The Price of Pleasure (12 page)

She paused, moved with the ship, then sank down miserably in a heap of skirts. Tori smelled the moist sails and hempen ropes, and memories crept over her mind like a film. She remembered the old captain of the
Serendipity
had told her once that from the minute a ship met water it began decaying, dying.

“Weigh the anchor.” Sutherland's voice was toneless. Dead.

Not yet. Not yet! As they made sail and lurched forward, she clambered up to see her island, sitting so serene and sure.

The movement of the ship, sliding under her like a slick embankment, made her stomach twist. She retched but didn't shame herself. Tears blinded her eyes. No control. Tori almost laughed in her panic—
tossed about like a ship at sea…

All her anger and fear rose in her, threatening to strangle her. She remembered the horror when she and Cammy had looked about them on the island on that first night.

No idea where to find water. No idea where to search for food. A dawning comprehension of doom when Mother finally succumbed to the pain—the low, stifled cries. Seeing Cammy bloody herself on those damn flints to make a fire for Mother. Seeing something in Cammy fade when she failed that wet, gusty night and darken altogether, nearly a year later, when she dropped the bloodied rock next to the captain's limp body.

Tori's hand shot to the string around her neck, fingers digging in her dress to yank out her mother's wedding ring.
Cammy took it from her dead finger because Mother told her to.

All of the memories welled in her like a long-capped fountain ready to explode.

Tori had had a life-or-death situation thrust onto her, and she'd adapted. She turned narrowed eyes on Grant. Here this man was using her to further himself, and in doing so was snatching her from one life and shoving her headlong into another.

When would she have some control over her fate? Fear warred with a fury so hot it scalded inside. So loud, she heard nothing but her pumping heart.

The ship bucked as the wind snapped the sails taut, making her insides feel wrenched, and the island grew hazier in the distance. She stood, tottered forward, and grabbed at the wheelhouse.

“Victoria, Miss Scott will show you to your cabin,” Sutherland said from behind her. When she turned to him, he frowned at her. “Camellia's just here.”

She vaguely heard him. In her mind, his mouth moved slowly—really no words came out. Her eyelids grew heavy and then she was spinning, able to see the sun straight above her. A loud thud sounded somewhere near her. She heard Cammy screech, and noticed the side of her head ached unbearably. She wanted to cry. The captain spoke again, only this time his words came from just beside her, not commanding but asking. “Victoria, please open your eyes.”

When she struggled to open them, she saw that his face was tight.

“Keep your eyes open, sweet.”

The ship bucked again, making her moan. When her eyelids fluttered, he scooped her into his arms. Vaguely, she felt Cammy slapping at the captain to get to her, and him squeezing her tighter into his chest.
“Then take her to the cabin”
—Cammy snapped—
“if you won't let her go.”

T
he nightmare came with a vengeance. This time the sounds of the groaning ship boomed in her ears. Her stomach tumbled with the jagged rise and fall of the bow. Tori opened her eyes, waking into her nightmare, not out of it.

Cammy peered down at her, a feigned smile pasted on her green face. Tori scrambled up in bed, unable to mask her alarm over her appearance.
Green around the gills?
She'd never really understood the saying until now.

Tori sat up too fast. Her head felt light but for an insistent throbbing on the side of her skull. “Cammy?” she muttered. “What's happened?”

“You fainted and hit your head.”

Fainted? Her? “I meant, what's happened with you.”

“Seasickness.” She gave a harsh laugh. “Ill on the island, sick on the ship.”

“Don't say things like that. It'll pass.” Her optimistic words did not match her thoughts. Cammy clearly felt wretched and needed to be in bed. Though the ship vaulted up a wave, Tori rose and went to the washstand.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to wake up.” When they plunged into a trough, water sloshed from the bowl.
Ignore that thundering sound. Ignore the way the boards shake beneath your feet.

“You need to rest!” Cammy said sharply.

“I was just about to say the same to you.”

“But you've been hurt….” The last words were snuffed behind Cammy's tightened lips. Against her obvious efforts, she flew to a bucket and retched. Tori petted her hair, resisting the near overwhelming urge to join her. Fighting it was a grueling ordeal. Sweat drenched her, her breaths became gasps, and she had to lock her jaw. Tori knew that once you gave in to seasickness, you didn't stop until you hadn't the energy to move, a condition sailors called the special kind of hell.

 

Grant held out as long as he could. He didn't miss the looks Miss Scott gave him each time he came by the cabin. And his excuse that as a captain it was his duty to check on passengers? She waved it away.

At the door, he heard two voices. Finally, Victoria had awakened. He knocked and heard Miss Scott say waspishly, “If that man comes by one more time…” To him, she called, “Go away! She's fine. She's awake.”

Damn it, woman.
He hadn't wanted Victoria to know how often he'd been by. Just when he was about to leave, Miss Scott apparently changed her mind and called him in.

He greeted each with a cool nod.

“I need to talk to you, Captain,” Miss Scott said.

Victoria frowned at her.

“You've got to get Tori out of this cabin. She's going to be sick like me if she stays.”

Her eyes went wide. “I'm not leaving—”

“You are,”
Miss Scott said with a fierceness Grant would've thought impossible the day before.

“This is a cargo ship,” he said. “There isn't a free cabin.”

“Then move me somewhere. In the hold—I don't care.”

“Victoria, come with me,” Grant commanded.

“I said I'm not leaving!”

Miss Scott rose, her face pinched as she prepared to say something.

Grant grabbed Victoria's arm. “You're only going to upset her more. She doesn't need this from you.”

“Indeed,” the woman bit out before sinking back down.

Ian strolled by at that moment. “What's all the commotion?”

“They want me to leave Cammy,” Victoria said, the words like an accusation.

“So she won't get sick,” Grant added.

Ian swung his head in to survey the situation. “I was planning on entertaining Cammy today anyway—you know, regale her with all my engrossing tales.”

Victoria scrutinized Ian for several tense moments.

“Listen to him, Tori,” Miss Scott ordered. “He's got a stomach made of lead. You can return when you get yourself settled.”

“Victoria, we'll be fine,” Ian assured her. “I took care of her before you came aboard. And if you don't stay well, I'll be nursing two of you.”

Seeming to make a decision about him, Victoria reluctantly nodded, and Ian entered. “Cammy, where were we?”

Miss Scott muttered, “You were about to tell me one of your exaggerated stories and I was about to lose my breakfast.”

“Ah, just so.”

When Grant drew Victoria from the cabin, he propelled her forward so he could shut the door. She stumbled back. Looking down at the considerable drop to the water made her eyes go wild. Grant swore under his breath and placed himself between her and the rail as he guided her to his cabin.

Once inside, she appeared to relax somewhat and openly studied the room. He wondered what she thought of it. Nothing superfluous cluttered the Spartan interior. It was tasteful but not colorful, and every piece had a purpose. “This appears to be straight seasickness with Miss Scott. Ian will make sure she's comfortable,” he said.

“I believe that he will.” She added in a mumble, “Otherwise, I never would have left.” When she turned to his bookshelf, she sucked in a breath and hurried over. “Beautiful,” she sighed. “And intact.” She pulled out the first book,
Robinson Crusoe,
and raised her eyebrows. “Research?”

He stood straighter. “I've got to get back to work. I'll have some food sent in when you feel better.”

She replaced the book and nodded, but he made no move to leave. “You gave us quite a scare,” he found himself saying. Luckily, his tone was casual. He hoped he didn't look as exhausted as he felt.

She sat at the edge of his bed, the first woman ever to be in his cabin. “Were you worried about me?”

So much that I didn't sleep.
“You took quite a hit.”

When she ran her fingers over the bed linens, images flashed into his mind of her flushed with pleasure and tumbled from sex. Realizing he liked her in his bed far too much, he excused himself, and attempted to run the ship.

Near dusk, the seas got lively. Grant returned to get his oilskin and found her sitting ramrod straight, fists bunched in the sheets, eyes wide and fixed directly ahead.

“Victoria, I should let you know there's a squall headed for us.”

She swung her gaze to him. “I never would have figured that out all by myself.” In a huff, she stood and paced.

“There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm going to keep you safe.” She never stopped, never even acknowledged what he'd said. Did she not believe him? Did she not think he could? The idea rankled. “You need to buck up. This is the first squall, but it won't be the last, nor the fiercest. You're just going to have to be strong.”

“Be strong? So if I tell myself to be strong, it will just happen? Self, be better with arithmetic.” She held up her hands. “Nothing there either.” When he scowled at her, she said, “The truth is, I don't
want
to be strong.”

The room canted up and to the right, and she stumbled into the bed, latching on to it. When they landed with a teeth-clattering thud, she moaned. He noted with alarm that tears spilled down her cheeks. “I'm sick of being strong! What I am now is scared to death!”

In the past, if a disgruntled woman cried, he'd always said, “I'll leave you to compose yourself.” But now he couldn't stand the idea of her hurting.

Grant wasn't completely without feeling, no matter what people said. Hadn't he just yesterday battled the urge to bundle her in his arms on the deck? And lost? Though he was needed on the bridge, he said, “I'll sit with you awhile, if you don't want to be alone.”

She hesitated, then weakly held out her hand, the simple movement beckoning him to sit by her. He did, and she sidled closer, looking up at him with such gratitude, her eyes were brimming with it.

In a low, soothing voice, he explained every song, yell, and knotted vibration. “That snap is the sail grabbing a gust…. That knock just there is a loose pulley someone really should tighten…. No, no, when the timbers groan, that's good. It means they're bending as they should.”

In a particularly rough dive, she grasped his hand in one of hers and tucked them both against her chest. Moments later, her head fell against his shoulder and rested there. How long they stayed like this, he didn't know. But when her breathing grew soft and steady in sleep, he lowered her and drew a cover over her, then went to battle the storm, muttering to himself about promises to keep.

 

Tori rose, altered from the night before. Yet another storm had failed to harm her. And last night, the captain had shown that, at heart, he was a good man. She'd felt, for the first time in so long and in the middle of a tempest, safe. He was so big and strong and utterly confident in his ability to protect her that even she had begun to believe it.

Attacks, falls, storms—these calamities continued to happen to her, and she kept walking away with her life, lending proof to her suspicion that she was invincible. This time she walked away with a fresh resolve. She sank down before her new sea trunk and pulled the string from her neck. She kissed the ring, saying good-bye once more, then folded it in linen and tucked it deep into a corner, treating it like the treasure it was. Though her mother had wanted her to have the ring, it wasn't Tori's to wear.

She was about to rise when her teary gaze caught on the journal Sutherland had brought aboard and put with her things. It looked heavy—laden with memories.

When something weighed you down, it was best to cast it aside.

She plucked one of the prettier dresses out of the trunk, washed and dressed hurriedly, then set out to find the captain, journal under her arm. Though she was uneasy with the ship, she refused to be afraid. She climbed up to the bridge, and found Sutherland speaking with Traywick. “Captain,” she said to his back.

He turned, obviously surprised to see her. “I didn't think you'd be up, much less out on deck.”

“I wanted to thank you for last night.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. “You're…I…”

“That's all I wanted to say,” she interrupted. “Just thank you.”

She left them, with Traywick making some dig and the captain telling him to go to hell.

Her next stop was the side rail, where she stared at the white foam churning beside them, thinking about the incredible turn her life had taken. She'd been given a clean slate, to fill as she chose. When she returned to England, she could be anyone. She could be a terrified girl, cowed by the tragedies of her past, or she could be a dauntless woman, who'd taken everything thrown at her and was taunting Fate. Her lips curled up. Decision rendered.

With a lift of her chin, she scanned farther out. Last night, the ocean had boiled to fury. Today, smooth water stretched unbroken. And she stood unharmed. She smirked at the flaccid sea. “Was that
all
you could muster?” In one motion, she flung the journal to it.

Cammy's cabin was next. Her unsure walk became a march down the boards. Tori daringly skimmed her finger down the rail. At the cabin, she knocked, swung the door wide for air, and used one of her new, pinching shoes to wedge it there. “Good morning.”

Cammy cracked open bleary eyes. She frowned and craned her neck to see behind Tori.

“You came alone?” At Tori's nod, she asked, “You walked here by yourself?”

Tori stood on the opposite bunk and opened a ceiling vent. “Uh-huh.”

Cammy gaped. “So now you're roaming about the ship? I take it you feel better about things?”

Tori shrugged and sat. “I trust Sutherland to get us back. And I figure if I was meant to die in a shipwreck, the first one surely would've been it.” She surveyed Cammy and found her looking less…green. “How're you feeling this morning?”

“I drank some tea and had some crackers. I feel better.” With effort, she sat up in bed. “So you're not still angry at the captain for putting me aboard? You seemed to bridle around him.”

She flushed, remembering how he'd held her hand the night before. He had such calloused and rough hands, but he'd touched her tenderly. “I thought it heartless at the time, but he had his reasons.” She knew what it was like to see something you wanted and use every means at your disposal to get it. “I understand him better now.”

“I want you to know he was very polite to me.” Cammy's brow furrowed. “Well, except for yesterday, when he wouldn't cease coming by here. I've never seen a man more worried.”

“Of course he's worried. If something happened to me, he wouldn't get paid.”

“That's not it. Traywick's told me he's a very decent man.” Cammy lowered her voice and said, “Sutherland has feelings for you.”

“For me?” Tori asked warily. “What do you mean?”