Master of My Dreams (15 page)

“The woman he could fall in love with.”

Miserably, Deirdre shook her head. “Nay. He’s
in love with someone else. Someone called Emily.”

“Aaah,” Delight nodded, knowingly. “His dead
wife.” She raised a brow at Deirdre’s surprised look. “Oh, don’t
look so shocked! Rico told Ian, who told me. Happened five years
ago, it did. The poor dear died in a fire. But really, Deirdre, do
not let
that
stop you. Whatever his thoughts are toward his
dead wife, she can’t warm his bed at night. You, on the other
hand—”

Deirdre, her cheeks flaming, was already
reaching for the door. “Thank ye, Delight. Ye . . . ye made some
things clear in my mind, ye did.”

Delight just shrugged and smiled brightly.
“Well, anytime you want advice, you come here to me. And when the
time comes for you to lure the Lord and Master into your bed, you
just let me know. I have all kinds of
devices
to make the
task go easy for you, no?”

On that note, Deirdre went scarlet and fled
the brig, Delight’s amused laughter ringing in her ears.

###

Emily.

His wife came to him, as she had nearly every
night for the past five years, waiting until he was deeply asleep
before inflicting this same hell upon him that he was doomed, it
seemed, to never escape.

Christian’s blood went cold, and he trembled,
curling himself beneath the blankets and hearing himself whimpering
deep in his throat. But there was no hiding. No escaping.

“Emily?” He was dreaming, he
knew
he
was dreaming, but nevertheless it was all happening again, just as
it had that long-ago night in the distant English countryside, and
there was nothing, absolutely nothing, he could do to change it. He
reached out for her in the darkness, knowing, of course, that he
would find her side of the bed empty.

He swung himself out of bed, the floor cold
against his feet. After so many months at sea, he was used to a
rolling deck, not cold marble, plush Persian rugs, and a solid
floor that did not move. But no, he was not aboard his ship, but at
home at the fine country estate in Hampshire that had been in the
Lord family for centuries.

He stood for a moment, swaying in the
darkness and getting his bearings. Everything about this room felt
cold—not unlike the way
she
had behaved toward him since
he’d dropped anchor in Portsmouth a week before.

“Emily?”

He stumbled along, slightly disoriented, the
rich, ornate furniture with which she had filled their bedroom
looming as huge, dark shapes in the gloom. The furniture was ugly
and far too grand for his tastes, but she had wanted it, and it
wasn’t in his heart to deny her.

“Emily?” he said again, beginning to grow
worried. With her legs crippled from a childhood illness, she
couldn’t have gone far. He paused, listening. From downstairs came
the steady
tick, tock
of a clock; from beyond the window,
the shriek of a night bird. Land sounds, unfamiliar to his
mariner’s ears. Outside, an owl hooted, once, twice.

Dread snaked up his spine. Where the devil
was
she?

It was as his hand groped for a flint that he
heard it: from downstairs, the tinkle of her laughter.

He froze, the blood chilling in his
veins.

His hands were shaking as he tried once,
twice, to light a candle. Shielding the flame and gripping the
candle so hard that his knuckles went white, he crept out of the
room and down the twisting marble staircase.

Voices came drifting through the hall.
“Really, James, I prefer it when you touch me there . . . oh, yes,
there.
Oh . . .
oh, yes
. . .”

Shock paralyzed him . . . And then—anger that
blinded him to all thought, all reason, all caution. He rushed
forward. His foot slammed into the parlor door and sent it crashing
back against the wall.

And by the dim glow of a candle, he saw it
all. Emily, her hair spread beneath her on the sofa, her long,
frail legs opened wide, her thighs wrapped around her lover’s back
as he pumped and strained madly above her.

With a hoarse cry, Christian charged
forward.

###

Deirdre O’Devir awoke with a start.

Something had roused her. She sat up in bed,
her heart pounding

The Lord and Master.

Through the canvas screen, she heard him
thrashing in his bunk, his hoarse cries blotting out even the
ceaseless moans of the wind and sea outside.

Deirdre flung the covers aside, left her
cabin, and stepping over the snoring sentry posted just outside the
captain’s door, padded on silent feet across the checked canvas
that covered the deck planking.

This cabin offered the only windows on the
ship, and through them, she could see that the storm clouds were
parting. The full moon shone brightly, and by its silver glow, she
saw the English captain writhing in torment in his bed. The sheets
were twined around his legs, sweat sheened his chest and his mouth
was open in a silent scream.

She stared down at him, the barely remembered
face of her brother rising up before her eyes to remind her of her
forgotten vow.

Kill him, Deirdre . . . Kill him . . .
remember what he did to us. To you and mama . . . Remember your
vow,
Deirdre!

“No!”

She clapped her hands to her ears, squeezing
her eyes shut and shaking her head as she tried futilely to push
the images away, to block them out.

Kill him.

Never would she find the Lord and Master more
vulnerable.

“I
won’t
!” she cried, clawing at her
cheeks.

“Emily . . .” he moaned brokenly, his voice
no longer a plea, but deteriorating into awful, choking sobs that
tore at her heart. “Dear God, Emily . . .”

Her hands shaking madly, Deirdre took a deep
breath and picked up the brass dividers that lay glinting in the
moonlight on his desk.

Then she moved toward the bed.

###

“I’ll see you in hell, by God!”

Christian dove forward, hearing his wife’s
scream as her lover lunged to his feet and fled from the room.
Blinded by rage, Christian pounded after him, her desperate voice
echoing behind him.

“If you weren’t at sea all the time, you
wouldn’t have forced me to take a lover! If you were half the
husband you ought to be, I would never have strayed! Dammit,
Christian,
don’t do it
!”

Black, all-consuming rage. . . . His breath
roaring through his lungs . . . The man’s pale, naked form rounding
the corner into the hall, racing through the elegant drawing room,
stopping only long enough to snatch a lamp from the wall and hurl
it at Christian with all his strength—

The room exploded into flames. Fire whooshed
up the curtains in a deafening roar, sending Christian reeling
back, away from the wall of intense heat. The rugs went up in an
inferno, and savage, hungry flames charged up the fine paper that
covered the walls.

In minutes, the house was ablaze.

Servants, clad only in their nightgowns,
raced past, screaming. Christian pounded back down the hall,
hearing the roar of the fire behind him.
“Emily!”
he
screamed hoarsely. “Emily, dear God, where
are
you?”

The parlor was empty.

Thick, choking whorls of black smoke blinded
him, driving the breath from his lungs. Heat blasted against his
skin, his eyes, singing his hair. Coughing, he stumbled and raced
on, the flames chasing him as he tore madly through the house in a
desperate search for his wife.

“
Emily!”

Pounding up the stairs, he crashed into the
bedroom and found nothing. He half ran, half fell, down the
spiraling staircase, and it was only then that he heard her screams
of terror.

“Christian!
Christia-a-a-a-a-an
!”

Where was she?
Frantically, he kicked
open doors that were already in flames. He bolted through rooms
crackling with heat and engulfed in fire. The acrid stench of
burning fabric, plaster, and wood seared his nose and the flames
clawed at him like a live thing.

Her voice rose to a shrill scream.
“
Christia-a-a-a-an!”

There, huddled in a heap at the far end of
the hall, he saw her, her frightened face glowing orange in the
leaping flames, her frail body lying where her crippled legs had
finally given out.

He raced headlong down the burning hall, her
screams of terror guiding him through flames that tore at his face,
smoke that stung his eyes and filled his lungs.

“
Christian!”

He was almost there.
Almost there!
Another few feet and—

With a sudden bellowing roar, a wall of
timbers crashed down around him in an exploding inferno of
showering sparks and leaping flame, forever separating them.

Emily! . . .

He heard her unholy, dying screams.

Then nothing.

###

Deirdre stood above the captain, helpless,
the brass dividers forgotten. Any thoughts of avenging Roddy fled
her mind as his writhing body finally quieted and he curled himself
up amidst the twisted sheets, his arms over his face, his broad,
strong, back to her. She was about to flee back to her own cabin
when she realized that an awful sound was coming from him: harsh,
racking sobs that were so desolate, so full of raw anguish that her
own heart felt like it was being torn asunder.

Tears welled up in her own eyes and she
stared down at him for a long moment, seeing the Lord and Master as
none of the others aboard the frigate had seen him.

Alone, tortured—and defenseless.

And suffering in a way that no person should
ever have to suffer.

Deirdre swallowed hard. Then, her heart
aching for him, she peeled back the blankets, slid gently in beside
him, and wrapped her arms around his heaving shoulders, holding him
tightly until at last his breathing grew soft, his muscles relaxed,
and his anguished sobs faded until there was nothing but the sheen
of tears upon harsh cheeks that shone silver in the moonlight.