Of Noble Birth (16 page)

“Have you ever seen
anything more beautiful?” she asked, growing uncomfortable when he
didn’t speak.

“Only you,” he
said.

Startled, Alexandra looked
up into his face. She expected him to turn his words into some kind
of a taunt, but he looked in earnest.

“I’ve done everything I
can do to improve this dress with my needle,” she said, unsure how
to respond to the compliment. “Washing it in seawater has all but
ruined it and makes me itch like mad.”

“I could lend you
something else, but I doubt my clothes would do justice to your
form.”

Alexandra raised an
eyebrow, remembering her part as Lady Anne. “Wear men’s clothing?
Never.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t give
you a choice. It’s foolish to be so uncomfortable.”

John interrupted them
then, and Nathaniel excused himself. Striding off to settle some
issue between the cook and the purser, he left Alexandra to puzzle
over his unpredictable behavior. She never knew what to expect from
him.

She lingered on the deck
until the sun grew bright and full, then went below to find a hip
bath sitting in the middle of the floor.

“Oh!” she exclaimed,
rushing over to feel the water. It was fresh, and warm as well. She
longed to rid her body of the salt that made her skin miserably
dry, but a knock interrupted her before she could remove her
clothes.

“Come in,” Alexandra
called, afraid to turn her head away from the bath for fear it
would disappear.

Charlie, the ship’s cook,
entered. He carried a pail of water, his frown so deep it reminded
Alexandra of the lines on the face of a wooden puppet.

“As if the captain doesn’t
bathe enough already,” he grumbled, eyeing her resentfully. “Now we
got to be haulin’ water for the enemy’s kin. But I ain’t never ‘ad
to heat it before.”

The buxom woman tattooed
on Charlie’s arm danced as he poured the water out of his pail, and
Alexandra suppressed a giggle of delight, unaffected by the cook’s
displeasure. She couldn’t imagine what had motivated Nathaniel to
provide her with such a rare treat, but at that moment she could
have kissed his feet.

“That’s the last of it,”
Charlie muttered as he left.

“Thank you.” Alexandra
twirled in circles once the door closed behind him. She’d had
nothing but sponge baths for a week and was anxious to enjoy the
real thing—until she remembered that the cabin door had no lock.
Nathaniel had had it removed before she ever boarded the
Vengeance,
refusing her
the option of locking it against him. Now Alexandra feared he, or
someone else, might interrupt her.

Letting her fingers
dangle, she felt the water quickly losing its precious
heat.

She couldn’t waste such a
luxury, she reasoned. Charlie had gone to a great deal of trouble,
and fresh water was too precious aboard a ship.

Retrieving the cake of
soap from the washstand and setting it within easy reach of the
bath, she undid the myriad of tiny buttons that descended from her
collar to her waist. The gown fell past her hips to the floor. She
laid it across the bed, then hurriedly removed her undergarments
and stepped in.

“Ohhhh,” she groaned,
hunching down until the water rose up to her neck. Sinking beneath
it, she scrubbed her head, then lathered her body.

Once clean, Alexandra
lingered, unwilling to get out until the water’s heat had
completely dissipated—or she turned into a prune, which happened
sooner than she would have liked. Rising, she felt the chill of the
drafty cabin as she began to dry off.

No sooner had she wrapped
the towel around herself than Nathaniel opened the door.

“I’m sorry. I thought I
had given you ample time—” He stopped as his gaze traveled from the
top of Alexandra’s wet head to her cleavage, over the round curve
of her hips and down to her bare calves and feet. Instead of
turning away with a mumbled apology as a gentleman surely would
have, he stared at her with such hunger that she wondered if she
might be his next meal.

Instinctively she raised
her hands to shield her breasts from his view, then realized they
were covered already.

“I—I—” Her words died at
the passion in his eyes. Tearing her own gaze from Nathaniel’s
face, she turned away, and when she looked back over her shoulder,
he was gone.

That night Nathaniel came
in late. Alexandra heard him strip in the dark and get into the
cold bath and scrub his hair. Silently she rolled over in the bed
to see if she could catch a glimpse of his muscular torso, but the
moonlight filtering in through the porthole was too dim. She could
only hear his movements and smell the soap he lathered over his
body.

In her imagination, it was
her fingers that moved over his skin, not his own. She felt every
ripple of muscle, the thickness of his hair, the straightness of
his back, the broadness of his shoulders...

Alexandra squeezed her
eyes shut and swallowed hard. What was wrong with her? Dreaming of
Nathaniel was madness. He was a criminal. She was his captive. Yet
the moment he stepped from the bath, she pictured the water running
off his wide chest and down over his long legs.

She knew when he finally
dressed and got into his hammock. And she continued to hear every
move he made for hours afterward.

* * *

At dawn, when the first
rays of the sun streaked across the sky like long, purple fingers,
Nathaniel was already on deck. He had left Anne sleeping, curled
into a tight ball. She had stirred often in the night, and once had
even whimpered. He knew because he hadn’t slept himself. He’d
tossed and turned, unable to get the vision of her wrapped in that
towel out of his mind, especially considering she was little more
than an arm’s distance away. She was going to drive him mad if he
didn’t get rid of her soon.

Charlie gave him a mug of
tea. Nathaniel wrapped his hand around the warm cup, then called to
his navigator to see how they were progressing on their return to
London. Some of his crew moved sluggishly about the rigging,
adjusting the sails and checking the rope as he took a sip of the
hot brew.

“Ahoy, Captain,” John
called. He had the early watch and sat on the fore-topgallant yard,
looking out. “Vessel on the windward side.”

Nathaniel handed his
unfinished tea back to Charlie. “Can you see the flag?”

Charlie took the cup as a
toothless grin split his face. “You think that be the
one?”

Nathaniel didn’t answer.
He had expected to find his father’s ship closer to the Crimea, but
perhaps it had been delayed. He began shouting orders, getting the
crew ready just in case.

“The flag! Can you make
out the flag?” Nathaniel prompted as John continued to squint
through the glass without responding.

“Aye. She’s English all
right.”

“And?”

Those crew members who had
been lingering in their bunks now flooded the deck.

“‘
Tis the
Eastern Horizon
.”

A chorus of approval broke
from the men as Nathaniel sought out his first mate. Trenton stood
on the quarterdeck, where he had been testing the wind and
searching the skies for any sign of a storm.

“We’re in luck,” Trenton
called, making his way toward Nathaniel. “If the weather holds. But
Captain Montague was no pushover when we met him last. I wonder how
he’ll react in a second go-round.”

Nathaniel shrugged. “You’d
think that with as many ships as my father owns, we wouldn’t have
to take the same one twice, at least not so soon. But Montague
won’t put up much of a fight, not with Anne on board.”

“Do think your father
realizes that we’ve taken her to sea with us?”

“Where else would we take
her? Besides, doubt alone should be enough to forestall him, and if
not, Montague understands the rules of the game. He knows we won’t
harm his crew. Maybe he’ll be more cooperative this
time.”

“I wouldn’t bet my life on
it,” Trenton retorted.

Facing the black speck he
now knew to be one of his father’s ships, Nathaniel shouted, “Full
press sail. Chase her down. But be careful,” he added. “There’s no
telling what new defense they might manage. We will come as no
surprise to Montague.”

* * *

When the
Eastern Horizon
spotted
the pirate ship, her captain turned her around and tried to run. It
was not a wise decision, Nathaniel thought. She was so laden with
cargo that she moved like a tugboat in the choppy water while his
sleek, fast-cutting clipper fairly flew toward her. By the time the
merchant brig was positioned for a fight, the
Vengeance
was little more than half
a mile away.

Taking his own glass,
Nathaniel climbed the mast. He was amazed to see almost forty men
crawling about the deck of the
Horizon,
preparing shot for the
ship’s four short carronades, a smaller and lighter version of
regular cannons. “Take cover!” he barked. “They mean to
fight.”

Seconds later the sound of
cannon fire erupted, followed by the splash of shot plunging into
the sea less than five feet off their bow. The
Vengeance
keeled slightly to leeward
as it rode the resulting swell before answering with a burst of her
own guns. Then both ships tried to position and reload for another
round.

“Quickly, quickly,”
Nathaniel prodded, sliding down to the deck. If they could get off
a round before the
Horizon,
it might intimidate the brig’s crew, he thought.
By no means did he want a prolonged fight.

“And... fire!” Nathaniel
yelled the words only seconds before a second blast told him
the
Horizon
had
done the same. He braced for possible impact, knowing the small
size of his ship was in his favor. He hoped it would be enough. No
heavy cargo impaired the
Vengeance’s
movements, but Nathaniel
was fighting four guns with only three—one long, thirty-two-pound
swivel cannon amidships, and two brass guns.

“What’s happening?” Anne
stumbled out onto the deck, struggling to keep her feet amid the
violent rocking of the ship. Her eyes grew wide when she saw
the
Eastern Horizon
and its guns, still smoking from its last volley. “They’re
going to sink us!”

“Not if we get them
first,” Garth grumbled from where he worked to clean a cannon
muzzle of any remaining powder so he could reload.

“Go back to the cabin,”
Nathaniel called, intercepting her before she could stray too far
from the hatch. “It’s not safe up here.”

“Is it any safer
below?”

Nathaniel could tell Anne
was terrified. She glanced around as though in disbelief, but he
had no time to calm her. “Go! Hurry!”

Another blast of shot sent
the ship reeling, and Anne nearly fell back through the hatch. Only
Nathaniel’s sure legs and quick reaction saved her. He reached out,
holding her upright until she regained her balance. “Now go,” he
insisted, “before you get hurt.”

Anne coughed on the acrid
smoke that now concealed most of the deck, and turned back. To
reassure himself of her safety, Nathaniel watched her go, wondering
about the captain of the
Eastern
Horizon.
The son of a passionate Frenchman
and a cool English mother, Montague had fought better than expected
the first time they had met. But he was proving more stubborn now,
despite Anne’s presence.

What could possibly be so
valuable that Greystone would risk her life to save it? Pride
sometimes made a man do foolish things, but Nathaniel couldn’t
fathom the duke firing upon his own daughter. For any reason. By
all accounts, he doted on the offspring of his second
marriage.

The same doubt that had
flickered in Nathaniel’s mind since he had seen the calluses on
Anne’s hands made him scowl. What if they had the wrong girl? What
if Trenton was mistaken, the story Anne told them about being a
needlewoman, true? Too many things didn’t make sense. The duke
never responded to their offer to trade for Richard. Of course, his
father had thought he had them regardless. But now one of
Greystone’s ships fired upon them with seemingly no regard for
Anne’s safety.

Fresh anger boiled within
Nathaniel, making him more determined than ever to win the private
war that raged between him and his father. If it was Anne with whom
he’d shared his cabin these ten days past, his father was more
despicable than Nathaniel had ever dreamed. And if it wasn’t, if
Anne had somehow escaped unscathed, Nathaniel vowed that the
Eastern Horizon
would
not be so lucky. He would take her for Richard.

Trenton approached,
shaking his head. “They’re digging in, Captain. I think we can win
the fight eventually, but we might end up sinking her in the
process. How badly do you want this ship? It could get
bloody.”

Staring at the
Horizon,
Nathaniel
mulled over Trenton’s statement. He wanted the ship, more to
discover his father’s purpose in sailing her than for any other
reason. But he had no desire to kill innocent men or to sink a
perfectly good brig.