Chapter Twenty-Five

Adriana remembered very well how quickly the world went mad during a storm. The undulation of the sea was not a steady, predictable thing, but a thrashing creature that toyed with the vessel as if it were a small wooden boat in a young boy’s bath. A sailor had to be flat-footed, with a sure grip, and have lightning-fast impulses, if a sailor wished to live.

So now, she shot off the cushioned seat. She seized Etienne’s arm and dug her fingernails into his sleeve as if struggling to stay upright. She stared at Roarke—her mind a wordless scream—and then she slid her gaze to Leighton. She saw confusion ripple across Roarke’s face at the same time she saw Leighton turn toward the parlor doors.

“Oh!” She cried out, and then “oh!” again until every eye was fixed upon her. She swayed toward Nicholas Trott as she loosened her grasp on Etienne. “I don’t feel well,” she stuttered, knocking her wineglass against her bosom. “I don’t feel…”

The damn idiot didn’t even catch her as she fell. She went boneless in the assumption that he would. Instead she cracked her back against the edge of the window seat—cushioned, but the edge was hard underneath—and then she nearly knocked herself silly as she hit the floor.

Her glass clattered out of her hand, spilling wine everywhere. She shook her head to dispel the black spots in front of her eyes. She’d been knocked unconscious by a swinging rope more than once, so she knew that she’d be sporting a lump when all was said and done.

Her ruse seemed to be working, because she heard ladies squeal and footsteps shuffle. A crowd surged around her. As she blinked her eyes open, she felt a jolt of triumph to see Captain Leighton frowning down at her amid the crowd as if she’d breached some rule of protocol.

“Adriana!” Etienne threw himself on his knees.

“Move aside, boy.” Nicholas rustled a linen out of his pocket and then set to pat her bodice dry. “The woman needs space to breathe.”

She feigned ignorance of Nicholas’s attention to her bosom—and Etienne’s fierce attempt to knock the man’s hands away. She blinked up at the crowd as if dazed. Through the stocking legs of the men and the skirts of the women she strained to see if Roarke had heard her mental warning. The wall of skirts parted for a moment as Governor Blake pushed his way to the center of the crowd, but not long enough for her to see anything.

“What are you all gawping at?” the governor exclaimed. “Why, Mademoiselle Joubert.”

“Forgive me,” she said, in her huskiest voice, clutching her brow as Nicholas continued his ministrations. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“The heat,” Etienne said in his imperfect English, his dark eyes swirling with questions. “She is overcome.”

Still, she saw no Roarke amid the onlookers. The British commander with the pockmarked face hadn’t moved.

“Fetch some wine,” the governor ordered.

“Oh, I have wine enough,” she said, raising her hands to stop the tug-of-war going on between Etienne and Nicholas and the wet linen. “I’m quite soaked with it.”

“Trott,” the governor said sharply. “Let our young lady dry herself.”

Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd. Nicholas’s nostrils flared, but he released the damp linen. Etienne seized it and handed it to her.

“If only,” she said, clutching the wet cloth, “I could retrieve my dignity with as much alacrity.”

“I’m sure you fell with the grace of a gazelle,” the governor said.

She touched her head where she’d hit the floor and winced more than warranted, for she hadn’t even broken the skin. “I felt so dreadfully light-headed.”

Etienne said, “Shall I fetch a doctor?”

“No, no. I may have a bruise or two, but otherwise the only thing that appears to be hurt is my pride.”

“None of that, now, none of that,” the governor said. “If it weren’t for this blasted storm, I’d open every window in this parlor.”

“But then I’d worry about my hair.”

“My dear, every man in the room has wondered what your hair would look like free of its pins,” the governor said. “We’d welcome a monsoon for that delight alone.”

“There you go, flattering me,” she said, as masculine laughter rose, “when I’m sprawled on the floor like a clumsy child.”

“Then rise up and join us, mademoiselle.” The governor held out a hand. “A glass of brandy and a moment’s rest will do wonders.”

She took his hand and gingerly stood up. “Perhaps I should retreat to my lodgings to regain my health, and dignity.”

“No, no,” the governor protested, “I won’t hear of it. There’s a storm out there, and we have plenty of room upstairs—”

“Your kindness touches my heart, governor,” she said, “and I’m sure my weakness was nothing but a touch of the heat.” Beyond the crowd, she noticed the foyer was empty. “But considering the reports we have heard of smallpox in the vicinity, perhaps it is best I depart.”

The mention of smallpox caused a sudden tension in the room, like a communal indrawn breath.

The governor released her hand. Suddenly there was plenty of space around her. Even Nicholas Trott toddled back.

“Mademoiselle speaks the truth.” Etienne slipped his arm around her waist to brace her. “I shall see her home.”

She played the part of the light-headed maiden as Etienne guided her through the parlor, then the foyer blessedly bereft of Roarke, and finally out the front door. While he bundled her onto her horse, she scanned the path for signs of a retreating mount, but the wind made tracking impossible.

Once they made it to her lodgings, Joachim ran out and took the reins of her horse. Etienne threw Joachim the reins of his own and then followed her up the steps as if he were master of the place.

“Etienne—”

“Not a word.” He swung open the door and gestured for her to enter.

Inside, she tossed off her cloak and tilted her head in the mirror to better gauge the extent of the bruise. Feeling Etienne’s gaze upon her, she wandered into her dining room and took out two glasses, filling them with brandy. Etienne took his glass and tossed it back. Then he set his glass down and dropped into a chair.

“You,” he said, “have some explaining to do.”

“It was just a temporary weakness,” she said. “The heat, as you said.”

“I’ve never seen you faint.”

“I’ve never worn a corset as often as I do now.”

“Any man can see that you don’t lace it tight.”

She turned away, disturbed that he’d noticed such a thing. She didn’t want to think about Etienne in her home right now. She wanted to know where Roarke had gone. If Captain Leighton somehow found out there was a Captain Roarke Cameron in Charles Town—and it could happen so easily, just through a casual remark by the governor over a glass of wine—then Roarke’s lodgings would be the first place the captain would look for the pirate who’d hounded him across the Atlantic.

“I’ve seen you pull intestines out of the belly of a buck,” Etienne persisted. “You’re not the fainting kind.”

“It’s not the first charade I’ve played.”

“Yes, but I couldn’t help notice that you fell like a stone the moment Captain Cameron appeared.”

His perception surprised her.

“Who is this man?” he said. “What is he to you?”

She wandered to the windows, sucked by the shifting breezes so they rattled in rhythm with the storm. How she wanted to fling them open and let the breeze pull the pins from her hair and the rain soak her, as if she stood on the crow’s nest in a rolling sea.

“I knew him before,” she said, offering a nugget of truth. “He was on the same ship as me.”

“The ship that went down in the storm, three years ago?”

“Yes.”

“But he was not among the bodies on the shore.”

“I thought he was.”

“But now, years later, he reappears in Charles Town as a merchant captain.” Etienne spoke in an even voice, as if he were making sense of hoof prints and signs in order to find his quarry. “He was a pirate,” he finally said, “just as you were a pirate.”

“A woman pirate?” she said, with not nearly enough dismissiveness. “Who has ever heard of such a thing?”

“You once compared a buck’s intestines to a tangle of hemp rope,” he said. “I remember the way you used to climb trees, swift and confident, one hand over the other like you were climbing rigging. You loved when the wind made the treetops sway, you with your feet braced on a branch while holding on to the trunk with one hand, smiling down at me.”

“We were playing. We were children.”

“I was a child.” He found interest in the buttons of his ill-fitting suit. “But you were never a child, Adriana.”

She looked at her friend, sprawled on the chair, his gaze as intense as ever she’d seen it. He was just guessing, certainly.

Had she given herself away so thoroughly?

“It’s all becoming clear,” he said. “You risked a knock on the head tonight to get that pirate away from a British naval officer.”

A pressure grew in her throat, an urge to tell Etienne everything, from her youth dressed as a boy, to her time as a ship’s mouse, to these past months in Charles Town when she finally felt like she had some control of her life.

But Etienne was changing before her very eyes. He was no longer the gawky young man too awkward to make his own desires known. To reveal Roarke’s past was to put a weapon in the hands of a jealous, full-grown man who knew Roarke only as a rival.

“Etienne,” she whispered, “the situation is complicated.”

“It’s not complicated at all,” he barked. “You’re hopelessly in love with Captain Cameron.”

***

Roarke stilled in the shadows of the next room. He had just slipped through the back door and followed the faint glow of candlelight, arriving here in time to hear the last of the conversation. Now the French boy’s words rang in his ears. He mentally willed Adriana to turn around so he could see her face.

She did not oblige. She went unnaturally still, and then, after a moment, she swayed as if the boards beneath her feet were not nailed to a foundation, but were rather the deck of a ship that had dipped into the trough of a swell.

The Frenchman shot up from his chair. A knot tightened at the back of Roarke’s neck. If that boy approached Adriana, touched her, kissed her…

Bloody thoughts filled his mind.

“All this time,” the boy said, “you treated me like a brother. I welcomed your affection because I didn’t know how else to be close to you. I thought, if I just showed you that I’d become a man—”

“Etienne, please stop.”

“Your heart has always been taken, hasn’t it?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know that the days are numbered for pirates, now that the war is over. The more English proprietors and naval officers who find their way here, the more civilized this place will become, and the less hospitable it will be to high-seas thieves. Soon your pirate captain will have no place to hide.”

“He’s not a pirate,” she said. “Not any longer.”

“He can never give you what you need. If you stay with him, you’ll always live under the shadow of danger. He cannot offer you a home, children, a safe and comfortable life. But I can.”

With those words, Roarke felt as if he’d ran into a wall he didn’t see. The drive that had propelled him here—racing through the wind and the storm, ducking under eaves, sidling his way through alleys, his mind filled with the thought of Adriana—that forward motion stopped short at the truth in the Frenchman’s words.

“Please leave, Etienne.” Adriana flexed her narrow shoulders. “You shouldn’t be here. If anyone saw you enter my home—”

“—they’ll think I took shelter from the storm—”

“They’ll think worse than that, and you know it.”

The boy tugged on the hem of his waistcoat. Roarke saw the struggle on his face, and understood exactly what the boy was thinking better than the boy would ever know.

“I’m not giving up on us.” The boy’s shoulders rose and fell. “But for your sake, I will leave.”

The boy headed toward the front door with a swagger in his step. Roarke heard the flap of a cloak being thrown over shoulders, then the sound of a door opening. The wind whistled throughout the house and made candles on the table where Adriana stood flicker. From outside came the sound of harness and horse’s hooves, and then he knew the Frenchman was gone.

He curled his hands into fists to stop himself from stepping into the candlelight and making his presence known. He stared at Adriana until his eyes hurt. Maybe the young man was right. Maybe Adriana was better off with some inland planter, rather than with a man who would be forever hunted.

“You can come out of hiding now, Roarke.”

The soft voice broke into his thoughts. She didn’t look in his direction. She was transfixed by the dregs at the bottom of her glass.

“Please tell me Joachim didn’t let you in,” she added. “I won’t have him think it’s acceptable to allow men in this house.”

“The back door was unbolted.” He stepped into the room and saw how her knuckles tightened around her glass. “Joachim was busy dealing with your skittish horse.”

“So.” She took a breath that made her breasts surge. “You saw Leighton in the governor’s parlor.”

“I’d recognize the slouch of that man’s stance from five hundred yards.”

“Would he recognize you?”

“Instantly.” At the battle outside Roscoff, he’d looked through the spyglass at Leighton standing on that British warship. He remembered the rush of satisfaction as Leighton nearly dropped his own spyglass as the naval captain recognized him. “Leighton is one of only a handful of people who know my real name,” he said. “And he saw me attack his ships.”

With him, you will always live under the shadow of danger.

“You must leave Charles Town now.” She planted the glass on the table. “Take the Neptune and find some safe harbor—”

“Still trying to get rid of me, petite?”

“Please. There’s no time for foolishness.”

“It gives me ease that you never gave your heart to that young Frenchman.”

“Do you understand,” she said, her little nostrils flaring, “that the governor might have noticed your absence by now? That he might have mentioned your name out loud within Captain Leighton’s hearing? That Captain Leighton might even now be sending men to your lodgings in order to arrest you for piracy?”

“Fortunately, I am not there.”

“Then he’ll send men to confiscate your ship, the cargo, and all the sailors aboard. He’ll brand you a pirate, ruin your name, your prospects, everything you’ve spent three years building.”

“Always thinking practical, my little Adriana.”

“And if he catches you, Roarke, if he arrests you—”

“He’ll have me swinging by the neck before the week’s end.”

She was breathing hard now. Her bosom pressed against the restriction of her corset’s edge. He didn’t move, not consciously, but suddenly he was standing in front of her, looking down at her hair, damp with rain, in disarray from the tugging of the wind so that locks fell in tangles over her shoulders. He smelled the perfume she was wearing, something musky and edged with spice, a drifting, shifting sandalwood scent that reminded him of the breezes and the beaches of the Indian Ocean.

She looked up at him while splaying her hand against her stomach. “You are planning to kill him, aren’t you?”

“No, petite.”

“That had been your plan from the beginning.” A note of accusation rippled in her voice. “You’ll do anything, hurt anyone, and even disregard common sense and self-preservation all for your damn bloody vengeance.”

“Adriana.” He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “I gave up on vengeance the very hour I marooned you on shore.