Falling for the Pirate (3 page)

“Wait. Stop!”

The boy ran faster. Of course he did. Of all the disobedient, pigheaded, foolhardy—

Nate took off after him. “Stop!
Julian!
”

The boy swerved suddenly left, trying to evade capture. Except there wasn’t anything there. No cobbles, no wood. No ground at all, but the boy clearly didn’t know that.

“
Julian!
”

Too late. The boy fell over the wall head first, disappearing from view, and landed with a small splash that Nate both heard and felt in his gut. He shed his shoes and shirt as he ran to the edge and dove in to the murky depths beyond the pier.

The water blasted him, icy cold. Lack of air burned his lungs as he swam further down, down, to the unconscious body sinking below. And all the while he thought,
I’ve killed him
.

A lifetime of bastardy, and Nate had managed never to kill another human being. Hargate was going to be the first man he killed. That was the plan. But now, a boy lay limp in his arms.

Except—

When his men pulled him up, he saw long chestnut hair, soaking wet and shimmering with the moon. When he laid the body gently on the dock, he also saw two small but unmistakable swells beneath the wet shirt. When he saw her eyelids flicker with faint consciousness. Nate felt a surge of relief and gratitude…and wondered how he ever could have missed it.

The thief wasn’t a boy at all.

Chapter Three

It was warm in the room. Too warm. The bedclothes were suffocating, and someone had built a strong fire. She could smell the coal.

Coal
. There was something about coal, but she couldn’t remember what. Her head felt foggy, as if filled with water, her thoughts adrift in the murky dark. There was something important she had to remember. Floating just beyond her grasp.

Cuts and bruises all over her body made themselves known as she came awake, as if they awoke too, one by one. Her palms burned, as though she’d fallen and scraped them. Her ankle throbbed—possibly she’d twisted it. Her side ached. What had happened to her?

If she held herself very still, the pain dulled to a muffled roar, just quiet enough that she could focus on other things.

Such as where she was.

And
who
she was.

Her eyes felt glued shut. She opened them by force of will and stared at a plain drapery striped with light and dark blue. Pretty, serviceable. She was almost sure she’d never seen it before. Almost, because she couldn’t remember what she
had
seen before. She could only feel certain she hadn’t.

The furniture looked heavy. Good quality. Not ornate.

That detail seemed meaningful to her.
Not ornate
. As if she had once lived somewhere that
was
ornate—with fancy tapestries and delicately carved furnishings. Somewhere much colder than here.

A faint memory of freezing water and sinewy shadows came to her, tickling her memory.
Sinking, drowning.
But nothing moved beneath her now, and her throat felt utterly dry. If she’d been in the water at some point, she was most definitely on land now.

She looked around, letting her gaze sweep the cozy room before landing on a large wooden chair. More to the point, the man sleeping in the chair.

His legs were spread wide—bracing himself, even in sleep. His shoulders were well above the back of the chair, his head leaning against the wall behind. He seemed too large for the furniture, like a grown man sitting on a child’s rocker in a nursery. Only, this chair was average-sized.

She had a sense of familiarity, of having seen him before. Which was strange, because she didn’t feel like the sort of woman acquainted with pirates.

And this man was most definitely a pirate.

He wore no jacket. She felt faintly scandalized, except he was also alone in the room with her. He was
alone
in the
room
with her, which was far worse than being in shirtsleeves. And if that weren’t shocking enough, the ties at his collar hung loose, baring a portion of his chest. Tanned. Sprinkled with dark hair. And wholly inappropriate for her to see.

She looked away—and right into his eyes. He was awake now. He’d been watching her examine him.

“Who are you?” Her voice came out low and rough. What had she been doing last night to make her voice so raw?

And had she been doing it with
him
?

The pirate stretched slowly, wincing as his body straightened into order. She had the sense he was rolling himself back up, as if he were a tree he had to trim just to stand upright.

“You asked me the same question last night,” he remarked.

His voice vibrated with sarcasm. He didn’t sound happy to greet her this morning. And, in fact, her sense of familiarity was completely misplaced if she’d asked for his name only last night.

“What did you answer?” she asked.

A glimmer of humor shone from his eyes before they went black again. Black like his hair. Black like the sea. He smiled, and the smile was black, too—with irony and annoyance. “I didn’t,” he said. “I’m not in the habit of explaining myself to thieves.”

His hair was distracting her, the way it fell into his face. And the way he didn’t make a move to tie it back. Not completely black either, she realized. Ebony and coffee and auburn strands formed a single shining surface, like water in the dark, silky and mysterious, and the creamy firelight did nothing to dispel the illusion. Which was why several seconds passed before she registered his words.
His accusation.

“I’m not a thief,” she said, affronted.

“No? Then what were you doing at Hargate Shipping?”

She opened her mouth to answer him…before realizing she had no answer. She had no idea what she’d been doing at such a place. All she knew was that she did not steal. She had no desire to take what wasn’t hers, no immoral greed driving her.

But then memories surfaced…of fine things, luxurious things. Expensive things. Unease settled in her gut. What if she
was
a thief?

He smiled grimly at her silence. “Can’t remember? Or you have a good excuse, I’m sure. I’ve heard them all before. Every thief has a line at the ready, so where is yours?”

She’d forgotten it. Along with everything else, it seemed, including her amoral life.

“I’m not a thief,” she said more quietly. Less sure.

“Then again, you did feed me some fake information. Julian, you said your name was. Unusual for a girl, don’t you think?”

She had no answer.

He plucked a thin stack of clothing from the table beside him. They unfolded to reveal a tattered shirt and pants. A blackened cap. “These have spent a lot of time going in and out of chimneys. And I highly doubt you were satisfied with the two pence earned as a sweep. Besides, no apprentice would employ a young woman, not when he could get a boy from the orphanage at half the cost and half the size.”

She stared at the clothes, her mouth dry. Why would she have worn pants? And climbed through chimneys? It didn’t make sense.

Unless he was telling the truth.
And she was a thief.

“I don’t know,” she said. Then repeated, bearing the grief of her confusion, “
I don’t know
.”

“This will go easier if you tell me who you work for. I know you didn’t hatch the plot to steal from the company yourself. No, if you were on your own, I wager you would have chosen a private home, one with jewels and money you could grab. Not shipping schedules and invoices.”

A surge of terror ran through her. It had been disconcerting to wake up without knowing who she was. But the fear was worse, more real, to find she might not like who she was. God, what would she do? Continue stealing? Starve?

Turn herself in?

Her hand went to her chest, right beneath her throat. Her fingers toyed there, grasping at nothing. She realized for the first time that she was wearing a nightgown, a thin one. It wasn’t hers, though it fit her well enough. Still, the neck dipped low to her breasts, revealing her bare skin to him. No more than an evening gown would do, but far more than she was comfortable with.

His gaze snapped to her hand. Those midnight eyes grew darker, deeper. The heat in them felt entirely male. Inappropriate, that was what it was. Insulting even. Except… had she drawn his attention on purpose? What
had
her hand been doing at her neckline? It was disconcerting to realize she couldn’t even trust her own body. Maybe she’d been teasing him, drawing his gaze where it shouldn’t be, as a distraction. If she was a liar and a thief, if she regularly dressed in a boy’s clothes, if she consorted with pirates enough to find them familiar—and appealing—then it wasn’t a far stretch to imagine she had relations with them, as well.

No.

But the facts were irrefutable and closing in. She glanced wildly around the room, seeing it in a different light. A small room. The window, barred. He sat between the bed and the door.

A jail cell. A very comfortable, very warm prison.

“How long have I been here?” she asked.

“Two days. I wasn’t sure you—” His voice sounded unaccountably hoarse as he amended, “We didn’t know if you would recover.”

She repeated those words in her head, trying to focus on them. Instead, she heard what he hadn’t said.
I wasn’t sure you would wake up. I wasn’t sure you would live.
He wasn’t sure, which meant he had thought about it, worried over her.

It warmed her inside to have
someone
who cared. All she’d felt in the moments since waking had been confusion and lingering exhaustion.

“I’ll send a tray,” he said.

And hunger. She felt a vast hunger.

“Why would you help me?” she asked with suspicion. If she had stolen from him, he shouldn’t be inclined to feed her. He shouldn’t have cared if she recovered.

“Are you suggesting I starve you, Julian?” A sardonic edge sharpened his voice.

“No, I just…” What
was
she suggesting? That he turn her onto the street? In her current state, weakened and missing her memory, it would mean certain death. And yet, she was uncomfortable accepting his charity without understanding his motives. Like spotting a prime bite of cheese when you needed it most, the trap pulled out of sight.

“Just tell me what your plans are,” she begged.

His expression softened for a fraction of a second. “I’m not in the habit of starving women in my charge. For the time being, you’ll rest here until you’ve healed.”

“And then?”

His eyes glinted. Like diamonds, fractious and unyielding. “And then you
will
tell me who sent you to the warehouse. Or I’ll turn you over to my boss. You won’t like that option. Trust me.”

Her chest felt tight. “Thank you.”

He stared for a full minute before opening the door. An older boy stood outside. “Stay here. Don’t let her leave,” the pirate told the boy before shutting the bedroom door behind him. Metal scraped as the lock turned.

And then he was gone.

She closed her eyes as exhaustion swept over her. The conversation had been more taxing than she would have expected. Either that, or she’d started with little energy.

With a surge of effort, she managed to sit up. It was just that important, figuring out her present state. Despite the screaming agony in her limbs. Her arms were fine except for a few scratches. One of her ankles had indeed been sprained. It was swollen twice the size of the other.

But the worst injury was in her side where a gash had been bandaged. Who had done the bandaging? Her captor? She didn’t want to imagine him undressing her. Washing her. Caring for her.

Surely there were servants.
Female
servants.

But so far she’d only seen him and the young man outside. Mortified heat spread through her cheeks. Somehow, she knew that the pirate had seen her without clothes. The knowledge was in his eyes, deep down beneath the surface. In the casual way he’d looked at her, at the parts above the covers and beneath them—without curiosity. With something else, instead.

With carefully banked desire.

…

Nate stomped down the stairs, startling a maid in his path. Well, she shouldn’t be surprised. He was in a foul mood. He was always in a foul mood on land.

His house was comfortable—he made sure of that. Always warm and dry. But it couldn’t compete with the steady sway of the sea. His temper didn’t have anything to do with the girl or how lost she looked.

What the hell was he doing with her?

He already knew. He was going to feed her. That was the first thing.

And then he was going to interrogate her.

Yes, that made sense. He liked the order of it, a plan of attack. It turned him into a warrior, in this battle of wits. It turned her into a ship—one he could raid and plunder and pillage. One he could own.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the necklace, the one she’d been reaching for but hadn’t found. He’d taken it off her while she slept.

The locket was plain with shallow floral engraving and a cheap rusted hinge. The pictures inside were too blurry to really make out. They must have become wet when she fell in. But he could tell there was a woman on one side and a man on the other. A married couple?

Did she have a husband out there looking for her?

For reasons he didn’t want to examine, he decided no. She was not married. What kind of husband would let his wife go off on a foolhardy mission? These were other people. Perhaps her and a brother. Or her parents. Or perhaps she had stolen the necklace and its portraits meant nothing to her.

He squinted at the pictures, trying to make out the features, and almost ran into the housekeeper on his way into the kitchen.

Mrs. Wheaton had been his first hire, as either servant or employee. In the five years since, she had been efficient, loyal, and only spoken a handful of words to him.

She was silent now, expectant.

He shoved the locket back into his pocket. “Have the cook prepare a supper tray for the guest upstairs.” He added, “Please.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Something fortifying, I should think, for someone recovering. But easy on the stomach. What would that be?”

She paused, and he got the sense she was stretching herself, reluctant to add another word to their limited exchange.

“Broth, sir?”

“Yes. Right.” Would she like a broth? Would she prefer a particular kind of broth?

He was being ridiculous. He shouldn’t care what kind of broth a thief preferred. He
didn’t
care.

Julian.
He scoffed. It would serve her right if he continued to call her that. In fact— “Make it porridge,” he ordered. “And no sugar.”

Porridge was both fortifying and easy on the stomach. And tasteless. Problem solved.

“Of course, sir.”

He thought he heard something almost sardonic in her voice that time, but when he narrowed his gaze, she stared back as placid as ever. Maybe it wasn’t such a good thing she’d worked here so long. She knew him too well.

Nate was unsurprised to find a visitor in his study. “Sinclair,” he said in greeting.

“Nate.” Adrian already had a cup of tea. He had managed to charm the stoic Mrs. Wheaton into sending him a tray
and
keeping his presence a secret. Hardly surprising. Adrian Mallory, Duke of Sinclair, could charm anyone into anything.

“I invoked your name as a threat,” Nate said, taking a seat behind his desk. “Said I’d hand her over to you.”