Cassandra climbed the rope ladder flung over the ship’s side with ease, stepping on to the scrubbed deck and breathing deeply the familiar, comforting smells of hemp and pitch. They welcomed her like old friends. The crew lounged about on piles of rope or drums of tar as they sang sea shanties to the tuneful quivering strings of a lute, making the most of their last hours of ease before the ship set sail.
After having a quiet word with the first mate, James Randell, who was waiting to welcome them on board, Stuart escorted Cassandra down the companion ladder to his cabin. It adjoined the great cabin, which served as a communal dining saloon for the officers, at the stern of the ship.
The huge vessel, manned by eighty mariners and additional surgeon, sailmakers, smiths, caulkers and joiners, to name but a few—as was the case with most great merchantmen sailing across the oceans of the world—moved gently beneath their feet on the swelling sea. The tall masts swayed with the motion, the timbers creaked, and the holds were packed with all manner of goods, from food and drink, tar and oil, powder and ammunition for the forty guns, and a hundred other things, not counting the precious cargo.
Silver moonlight shone through the wide window of Stuart’s cabin. A huge globe stood in one corner and a table was littered with log books, tables of latitude and tides, charts, a compass and a quadrant for measuring angles and lengths in observing the sky—all objects Cassandra had become familiar with when she had sailed on the Dolphin.
She felt strangely elated after the day’s events. The heat and her heightened sensibilities had brought a pink flush to her cheeks. Stuart poured each of them a goblet of wine. Handing one to her, his fingers brushed hers briefly, long enough for her to feel their warmth, their strength. His body was sensuous and taut with vigour, but he behaved towards her with an instinct that showed restraint.
‘A toast to you, Cassandra—my dear wife,’ he said, raising his goblet. ‘May we always be as happy as we are tonight.’
His voice was soft and deep. When he looked at her, his dark eyes glowed with highly charged emotion that contained a deep satisfaction, for it was difficult to believe his good fortune that this beautiful creature was his wife, that the conquest had been easier and more pleasurable than he had at first envisaged. He was seized by a passionate longing to protect, to take care of her, and to treat her with the reverence she deserved, for, despite her determined, forthright manner and strong personality, she had the soft vulnerability of a young fawn.
‘You’re not nervous, are you, Cassandra?’ he asked, seeing a shadow of apprehension in her eyes.
She said the first words that entered her head. ‘A little. I’ve never been married before. I’m not sure how I should behave.’
‘I’ve never been married before either, so we will have much pleasure learning together.’
Cassandra lowered her gaze. ‘Nevertheless…it’s different for a man. They know the ways of the world—they know women. I—don’t want to disappoint you.’
Stuart laughed softly, tipping her chin so that she met his understanding gaze. ‘Do you honestly think I want a wife who is experienced in the art of loving? If I did, I would have looked on the streets. It is your naïvety I love, Cassandra, your innocence—and I know from experience that it belies the fires of a passionate and sensual woman. I regret we have to sail early in the morning—but it gives us a little time to be together.’
‘I thought you were awaiting the arrival of Captain Tillotson with the rest of the convoy from Antigua.’
‘The ships were sighted nearing the island earlier. It’s fairly certain they will put in an appearance before dawn. But, my dear, beautiful wife,’ he murmured softly, taking the goblet from her hand and placing it aside before drawing her into his arms, ‘we do have the night to ourselves—and it was made to enjoy. A night made for love.’
Cassandra sighed with a smile when his long fingers touched her cheek, slowly turning her face to his. When his eyes darkened with desire she felt no fear, only a sweet anticipation, and that all those wondrous sensations she had experienced with him once before were about to be rekindled. ‘All too soon it will be light.’
‘Not for hours yet. But we have many nights to enjoy, to get to know one another on our journey to England.’ His teeth flashed pearl bright as he smiled. It was the smile of a rogue. ‘No doubt in time you will become familiar with my selfish manner and all my past indiscretions and chastise me as is now your right.’
‘I would not presume, for they are no concern of mine.’ She laughed, a delightful, sensuous sound, which never ceased to enchant Stuart.
‘Our relationship has strange beginnings, does it not? There has been no courtship for us to get to know one another as other couples do, no preliminaries of gentle wooing.’
‘And yet you married me without your family in England around you. What will your mother say when you arrive on her doorstep with a wife in tow?’
‘She will be highly delighted, and so relieved to see me wed at last that she won’t mind that she missed the ceremony. I look forward to introducing you to her. Had we been in England, no doubt I would have sought your cousin’s permission and there would have been an acceptance followed by a long betrothal and finally marriage. But there was no time for that.’
‘Does your mother live at Charnwood?’
‘We have a house in London which she prefers to Charnwood. Unlike myself, she has an aversion to the country. She likes to be close to the court, and most of her friends live in town. But don’t be alarmed,’ Stuart said when he saw her look of consternation. ‘You will like her. It’s impossible not to. And I know she will be happy with my choice of bride.’
‘Then I shall look forward to meeting her very much.’ Cassandra felt his arms tighten around her and she raised her lips to receive his kiss, which was a masterpiece of passion and subtle restraint. Start moved with expert thoroughness, kindling a fire that had laid dormant for too long. He did not release her until she was breathless. ‘Your lips are so gentle, so tender,’ she murmured, unable to hide the yearning in her eyes, the vulnerability and the passion.
‘I cannot promise they will always be so.’ Stuart’s voice was deep with desire. His eyes darkened and, plunging his fingers into her silken hair, he kissed her again. When his mouth left hers he smiled, holding her away from him.
‘I always knew the kind of woman I wanted as my wife, but I thought she could never exist, except in my mind—and suddenly I find that she does.’
‘You make me sound a paragon among women,’ Cassandra whispered, her eyes dark and dilated.
He took her face in his hands, his dark eyes tender, but commanding her to submit to him. ‘And that is what you are, Cassandra—to me. Now come, my love. I have no desire to delay any longer what is fast becoming inevitable. Inhibitions are meant to be lost on your wedding night.’
‘And here was I thinking I had already lost them in a cave on Barbados.’
Her teasing reply brought a low chuckle to Stuart’s throat as his hands methodically, and with as much care as if he were unwrapping a precious object, divested her of her clothing. Lifting her, he carried her into an adjacent cabin and laid her on the bed, leaving the door ajar to allow the moonlight to invade their privacy.
It was a time of exploration and unhurried discovery for both of them, of delights and pleasures to be savoured. Stuart’s kisses were slow and deliberate as he sought to awaken her to desire, delaying and lingering over the performance. But desire and passion were already vibrating like a harp inside Cassandra, setting both their bodies aflame. No one else had seen her like this or touched the secret places of her body, which Stuart brushed and squeezed lightly with his fingers, causing her to utter a groan of pleasure as a rush of flame tore through her.
She shivered, carried away by his maleness and his caress, by the strange attractions of this man, her husband, of his lips travelling over and burning her eager flesh. Of its own volition her body offered itself eagerly to his. Every touch was one of infinite tenderness, heightening their senses, each responding to the other’s sensuality, their bodies communicating with growing fervour, which became a frenzy of passion, until they surrendered at last to the primeval force that possessed them. Their senses ripened and swelled until they were scattered in a storm of passion of such magnitude that they both thought they could bear it no longer.
The sky was beginning to grow light when Cassandra—cocooned in lethargy and contentment, satiated and replete—at last fell into a deep and blissfully untroubled sleep, with dreams of a wonderful voyage back to England, unable to see anything but smooth sailing ahead.
But long before they reached its familiar shores she would have given everything she possessed to exchange the perils that would beset her on the ill-fated Sea Hawk. She was unaware when Stuart rose and left her to visit his friend Captain Tillotson on the Spirit of Enterprise; he had hoped to meet up with him when he had arrived at Barbados with Cassandra all those weeks ago, but had failed to do so.
When Stuart returned to his ship, his whole world had been unbelievably shattered and his heart was filled with a terrible, impotent black rage as he considered the hideous truth Samuel Tillotson had divulged as to Cassandra’s true identity.
His face had been grim as he’d listened in frozen silence, feeling as if an iron band around his chest was being tightened with every condemning word his friend uttered. At first he had felt there must be some mistake, but the one irrefutable fact he could not ignore, or disprove, was that it had been Cassandra he had seen at Execution Dock when Nathaniel Wylde was hanged. That was why he had sensed there was something strangely familiar about her when he’d met her for the first time. Her features and silver and gold hair resembled the pirate’s. Why hadn’t he had the sense to see it?
After all his experience, he thought as his wrath continued to grow, he’d fallen like an ass for the oldest trick in the world, and he cursed himself for trusting her. What a brilliant, scheming little opportunist she was, a consummate actress, and, like the fool he was, he’d been taken in by her, been transfixed by her beauty when he’d first set eyes on her, acting like a knight errant when she’d been about to be tipped into the sea. He’d been duped—not only by Cassandra, but also by John Everson. The man must have been laughing himself into a seizure when he’d offered to marry his cousin. No man in his right mind would want her, knowing she was the spawn of Nathaniel Wylde.
Everson had deliberately lied when he’d told him Cassandra’s father had been killed while fighting for the King at Worcester, and Cassandra had looked him in the eye and endorsed this. Damn her! Damn her cheating, deceitful heart.
Despite her strong protests when he’d asked her to marry him—which, to be fair to her, might have had something to do with Nathaniel Wylde being her father, and her conscience—that fair-haired sorceress had agreed to marry him in the time it had taken him to make love to her. She hadn’t resisted, hadn’t protested or tried to fight him off—in fact, she had been wanton, as wanton as sin. He hadn’t stolen her virtue, she had given it to him, driving him to a violent compulsion to possess her, making sure he would want to go on possessing her—and he had, he thought, admitting the truth to himself. He had wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. Parading before his eyes were visions of an enchantress, of a bewitching young woman—Cassandra lying in his arms, Cassandra looking at him with her melting eyes…laughing up at him…
Samuel had asked him to have another drink before returning to his ship, but Stuart had refused. There was no way to avoid the truth. No amount of liquor could douse the pain and the anger that were burning like an inferno inside him.
And now, as he looked down at Cassandra’s sleeping form amid the tangle of sheets, at the smoothness of her belly and the upward thrust of her breasts, he remembered vividly how soft, how slender, her arms had been when they had twined themselves about him, captivating him, making him her pliant, willing slave.
His throat ached as his eyes drank in her alluring beauty, but then a white-hot fury unlike anything he’d ever experienced consumed him, turning his mind into a furnace of boiling rage. Unable to bear looking down at her and not drag her from the bed and send her packing back to John Everson, he turned away and left her. It was a long time before the pain inside him began to dull as a cold, black rage swept over him.
It was much later when Cassandra awoke and stretched, luxuriating in a delicious feeling of warmth and well being. Rolling over, she found the bed next to her was empty. Sleepily she opened her eyes, letting her gaze wander through to the main cabin. Stuart was standing by the window, already dressed.
Climbing out of bed, she draped a sheet about her nakedness and went to him. He stood with his back to her, giving no indication that he was aware of her presence as he stared out to sea, one hand raised and resting on the window. Sliding her arms tightly about his waist, she rested her head against his back, uttering a deep, contented sigh.
‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ she murmured.
She felt his body stiffen within the circle of her arms, felt the tension rock solid inside him, and when he firmly took hold of her hands and disengaged them from his waist, instinctively she felt that for some reason all was not well. It was warm inside the cabin, but a creeping chill stole over her. When he turned and faced her, she saw the tender gaze of a lover had fallen away, and in his eyes there gleamed a cold, unrelenting light. For the first time she saw behind the masquerade of a dashing sea captain. She saw the real Stuart Marston, a man devoid of emotion—merciless and dangerous.
Looming before her in a midnight blue jacket and breeches, he emanated a wrath so forceful that she gasped and instinctively stepped back, her heart beating like a battering ram in her chest. Never in her life had she witnessed such controlled, menacing fury.
‘Why—Stuart! What is it?’ she asked, trying to combat her mounting alarm. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘You could say that.’
His voice was calm, much too calm and carefully modulated, and that alarmed her. She was suddenly afraid and there was a tremulous feeling inside her, but she knew she could not give in to it, not when he was looking at her like that. She took a deep breath, and when she spoke her voice was as calm as his own had been.
‘Has something happened? Why do you look at me like that?’
‘My compliments,’ he emphasised contemptuously, ‘on your duplicity, your deceit, and your disloyalty.’ When she paled, he nodded. ‘It would seem our marriage began on a lie. Yes, Cassandra, I accuse you of having deceived me, of pretending to be what you are not. Why did you not tell me you boarded Captain Tillotson’s ship at Trinidad?’
Completely taken off guard, Cassandra stared at him, speechless. The light went out of her eyes as she was brutally roused from her happy state. Her heart contracted painfully, for there was no sign of the love they had shared. None of that was evident in the cold, marble severity of her husband’s face. His bronzed features were a dangerous colour, his dark eyes snapping furiously as he glared at her. She wanted to turn and flee from him, but she stood, facing him with perfect composure.
‘Why did you lie to me?’
‘I—I did not lie. You did not ask and I did not think it was important.’
‘No?’ His voice was chilling, with all the deadly calm of approaching peril. He moved closer, his eyes hard and compelling, holding hers so that she was unable to look away. Cassandra was fearful of what he was going to say next, suspecting the worst. ‘Then answer me this. Are you the daughter of Nathaniel Wylde—the bloody barbarian who was hanged at Execution Dock in London in November of last year?’
Cassandra’s face went white, her throat going so dry that she was unable to answer. He knew! The question hung in the air between them like a threat, his tone telling her he would allow her no respite until she’d given him some answers. Her silence maddened him. Losing control of his precariously held temper, he lunged out and seized her shoulders in a bruising grip, his iron fingers digging deep into her soft flesh, but so great was the panic inside her as she looked up at him towering over her that she was unaware of the pain this caused her.
‘Answer me, damn you,’ he lashed out furiously. Close to tipping over the edge into a pit of madness, he shook her hard. ‘And if you lie to me I’ll throttle you, so help me God! You are a conniving, deceitful little bitch, but just once in your misbegotten life, I demand that you tell me the truth.’
Shuddering violently, denial sprung to Cassandra’s lips, but still she uttered no sound—what was the use? He wouldn’t believe her and it would only add insult to injury. A wave of terror passed over her and she was afraid, terribly afraid, for she had never felt like this in her life before. All the fury Stuart was capable of feeling was concentrated in his face, making her realise that in failing to tell him about her father she had unleashed in him a fury so profound and terrible that a man of his inflexible nature would find hard to forgive.
‘I am asking you again. It is true, isn’t it?’ he persisted ruthlessly. ‘Nathaniel Wylde was your father?’
She nodded slowly. ‘Yes.’
‘So—you do not deny it?’
She shook her head, her hair falling about her face, and said with quiet resignation, ‘No, I don’t. I have no reason to.’
Stuart stared at her hard for a moment before letting his hands fall to his sides and stepping back, as if he couldn’t stand to be close to her, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her. No one had ever looked at her with such scathing contempt, such loathing. Cassandra saw the savage, scorching fury that was emanating from every pore of him. His jaw was taut with rage, his mouth drawn into a ruthless, forbidding line, and his expression was as murderous as his feelings.
‘Why was I not told? Why did you keep a matter of such importance, of such magnitude, from me?’ he demanded.
‘I am sorry. I—did not think it important, but I should have told you, I realise that now. How did you find out?’
His eyes were merciless. ‘You did not think it important to tell your husband that your father was a vicious pirate? Really, my dear—you astound me,’ he said with scathing sarcasm. ‘When I awoke early I decided to pay a call on Captain Tillotson, who arrived to take his place in the convoy during the night. He congratulated me on my marriage, as one does—but can you imagine my shock and amazement when he expressed his surprise that I had married the daughter of a pirate—and not just any pirate, but the infamous Captain Nathaniel Wylde?’
Cassandra stared at him in disbelief. ‘Captain Tillotson knew?’
‘The man you were with at Trinidad aroused his suspicions—along with the fact that you and your companion were travelling to Barbados alone. After making enquiries and giving a description of his character to some of his seafaring friends—for a man who bears such a marked facial disfigurement is not easy to forget—he knew beyond doubt that the man you were with was none other than Drum O’Leary—Nathaniel Wylde’s closest confidant—with a price on his head to equal his own. I also believe your companion travelling with you on board this ship to be his daughter. Is that correct?’
Clutching the sheet about her nakedness, Cassandra’s anger was swift. The bewildered terror that had seized her initially evaporated. In a blinding flash she understood that he wanted to degrade her because she had kept the truth from him, that his monstrous pride would wreak some unspeakable revenge on her for her father’s crimes. She searched that hard, sardonic face for some sign that he felt something for her, anything, but there was nothing but contempt. Bile rose in her throat as she realised she did not know him after all. Tossing her head, she stared at him, her eyes scornful, her pride forbidding her to bow to his harsh interrogation.
‘Yes. Rosa is Drum’s daughter,’ she admitted coldly. ‘What of it?’
‘I am your husband,’ he ground out, ‘much as I have come to regret that unfortunate state of affairs since my encounter with Samuel Tillotson. It comes as a hard lump for me to swallow that my wife has been queening it among an ill-disciplined, murderous rabble—that she was so well acquainted with them as to collude in the stealing of a ship from her moorings, and cutting down a dead man from the gallows who had been justly hanged.
‘No doubt there are those among the criminal fraternity who would compliment and applaud such feats of daring and success—but I cannot. I shudder to think what kind of education you received while you were living with a bunch of cut-throats, whose way of life depended on the use of force and extreme violence, torture and death. I understand perfectly now why your guardian spoke so disparagingly of you—no matter how light-hearted he sounded at the time—and why he was so eager to get you off his hands.’
‘That’s a lie,’ Cassandra snapped, glaring at him.
‘Is it? I don’t think so,’ Stuart remarked with cool mockery. ‘You, my dear, are a virtuoso of deceit—which, because of your past, is a fair assumption. Little wonder your cousin wants everyone to believe your father was killed honourably in battle whilst fighting the King’s cause, to conceal the fact that he was a pirate, an arch-villain—a butcher whose hands were stained with the blood of a thousand innocents. There isn’t a man alive who would knowingly take Satan’s spawn for a wife.’
His bitter insult finally snapped Cassandra’s fragile self-control, sending her into a fury that was almost uncontainable. Her eyes flashed a dangerous, steely blue as she took a step towards him and slapped his face so hard that his head jerked sideways and she feared she had broken her wrist. The sound of her hand striking his cheek echoed in the cabin.
Stuart stepped back, absolutely appalled, his face turning white with rage. ‘You little hellcat.’ He caught her wrist when she would have slapped him again, and in the next instant she was crushed unmercifully against his chest. ‘Be warned, Cassandra, if you were a man I’d kill you for that,’ he rasped hoarsely, before thrusting her away from him.
Cassandra held her ground, her chest heaving with anger, her eyes locked on his. ‘If I were a man I’d kill you myself. You bastard!’ she burst out mindlessly, too infuriated to care what she was saying, or that a muscle had begun to tick in the side of Stuart’s jaw and that he looked murderous. ‘I did not deserve that. Don’t you ever call me that again, ever—do you hear? You are heartless and cruel, and I cannot believe I let you sweet talk and seduce me into marrying you, and I will never be able to forgive my stupidity in trusting you—in loving you,’ she confessed, without knowing what she said in her impassioned moment. ‘And I did not steal any ship. The one you speak of was the Dolphin—my father’s ship—which became mine on his death.’
Stuart stood perfectly still, giving no sign that her confession of love moved him. He stared at the tempestuous beauty with blazing eyes and a face alive with fury, unable to believe the alluring, impulsive girl he had married had become this furious, self-possessed young woman. ‘The Dolphin was impounded, so the crime was theft. And your father? Do you deny that you colluded in having his body removed from the gallows?’
‘No. I have no reason to deny it. He may have been a notorious pirate, but he was still my father, and I was determined he would not be stuffed into an iron cage and hung on the marshes for the crows to pick at. His body was buried at sea, which was his wish.’
‘No matter how staunchly you try to defend what you did, you should know that since your hasty departure from England, the Lords of the Admiralty had no doubts as to the identity of those who stole the Dolphin from her moorings. Drum O’Leary was seen on board as she slipped down the Thames—and also a young woman, who those who saw her said bore such a strong resemblance to Wylde she could have been his daughter.’
‘They have no proof of that. It is mere supposition. As far as I am aware, apart from a small number of our neighbours in Chelsea, there are few that know Nathaniel Wylde had a daughter, let alone what she looked like.’
‘I did,’ he countered bluntly. ‘The Admiralty knew he had a daughter living with relatives somewhere in London.’
‘That may be so but, never having been seen, I could not be recognised. What people saw was a woman with fair hair. She might have been anyone—a sailor’s moll, perhaps.’
‘The Admiralty might take some convincing of that. A proclamation has been issued giving details of the ship—and that Drum O’Leary and Nathaniel Wylde’s daughter are pirates and enemies to the crown. Substantial rewards have been offered for your capture.’
Cassandra stared at him in shock, the remainder of what colour she had left draining from her face. ‘And knowing what you do, no doubt you would be happy to put the noose around my neck yourself in order to be rid of me,’ she scorned, her voice as cutting as steel as she met the accusing eyes of her husband without flinching.
‘Don’t tempt me,’ he growled.
Proud and determined, she did not resemble any supplicant. Anger and pride strengthened every fibre in her body and sent a sudden surge of blood pumping through her veins—Nathaniel Wylde’s blood, which would never bow in the face of intimidation.
The force of her personality that burned in her eyes gave Stuart an insight of the woman who had sailed on the Dolphin to Trinidad, who must have looked as she did now, with her solid will and defiance in every line of her body. She looked magnificent and a flood of admiration he was unable to prevent washed over him. Quickly he recollected himself and drew himself up sharply, his features convulsed in a spasm of anger and exasperation.
His cruel remark pierced Cassandra to her very soul. With a mixture of pain and anger she looked on her husband’s handsome face, at the thin line of his lips—lips that just a short while ago had courted hers and sent her into such raptures of delight. She searched his eyes, for there must be something there left over of their night of love. But there was nothing. They looked on her coldly and without emotion or love.
‘I deeply regret that I concealed the fact that Nathaniel Wylde was my father, but I saw no reason to divulge it. He is dead and can have no relevance to the future.’
Her ability to mock his fate and ignore her father’s crime was too much. Stuart’s gaze snapped to her face, and Cassandra recoiled in shock from the scorching fury in his coal-black eyes. ‘You dare say that to me, when any children we might have will have his blood flowing through their veins? Can’t you bring yourself to admit that his choice of profession was indefensible—or were you so completely under his domination, and possibly as much a victim as any of the honest, unoffending mortals who had the misfortune to cross his path?’
‘It affected me deeply when I discovered the truth about him. I do not condone any of his actions—but nor do I have words with which to condemn him. However, I realise you must despise me for what I’ve done, for being who I am.’
‘You’re right.’ His voice cracked like a whiplash. ‘So savage were Wylde’s crimes that there are those he wronged who still seek to avenge themselves. There are also those in the Admiralty who would not believe you played no part in them. Knowing of your presence on board his ship—that alone would be enough to condemn you.’
They looked at each other but did not speak, for his words reeked horror deep within Cassandra’s troubled heart. Pain and silence stretched between them so complete that it was almost audible. What stood between them was bitter and ugly, and she could not see how it could ever be any different.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly, so quietly that Stuart almost failed to hear her. ‘You have made me aware of that. Initially I did not know of my father’s reputation—I was too young. I only became aware of the fact that he loved and cared for me and had only stayed away until after my aunt and uncle died, when I was thirteen, because they had forbidden him to come near me.’
‘The reason being?’
‘Their divided loyalties at the time of the Civil War.’
Stuart’s lips curled scornfully. ‘Their loyalties to each other cannot have been so divided, for how else did your father get your mother with child?’ He spoke sarcastically, with a cold contempt.
His aggressive manner brought an angry gleam to Cassandra’s eyes. ‘Against my uncle’s wishes they met secretly, for they loved each other deeply. It only added to my own misfortune that my mother died in childbirth, denying them any chance they might have had of marrying.’
‘Your misfortunes! Your misfortunes bring tears to my eyes,’ Stuart scoffed, turning from her and striding across the cabin to look out of the window, at the ships beginning to manoeuvre about in the water as they prepared to get under way, reminding him that his presence would be required on deck. He turned and looked at his wife coldly, and with deliberate cruelty he carefully enunciated each vicious word. ‘’Tis you who are the bastard, Cassandra, not I, as you accused me of being. You should have told me that your father was the infamous Captain Wylde and relieved me of the embarrassment of making you my wife.’
His harsh words cut deep into Cassandra’s heart. ‘Since you find marriage to me so distasteful, do whatever you think must be done. Since there can be no annulment, if it is to be divorce—then so be it.’
‘I will not sully my family’s name with a divorce,’ Stuart remarked coldly. ‘It is quite out of the question. Events must take their own course and we must learn to make the best use of them. It is a situation we must learn to live with. There are going to have to be compromises on both sides.’
Puzzled, Cassandra stared at him. ‘Compromises?’ ‘We will both have to learn to compromise. I should have guessed who you were when I saw you on your arrival on Barbados. There was something about you that stirred my memory—but I could not think why at the time. You were careful to keep your face concealed, but now I know that it was you I saw at Nathaniel Wylde’s execution that day.’
Cassandra stared at him in disbelief. ‘You! You were there?’ Like a flash she remembered the man her father had made his final salute to. ‘Yes—I remember you, also. It was you who captured my father’s attention when he was on the scaffold. You he looked at and raised his hand to with an air of a salute. I turned and saw you leave—but I did not see your face. You knew him, didn’t you?’
‘To my everlasting regret,’ Stuart replied, striding towards the door, ‘and, on returning to my ship afterwards, when I became certain I had seen his daughter in the crowd with one of his associates, I almost turned back and denounced him. Had I the sense to have done so, it would have saved me this embarrassment. Should it become public knowledge that I have made Nathaniel Wylde’s daughter my wife, then a mighty scandal will ensue and cause immense pain and embarrassment to my mother. That is something I intend to avoid at all costs.’
‘Before you go, please answer me this.’ Cassandra moved quickly to stand in front of him as he was about to go out. ‘What did my father do to you that was so terrible that it makes you hate him so much?’
Stuart’s cold eyes became locked on hers. ‘Did no one ever tell you who it was who tracked your father to his haunt in the Caribbean? Who it was that hounded him to the coast of West Africa before capturing him and bringing him back to London to hang?’
Cassandra shook her head, but then realisation of what he was saying flooded her whole being. ‘It was you,’ she whispered, her face as white as the sheet she clutched around her. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
Her laugh was choked and bitter, her voice when she spoke quivering with anger and pain. ‘Then you should be proud of yourself.’
‘I am not proud,’ Stuart replied without emotion. ‘Were you proud to be a part of it all? I sought justice, that was all. Your father was as much my enemy as Cromwell was the King’s—and he remained ruthless, remorseless and relentless right to the end. I had my reasons for making sure Nathaniel Wylde was captured and hanged for his crime.’
‘Tell me?’
‘He killed my brother. It forged a hatred between us. Having strayed from the convoy which was sailing to the Caribbean, my brother’s ship was attacked and plundered by pirates. According to evidence given by a handful of those on board who managed to survive in the water until they were picked up by the convoy—unfortunately too late to be of assistance to the stricken ship—the attack was led by Nathaniel Wylde. He callously left every man, woman and child on board to drown when it sank to the bottom of the ocean.’
This smote Cassandra’s heart and she lowered her eyes, unable to meet his direct gaze, to look upon the hatred he possessed for her father mirrored in their depths. ‘I am so sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I didn’t know.’ At last she understood completely the reason for his anger, his hatred. She was beginning to see her father in the same light as others and her love was soured. She felt betrayed, suddenly, abandoned; the image she had carried in her heart was shattered for ever—as, it would seem, was her marriage, which wasn’t even twenty-four hours old.
John was right—she had been influenced by her father, allowing her love for him to cloud her mind to the true nature of his character, to the violence and wickedness of his chosen profession. But she had been young, naïve, a willing victim ready to fall prey to his charismatic charm and the doting, lavish attention he showered on her after years of neglect. And yet deep inside her heart she had always known the truth but had refused to acknowledge it, knowing that, on doing so, the pain would be intolerable. Stuart was completely justified to feel as he did.
‘He raised his hand to me in a final salute in grudging respect for the way I had succeeded in capturing him and his ship after playing a cunning game of hide and seek with me across the Atlantic Ocean,’ Stuart went on. ‘And though it pains me to tell you, considering he had no seafaring background until he became a galley slave, his navigational skills were quite exceptional. Now do you understand what I meant when I said we will both have to make compromises? It will be no simple matter for either of us having to live together, knowing what we do.’
He continued to look at her coldly. ‘The implications of your background and involvement with the pirates—not forgetting the seriousness of the conviction hanging over you—I cannot begin to contemplate at this moment, or what my feelings are towards you and the kind of future we will have together with this lying between us.
‘It will be a long time, if ever, before I shall be able to forget that you are the daughter of the man who killed my brother—as it will for you, whenever you remember that I am the one responsible for the death of your father. And now you must excuse me. I have some important matters to attend to.’
The implication that she was not an important matter was unmistakable, and Cassandra tensed at the deliberate, unprovoked insult. ‘Don’t let me detain you,’ she said tersely.
‘I won’t. My crew will be waiting for me to give orders to sail. If you are wise,’ he said in a blood-chilling voice as he towered over her, ‘you will avoid me very carefully while you are on my ship.’ His eyes swept over her contemptuously. ‘Dress yourself. I will inform one of the crew to bring you some breakfast.’ Clamping his hands on her shoulders, he moved her out of the way.
In stunned silence Cassandra watched him go. She stared at the closed door. The cabin was suddenly larger, emptier, somehow more lonely. Shock had formed a merciful cocoon around her, which, as it melted away, would give place to real suffering in all its terrible anguish. She could not think what she was going to do, what would happen now. At that moment nothing mattered except the pain within her.