face, that all the excitement and innocence of Rory's world filled this man's and always would.

When they arrived at the Nook, he sent Bigby to fetch coffee with a promise to let him sleep in the jail cell one night next week. Sidestepping tables scattered with cigar butts and half-filled glasses, he halted before Christabel's parlor doors. She settled Caleb on the striped horsehair sofa after he'd gotten particularly rambunctious, separated from the temptation angry words, cheap whiskey, and flirtatious women presented.

He knocked once, hard and furious.

"Zach?"

"Yes."

One of the doors slid into its pocket, a flood of light spilling across his boots. He strode past her, pulling his sleeve from her grasp.

"Zach, you might...." Her words faded to a whispered sigh.

The uncharacteristic hint of caution in her voice slowed his stride. Zach halted, his gaze drawn to the mammoth desk occupying one corner of the room. "Damn," he said and raised his hand to his face. "Damn."

"His spectacles." She tapped them against his wrist. "Didn't want him to break them."

Zach took the wire frames from her. "Lord knows, this isn't what I expected."

She tilted her head to the side and twitched her shoulders, a halfhearted shrug. "He's a man, Zach."

An inadequate explanation for finding his
sensible
brother slumped over her desk. Noah's arms sheltered his face, his hair bright against his rumpled black shirtsleeves.

"What happened?"

Christabel stepped beside him, the opposing scents of whiskey and flowers surrounding her. "Things were pretty quiet, most of the men summoned home by their wives long before Noah got here. He'd been sailing, I think. Had a wild glow in his eyes. Honest, I never thought he looked much like Caleb until then. I reckoned he would bust up one of my tables before the night ended." She stacked her fingers along the desk and leaned her weight on them. "Anyway, I brought him here right away. With a bottle. I knew, I just, well... oh, I probably shouldn't say, but good gracious, I want to tell someone." She knotted her hands together and recounted a story that left Zach feeling like he'd stumbled into a burning building.

"You found them
what?"

She raised her hand to her heart and made a swift sign of the cross. "Kissing. And no sweet, decent kiss, either. Singed the air. I swear, plain as day, that's what I saw."

"Maybe, maybe—" His thoughtful gray gaze slid her way. "Are you sure?"

"Sure? Honey, they were practically clawing at each other."

Frowning, he watched Noah's chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm. "Do you think he loves her?"

She considered a moment, took in Noah's condition with a sweeping glance. "Whatever he feels, seems to me he don't want to."

"What should I do?"

Christabel cocked her head toward the heavy footfalls on the floor above, Bigby's childish laughter, and the sharp clink of silverware. "Take him home," she said.

Zach dragged his hand across his mouth. "What about Ellie?"

"What about her?"

"Doggone it, Christa, she's like a sister to me. I don't want Noah to hurt her again."

Christabel trailed her finger over the desk and laughed, a sound full of womanly wisdom. "Honey, how do you know she won't hurt
him?
"

* * *

"Christabel told you, I know she did," Noah said, an exaggerated drawl lengthening each word.

Zach tugged the spread as high as he could while keeping his brother's feet covered, although they dangled off the end of the bed. He nudged a wooden bucket across the pine floor, banging it against the frame. "If you feel sick, all you have to do is lean over." A trick he had learned from Rory.

Noah laughed, thin and worn. "I told you, I didn't... eat dinner. There's nothing." He patted his stomach. "Nothing."

Zach frowned. No dinner. He glanced at his brother's wrist, angled high on his flat belly. Sun-buffed skin covered muscle but bones protruded where muscle was scarce. "I put a pitcher of water on the table. A glass beside it," he said, tucking the blanket around Noah's shoulders, amazed, again, by how much Rory resembled him.