Christmas Wedding Belles: The Pirate's Kiss / A Smuggler's Tale / The Sailor's Bride. Miranda Jarrett

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СКАЧАТЬ are telling me that you feel nothing for me now?’ He raised a hand and trailed the back of it down her cheek. His touch seemed to burn her. She could feel her blood heating beneath the skin. The same treacherous attraction he could always arouse in her flared up, but was quenched in bitterness.

      ‘I cannot deny that I respond to you,’ she said, unflinchingly honest. ‘But it is nothing more than physical attraction. I do not trust you, Daniel, and I cannot respect you.’

      For a moment she thought he was going to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless, as though in defiance of all the love that had been lost between them, and her perfidious heart leapt to think of it. But then his hand fell to his side and he stepped back, turned on his heel and walked out of the cabin.

      Lucinda stood still for a moment, trembling a little with the intensity of the storm of emotion within, and then suddenly recollected where she was and hastened after him.

      ‘Daniel! Wait! I want to get off the ship—’

      He was standing at the end of the companionway, but now he turned and looked at her. One long, unreadable look.

      ‘You cannot,’ he said. ‘You should have thought of that before, Lucy. The tide has turned and we have sailed.’

      Daniel strode up on deck, his hands clenched in tight fists at his side.

      ‘I do not trust you…I cannot respect you…’

      He had been within an ace of grabbing Lucinda, throwing her down on the floor and making love to her there and then—as though that would enable him to wipe out all the anger and bitterness between them and conjure the old love in its place. Devil take it, he must be going soft in the head. What did it matter what she thought of him? He could have explained it all to her if he had wanted her good opinion. But it was far too late for that. Lucinda was right. They could never go back.

      The Defiance was slipping down Kestrel Creek very slowly, towards the open sea. He heard the patter of feet on the deck behind him, and then Lucinda had grabbed his sleeve and pulled him around to face her. Her blue eyes were blazing. She looked furious.

      ‘What do you think you are doing? Turn the ship around! Make it stop! I want to get off!’

      Daniel was aware that all the crew were covertly watching, under cover of going about their tasks. He put his hands on his hips and smiled down into Lucinda’s infuriated face.

      ‘Can’t do that, Mrs Melville,’ he drawled. ‘We sail on the tide. It doesn’t wait.’

      Lucinda’s eyes narrowed to angry slits of blue. ‘You mean that I am stuck here with you? For how long?’

      Daniel had only been intending to take the ship out for a night, to hunt Norton along the coast and remove himself from the threat of Owen Chance’s men finding him, but now he shrugged lightly.

      ‘A week? Two? Who knows? You can share my cabin if you like,’ he added with a mocking smile. He took a step closer to her. ‘It might not be love between us any more, Lucy, but it could still be pleasurable…’

      He thought for a moment that she was going to strike him, but then she turned on her heel and ran across to the side of the ship. They were still very close to the bank as the Defiance slid almost imperceptibly out of the creek, and Lucinda did not even hesitate. She grabbed the rigging, pulled herself up onto the rail, and stood there, poised to jump.

      Daniel swore violently. Anger and fear collided within him, and he covered the deck faster than he had ever run before, grabbing her about the waist and dragging her backwards into his arms in the very second she was about to launch herself over the side.

      ‘Are you insane?’ he shouted. ‘You could kill yourself trying a trick like that!’

      She struggled like a demon in his arms, kicking him, beating him with her fists, and calling him some colourful names that Daniel felt vaguely shocked she even knew. Her tomboyish behaviour reminded him of their childhood, when she would scramble through the fields, losing her bonnet and tearing her dress, an utter hoyden. Evidently she still had that same wild spirit. His crew were looking highly diverted, trying to smother their grins, and Daniel picked Lucinda up bodily and dragged her behind the mainmast for a little privacy. The man working there moved discreetly away.

      Daniel held Lucinda tightly until she went soft and quiescent in his arms, then he gently pushed the tumbled hair away from her face.

      ‘Do you hate me so much, Luce, that you would risk your very life to get away from me?’

      They stared at one another for what seemed like hours, and then Lucinda dropped her gaze. ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘but I wish I had never met you again, Daniel.’

      Something wrenched Daniel deep inside.

      ‘I’ll take you back,’ he said shortly.

      She looked annoyed. ‘There is no need for you to come. I can manage perfectly well on my own.’

      Daniel smiled. ‘I know, Luce, but I insist.’

      After a second she gave him a faint, hesitant smile in return. ‘Owen Chance might catch you.’

      ‘I doubt it.’

      She smoothed her tattered gown ‘You are so reckless.’ She raised her gaze and gave him a proper smile this time, and it made his heart lurch. But there was sadness in her eyes as well, and it hurt him to see it.

      ‘I wish I did not feel I know you so well,’ she said, ‘when I do not really know you at all.’

      For a moment Daniel was desperate to tell her the truth. The temptation was so strong that he could feel the words jostling to come out. He had never previously cared for any man’s good opinion, but now he found he wanted to regain Lucinda’s trust and respect. He wanted it more than anything else in the world. He drove his hands into his pockets in a gesture of repressed rage. He could tell her he was on the side of the angels, but in the end what good would it do? He could neither take her with him, nor make up for the damage he had done to her in the past. So it was better that he kept his peace and let her go.

      The anchor was lowered and a rope ladder thrown over the side. Lucinda insisted on climbing down it herself, just as Daniel had known she would. He instructed Holroyd to take the ship out beyond the bay and stand by to pick him up at Harte Point whilst he walked back with her through the woods to Kestrel Court.

      They walked in silence, though every so often he would hold back branches from her path, or pull aside brambles, and she would thank him politely. It was only as they were approaching the edge of the parkland that she spoke.

      ‘Does it suit you, Daniel, this business of being a pirate?’

      ‘Most of the time,’ Daniel said. He raised his brows. ‘Does it suit you to be a governess?’

      She shot him a look from beneath the battered edge of her bonnet. ‘Most of the time,’ she said. There was an undertone of humour in her voice. ‘It is better than marriage, at any rate.’

      ‘That would surely depend on who you were married to?’

      There was a pause. The wind sighed through the pines. ‘I suppose so,’ Lucinda said. ‘I made a bad mistake with Leopold. I was running СКАЧАТЬ