Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (43 page)

Maybe Miriam really
had
changed, as Zach said. And maybe, thought Jack with growing despair, he'd come halfway around the world for nothing.

"You still don't understand, do you?" he said, his elbows resting heavily on the oars as he leaned toward her. He'd resolved not to touch her, not here in the boat, but the temptation to sweep her into his arms and
make
her understand was powerful indeed. "Chuff cares more for a watch that he'd gotten from some master whoremonger than—"

"A horologist, Jack," she corrected primly, as if the dowsing in river water hadn't made the linen kerchief over her breasts practically transparent in the moonlight. "Not a whoremonger. Chilton told me that a master horologist sells timepieces, not trollops."

"He can sell more trollops than the Grand Turk himself for all I care," said Jack, disgusted as much with himself as with Chuff. "Mirry, weren't you listening? The thing your future
husband
holds dearest is a blasted pocket watch!"

"You asked Chilton, and he answered you truthfully. I don't see what else you expected from—"

"I meant you, sweetheart," said Jack gruffly. "If you'd promised to be my wife, you'd be the single greatest treasure in my life. I'd do anything to keep you safe. Still would. I thought Chuff felt the same."

"Ohhhh," she breathed, a drawn-out, thoughtful syllable that betrayed considerably more uncertainty than she realized. "Oh, Jack, you shouldn't say such things to me, not—that is, I'm not sure what Chilton feels. He is too much a gentleman to be ruled by his baser passions and impulses."

"Like I am," said Jack. "like you, too, as I recall."

"Oh, yes." She sighed unhappily, twisting the damp ribbons of her hat around her fingers. "I cannot seem to govern myself at all."

"Maybe you should stop trying." With her sitting less than an arm's length away, Jack, too, was finding self-government a challenging task. He shifted uneasily on the bench, praying she wouldn't glance down at the proof in the front of his breeches. "Before you find yourself caring more about pocket watches than people, too."

"Don't meddle," she said, but her downcast eyes and sad half-smile took away any of the scolding sting. So she truly hadn't realized how badly Chuff had slighted her, then. Jack could hardly believe it. Yet as unhappy as it made her, it was better that she learn now, before she married the selfish bastard. But why the devil did
he
have to be the one to tell her?

"There now, lass," he said awkwardly. "I'm sorry."

Forgetting his resolution, he reached out and gently cupped her cheek in his hand. He meant it as a touch to ease her hurt, more of a wordless show of sympathy than a caress. But to his surprise she turned her face into his palm, the warm, soft tenderness of her lips grazing across his rough skin to show she'd understood, and was grateful for it. That was all: hardly enough to be called a kiss, and done almost before he'd realized it.

But after she'd moved back on her bench, the mark of her lips burned on his palm like a brand, and the single silent gesture had told him more than any words ever could.

More, but still not enough.

With a sigh she settled the battered hat back on her head, leaving the wrinkled ribbons to trail over her shoulders as she avoided the question in his eyes, instead staring past him to the shore.

"Jack," she said softly. "We're drifting."

He nodded and began to pull on the oars again. They
were
drifting, in a larger, more challenging sense as well as along the river, and he wasn't sure what would come next. What was happening to the dashing, daring adventure he'd planned?

Yet though the silence that fell between them now made him uneasy, it wasn't unpleasant. Companionable, even. It had always been that way with Miriam, ever since they'd been children. Countless times he'd imagined them making a long voyage together, just the two of them together with the moon and the sea, and this evening had the feel of those impossible, improbable dreams. He wanted to make her happy, and he wanted to keep her safe—good, noble goals for any man, and likely the only noble ones Jack had ever had.

But not all his goals were so chivalrous. He wouldn't deny it, nor would his body. When he shifted his legs and his knee brushed accidentally against her thigh, he could feel the tension rippling between them, warm and thick with those ungendemanly passions and impulses, and, he was sure, a good share of unladylike ones, too. Barely stifling a groan, he ordered himself to concentrate on his rowing instead.

By the time they reached Westham, his shirt was plastered to his back and arms from the heat and exertion. Thank God they'd only a bit farther to go, he thought wryly, else he'd be too exhausted later for anything but falling dead asleep on the sand.

"Mama
would
still be awake," said Miriam unhappily, "and Father, too, by the look of it."

Along the bank, the small cluster of houses and shops that made up the town were dark for the night. All, that is, except for the Green lion, where candlelight still beamed cheerfully from the tavern's windows. An off-key, bellowed chorus of
The Colonel's Bold Daughter
came through the windows, proof that the company inside was most definitely still awake.

With a sigh, Miriam stared at the tavern, tugging her damp kerchief higher over her shoulders. "You've been very bad this night, Jack. Wicked, dreadful bad. Heaven knows what I shall tell Mama and Father about Chilton and this—this
disaster
you have made for me, and what I shall say to Chilton himself—mercy, I don't begin to know."

Jack did, or at least had a good idea of what he'd like her to say, but decided for once to keep his opinion to himself.

She sighed again, more forlornly. "First I suppose you must return Father's boat. He’ll raise the very devil when he finds you took his property at all, and besides, hell need it to send someone after poor Chilton. Then, if you've any brains or conscience, you'll go as fast and as far from Westham
as
ever you can, before Zach thrashes you within an inch of your life."

"And leave you behind, sweetheart?"

"Jack, don't, not again." She grimaced, the kind of wearily resigned race her mother made when Henry misbehaved. "Now set me on the dock, there, if you please."

"But it doesn't please me," said Jack evenly, steering the boat toward the mouth of the river and the sea beyond. "Never will, either. Why the hell would I go through all the trouble to steal you away from Chuff only to turn you over to your parents?"

"Because this is only a jest, a prank, more foolishness to vex me," she said quickly, so quickly that he guessed she was trying to convince herself more than him. "like that wicked seashell you wrapped up in the silk. Isn't that so, Jack? Jack?"

He grinned, delighted that he'd been able to surprise her so completely. "No foolishness at all," he said as the boat glided past the dock. "You're coming with me."

"But I can't!" she cried indignantly. "
You
can't! Jack, I have to go home!"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Mirry. I'm not welcome in your home, and I'm too much a gentleman to let you go ashore unattended."

"You're not a gentleman at all!" Furiously she twisted around in the boat, gazing back at the tavern behind them. "I'll scream, I'll shout—help me, someone, help me here!"

"Scream away, lass," said Jack pleasantly, "though I doubt anyone will hear you, especially over that jolly racket from your father's taproom. Mind, though, if you keep thrashing about like that, you'll land in the drink the same as your schoolmaster lover. Unless you wish to swim to shore?"

She froze, her back toward him ramrod straight. "You know I can't swim," she said, panic rising in her voice. "I'm a woman, and women don't swim, and the channel here is too deep for either of us to stand. Not that I could count on you to save me any more than you saved poor Chilton."

"Of course I would, Mirry," he said softly. He'd only meant to tease, not to frighten her, and he wondered uneasily if he'd botched things with her again. "I told you before. You're my treasure, and I'll not let any harm come to you."

She didn't answer, and the stiff, unyielding line of her back didn't change. "Where are you taking me?"

"Carmondy," he said. Where else, really, could he have taken her? "Our island, Mirry."

"Carmondy." Her voice trembled. "My God, Jack. I'm ruined."

Ruined.

As the boat cut across the waves and into the bay, the single word hung between them, unanswered, uninvited, and thoroughly unwelcome. But for Miriam no other word could so perfectly describe her situation, and her future as well. What had happened at Tockwotten could perhaps have been explained or excused away, a misadventure that, if she groveled enough, Chilton could forgive. She could still become his bride, still have her little flower garden behind their house in Cambridge. She could still be a gentleman's lady-wife.

But disappearing with Jack to Carmondy Island at night was beyond forgiveness. She
would
be ruined, not just in Chilton's eyes, but on the gossiping tongues of every man and woman along the north shore. A pirate's doxy, the willing partner in mischief to a known rogue like Jack Wilder! Respectable people would believe it their duty to scorn her. Her friends would melt away, fearful of her taint. She'd never marry now, for no decent man would have her, and as for Jack—Jack would never marry anyone. If the talk turned ugly enough, her own father would banish her to the kitchen, where her trollop's reputation wouldn't sully his business in the front rooms. She would die a spinster, unloved and unwanted, without a husband or children or a house of her own.

And it would all—
all
—be Jack's fault

She was so miserable that she scarcely noticed when the boat bumped ashore, and she didn't move from her seat as Jack jumped out into the water to push them up onto the beach. After the gentle motion through the water, the sand stopped the boat with a hard, jarring thump that reminded Miriam of the crash of her own future.

"Here you are, your highness," said Jack gallantly as he held his hand out to help her from the boat. "You're home to your island kingdom at last."

Miriam shook her head, keeping her hands tucked firmly beneath her folded arms. "You still don't understand, do you, Jack? What you've done, bringing me here—it's just a game to you, isn't it?"

He kept his offered hand outstretched to her. Though he'd shed his boots and stockings to wade ashore, he hadn't bothered to roll up the legs of his breeches, and the wet fabric outlined the muscles of his thighs, unfortunately dose to her eye level. "What is there to understand?"

She raised her chin, striving to look defiant even as she sat huddled in the boat. "After tonight, Chilton won't marry me."

"Good." Jack grinned, and shook his dark hair back from his face. "That's what I wanted."

"But not what
I
wanted!" cried Miriam plaintively. "Not at all!"

"You don't know what you want," countered Jack, "leastways that you'll admit, even to yourself. Did you ever tell your schoolmaster about us?"