“Blast!”
The drawing-knife clattered to the dock. Jin snatched his hand from the small boat’s gudgeon and slid off its overturned hull. Blood welled from his palm, a long, thin line corner to corner. “Blast.” But it served him right for allowing a sleepless night.
Allowing.
Little Billy sent him a curious glance from the yawl’s bow.
“Take care, Cap’n. She’s a sharp ’un.”
Jin passed his good hand over his face, then gripped his neck, staring at the crimson on the other as it gathered in the indent, barely feeling the pain. Late-morning sun shone sultry upon the wharf and water slapping at the sides of the vessel before them. Weeks earlier, just as now, he had looked up at the April Storm and made a terrible mistake imagining he could easily corral a woman like Viola Carlyle. She was not a female to go placidly. Even her lovemaking shouted defiance.
The night’s heavy heat had dissipated upon a northerly wind. Caps of white tipped the swells far beyond the docks and the breeze grabbed at furled sails, jingling lines. If this wind held through the week, they would set a good pace toward England.
One more day. He believed her honest if not entirely sane. However reluctantly, she would leave this when he told her she must-when he told her what he must to secure his goal of returning a lady home. A lady he’d had no business making love to.
A carroty head appeared at his elbow.
“Best patch that up, sir.” The cabin boy glanced down at the droplets of blood staining the dock.
“Thank you, Gui. I shall.”
The lad’s face lacked its typical animation. Sailors had straggled back to the ship all morning, tails between their legs. Chastened dogs that had displeased their master.
The back of Jin’s neck was hot. Men should not be reduced to this. Damn it, they were on furlough, yet each had apologized to him for allowing the arsonists to escape. The spell she held over them was bewitchment. Now they all worked at minor tasks as though they were priming the April Storm for sea rather than simply moving her to anchor in the harbor. While Jin stood with his feet braced wide on the planking of the dock, and bled.
He swiped off his neck cloth and bound it about his hand.
“Sure’s a nasty scrape,” Gui piped.
“Cap’n ain’t normally clumsy,” Billy supplied with his usual good humor. “Reckon he didn’t get no sleep last night, what with the excitement and all.” He broke a toothy grin. “Never catch a wink myself after a battle.”
Jin gripped his fist around the linen. He should not have succumbed to her. Not to a strong-willed armful of heat and determination. But also a woman with a wounded heart, and he had taken advantage of that.
Not his finest hour.
She had imagined he pitied her. He tugged the cloth tight, giving himself pain now and gritting his teeth against it. No pity involved, not toward that hellion harpy. Only the need to erase the hurt and confusion from her wide violet eyes. And lust. Barrels of it, not slaked even now. Her mouth, her hands, her strong shapely legs… The very thought of her primed his body. And her voice, her rich, soft cries of pleasure…
He swallowed and blinked hard.
“Cap’n? You all right there?”
“Fix that rudder into the gudgeon,” he barked.
He wished he were merely bewitched. But this was something more, much more that he did not wish to consider-could not consider. A man whose wrists bore scars from iron shackles was no match for a lady who by her blood and birth belonged in London ballrooms, however far she had fallen from that state. He would see her restored to that life, and see his debt repaid. Nothing-not her stubbornness nor his desire-would stand in the way of that.
He bent to their task anew, but blood saturated the cravat and his hand slipped again. “Damn and blast.”
“You don’t want to cuss like that.” The voice behind him was smooth as satin.
She wore sailor’s clothing again, her usual heavy coat and broad hat, not the tattered gown he had hastily removed to touch the skin beneath. Yet in his impatience to be inside her again he had never removed her undergarment, and now his imagination beset him like a callow lad. His hands knew that she would be beautiful to the eye.
Her lips curved into the barest smile.
“Billy, Gui,” he said, “go now.”
The boys obeyed.
He rewrapped the linen about his palm. “How did your appointment pass?”
“That’s a great deal of blood. You should see to that.”
“What did the harbormaster say?”
“I have oil and bandages in my-”
“Blast it, woman, answer me.”
“I don’t take orders. And I’ll do nothing until you allow me to dress that properly.” She glanced at the drawing-knife. “Did you cut it on that old thing? It could fester in an instant. You will lose your hand.” His hand that even now wished to trace the slope of her cheek lit by the sun, to explore again the body that had been his to touch in the dark.
He returned to his work. “Then I shall have a hook installed in its place to frighten off pestering females.”
She set her fists on her sweet hips, the breeze catching up her tresses and fluttering them about her face and shoulders.
“You’re in a wretched mood.” She chuckled. “Didn’t you sleep?”
“Your snoring wakened me.” He sounded waspish. Not his finest self by far, but she brought out the worst in him. And the lust-driven Bedlamite. Her eyes bespoke tangled bedclothes and limbs, and her lips… Jin’s vision fogged again imagining those lips wrapped around his-
“I don’t snore.”
“You do,” he snapped, unraveled. “What? Has no other man ever mustered the courage to tell Violet la Vile that she snores like a drunken dockworker?” He released the line and moved toward the gangway.
“No other man has ever been present while I’m sleeping.”
He halted. “I don’t believe it.”
“Cur.”
“Ever?”
Her nostrils flared.
Jin’s pulse skittered, cold and metallic like the panic he’d felt the night before when for a moment he believed he had taken her maidenhead. He tamped it down.
“Of course not.” He forced a derisive laugh. “That would be like a lord allowing his valet to watch him sleep, wouldn’t it? Mustn’t allow the minions to see you vulnerable. Or rather, acolytes.” Or a former slave whose first master had called him an animal because of the violence he’d seen in him-the nature that could not be tamed.
“You are a prize boor,” she grumbled.
He strode up the gangplank, away from her, his head spinning. But the insane desire pressed at him to return to her and tell her the truth-that he had never felt a woman’s touch like hers-that it had never proven difficult to leave a woman’s bed until hers.
She had allowed him to see her sleep.
When he’d awoken before dawn he watched her shallow breathing, her full lips and the tilt of her chin, her lovely features peaceful, soft in slumber. But she was not his to hold, and without taking again that which he wished from her, he had torn himself away.
Now her footsteps followed him.
“You must come with me to the harbormaster’s office. I told him I could be trusted to provide the money in time, but he didn’t believe me. Only your name got his attention. It seems your reputation precedes you. Not a poor reputation in English ports, apparently.”
He pivoted. “Why is it that I once more find myself obliged to remind you that I hold a commission from the Royal Navy?”
She stepped close, nearly as close as that first day when he was a prisoner aboard her ship, nearly as close as the night before. She swept her dark gaze over him.
“I’ll admit it’s difficult to believe. That a man like you would agree so easily to be bound seems improbable.” A question lit her eyes; its meaning seemed more than the words she spoke. Jin’s heart pounded. This could not be. He was not intended for her, not even to satisfy a temporary desire. She was intended for more.
“Do not mistake me, Viola,” he forced across his tongue. “I do only that which serves my interests.”
The grin slipped from her lips.
“Then you’d better accompany me to the harbormaster’s office shortly or you’ll be tossed into jail with the rest of us. That, I’ll wager, would not serve your interests in the least.” She moved across the deck away from him. “But first I will doctor that wound. That is an order, Lieutenant.”
Chest tight, he stared at her disappearing down the companionway. Around him the ship rested peculiarly quiet. Sailors were motionless at their work, watching him.
“Hands at the lines!” he shouted. “Ready to make way.” He swung up the stairs to the helm. At the wheel Mattie met him with a scowl and a shake of his head.
“What’d you say to put her back up, so short on last night and the loss o’ them low-dunnits?”
“Nothing of your concern. Make for those mangroves, fifty yards to portside. We will drop anchor there.”
“Saying something she don’t like? Or doing something? Something you shouldn’t be doing. Teasing her?”
“You are a besotted fool like the rest of them.”
Mattie’s thick brow lowered. “Don’t like to see a lady treated poor.” His gruff tone warned. “And this one, she don’t deserve it.”
Jin fixed his helmsman with a hard stare. “Decide now if you wish to aid or hinder me in this, Matt. But at this late date, if you choose to make trouble for me, take care to wear your knife close when you sleep at night.”
The hulk’s weathered face paled. “Got us fifteen years between us, you and me. You’d never.”
“Watch me.”
Jin descended to the main deck, then to the companionway, black anger boiling beneath his skin. Threats now, to a man he had known since he was a lad. But Mattie knew better than anyone of what Jin was truly capable. Mattie had seen it with his own eyes. Such images did not fade from a man’s memory. Ever. Nor were such acts ever erased from a man’s soul.
The ship rocked in the rough harbor like an old nag in the traces, reluctantly getting under way. Jin passed through the short corridor to the shipmaster’s open cabin door. The chamber was empty, its accoutrements tidy, the bed in which he had taken his pleasure in a woman of aristocratic blood now neatly made. The sextant no longer graced the writing table, in its place a wooden medicine chest, its drawers carefully labeled, with folded squares of cotton beside it.
He took up a bottle of wine from beside the chest, uncorked it, and doused the cravat, then unwrapped the stained linen and flexed his hand. Blood oozed from the wound anew. He closed his fist, and his eyes, and breathed in her scent, all about him now-the scent of spiced roses and damnable woman.
“Afraid it’ll sting?” Like water rippling over a rocky beach, her laughter came from the doorway. Her hat dangled in her hand.
He pressed the cravat to his palm. “Afraid you will swoon at the sight of blood?”
She moved to him. “I’ve been a woman for thirteen years, Seton. I’ve seen more blood than probably even you.”
“Charming.” He worked the alcohol into the slash, the pain nothing to him. “You may wish to curtail some of this delightful frankness when you again reside in your father’s house in Devonshire.”
She hesitated only a moment. “My father’s house now belongs to me and it is in Massachusetts.”
With each pass of the cravat the blood flowed afresh.
“Incompetent man.” She grabbed up a scrap of cotton and trapped his palm between hers, lifting it and pressing down hard. “You’ve been master of your own ship for years and you don’t even know how to treat a wound?”
He did. Perfectly well, of course. He had tended more sailors’ injuries than he cared to count. But he had no desire to stanch this wound yet. Today he wished to bleed.
Brow taut, she took up a vial of root powder and dusted the cotton then replaced it against his palm, her movements deft and competent and her slender fingers strong upon him, as when she had clasped him to her in the moonlight.
“Do you truly care nothing for it? For them?” He watched her face as she concentrated on her task. “Does it not affect you that those who call you sister and daughter still hope for your return? That they yet consider you one of theirs?”
She opened another drawer in the chest and withdrew a small pot corked with wax. “You know nothing of it.”
“I do.”
She worked quickly, adept at this as she was at twining her crewmen about her will. With gentle application she spread the oily salve across his palm, then pressed a layer of cloth to it and bound it with a strip of linen. She tied it off and released him, then wiped her hands and closed the medicines in the chest. She slipped the key into her pocket and set her hands on her hips.
“Don’t make a fist if you mustn’t. And don’t use it for anything but the most innocuous tasks.” Her lashes flickered, as though a not-so-innocuous task his hand might perform occurred to her. “If you mustn’t,” she repeated somewhat airily.
Beauty, bravado, and maidenlike confusion all wrapped into one. For the first time all day, Jin found himself smiling and he said unwisely, “And if I must?”
Her gaze snapped away. “Then I know a superb blacksmith who could have a hook ready for you in less than a sennight.” She hefted the medicine chest and set it on the floor at the foot of the bunk. Despite the shapeless coat that concealed her curves, he could not draw his gaze from her. He could watch her move, watch her grin or swagger or sit in perfect stillness upon the bow of her ship with her hair tangling in the wind… endlessly.
Heat washed through him-this heat entirely foreign, insistent, not desire. His heart raced, a reckless pulse he’d only ever felt once, twenty years earlier. That time he had run, evaded his keepers, and escaped through the dusty cane fields. As they gained on him, his limbs weak from starvation and bare feet bloodied by the dry stalks, his heart had raced thus. And when they had caught him, he’d fought.
He made himself speak.
“Why do you resist returning home, Viola? You cannot wish to live the remainder of your days in this manner.” He did not need to gesture about him at the worn walls and narrow window of her tiny cabin, the shabby furnishings she maintained so neatly without the help of a steward, only a seven-year-old cabin boy. “You could have so much more. You were born to have more.”
“Did Mr. Castle come here while I was at the harbormaster’s office?” Her lovely face was immobile.
He had his answer, then, the answer he suspected despite the previous night.
“No.”
She moved to the door, tugging on her hat. “I heard news of the fire in town. Apparently it spread to a second field, but no one knows if it reached the house. I hope they are all well.” She went ahead onto the gun deck. Her sailors tipped their caps and she cast them smiles as ever, but distracted. Her mind was elsewhere. And, apparently, still her heart. With Aidan Castle.
“I sent Matouba on horseback,” he said. “He should return shortly with news.”
She darted him a glance, then climbed the stairs to the main deck. Round the capstan sailors pulled at long poles, chanting an old rhythm as they released the anchor one yard of massive chain at a time. Jin called for a boat to be lowered and passed orders to Becoua to have the sails furled and other chores completed. Ignoring Mattie’s glare, he followed the master of the April Storm off her ship and across the harbor to town.
The harbormaster came around his desk and extended a hand.
“If I had known who you were last night, Mr. Seton, I should have insisted on your company for lunch today. But it shall have to be dinner tonight instead, and of course Miss Daly as well. Pity you’ve just missed Captain Eccles. He has gone on to Havana but will be sorry to have passed you by so narrowly.”
“I don’t believe I am acquainted with Captain Eccles, sir.”
“Of course you are.” The port master pulled a chair forward for Viola and gestured for her to sit. She did so gingerly, her violet eyes wide.
The harbormaster settled into his. “According to Eccles, when last you encountered one another he was not yet master of his own ship, but under the command of Captain Halloway.”
“Ah. Halloway’s lieutenant aboard the Command.”
“That nasty business with that pirate Redstone and the earl, whatever his name was. Poole?” The port official waved it away, rummaging in his desk drawer. “An excellent story, though. My wife and I found it enormously diverting. Eccles gave me this to pass on to you if you should happen through port. Remarkable that you should do so not a sennight since his sojourn here.” He extended a sealed envelope across the desk. Jin tucked it into his waistcoat.
“I thank you for the invitation to dine with you tonight, sir. But what of this fine on the April Storm? Will you give me leave to collect the sum from Miss Daly’s banker on Tobago and return it to you within the sennight?”
“Of course, of course. We ain’t savages here.” He chortled comfortably, and stood. “But not until tomorrow, after you have supped on my wife’s pork pie and jelly. A man hasn’t lived until he’s had a mouthful of that pork pie.” He patted his belly, then ushered them affably to the door.
“By the by, Seton, I must thank you belatedly for apprehending the Estella last winter. Those Cuban pirates absconded with at least two loaded merchant vessels out of this port and I suspect a third that went missing and we never heard of again. Brutal fellows. Brutal, I tell you, from the stories I got from the few men who survived. Though there weren’t many of those, of course.” He shook his head, then clapped Jin on the shoulder. “It is a fine thing to have a ship like the Cavalier in these waters. Where is that quick little schooner now?”
“She is indisposed currently, sir.”
“Cleaning time, I daresay. Well, best get her back in the water where she’ll do honest men some good. Now don’t you be late to dinner or the missus will scold me. Seven o’clock direct.” He closed the door.
On the street again, amid shoppers passing by and carts laden with the commerce of a port town, Viola turned to him.
“Englishmen are the most peculiar people I have ever met. They do know what you were, don’t they?”
Beneath the brilliant blue equatorial sky, Jin’s blood ran cool now, anger gone for the moment. This was what he had come to know, what he had trained himself to for a decade. This game of pretending his past did not exist, the past in which the only identities he owned were slave, murderer, and thief.
“Indeed they do,” he replied.
From the shadow of her hat brim, she studied him. “I suppose they prefer you as an ally rather than an enemy.”
He saw no reason to reply.
Finally she spoke again. “I need to go to the shop. My dress was ruined riding that horse last night a-and… I…” She stuttered to a halt. “Perhaps you could wait for me at the inn.”
“As you wish.”
He watched her along the street because it seemed he could not do otherwise, no matter how he wished it. A pair of women carrying lace-edged parasols stepped hastily to the side as she passed. They looked after her, heads tilted close and lips moving.
Jin headed toward the inn, drawing the letter from his pocket as he went into the public room. He settled at a table with his back to a corner and slid the blade of his knife along the edge of the envelope.
It was not from the commissioners of the Admiralty. Not even from Viscount Colin Gray, his erstwhile colleague in the Falcon Club. The hand was delicate, that of another member of the slowly shrinking Club, the single lady agent, a lady with sufficient funds and connections in the Admiralty to send dozens of letters into the Atlantic Ocean searching for him. A lady who would not have done so without good reason.
Apparently, Constance Read needed him.
April 12, 1818
London
Dear Jin,
I hope this missive finds you well. But I will not waste time in pleasantries for which you care nothing; I will come to my point swiftly.
Our friend Wyn is unwell. He will not admit to it, but he speaks in riddles as ever, evasive, and I cannot penetrate him. But I fear for him. I have no doubt that Colin has written to you; he has a project for you in the East. I write to beg you to take Wyn with you, provide him with purpose and distraction to cure him. I do believe at this time, Jinan, that you are the only one amongst our small band of friends who can help him erase the past and begin anew.
Wishing for your quick return to England,
Fondly,
Constance
Wyn Yale, born in Wales yet more comfortable in London or Paris or even Calcutta than in his homeland. He was not even Jin’s age, yet now, according to Constance, the Welshman was comfortable nowhere.
Among the five members of the Falcon Club, Wyn was the most suited to the work, stealthily ferreting out missing persons of distinction and returning them home. Colin, Viscount Gray and secretary of the Club, was a leader, a man meant for a position of power, not skulking about in shadows. Leam Blackwood had gotten into it reluctantly, avoiding for a time the responsibilities that weighed on him as a Scottish peer, and now he was fully quit of the work. But before Leam left the Club he had invited his young cousin, Constance Read, to join them. She had taken to their mission with alacrity, flitting from one society event to another, charming all with her wit and beauty, and carrying away secrets as they slipped off the tongues of unwitting informants. As for himself, Jin’s search for atonement had made the Club a comfortable fit for him. For a time.
But Wyn was a spy through and through. He was made for better than the Club, much as Viola Carlyle was made for better than a former pirate.
He scanned Constance’s missive again. She wrote to him now because he was the person she believed could best help their Welsh friend. Because he was the only other among them who had taken another human’s life in cold blood.
He would help Wyn and ease Constance’s anxiety. Today he would write to the Welshman in London and send the letter off in advance of his own departure with Viola. He would offer Wyn a task that the young, chivalrous fool would be unable to refuse. Jin knew the measure of his fellow agent well. When he arrived with Viola in England, Wyn would be waiting and ready to assist.
He went to the hearth and cast Constance’s letter forth.
“A love letter from an unwanted girl, Seton?” Aidan Castle stood behind him, a riding crop gripped tightly in his gloved fingers. “Perhaps you already have your hands full at the present.” He looked like precisely what he had become, a modestly prosperous planter, a man of comfortable distinction dressed neatly if not in the highest fashion. But his face was drawn. He had not slept either.
“Join me for a drink, Castle.” He gestured him to a chair. “You must need one after the night you passed.”
“One, or half a dozen. Don’t mind if I do.”
A serving girl brought them a bottle.
“Thank you for your assistance last night.” Castle wrapped his hand about the glass. “I met your man Matouba when he arrived this morning. He told me of the sloop.” He glanced about the taproom. “News travels swiftly on an island. Now of course the whole town knows.”
“What occurred after we departed?”
“The fire didn’t reach the house. But it took the storage barn and stable and two fields before we could halt it.” He shook his head and took a full swallow. “The stain of smoke and ash is on every surface. The house will not be habitable until it is thoroughly cleaned.”
Jin poured him a second dram. Castle drank it, then leaned back in his chair, finally releasing the riding crop.
“It must have been Perrault,” he uttered, his tongue loosened by the spirits or simply because he had not rested until now. A man would reveal much at such moments.
“Your neighbor?”
“He is of the same opinion as my cousin. He believes that if planters like me continue using the labor of free men, and are successful, the island will press to abolish slavery. He does business with the Curaçaons occasionally. No other planter in this region does. Most consider them little more than mercenaries.”
Jin knew this well. He had at one time worked for the Dutch-speaking islanders. “It could be coincidence.”
Castle shook his head. “Perrault has threatened me on occasion.”
“A man is bound to do so when he believes his interests are in danger.”
Castle’s gaze sharpened. Then, with an exaggerated shift of attitude that almost made Jin pity him, he took up the bottle and poured another glass. “How is Violet today? I cannot imagine how this has affected her, to arrive and immediately be thrown into chaos.”
Jin studied his face, the tension in Castle’s jaw and eyes as he sought to appear natural.
“Given Miss Daly’s profession,” he replied, “I suspect she is accustomed to such upsets.” The pity clung, and another less comfortable emotion. Despite his foolishness with Miss Hat, this man cared for Viola. “She was concerned over the safety of you and your guests.”
“Does she tell you such things, then? Are you in her confidence?”
Jin regarded the reason she had sailed south for a month to this island without him being the wiser for it. “Only in certain matters.”
Then he saw again the suspicion and jealousy that had shadowed Castle’s eyes the previous night. Abruptly, his next tack became clear. This man would serve as his ally-unwittingly.
He chose his words carefully.
“It seemed that you were displeased with her for pursuing the arsonists. With your long acquaintance, you must have known that would be her choice.”
Castle shook his head.
“In truth, Seton, I don’t know what to do about her. I never have.” He chuckled, affectedly man-to-man, but behind his eyes Jin discerned the care he was also taking with each word. “Working for her, you must have seen it. But she has always been this way, willful and stubborn and misunderstanding all she sees and hears.”
The first and second, yes. But not the last. Viola understood what she wished to understand.
But in seeking to paint her in a poor light, Castle offered him the perfect opening.
“Perhaps it is in her nature,” he said. “And in her breeding as well.”
“Her breeding?” Castle flashed him a curious glance. “Fionn was a stubborn man, it’s true, but a thinking man, all the same, with a fine understanding. Did you know him?”
“I know only her foster father,” Jin replied easily, “the man who raised her as his own until she left England.”
Castle stared. “Foster father? I don’t understand. Her mother was English, of course. But after her death Fionn and his sister raised Violet entirely.”
A metallic frisson of satisfaction ran through Jin. Castle had no idea of her true identity. He could not and appear so perplexed.
Now he would know. Jin would use him in this manner, as he had used men for his own purposes for years. Castle was courting the Hats for their connections and wealth. But he would turn his attentions swiftly once he knew of her true family. He would not hesitate to urge her to return to them.
And, in casting her into this man’s arms, Jin would free himself of the need to have her in his own. He would have what he wished, his debt repaid, and she would have what she wished as well. From the English gentry, stalwart, steady Aidan Castle had labored to acquire modest wealth and status. He had never killed a man to secure his admirable goals, or thieved, or lied. And he cared for her.
“Until her eleventh year when Fionn Daly took her to America against her will,” Jin said, “she lived on an estate on the coast of Devonshire. Her mother, the daughter of a gentleman of considerable means, had practiced infidelity upon her husband. Miss Daly was the product of that union.”
Castle’s face opened in astonishment. Then he said one word, a word that tightened Jin’s gut in triumph and also something much less satisfying.
“Estate?”
“Her mother’s husband was a baron. A nobleman.” He paused. “Carlyle. The name he gave her is Viola, and although he has always known of her paternity, he has never ceased considering her his true daughter.”
Castle’s mouth worked. Then he blew out a muted whistle.
“A nobleman’s daughter. Good Lord, I never would have guessed it.”
“Wouldn’t you have?”
He frowned. “How should I? She has been a sailor since I’ve known her.” The crease in his brow smoothed. “The prettiest little sailor on the Atlantic, it’s true. But… a noblewoman?” He shook his head. Then the spark of jealousy flared again. “How did you come to learn this? Did she tell you?”
“I became acquainted with her family before leaving England. I have come here, in fact, to convey her home. To Lord Carlyle,” he added. But he needn’t. Castle’s eyes had brightened, their bewilderment no less apparent, but relief and excitement there as well. He assessed Jin with less intensity now, as though he understood.
He understood nothing. Nothing of what Jin began to fear he was at this moment giving up in order to give her what she should have.
“Am I interrupting?” She appeared beside them, a thick package under her arm.
He stood, Castle following to his feet. She glanced curiously at Jin, then her gaze went to Castle and softened.
“Are you well, Aidan? And your cousin, and the Hats? How do you all get along today? I heard at the shop that the fire was contained before dawn.”
With a quick glance at Jin first, Castle grasped her hand.
“We are all well, myself, Seamus, and Mr. and Mrs. Hat and their daughter, who have moved here to the inn to lodge. And you, Vi-” He cleared his throat. “Violet?”
“Fine. I am sorry we did not manage to catch the arsonists, Aidan. The damage to your farm must be tremendous.”
“We have lost a quarter of this crop and the house is uninhabitable.” He chuckled uncomfortably. “Now of course I have no place in which to offer you my hospitality.”
“That seems inconsequential given all,” she mumbled.
Jin withdrew a coin from his pocket and set it on the table.
“I have work to accomplish. I must take my leave of you, Castle.” He picked up his hat. “Miss Daly, I will send the boat back for you.” He bowed.
“My thanks for the drink, Seton. And conversation.”
Jin departed. Viola stared after him. She did not wish him to leave. But he had been contrary today, confusing in his speech and actions, and yet simply looking at him made her ache in all the places he had touched her. Sweet, agitated aching that made her wretchedly peevish.
She turned reluctantly to the other confusing man in her life-or perhaps not so much in her life any longer. He stared at her intently.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re seeing me for the first time, when we spent the entire evening together yesterday.” Before she saw him embrace Miss Hat.
“I don’t know what you mean, Violet. You are being absurd.” He chucked her under the chin. She drew her face away.
“What will you do now?”
“Do?”
“With your farm, of course.”
He glanced about them, then at her clothing. He seemed to assess, then decide silently. “Will you walk with me? I am so exhausted that I believe if I sit I might drop off to sleep.” He chuckled.
“You weren’t asleep sitting here with Mr. Seton. The two of you looked quite intent in your conversation.” She allowed him to guide her lightly from the taproom, his fingers barely brushing her elbow. “What did you find to converse about?”
“You, of course.”
Her belly twisted. She frowned.
“Is that so difficult to believe?” he said pleasantly. “We have little else in common than that we have both shared time aboard a ship with you.”
They had a great deal more in common than he knew. Viola’s cheeks warmed and she was glad for her concealing hat. They went out onto the street and he led her toward a pathway leading along the docks. She peered beneath her brim toward the wharf, but the place was busy with people and she did not see Jin or the boat.
“Allow me to carry your parcel for you.” Aidan drew the package with her new gown and underclothes from her arms. “What did you purchase?”
“Nothing of interest. Aidan, tell me please about the farm.”
“There is little to tell. It will be some time before the house is in comfortable condition again.” They moved onto a path lined with palms and yucca, and insects buzzed about in the heat. Gulls wheeled overhead, playing in the breeze that tugged at her hat, fresh as a sailor liked to feel it. “You came here anticipating hospitality, so I hope you will allow me to offer you a chamber at the inn tonight.” He smiled down at her.
“I anticipated nothing but your company, which I hope I may have with or without a sojourn at a hotel. And I have my quarters aboard the April to bunk in, of course.”
He drew her to a halt beneath a young palm. “I did not intend to insult your honor, my dear, or to demand any familiarity with you that you are not happy to give.” His voice was somewhat low, with an abrupt intimacy that made Viola’s stomach feel peculiar.
“I did not suggest that you had. And since when have you been concerned with my honor? Since when have you ever thought I even had any?”
His wide lips curved into a smile.
“Please stay at the inn at my expense tonight. I will be at the farm, of course, supervising the laborers until late. But it will relieve me to know you are comfortable here.” He squeezed her hand. “I recognize this packaging.” He gestured with her parcel. “You have shopped at the dressmaker’s.”
She nodded.
“Will you wear it this evening for dinner?”
“Yes, but for dinner with the harbormaster. He has invited Mr. Seton and me to join him and his wife.” Nerves jittered in her belly.
“What a great honor.”
“Well, he says we will have excellent pork pie, at least.” She screwed up her brow. “Aidan-”
“Then tomorrow. Will you wear your new gown for me tomorrow? I will drive you along the coast a bit and buy you lunch at the finest teahouse you could ever imagine. Better than in Boston, even London, I daresay.”
“What do I care about London teahouses? I have work to do tomorrow, of course. But more importantly, you must have a great deal to do as well. And your guests-”
He grasped her hand to him tighter. “None of that matters now that you are with me and we can again begin planning our future together.” His hazel gaze held warm entreaty. Viola’s heart thudded.
“Oh, Aidan, cease this.” She pulled her hand away. “I saw you kiss Miss Hat in the garden last night.”
His face went blank. “You saw that?”
“Yes, I saw that. I was on the veranda.”
“It was nothing, Violet.”
“It looked like something to me.”
His brow lowered and his shoulders seemed to tense.
“Well, if I did kiss her, it was because you had driven me to it.”
“I what? I have only just sailed hundreds of miles to see you!”
“I thought you had a cargo to deliver.”
“April Storm is a privateer, not a pack mule. I took on the cargo to make even on this trip. I must pay my crewmen, or have you forgotten those mundane details of my life?”
“Perhaps I have. But, Violet, have you forgotten mine? I have lived here for months alone. I had hoped when you arrived-” He broke off, ran his hand through his curls, then set a direct look on her. “When I bade you good night last night you were… distant.”
Her eyes widened. But all she could see was herself again standing at the base of a companionway, foundering beneath a man’s crystal gaze filled with heat.
“I did not know you expected that of me last night,” she managed to utter. “I supposed with your guests you would wish to be discreet. We are not wed.”
He shook his head. “I did not expect it of you, precisely, of course. Forgive me, I have misspoken. But Violet-”
“You should have been honest with me about your feelings for Miss Hat. To be met with such a sight on my arrival, well, I will tell you, it hurt.”
He grasped her hands.
“Violet, please. I am out of my head and behaving irrationally. Though her parents wish for our match and have come here to engineer it, I have no feelings for her. But I saw how it was with Seton, and it made me-”
She tugged away again, stepping back. “How what was with him?”
He looked hesitant. “When I spoke caution to you of him, you defended him.”
“I merely suggested that you might stay your judgment until you came to know him.”
“Have you come to know him?” His hazel eyes bored into her. “How well, Violet?”
She could not halt the flush that rose to her cheeks. She was not proficient at lying, but she did not know if she must now. Aidan had not been faithful to her. Last night she truly believed he no longer wanted her as his wife. But she did not wish to hurt the man she had loved for so long, her friend for years before he was her lover. He seemed to understand so little of the truths of her life now. He did not need to know this one.
“He is a good man.” She believed this, despite her confusion and Jin’s past. His life now showed it, and his behavior with her crewmen-never cruel, always respectful and just. Even with her, now that she knew his purpose in seeking her out, he was honest. He made her no false promises. He told her only the truth, and very clearly he told her his intentions. “I trust him.”
“Trust.” The corners of Aidan’s mouth were pinched. “You look at him as though…”
“As though?”
“When you look at him, I don’t recognize you.”
“How can you recognize anything about me? You know me very little now. A handful of letters and one visit over the course of four years amounts to little familiarity.”
He grasped her hands so tightly this time she could not free herself without a struggle.
“Then perhaps you are correct and we haven’t sufficient knowledge of one another any longer. But allow us to regain that familiarity we once shared. Remain here for a time with me. You will want for nothing.”
“You’ve just said yourself that your house is barely habitable.”
He smiled warmly. “We will fix it up together, just as we spoke of years ago.”
“And what of Miss Hat and her parents?”
He bent his head. “They are to leave the island shortly. But even if they were not, it would not matter. Dear Violet, I beg your pardon for that minor infidelity. Please forgive me. It will not occur again, I promise.”
His infidelity had not felt minor to her. In an instant that single kiss had cracked her world open. Or perhaps it had only widened the fissure that already existed. And Jin Seton had filled the void. For a time, in his arms, the loneliness that was her constant companion had abated.
Yet here was the man with whom she had dreamed of spending her life insisting that she could now live that dream.
She shook her head. “I don’t trust you.”
“But can you learn to trust me again?”
“Do you still wish to marry me, Aidan?”
“Of course, dear Violet. You are the best thing in my life. You always have been.” The same words he had spoken before, numerous times. She could not look at his face now, but stared at his thick hands circled around hers. Still so familiar, in truth, and yet this familiarity seemed wrong now.
“Please release me.”
He did so immediately.
“I’ve work to do, a new cargo to negotiate so that I can pay the April’s journey home. We may encounter unfriendly craft along the way and take a prize, but I cannot count on it, of course.”
“But this will be your home now, Violet.”
“I must have time to think.” She had not considered returning to Boston so soon. Not until the words formed on her tongue. “I know it was only a kiss. I assume it was only a kiss-”
“It was.”
“But it has changed much for me.” She was not the same naïve girl she had been. And now she was withholding the entire truth from him too. “Perhaps you could return here tomorrow, or the day after, and I will be able to speak of this with you then. But not yet.”
He nodded. His hand reached for hers again, but then drew back.
“Tomorrow, then.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss onto her cheek beneath the brim of her hat. She did not lift her head, and after a moment he walked away.