Savannah Heat (29 page)

“Not until we get things settled between us.”

Always the practical one
.

“You’ve already turned down my offer of marriage,” he continued. “After what happened with the colonel—” Morgan broke off at the look on Silver’s face.
Surely he didn’t still believe she was carrying on with the colonel behind his back
? “Let’s just say, I’m convinced you aren’t ready for that sort of commitment.
Since marriage isn’t something you seem to want either—”

“I won’t marry a man who doesn’t love me,” Silver said flatly. “Not for any reason.”

“What if I get you with child?”

“That will be my problem.”

Morgan looked incredulous. He couldn’t seem to believe she was offering herself to him with no strings attached.

“We’ll discuss that course of events when and if it’s necessary,” he said, a bit disgruntled. “In the meantime, if you’re happy with this … arrangement … so am I.”

“I want you, too, Morgan.”
And I’m going to win your love
. It was a decision that had come to her in the wee hours of the morning. Then again, maybe the notion had been there all along.

“There’s just one last thing.” The warmth in his expression fled. “I won’t share you, Silver. Not with Buckland or any other man. I need to know if you’ve been in his bed. Once I know the truth, I can put it behind me, but I have to know.”

Silver gasped.
How could he
? She sat up in bed, gripping the sheet in front of her. “After what we shared last night, how can you ask me something like that?”

“I have to know.”

“Why?”

Because I have to protect myself. Because of Charlotte. Because I’m afraid to believe in you
. “Because I need to know how things stand. If you’ve made love to Buckland—”

“Go to hell!” Silver snapped. She had tried to make him see, hoped against hope he would finally understand. “You wouldn’t know the truth, Morgan Trask, if it hit you over the head! I must have been
crazy to let you make love to me. Crazy—and naïve! I won’t make the same mistake again.”

Silver stormed off the bed, grabbing up her clothes on the way to her cabin, stumbling in her haste to be away and nearly falling, her hair flying wildly around her shoulders.

“I have to know, Silver,” Morgan called after her, stopping her just as she reached her cabin door.

Silver whirled to face him, her body tense with anger. “You can bet on it, Major. And I’ll be back there anytime I feel like it!”

Morgan’s hands balled into fists. He stood with his feet apart, his jaws clenched tight.

“As for you,” Silver finished, “if you ever come near me again, I’ll tell Buckland you raped me. He’ll bring you up on charges, and I’ll testify against you. I’m the daughter of an earl, as you so constantly remind me. They’ll lock you up and throw away the key!”

The door slammed so hard Morgan feared it might fall off the hinges. Bloody hell! The deceitful little baggage would probably do it. But it wasn’t her threats that bothered him; it was knowing the truth about Buckland, He had suspected, of course, from the moment he had found them together. She was a woman, wasn’t she? One who did exactly what she wanted. But God, he had hoped to hear her deny it. Had prayed that he had been wrong.

He should have taken what she offered, bedded her as hard and as often as he liked. Instead he had goaded her into anger and ended any chance of her willing submission. What the hell was wrong with him? Why had he pressed her? Why did he give a damn if she’d been with Buckland or not? With Lydia it wouldn’t have mattered.

He thought about the night he’d spent with Silver.
No woman had ever affected him so profoundly. He wanted her with a passion that seemed endless, and he knew she wanted him, too. He wondered how long she would stay away this time, wondered how long
he
would—threats or no threats—or if in her anger she would seek out the colonel again. Just thinking about Silver with Buckland made his chest feel leaden.

Morgan alternately cursed himself, then praised himself for being smart enough to end the affair before it ever really got started. He had enough on his mind already: the men, the war, most of all, the safety of his brother. As far as Morgan was concerned, Silver Jones could go straight to hell.

She had certainly sent him there.

“You done good,
Master Little.
” Stormy Weathers leaned his thick frame insolently against the rail, Dickey Green beside him.

“You stay away from me,” Jordy said, his head snapping up at the sound of Weathers’s deep voice.

“Hold on now, Jordy lad.” Dickey Green caught his arm as he tried to walk away. “Me and Stormy was right proud a ye. Ye took ye punishment like a man; not a bloke aboard can say different.”

“It weren’t—wasn’t—my punishment. It was yours. You two stole the money, not me.”

“It was you what told us where it was,” Stormy reminded him.

Jordy eyed them warily. “What do you want this time?”

“We just wanted to give you a little something for your trouble is all.” Stormy glanced around to be sure no one was watching, then opened his wide palm to reveal three shiny gold coins. “Take ’em,” he said. “You deserve ’em.”

Jordy backed away. “I don’t want nothin’ from you. You just stay away from me.” Jordy took a few steps backward, then turned and hurried off toward the forward ladder that led to the galley.

Stormy Weathers chuckled, watching him go.

“I told ye he wouldn’t take the money,” Green said. “Why was ye so all-fired determined to give it to him?”

Scratching his bright red beard, Stormy watched the waves on the distant horizon where seabirds dived for fish. “Getting that gold was a whole lot easier’n I thought. Got me to thinkin’ … we got the money without a hitch, why not take the girl, too? She’s about the pertiest piece I’ve ever seen. Hardens a man’s loins just to watch her stroll the deck.”

“But ye said Trask would come after us, we took his woman.”

“He’s been with her, that’s for damn sure, but scuttlebutt is he ain’t beddin’ her regular. Maybe she don’t mean as much to him as I thought. Besides, we got plenty of money. Be easy to get away whenever we’ve a mind to. Takin’ the girl would just be a bonus.”

“So what’s Little got to do with it?”

“Be easier to take the girl with his help. You seen the way she defended him. She’s real protective, that one. If she thought the boy needed her, she’d come after him. It’d be real easy with Little’s help.”

“Well, the lad made it clear he ain’t gonna help us.”

“Maybe he is; maybe he ain’t.”

Dickey Green released a raspy chuckle. “Ye know, Stormy, ye always was the bright one. Ye tell me what to do, I’ll do it. We’ll give that uppity little mort something she won’t soon forget.”

“We’ll be reachin’ Mexico in the next day or two. We’ll play things as they come. Till then all we got to do is bide our time.”

Silver stayed in her cabin for most of the day. Just thinking about Morgan and his terrible accusations made her feel like crying—or raging—or both. But she didn’t. It happened to her that way. When the hurt was too great, she retreated into a world of numbness. It tempered the way she looked at life, stole a little of the joy, but also protected her when nothing else could.

Hiding within her protective shell, Silver avoided the others, even Jordy and Jacques. She needed time to sort through her thoughts and deal with her wayward emotions. She shouldn’t have lied to Morgan, yet under the same set of circumstances, she would surely do it again. He had to learn to trust her, had to care for the woman she was, not some creature he designed, someone who would pretend to be whatever it was he thought he wanted.

He had to believe in her.

If he didn’t, she didn’t want him.

Of course she’d gone a little further than she intended with her threats about the colonel. Buckland was the last person she would go to—no matter what Morgan did. Those words she’d call back if she could. Damn her bloody temper!

Her thoughts still in turmoil, Silver stood on the deck of the
Savannah
, alone and more than a little bit lonely, watching the distant approaching shoreline.

“We’re a few miles north of Campeche.” Hamilton Riley walked up beside her, and for the first time in days Silver smiled.

“You’ve been here before?”

“Once. The marines have been on maneuvers on the Yucatan off and on for several years. The major is quite familiar with the place. He’s traded here often.”

She glanced to the shore, which looked low and swampy and endless. As they sailed farther south, the landscape elevated a little, and Silver spotted what appeared to be a fortress.

“There are eight of them in all,” Ham told her, following the line of her gaze. The redness had left his face, which now looked tanned, and his sandy hair was streaked by the brilliance of the sun. “Fort Soledad is near Puerta del Mar, the entranceway. Can you see the wall?”

Silver searched the distance and discovered the entire city was surrounded by a massive hexagonal stone wall. The town itself stood on a plain, bordered on three sides by a small amphitheater of hills. “Good Lord, it must have taken years to build.”

“Eighteen, so I’m told. It was started in the 1680s to protect the city from pirates. They say Fort San Carlos has secret underground passageways linked to many of the houses. They were used to hide the women and children whenever Campeche fell under siege.”

“Sounds dreadful to me.” Silver could just imagine hiding in the dank, murky passageways that must have been crawling with rats.

“There’s one on the outskirts called San Miguel that has a moat filled with crocodiles.”

Silver shivered. “They certainly sound hospitable.” She wondered if it was the kind of place Morgan’s brother and the rest of the Texians were being held but didn’t ask.

“The Federalists—those are the rebel forces we came here to aid—took control of the city about a
year ago and set up a sovereign government. So far they’ve been able to maintain their position, but the Centralists are pressing them hard.”

“Why have we come to Campeche? Are the prisoners being held near here?”

Riley assessed her a moment. “I gather you know just about everything else that’s going on. Since you’re involved, I suppose you have a right to know the rest.” Ham glanced at the heavily fortressed walled city, fast approaching off the larboard bow. “Major Trask has a meeting with General Canales. Canales should be able to update the situation with the Centralists, tell us the location of the remaining Texas forces, and the location of the prisoners.”

“Isn’t Colonel Buckland in charge? He outranks the major.”

“Technically, yes. But Buckland’s never been to Mexico, and he doesn’t speak Spanish. Since Trask was ship’s captain, he has pretty much run the show so far. Things will be somewhat different from here on out.”

“I see.”

As the ship sailed through Puerta del Mar into the harbor, Ham excused himself and went below. It seemed everyone had a job to do, except Silver.

“Stay out of the way,” Morgan said to her as he passed. He’d been brusque all morning, but his mood seemed more an effort to concentrate on the task at hand than a result of their argument. In fact, absorbed in lys duties, Morgan appeared to have forgotten their quarrel altogether. Though it galled her to be dismissed so easily, Silver really couldn’t blame him. His brother’s life was at stake—she knew what it felt like to lose someone you loved.

Once they reached the wharf and the ship was secured, Morgan and the colonel and a party of marines
left the boat, accompanied by a squad of Mexican soldiers. Their uniforms were a bit bedraggled, not nearly so smart as those worn by the Texians, but they marched erectly, a hint of Spanish pride forged with Indian courage and strength.

When they returned late that afternoon, Morgan surprised her by seeking her out in her tiny steward’s cabin. Since her door stood open, she heard his voice instead of his knock.

“What are you doing down here?” he asked. “Ham wasn’t enough of a distraction?”

“What do you want?” she grumbled, glancing up from the book she’d been reading—ironically, Richard Henry Dana’s
Two Years Before the Mast
.

Morgan’s mouth curved up in a smile that really wasn’t. “The governor of Campeche has requested the honor of Her Ladyship’s presence. You’ll be attending a ball tonight being held in his honor.”

Silver tossed the book down on the bed and came to her feet. “We’re going to a ball? What about your brother and the men in the prison?”

“Apparently they’ve been taken some distance from here. General Canales is gathering as many men as he can spare, the necessary horses and provisions, and of course the weapons we’ve brought along. We’ll be leaving day after tomorrow. In the meantime, I can hardly refuse to attend a ball in the general’s honor.”

Silver tried to read his expression. “And you’re asking me to go with you?”

Morgan scoffed. “Hardly. General Canales invited you. It seems his men saw you standing at the rail. When he asked who you were, I told him about your father and the reward money that had been
mistakenly
offered. Since you are here under my protection, he insisted I bring you along.”

“I should have known,” Silver said, feeling the heat in her cheeks. “You’d scarcely be concerned about my entertainment.”

“The colonel will also be attending. I’d appreciate your being somewhat discreet.”

Silver’s arm snaked out to slap him, but he caught her wrist before her palm connected with his cheek. “Behave yourself, Silver. I’ve enough on my mind without worrying about you.”

Silver set her jaw.

“We’ll be the general’s guests until we leave, so pack what you need and be ready to go by eight.”

“Without fail, Major Trask.”

Silver wore her elegant turquoise gown. It would be far simpler than those worn by most of the Spanish ladies, but it was the best she had with her. To enhance the effect, she twisted strands of her hair into ringlets atop her head but left the rest in a shiny cascade down her back. Her shoulders were bare, and the deep V neckline of the gown accented the pale half-moons of her breast.