The Countess Misbehaves. Nan Ryan

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СКАЧАТЬ winds kept ballooning Madeleine’s skirts, threatening to lift her off her feet. Quickly assessing the situation, Armand propelled her to a deck chair that was bolted to the deck. While she held tightly to the chair’s back, Armand took a small, sharp-bladed knife from a leather holster at his ankle. He lifted Madeleine’s damp dress and slashed the threads that held her fashionable crinoline petticoats. In seconds the heavy crinoline frame fell away and Armand lifted her out of it. Free of the impeding contraption, it was easier for Madeleine to keep up with him.

      After what seemed an eternity, the embattled pair finally reached the ship’s rising port side. Gripping the wet wooden railing, Armand drew Madeleine in front of him, enclosing her in his arms as he clutched the rail. His eyes watering from the wind and salt spray of the sea, he anxiously peered over the ship’s side in search of a lifeboat.

      There were none.

      All the lifeboats had cast off and were rapidly rowing away from the doomed ship.

      “God in heaven!” Armand swore in frustration. “There are no more lifeboats!”

      “I know,” Madeleine said, exhaling resignedly as she pushed a soaked lock of hair off her cheek and gazed wistfully after the departing boats.

      For a long uncertain moment the couple stood there together on the badly listing deck of the sinking vessel. The winds roared relentlessly and the huge waves rose to awesome heights, badly buffeting the crippled ship. Dozens of people, washed overboard, clung to wreckage. Others bobbed about like corks in the roiling sea, supported by life belts. And above the din, the terrible screams of people filled the air as they flailed about and drowned.

      Madeleine trembled and a sob of fear escaped her lips.

      “Come,” Armand shouted, “let’s get in out of the wind.”

      His arm firmly around her, Armand guided the frightened Madeleine back across the slick deck and up the tilting bridge to the captain’s cabin, just off the wheelhouse. Sheltering her against his tall body, Armand tried the door. It was jammed. He pressed a muscular shoulder against it, pushed with all his strength and it flew open.

      Quickly he handed Madeleine inside and followed, closing the door behind him. The cabin was deserted. The captain was gone. The crew was gone. They had either been swept overboard or had fled cowardly in one of the lifeboats.

      Madeleine stood in the center of the small, tidy cabin, hugging herself. Chilled with fear, she thanked Armand with her eyes when he took a large white towel from a sea chest and handed it to her.

      She blotted her wet shiny face, then began rubbing her thick, soaked hair. She watched as Armand took another towel, peeled off his drenched white shirt and dried his dark chest and wide shoulders.

      “I’m sorry there are no dry clothes here for you to…” he began.

      Swearing, he tore a clean gray blanket from a narrow bunk that hung from the far bulkhead by strong link chains. He wrapped the blanket around her trembling shoulders and suggested she sit down. She looked around, realizing the bed was the only place to sit. Madeleine shook her head and said she’d rather stand. The words had hardly passed her lips before a giant wave crashed against the cabin, sending her sprawling on the sharply canted deck.

      Armand reached her in an instant, drawing her to her feet. “Are you all right?” he shouted, clasping her upper arms.

      “Yes,” she shouted back, “but maybe I had better sit down.”

      He guided her to the bunk and she sank down onto the mattress’s edge. Armand drew down the bunk’s canvas restraining straps and cinched them around her waist. “That should hold you,” he said. Then he exhaled heavily and sat down on the bed beside her, realizing there was nothing more to be done.

      The ship continued to pitch and roll and plunge and rise as the hurricane-force winds slammed mercilessly into the crippled vessel. Strapped down in the captain’s bunk beside a virtual stranger, Lady Madeleine Cavendish tried very hard to be brave. She had been reared to keep a stiff upper lip in moments of crisis and to never let others know she was upset.

      But she had never faced anything like this. It was impossible to hide the fact that she was terrified.

      “We are going to die, aren’t we, Mr. de Chevalier?” the shivering Madeleine asked, her eyes round with fear.

      Armand was quick to offer hope to the frightened woman. “No. Certainly not. This vessel has a wooden hull, which means it can stay afloat for hours,” he said and slid a comforting arm around her shaking shoulders. “There’s every chance that we will be picked up.” He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, then dropped his hand away, bracing a stiffened arm behind her on the mattress.

      “You don’t believe that,” she accused, studying his dark face for signs of sincerity. His unchanged countenance revealed nothing. “Do you?” She pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders.

      “Yes, I do.” Armand insisted, keeping up the pretense for her sake. “With any luck another ship will pass by here within the hour and take us on-board.”

      She nodded, but she was not fooled.

      Her shoulders slumped with despair and try as she might, she could no longer hold back the tears that were stinging her eyes. Madeleine began to quietly cry. Armand didn’t hesitate. He took her in his arms and pressed her wet cheek to his bare chest. He stroked the crown of her damp hair, gently patted her slender back and comforted her with soft spoken words of solace.

      In her rising fear, Madeleine put her arms around his trim waist, clasping her hands together behind his back. The blanket fell away from her shoulders. She clung to Armand as if he were her lifeline to survival. Tears spilling down her cheeks, she buried her face in the warm solidness of his naked chest and closed her eyes. Above her bent head, his deep, calm voice soothed and reassured.

      Madeleine’s tears soon ceased, but Armand continued to hold her in his arms. On a soft inhalation of breath, she raised her head and looked up at him apologetically.

      “I’m sorry,” she said.

      “For what?” He replied, then smiled at her in that devil-may-care way of his as if nothing were amiss. She knew that he was being brave and strong for her sake. And it touched her. She smiled back at him and realized, as she did so, that it was the first time she had ever really smiled at him. His dark, beautiful eyes lighted in response.

      And as she smiled at him the thought struck her that his handsomely chiseled features would be the last face she saw this side of heaven. The two of them were going to die together in this tiny cabin. It might be an hour. It might be less. But soon the sinking ship would plunge with decisive finality into the dark, fathomless depths of ocean and she and de Chevalier would drown.

      They were going to die together, two strangers who knew nothing about each other. Neither of them would ever see their homes or loved ones again. They would never again eat a sumptuous meal. Or drink chilled champagne. Or warm themselves before a roaring fire. Or laugh in the rain. Or dance beneath the stars.

      Or make love.

      Madeleine stirred against the handsome man who held her. The sea pounded against the ship. Waves slapped against the cabin. She clung to Armand, her arms wrapped around him, her head on his shoulder.

      It was crazy, she knew, totally insane, but she wondered—as she had that first night СКАЧАТЬ