Authors: Danelle Harmon
“I am afraid.”
“I’ve got you.”
Oh, how warm and wonderful that hand
. . . . “Trust me.”
She trusted him. With her life. But she didn’t know how to do as he asked, and when she hesitated further, he put his other hand against the small of her back, lifted her once more off the sea floor and tilted her, slowly, until she was all but lying on her belly in the water.
Fear rose in her throat and she began to breathe hard, her arms shooting out, trying to find purchase in a medium that offered none.
“Relax,” he said again, holding her. “Take a deep breath, let it out, and relax. I’ve got you, Miss Evans.”
“I’m afraid.”
“I know.”
“I mean, really,
really
afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Drowning.”
He smiled then, supporting her easily with one hand under her belly, his other gently rubbing the small of her back, encouraging her to relax. To trust him. “I did not let your sister drown in the cold waters of Portsmouth, and I’m not about to let
you
drown here in Carlisle Bay.”
Rhiannon began to shake as the reality of this situation began to overwhelm her.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“I’m ready.”
He began to walk, slowly, and Rhiannon, still lying on her stomach with his hands supporting her, felt water moving against her collarbone, streaming along her body.
“Lower your head. Let your chin rest in the water.”
She froze, afraid all over again.
“I have you, Miss Evans.”
She stiffened but did as he instructed, and felt the water come alarmingly up to the level of her ears, swirling around her jaw, her chin and the back of her head as though wanting to swallow her.
Trust him.
“Put your arms out,” he instructed. “Pretend you’re flying. I won’t let you go.”
She did so, and suddenly felt the sea dragging against her arms as he pivoted her around him in a small circle, allowing her to get the feel of the water.
But Rhiannon wasn’t thinking about the water.
She was thinking of those two kisses, and the way his hands against her skin were making her feel, and the fact that he’d said he was courting her. Every cell in her body was aware of one thing only, and that was Connor Merrick.
“I am going to take my hand off your back,” he said.
“No!”
“And leave my other hand under your belly and ribs.”
“Don’t let me go!”
‘Pon my life, ma’m, I will not. Do you still trust me?”
“I still trust you.”
He took his hand away from her back, balancing her, now, on the one hand he still had beneath her belly. His thumb was close to the underside of her breasts.
And his little finger, to her navel.
She wondered what it would feel like if he spread his fingers and touched her in those most intimate of places.
“Now, I want you to make reaching motions with your arms . . . put your hands together as if you were praying, reach forward, then stroke back, as though you’re trying to push the water behind you. And while you’re doing that, I’m still going to hold you.”
“All right.”
She did as he asked, her mind torn between fear and desire and the dizzy, heady exhilaration of being freed from gravity, of the ocean bottom, of. . . .
Flying.
“Now, as I walk with you, and you stroke with your arms, I want you to gently kick your legs. Again, I will not let you go.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She tried, but she was too tense, too scared, too
aware
of this man beside her, and she grew confused, unable to stroke with her arms and kick with her legs in any sort of meaningful rhythm.
He paused, allowing her to collect her courage.
“Still afraid?” he asked.
“Terrified.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“I bet you say that to every girl you teach to swim.”
“On the contrary, Miss Evans. You are the first.” He paused. “Now, I want you to stand up and find the bottom. I’ll keep my hand here, on your belly, and then I will take your hand, as we’re a little deeper than we were and I don’t wish you to be startled. Are you ready?”
“Ready.”
He gently helped her to find her feet and she stood up, trembling with excitement and desire and triumph. Her hand was still caught securely within his own and he looked down at her, smiled, and gently released her, walking a few steps backward away from her while the water made a swirling wake around his hips.
He continued to move backward until he was six or seven feet away from her. There he stopped and, extending his hands toward her, smiled.
“Now, I want you to swim to me, Rhiannon.”
Rhiannon.
“I did not give you permission to use my given name, Captain.”
“No, you did not. So come here and do something about it.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do!”
“Push off from the bottom, bring your arms up and let yourself fall, and at the same time that you do this, slice the water with your arms to break your fall,” he said, motioning with his own arms to illustrate. “As you feel yourself starting to sink just a little bit, pull the water back as you were doing just a moment ago, and kick with your feet. You only have to reach me. Throw yourself toward me, and then use your arms to keep yourself afloat.”
“And if I do that, Captain? Will you end this lesson, bring me back to the house, and leave on the morrow, never to return?”
“If I knew what was good for me, that is precisely what I would do.”
“Given your actions in the short time since I’ve met you, I’m not convinced you know what is good for you.”
“And you would be right. Now try it, Miss Evans. If you can traverse the several feet that separates us, you’ll be able to call yourself a swimmer.”
She nodded and took a deep, steadying breath, suddenly afraid all over again.
He stood there, silhouetted and unmoving against the night sky, his arms stretched encouragingly toward her . . . .
So close.
With a little gasp, Rhiannon half-fell, half-threw herself forward, felt the sea close around her, trying to come up over her head—and panicked. Water sloshed into her eyes and up her nose, burning her sinuses, and suddenly his hands were there beneath her, holding her once more, supporting her, as she splashed and panted in fear and tried to get her pounding heart back under control.
“I sank,” she cried, in despair. “I am not made to swim!”
“You sank because you panicked,” he said with quiet firmness. “You must try it again, Miss Evans, otherwise you’ll never find the courage to make another attempt, and that would be a pity.”
“Oh,” she said, trying to quell her rising hysteria. “Oh, I don’t think that I can.”
“Really? I think that you can. And I think that you
will
.”
She would have protested further but he had set her back down again, retreated a little ways closer into shore, and once again had his hands outstretched, beckoning, encouraging her forward.
To trust him.
Once again, Rhiannon took a deep breath, let herself fall, and this time her hands came up to automatically break her fall—
“Stroke!” he urged, with a grin splitting his handsome face, and suddenly it all came together and Rhiannon, propelled by the momentum of her frightened plunge toward him, held afloat by her desperate arms, was swimming.
Swimming.
It was only a couple of feet but she did it on her own, and suddenly he had caught her arms and pulled her joyously out of the water, laughing in delight at her triumph.
“You did it!”
“I did it!”
“I’m proud of you, Miss Evans!”
“I’m proud of me, too! Thank you, Captain! Oh, God help me, I swam! I
swam
!”
He laughed, still holding her by both arms, and then the sudden, frenzied triumph stilled in her blood and she was aware of only his eyes, the sudden fading of his smile, the height and strength and feel of his big, wet body in the moonlight.
Time stilled for both of them.
“You’re going to kiss me again,” she breathed.
He merely smiled.
“Aren’t you?”
He didn’t answer, but just drew her forward by her arms, pulled her up and off the sea floor, and raising his leg, set her down atop his bare, wet thigh so that she straddled it, the hard muscle pushing against that burning area between her legs.
Oh, dear God!
Her suddenly desperate arms groped blindly for something to hold onto, and found only his wet torso as his mouth came down on hers once more.
Chapter 10
Ned Falconer was unable to sleep.
It wasn’t often that Uncle Connor came to visit and the boy, lying awake in his bed while the mosquito netting moved gently in the breeze around him, couldn’t get the memory of him leaping from the main gaff out of his mind. Again and again he saw his uncle plunging down, down, down with fearless abandon, only to execute a perfect dive into the sea.
Nobody else on Uncle Con’s schooner had dared to jump from such a height. Even Captain Lord had not dared to do such a thing and he was Papa’s flag captain.
Oh, what must it feel like to soar through the air like a bird, to plunge like a knife into the turquoise waters of Carlisle Bay while everyone cheered and threw money into a pot celebrating your bravery?
Ned wanted to do the same thing.
He tossed and turned, and tossed and turned some more, and as he lay there staring up at the darkened ceiling, he heard voices coming from down near the beach.
He sat up in bed, listening.
One of those voices sounded like Miss Evans’s.
Ned parted the mosquito netting, swung out of bed, and went to the window.
The figures were small with distance, and the gently waving palm fronds obscured any clear view of whomever was down there on the beach.
Suddenly, the voice that sounded like Miss Evans’s let out a short, terrified scream, and worried now, the little boy jumped out of bed and ran to get his parents.
* * *
Through the haze of sensation that was enveloping her body, centering in her nipples and in that suddenly raw and aching spot between her legs against which Captain Merrick’s hard, wet thigh was pressed, Rhiannon was aware of his voice, lowered to a whisper as he quietly broke the kiss, lowered the leg on which she was perched and, framing her hips with his hands, gently set her away from him.
“I am going to take you back to the house now, Miss Evans.”
It took her a moment to realize what he’d said, and the confusion and disappointment must have shown clearly on her face.
“But . . . why?”
“Because if we stay out here any longer it will end up as more than just a kiss, and far more than a swim lesson. You’re a good girl. I’d like to ensure you stay that way.”
“But—”
“Shhh.” He took her hand and together they trudged from the warm waters, Rhiannon aching with a longing she did not understand, her lips tingling from the kiss, her skin on fire where he, with his big, warm, strong hands, had touched it.
They emerged, dripping, onto the beach. There, he bent to pick up his shirt. Shaking the sand from it, he gently placed it around her shoulders in an attempt to restore a bit of her modesty, and it was then that she saw a large bulge at the front of his wet, cut-off trousers.
Her eyes widened.
He noted the direction of her gaze. “I did not, shall we say, ‘behave myself’ tonight, Miss Evans. Please accept my apologies.” He grinned. “You make me forget myself, ma’m.”
He offered his arm and there was something hurried about him now, something that spoke of restlessness and regret and an eagerness to rush her back to the house and be done with her. Rhiannon, trying not to glance at his trousers, felt her confusion mounting. She felt hot and cold and dizzy and faint from a million different sensations she could not identify. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. She didn’t know what she wanted, really, except to find a way back into his arms, and to feel his lips against her own once more. . . .
They had just reached the edge of the trees when Captain Merrick suddenly halted and, in one swift motion, put her behind him.
There was the frightening sound of a pistol being cocked. “Who goes there, by God?” a voice of authority demanded.
Rhiannon froze, and a sensation of pure horror shot from the base of her spine, up into her throat, and stole the breath from her lungs. Oh, dear God above. It was Sir Graham, and he stood not ten feet away, a pistol aimed straight at Captain Merrick’s heart, with his wife—brandishing a cutlass—at his side.
“It is I. Connor. I was merely enjoying a late night swim following the day’s heat, and I’d be much obliged, Sir Graham, if you’d lower the pistol.”
“Ned just came to me to tell me he heard a woman cry out. That it sounded like Miss Evans.”
“It was probably just a night bird, nothing more.”
Rhiannon didn’t dare to move, and the iron-grip that the American captain had on her arm warned her against it. He was trying to keep her hidden behind his own body, to protect her reputation, to try and salvage this situation as best he could. But then there was movement and noise in the undergrowth behind the admiral and Alannah appeared, holding a lantern.
Sir Graham took the lamp and held it high.
“Whom do you have with you, Connor?”
“With all due respect, Admiral, though you may be my brother-in-law, you are certainly not my keeper, my father, or for that matter, my commanding officer.”
But the admiral had shoved his pistol into his waistband and frowning, was coming closer, his eyes, dark in the shadows cast by the lantern, going hard.
Still hiding behind her protector, Rhiannon took a deep and shuddering breath. The game was up and she knew it. She stepped out from behind the protection of Captain Merrick’s broad back, her face flaming, her arms coming up to shield her dripping body, knowing that the water had made her shift and thin muslin gown cling to her like a second skin. She was mortified. But to let Captain Merrick take the blame was unfair. She was as much responsible for the awful, scandalous mess in which they both found themselves as he was.
Perhaps even more.
“Oh, my God,” breathed Alannah.
Sir Graham’s face went even darker, and beside him Maeve moved to take his arm.
“Don’t blame Captain Merrick for this,” Rhiannon said with more courage than she felt. She raised her chin and steadily met the admiral’s hard glare. “I asked him to give me a swimming lesson.”
“A
what
?”
“A swimming lesson, Admiral. Nothing more.”
“I daresay it was a lot more than a swimming lesson, girl!”
Sir Graham turned his full, frightening fury on Connor Merrick. “Do you realize that Lord Morninghall sent the girl to me trusting that I would protect and guard her while she was under my care?
Do you
? She’s only eighteen years old, and if you weren’t my wife’s brother I’d have you shot where you stand.”
“Sir Graham, if you would let me speak—”
“Let you speak?” The admiral’s voice was icy with barely-suppressed rage. “You’re trouble, Connor.
Trouble
. You’re reckless, proud, over-confident, swaggering, and nothing like the father you seek to emulate, a man for whom I have the highest degree of admiration. So help me God, if he were standing here instead of me he couldn’t be more ashamed of you than I am right now. Miss Evans, you will accompany Lady Falconer and Alannah back to the house.”
Rhiannon, however, dared not let go of Captain Merrick’s arm which, despite his relaxed stance, had gone very tense beneath her fingers. She did not quite believe that her host wouldn’t shoot him, for she had never seen the normally affable Sir Graham in such a state of rage, and she was suddenly afraid for the American captain.
“Sir Graham, we did nothing wrong—”
“I
said
, you will accompany my wife back to the house. And you will do it
now
.”
“
Wait.
”
Captain Merrick, who had been content to let Sir Graham give vent to his blistering fury, finally spoke.
“You’re right in that I should have known better than to plunge a young lady into the situation in which she was discovered tonight.” His voice hardened, and the charming, smiling man that Rhiannon had thus known him to be was suddenly gone, to be replaced by someone every inch as forbidding and dangerous as the admiral himself . . . maybe even more so. “But you are wrong,
dead wrong
, sir, when you say I am nothing like my father.”
“Your father is a decent and honorable man!”
“And you do me a grave injustice, Sir Graham, by implying that I am not. Don’t think I’m not willing to meet you at dawn for such an insult.”
“Enough, both of you!” Maeve said sharply, moving between the two of them. “I’ll have none of this!”
“And neither will I!” Rhiannon cried, suddenly alarmed.
But the British admiral was looking at the American privateer with a cunning, contemplative eye. “And just how do you intend to prove to me, Connor, that you’ve inherited a shred of your father’s goodness of character?”
“I have nothing to prove to you. And no obligation to. But I know my duty, and I’ll marry the girl. You may think the worst of me, Admiral, and you’re free to do so, but let no man say I’m not decent or honorable. I am my father’s son, and if Miss Evans will have me, I request your permission, as her guardian in Lord Morninghall’s absence, to make her my wife.”
In the sudden silence, nobody spoke.
Captain Merrick stood waiting, a proud and noble figure despite the fact he was barefoot and clad in nothing but wet trousers.
And Rhiannon’s heart stopped beating in her chest.
“My apologies, Connor,” the admiral finally said, with a tight, grudging smile. “It seems as though I’ve misjudged your character, after all.” He turned to Rhiannon, his face grave. “And you, Miss Evans? Have you an opinion on this?”
Had she an opinion on this?
Her head spinning, the situation growing more surreal by the moment, and feeling perilously close to fainting, Rhiannon took a step closer to Captain Merrick. She inhaled deeply, trying to control her shaking. Her numbness. There were worse things than being married. There were worse things than being married to a Yankee privateer.
And there were certainly worse things than being married to the noble, daring, heroic man who had rescued so many hapless souls from the atrocities of the British prison hulks, who had rescued Lord Morninghall from a firing squad and helped secure his royal pardon, who had rescued her sister from drowning, who had rescued herself and Alannah from pirates, and now, had rescued her reputation from what could have been a terrible scandal.
Sir Graham had been wrong.
Connor Merrick was a good and decent man.
She took a deep and steadying breath. “I would be honored to have him, Sir Graham.”