Tides of Love (Seaswept Seduction Series) (15 page)

And think with her head and not her heart.

Chapter 6

"Every species appears to have

an area for maximum development."

C. Wyville Thomson

The Depths of the Sea

"Well, daughter, you've definitely landed in trouble neck-deep this time."

Elle started, dropping the bundle of files she held on her father's desk.

How did he know about Noah?

Henri slammed the office door behind him and crossed the room in three angry strides. He stubbed his cigar in a crystal dish of rose petals Elle had placed in water that morning. A thin streak of smoke wafted past her face, the honeyed stench turning her stomach. "You had to help the little Duggan urchin, didn't you? Feminine freedom for all, correct? From whom has she gained independence, Marielle-Claire? May I ask you? Her husband? Who has every right to do whatever he pleases to her, which includes applying a firm hand? Did you know she is carrying his child?
Grands Dieux!"
He slammed his fist to the desk.

"Did it ever occur to you to remember Sean Duggan is the best pilot I have? My shipments are rarely delayed. He can navigate every inlet and shoal in the Banks with his eyes closed. Or should I say he is the best pilot I
had.
He tendered his resignation today, left to work for Elias Benton. When I requested a reason, he said he could not continue to associate with a family aiding in his wife's departure."

Before she had time to react, her father grasped her chin between his fingers. "Elias Benton is my competitor, Marielle-Claire. A ruthless competitor, who does not need the assistance of my only child to make a success of his business ventures."

She tried to open her mouth, but he tilted her head, forcing her lips together. "Do not speak unless it's to inform me you did
not
help Annie Duggan leave Pilot Isle, in which case you will apologize to Sean for his dilemma. He is worried, beyond measure. His wife has been missing for five days, and it appears she is not returning. The man has searched Morehead City thoroughly with no luck. Except to find a receipt of his wife's passage on the express train bound for Atlanta. He refuses to chase her as she has run home to her mother."

Elle jerked from his grasp and shoved to her feet, knocking the chair against the wall. "I did help her, and I would help her again. Tomorrow and the next day and the next," she said roughly, her throat dry from fury and frustration. "Think highly of that monster while you think poorly of your own daughter. But I will never, I can vow this on Mother's grave, apologize for helping Annie leave."

The slap rocked her head to the side. Without speaking, Elle walked around the desk, the pain in her cheek fading to a dull throb. However, the shock of her father's brutality had her heart pounding in her chest.

"Marielle-Claire, come back here," he called, but she was beyond hearing. Or caring.

The last, fragile vestige of family had been robbed from her, and she found herself racing down the staircase to escape.

* * *

The lively confusion of the harbor crowded round Noah as he maneuvered the gangplank leading from the
Nellie Dey's
deck. He rotated his aching shoulders, wondering how he would ever get in good enough condition to work the nets without his muscles screaming for relief. Stepping to the wharf, he tossed a scrap of fish to a shrieking gull and watched it seize the morsel in a swooping dive. Men dressed much as he was, in bib trousers and muddy brogans, bumped past, gill nets in hand, barrels hoisted upon their shoulders, crab pots clanking at their sides. All of them, him included, reeked of fish and hard labor, the stink worsened by the scorching afternoon sun.

"Aw, look at her, willya."

Noah shouldered his satchel of research materials and moved next to a group of fishermen circling a corked barrel of ale that would, no doubt, be recorded as damaged in transit.

"Wonder what the French bastard said to her this time?" Fat Jack asked in a singsong alto.

Noah looked over their heads, to the top of a staircase leading from Henri Beaumont's warehouse. His breath caught. Elle descended at a dangerously breakneck speed.

Her skirt flipped about her ankles; bright curls danced about her head. He squinted, imagined he saw a flush staining her cheeks. The sudden vision of his lips pressed against her smooth, moist skin pierced him like a hook beneath his.

"She looks to be in a fine fury, don't she?" This from a young New Englander who had sailed south aboard one of the whaling ships.

Jeb Crow, who claimed to be half Cherokee, but looked rather Nordic to Noah, laughed and ejected a stream of tobacco juice from his chapped lips. Noah grimaced and glanced at his feet. Whether he wore dirty brogans or polished oxfords, he preferred not to have his shoes spit upon.

"She gave old Beaumont the business end of a stick, I tell you. Trying to get her hitched, he is, and she ain't agreeing," Jeb said and spit again, this time closer to the New Englander.

"Can't blame Beaumont. Never married, never close even. If that was
my
daughter, I'd skin her alive," Walt Pepper stated, seeming to forget his daughter had run off with a Scottish sailor and nobody knew for sure if marriage had been part of the deal.

Jeb crammed another wad of tobacco in his cheek. "Miss Elle's nearly thirty years old. Way past time to marry and birth some babies. Make her forget that women's school nonsense."

Noah's gaze traversed the group.
Chrissakes, what a bunch of idiots.
He started to turn when, as often happens with men, the conversation degenerated.

"Look at her twitch. Put together nice, she is."

"Yessiree."

Noah glanced back in time to witness Elle hop to the boardwalk. He wouldn't call it twitching, but she did jiggle a little.

"You know what they say about orange-haired women."

"Maybe she hasn't found the right fella, yet. Maybe I should go calling." Crude sniggers and hard backslaps accompanied this suggestion, then the discussion halted. They turned in unison to stare at Noah. "Or maybe she
has
found him, but he just won't find
her."

Noah's hands closed into fists. What did these men know of Elle? Would they have been willing to defy an enraged, drunken bully who beat his wife? Had they fought for freedom they believed in and lost their dreams as a result? She had more courage in her pinkie finger than the whole lot of them put together. Noah forced his feet to move before he did something ridiculous, something completely out of character. Before he allowed a quintessentially masculine response to overpower intellect.

It seemed he fought this battle too often.

He sidestepped a rut in the shell-paved road, navigated a crush of lumber wagons and vegetable carts, and raised his hand in greeting three times to the call of "Professor" before increasing his stride.

The edge of Elle's skirt was mud-stained, the hem dangling. He struggled to ignore how the worn cloth clung to her hips and swayed with her brisk, rolling stride. She didn't walk like a lady, and she obviously didn't care who knew it.

Just when he caught her, she halted. He plowed into her and gripped her waist to steady himself.

"Noah, what are you doing?"

Doing? He had no idea. He woke each morning, his mind full of images he couldn't shake, desires he didn't want any part of. Physical labor served as his only savior. The captain of the
Nellie Dey
had even offered him a job for the season, telling him he had never seen a man work so hard for free.

"Hello, Noah?" She tapped his head with a slender finger. "Are you in there?"

"I'll be damned if I know."

"Don't you have some young woman waiting at the corner to walk you home? Why, in the name of heaven, are you hounding me?" Elle took a step, then stopped, and he almost ran into her again.

Noah rocked back on his heels, chastised. Perhaps
chagrined
better described the itch beneath his collar. Not for following her or watching her little show on the staircase, but because Meredith Scoggins likely
was
waiting for him on the corner. She had been there every day this week.

"That's right, shrug and wonder what possesses women to rant and rave. Hunch your shoulders like a boy who wants to crawl under his bed and hide. Go ahead. Congratulate yourself for your masculine restraint. Your superior intelligence."

"Elle." He patted her shoulder in an awkward gesture of peace, opposing emotions battling for advantage. To comfort, to flee. Only, her voice, though filled with anger, held a ragged edge that rallied right through the hardened walls of his heart.

"What happened?" he asked.

Her back rose and fell on a deep breath. "My father asked me to apologize to Sean Duggan for helping Annie leave town. He summoned me to his office this morning, and it was stupid of me, I know, but I thought he wanted to apologize for our argument. I showed up early, finished his records for the past week, and filed the invoices. He probably won't even notice. Every time I offer him a part of myself, he throws it away. I should know not to trust him. My father doesn't give his love freely. He never has."

"Elle."

"The discovery that nothing will ever change, that, in fact, things are worse than I imagined. Certainly none of your concern," she said and whirled right into the path of a dray loaded with crates.

Noah grabbed her shoulders and hauled her against him. "Hold on there," he whispered in her ear. Tremors shook her body, molding it tightly,
perfectly
to his.

"Watch out, Miss Elle," the driver shouted, and jerked the reins, bringing his nag to a stumbling halt, chicken feathers drifting to the ground.

"You
watch out, Homer Crawford!" She slapped the side of the wagon and wrenched from Noah's grip.

"Women," Homer grumbled and plucked a feather from his lap.

Racing to catch Elle, Noah shoved her into the darkened alley running between the mercantile and Christabel's saloon. "Do you want to calm down and tell me what's going on?"

"Please, Noah"—she tapped the toe of her boot against a broken bottle, her voice wavering—"just leave me alone."

"What happened?"

She shook her head in denial.

"Tell me what happened. I'm a part of this, if you care to remember. I escorted Annie to Morehead City, not you." He pressed his elbows into his ribs, determined not to touch her.

She straightened her shoulders and lifted her gaze. It disturbed him to see grief riding a wall of ragged vigilance. But nothing disturbed him as much as seeing the bruise purpling her cheek.

Something shifted: in his stomach, in his chest. Something unrecognizable, something he was sure he had never experienced before. "Did he hit you?" His hand lifted, traced the mark. A dull wash of red clouded his vision. "Did your father hit you?"

She swallowed. "It doesn't matter."

"The hell it doesn't." He tipped her chin high. "Why, Elle, why did he do this?"

"Sean Duggan resigned today. The best seaman on Pilot Isle, according to my father. Because of me, he lost him to Elias Benton."

"He did this to you because of a business deal?"

"Yes."

Noah stepped back, folding his arms. Rage made him think terribly ugly thoughts. "Is he in his office?"

She grabbed his wrist, pulled him close. "You have to let me handle this. He's my
father.
Anyway, it didn't hurt, except in here." She pressed her palm over her heart. "And, sadly enough, that's mostly gone. You see, I
left
him, actually left him, when I moved from his home two years ago. Besides having dinner with him once a week, he gives me nothing, and I give him nothing. We share nothing. Heavens, sometimes it's hard to believe I'm his flesh and blood."

"You don't have to ask him for anything. Not after this. I can help you. I want to help you."

"I said no. Twice already."

"Elle, be reasonable. You used your savings sending Annie home, gave her the last penny you had. Take the money. I told you I made some very wise investments in Chicago. There's more in my accounts than I know how to spend. I'll give you enough to get you through the year."

She shook her head. "Knowing I can talk to you is enough. Maybe I was waiting for you to find me. Who knows? Old habits die hard, or so they say. I admit I felt the weight slip from my shoulders the minute you stepped behind me."

Her words raised the hair on his arms. "Behind you?"

"Oh, Noah." She laughed, a mix of impishness and frustration. "If you entered a room and the door was behind my back, I would know. I used to sit in school, waiting. The air changed temperature, closed in around me the second you walked in." She considered a moment, then shrugged. "It still does."

He took an unsteady step, grinding crushed shells beneath his boots. "Hush." Panic trapped his breath in his chest.

"If I can't tell you, who can I tell? I get tired of pretending. I don't understand why, but this connection has always been between us. At least for me it has."