Chapter Twenty-Three

Adriana paused just outside the fortifications of Charles Town, watching the bustle of activity in the harbor. The sea breeze tugged at her pinned-back hair, freeing strands to fly wildly around her face. She lifted her chin to the sun, not caring that it might multiply the freckles on her skin. If she closed her eyes long enough, listened to the swearing sailors and the sound of the tide knocking up against the bows of boats, and filled her lungs with the briny scent of the air, she could imagine that she was still a girl sitting in a crow’s nest, drowsing and dreaming as the ship rocked on an open sea.

Then a cool shadow fell upon her.

“With your hair pulled back like that,” he murmured, “I can still see the urchin you once pretended to be.”

Her whole body tingled with awareness. That voice had haunted her dreams last night. Lusty, carnal dreams that had left her restless and unsettled.

“Your ship, the Neptune,” she said, not meeting his eye, “is that sleek three-masted barque by the brigantine now passing by, yes?”

“You must know every ship in the harbor.”

“It’s the rigging,” she said. “The fore and mainmasts are rigged square and the mizzen is rigged fore-and-aft.”

“Your eyesight hasn’t weakened since your days on the crow’s nest.”

“I make a point to see things clearly.”

“Then it’s no wonder you’ve fooled the men of Charles Town. You’re twice as educated in sea travel and have a street-urchin’s ruthlessness in business.”

Uneasiness rippled through her. What could he possibly know about her business? Or was this just a strange compliment, a reminder of how well he knew her?

“If you’ll excuse me.” She turned on one foot and headed toward the river. “I’m already late to meet some friends.”

“Your rice planter family, perhaps?”

“Yes, by coincidence.” Clearly, he’d been asking about her. “They have affairs to attend to in town.”

“I have some affairs to attend to as well.” He fell into step beside her as shamelessly as if she’d invited him. “In fact, just a few hours ago, a man named Elsworth offered me more than the usual price to ship some rice up the coast.”

She made a point not to stumble. Roarke was sharp, but certainly he couldn’t guess that she was the person who’d sent him.

“I confess,” she said, determined to change the subject, “that I’m astonished to realize that you’ve become such a respectable man of commerce.”

“Respectable wasn’t what that man had been looking for, apparently, for he also offered me a tremendously large amount of money to return to privateering.”

Sand sprayed as she stubbed a foot deep into the sand. She made the mistake of turning to face him.

There he was, with the sun haloing his dark hair, his gray-green eyes intense, reading her face as if she were a freshly-drawn chart of just-discovered seas.

Her heart made one painful, hard thump.

“They’re all fools,” he whispered. “Every one of those beribboned men in the governor’s house, staring at you and imagining how grateful you’d be with an offer of a little house on the edge of the settlement, and a few hundred coins a month, when all the while you’re scheming—”

“Yes, they are fools.” She wished he’d stop whispering like they were conspirators. Or lovers. “Why didn’t you accept Elsworth’s offer?”

“I’m not a pirate anymore. Did you put him up to it?”

“Of course not.” For the love of heaven, what did Elsworth do? Though she had given the man great latitude when it came to encouraging Roarke to hurry his business along, she’d drawn the lines clearly. “I would never make such an offer. Privateering is too risky a stake.”

“Ah. The ever-practical Adriana.”

“It’s also illegal,” she added. “The official news of the war’s end might very well have arrived on that brigantine now dropping anchor in the bay.”

“You always were clear-thinking.”

“So this meeting with Elsworth,” she said, her mind turning to business. “Despite his ridiculous privateering proposal, you’ll ship the rice, yes?”

“For your Huguenot friends, I assume.”

“Huguenots or not, you’ll charge the customary percentage or the deal is off. Otherwise, they may as well sell it to the English captains who take advantage—”

“The customary percentage it is.” His lips twitched as he squinted down the beach toward the mouth of the river. “I should meet your planter friends, if we’re going to be partners.”

Partners.

The word rang in her head. She didn’t like the idea of partner. How on earth had she gotten into a situation where she would be working in any capacity with Roarke? She’d sent Elsworth to urge Roarke to sail away, not to stay and form a relationship with her—whether it was purely business or not.

“We could be partners,” he murmured, as if he read her mind. “I trust you.”

“It’s a strange kind of trust when we both hold damaging secrets about one another.”

“You have the better hand. Who is going to believe that the lovely Adriana Joubert spent her whole life as a ship’s mouse? That would be as preposterous to the men of Charles Town as the fact that you now sit on your own pile of gold, gauging investments like a savvy London broker.”

She couldn’t help the pride that swirled up in her. She’d worked hard to parlay those pieces-of-eight into a quantity that would support her well.

“I hope you’ll indulge me,” he said. “There’s one thing that piques my curiosity.”

“Oh?” She lifted her skirts from the sand and headed toward the river, knowing he would keep doggedly by her side. “Just one?”

“Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Send Elsworth to send me away?”

Her throat went dry as she fixed her gaze on the tips of her shoes kicking off sand with every swift footstep. She scrambled to find an excuse that wasn’t the truth.

I want you gone because when I see you I yearn for you to kiss me, tear off my clothes, and touch me until I can’t think anymore.

I want you to love me, as I imagined you once did.

“Smallpox,” she blurted.

“Smallpox?”

“The Gaillards told me that there had been several cases upriver on the Santee.”

She wondered if he remembered the day when he told her he’d never had the disease. They were trying to figure out how to keep Gwynn silent until Roarke could get her safely off the ship.

He might not remember it.

But she remembered everything.

“There was an epidemic in the area a few years ago,” she continued. “Worse than anything I’ve seen. Etienne’s grandfather and his youngest brother died from it. It swept through Charles Town, too.”

“It pleases me to know that you don’t wish me dead.”

“Of course not,” she said, increasing her pace as her heart raced. “Vengeance is a terrible waste of time.”

“Then you are of a far better character, Adriana, than I could ever hope to be.”

She suddenly remembered his determination to destroy Captain Leighton. He’d hurled himself across the Atlantic Ocean in pursuit of that man, a heedless odyssey that led his own sailors into bloody mutiny.

She wondered if he’d ever consummated that vengeance.

But this was none of her concern. What did concern her was the future between them, especially if he had no intention of leaving Charles Town. The past was done, and the sooner she could put it behind her, the sooner she could focus on her own future.

“Roarke.” She hefted her skirts another inch above the sand, more to give her hands something to hold onto than any concern for soiling her hem. “I’ve been thinking about what you told me the other night about your years away.”

She expected him to say something, but his silence was a gentle thing, patient and calm and unnerving.

“I now understand that you saved more than my virtue when you put me on that shore near the Santee that evening. In truth, you saved me from drowning along with the rest of the crew.”

She saw his jaw tighten and shift.

“If you’d tried to keep me on the ship, both you and Drake would have been murdered trying to protect me—”

“I would have died a better man.”

Regret thrummed in his voice, a rumbling, disturbing sound. She hadn’t expected such a response. She didn’t know quite how to absorb the implications.

So she moved on instead. “I also understand,” she continued, “that it was impossible for you to come searching for me.”

“Don’t forgive me so easily, Adriana.”

His hand was gentle on her arm, but it wielded a power that didn’t come from brute strength. She’d been walking fast, breathing hard, and propelling herself across the shore as fast as her legs could take her to reach the shade of the trees that lined the banks of the river. Now with his touch she stopped, just as the river boats came into view.

She met his turbulent gaze. Whatever he would say would change things. That frightened her.

“Roarke.” She was hardly able to breathe. “You owe me no explanations.”

“I owe you much more than explanations.”

He touched her chin. Her gaze fell upon his lips, that firm and hungry mouth, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to stop herself.

“Adriana!”

She startled at the sound of her name. The sound came from the river’s edge. She glanced in that direction and saw the familiar silhouette of a tall, young man, stretching up to wave at her with enthusiasm.

Perhaps it was fate that Etienne would appear just at this moment, when she couldn’t control herself one breath longer.

Roarke’s hand fell away. She intended to walk with some dignity toward Etienne, but she must have shot toward him at a run, because Etienne met her halfway and caught her up and swirled her around while his laughter filled her ears.

Etienne’s kiss was unexpected and thorough.

“That,” Etienne said, as he placed her sputtering back down on her feet, “is the kind of welcome a man dreams of.”

Roarke’s shadow fell over them both.

“Adriana,” he said, his green gaze as brittle as glass, “you’d best introduce me to your young friend.”