Day after day, night after night, Gray found himself thinking about Charlie Vale. He couldn’t get her out of his head. The way she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, even if her opinion conflicted with his. The curve of her lips and the way her body had felt pressed against his. Occupying the cabin next to hers didn’t help. Her snoring kept him up half the night, and then he had nothing but his thoughts to keep him company. Even spending more time than usual on deck, looking over his men’s shoulders as they did their work, wasn’t helping. He was going mad. And it was all at the hands of one beautiful woman.
He had to get her off the ship and out of his life—the sooner, the better. With the anxious way his crew now conducted their work, peering over their shoulders as if watching for him, if he continued to breathe down their necks, he would have a mutiny on his hands. However, other than throwing himself into his work, he hadn’t been able to find a way to distract himself from his attraction to Charlie.
She was a beautiful woman, no doubt about that, but she wasn’t the woman for him. When he married, it would be to a soft-spoken, well-mannered woman befitting the son of a duke. And if he couldn’t offer Charlie marriage, he certainly couldn’t offer her anything less. His mother would skewer him, for one thing. Not to mention, he still had a duty to set a good example for his men. The Vales often came on deck when the weather was calm to stretch their legs, and he wouldn’t let them suffer unwanted attentions.
Or even wanted attentions. When he and Charlie had been stuck together in the smugglers’ cellar, he thought she’d tried to meet him halfway when he’d nearly kissed her. The notion that she wanted him as badly as he did her nearly proved his undoing. At all costs, he had to keep himself away from the temptation of touching her—a difficult thing to do when she took her meals in the officers’ mess.
The only high point in throwing himself into his work was the speed he was able to excite his crew into creating. The barque plowed through the Atlantic Ocean. Although his flag officer had reported communicating with several other ships—including a Royal Navy vessel that had nearly run them down before being alerted of the barque’s friendly allegiance—until now, they hadn’t crossed paths with the Portuguese ship.
“There it is ahead, Captain!”
Gray bolted for the quarterdeck and the spyglass housed there. He turned it toward the ship on the horizon. It flew the Portuguese flag.
“Hail them,” Gray commanded. “Tell them we request to board. I want to speak with their captain.”
“Yes, sir!”
As the flag officer performed his task, Stills climbed up to the quarterdeck to stand next to Gray. “Is this the ship?”
“We’ll soon find out.” Gray put the spyglass back in its holder.
“Will you tell me now why we’ve been chasing this ship, sir?”
Gray hesitated. Having never been involved in a spy mission before, he didn’t know how much he should disclose or to whom. However, Stills was his second-in-command. Gray would trust the man with his life. “A man aboard that ship has information for Lord Strickland. I don’t know much more than that.”
Stills frowned. “This man. He was supposed to be in the town where Mrs. and Miss Vale asked to be delivered?”
“Yes.”
“And this is connected in some way to her impending marriage?”
Gray didn’t know how to answer that, considering there was no betrothal. However, he was saved the trouble when the flag officer called down, “They’ve agreed to meet with us. They’re trimming the sails now.”
Gray didn’t have further time to talk, and neither did Stills. His second-in-command barked orders at the crew as they veered toward the friendly vessel. Gray retreated to the captain’s quarters and knocked before entering.
Charlie, standing by the porthole and squinting to see out into the waves, turned the moment he entered. “Is this it? Have you found him?”
“We’ll soon find out. Do you ladies trust me to question the captain in your absence?”
Charlie crossed to him, meeting him toe-to-toe. His body hummed with the desire to touch her. She wasn’t terribly shorter than him, so he could kiss her without bending too far.
Unfortunately, they weren’t alone. He clasped his hands behind him, holding himself in check.
Oblivious to the turn his thoughts had taken, Charlie met his gaze with fire in her eyes. “Absolutely not! We are coming with you.”
Bringing Charlie Vale aboard a foreign vessel had been a bad idea, even if she had insisted.
“What do you mean, he isn’t aboard your ship?” she asked.
Gray angled himself between her and the Portuguese captain.
The middle-aged man frowned as he tried to process her rapid English. Although the captains could communicate, the other man’s English was rudimentary at best.
Charlie didn’t appear to realize this. She continued her tirade, leaning to speak around Gray’s shoulder. “What did you do to him? Did you kill him?”
Gray bit his tongue to keep from groaning at her lack of discretion. If she wanted to keep her secret safe, she wasn’t doing a very good job of not drawing attention to herself. The Portuguese crew, for instance, stared at her with bald interest.
Fortunately, Mrs. Vale took her in hand. She laid her hand on Charlie’s sleeve and spoke to her in a low murmur. Gray turned his attention to the Portuguese captain. He spoke slowly and enunciated carefully to avoid a misunderstanding. “Please forgive my colleague. The information we gathered suggests that the man we seek boarded your ship. Did you have a passenger fitting his description?”
The man nodded. He smoothed his beard idly with one hand. Charlie quieted and stiffened as the man answered in a thick accent. “Yes, we did. But we met with a French ship. He transferred to return to the continent.”
“Back to France?” Mrs. Vale murmured something in her daughter’s ear, silencing her.
Gray fought the urge to look at Charlie. Instead, he focused on the task at hand. “Do you know where the French ship was headed?”
“Not for certain, but it was a small coastal vessel and would not have been able to go far. It must have stopped in the nearest port.”
“And where was that?”
“Marseille.”
Damn and blast. He was going back to France.
Anthony Graylocke was avoiding her again. Throughout the trip down the coast, Charlie had savored the respite from him. When they were near, the only thing she could think about was their moment in the smugglers’ cellar when she had almost kissed him, but he had pulled away. If he didn’t enjoy her company, she didn’t want his, either.
But she did want information, and that seemed to be the very last thing she could extract from him. He spent most of his waking hours above deck with the crew, where he’d warned her never to venture unescorted.
Yet every time she tried to approach him, he concocted some task that required his attention and excused himself from her presence. He didn’t seem to care a whit if he left her alone with the crew, so long as he didn’t have to endure her company.
No longer. She was getting answers from him even if she had to pry the words out of his mouth. Fortunately, the sea was calm, so she didn’t slip and slide across the deck. The sun warmed the back of her neck. “Captain Graylocke,” she called, shading her eyes as she searched for him. She tried to remain on his good side this morning, since her other tactics didn’t appear to be working.
She heard a sigh that must have been his. She spotted him by the bow, up on the deck above. Gathering her skirts in one hand, she swiftly joined him. He was alone, for the moment.
“Charlie, please go back to your cabin. I have a crew to oversee. I don’t have time to talk.”
As she found her footing on the deck, she dropped her skirts and crossed her arms. “I have a right to know what is happening. Have you made contact with any other ships that might have seen Papa? Are we getting close to Marseille?”
He stepped closer. His body surrounded her, the heat soaking into her like the sun. She took a step back. The edge of her foot slipped on the ledge, and she nearly careened off onto the main deck. He caught her, pressing her against his body for a moment before he took a step back and released her, safely away from the edge. He didn’t move away.
Her cheeks flushed, she averted her gaze. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he said stiffly. “Now kindly return to your cabin.”
She stiffened her spine. “No. Not until you tell me something. I’m going mad, locked away at all hours of the day. I need to feel as if I’m doing something.”
“Your role at the moment is to wait.”
Wait. She hated that word. “How long do I have to wait?” It had been days since they’d last made port, and she felt of no use in the middle of the ocean.
A young man at the top of the mast shouted out a warning. Anthony crossed to the side of the deck and claimed a spyglass from his holster. He turned it toward the shore. Whatever he saw there brought a grimace to his face. He handed her the glass. “See for yourself.”
As she raised it to her eye, she scanned the coastline and found a bustling port.
“I reckon you only have an hour or two of waiting left.”