“As leader of pirates, I assumed your clever mind would have figured it out.”
He stepped toward her. She hastily produced the knife from beneath her pillow and dropped it in his hand. “You should be more careful in the future.”
He pivoted and threw the knife. End over end it twirled, pinning to the center of the door. Her hand flew to her chest. He threw back his head and roared with laughter then flung himself in a chair. “You were saying?” He put his feet on the bed and crossed his legs.
Claire could not breathe then she burst out laughing. “I deserved that. Will you never cease to amaze me?” she said solemnly, warming to the old, impetuous Devon she had cherished. For just this moment, she wanted to forget he was a pirate.
He took his feet off the bed and leaned forward. “We could be together, Claire−”
If only she could accept him. “And what do I receive? A hunted felon. A pirate with no chance for a home and family. Always on the run, looking over the next horizon, never knowing if it will be your last day on earth. Do you think that is the kind of life I desire?”
“I could give you riches. All that I am, all that I have gathered is for you, Claire,” he said with heartrending tenderness.
She shook her head unable to bear an intimacy completely at odds with her moral compass. “I can take nothing from you, knowing you have stolen every bit of it. Knowing you have caused hardship for those who had the ill-fated misfortune to cross your path. Knowing that blood lies on your hands.”
It was if she struck him. Naked pain flashed across his handsome features. Her words wrought feelings usually foreign to him, and born entirely of anger and regret, emotions that would render unreasonable the most reasonable of men. Instead, he surveyed her as though she were lost to him, the remaining link to their relationship in tatters.
Her sorrow was a huge painful knot inside. Tears welled within her eyes, her misery so acute that it was a physical pain. If he were to be captured, she could not face his death. She had to harden her heart.
It is the end.
His voice filled with anguish. “Then I bid you goodbye, Madame. You will have full reign of my ship. We must careen for repairs for a short time until I can put you safely to a port where you can secure passage to England, and a far better life than I can provide.
He paused as if waiting to hear some final word of protest from her lips. In that split second, she saw the torment once more cover his countenance, bringing a deep, cutting pain to her breast. She wanted to stop him to tell him it was all a lie, to caress his handsome face with her fingers. But the reality of what could be could not be. She started to speak, but when she looked up his expression turned taut and forbidding. “Madame,” he bowed. It was as if a curtain fell. All emotion passed from his muted voice. “This will be the last we speak.”
She refused to look at him, to let him see her tears. She heard the soft click of the door close quietly behind him. She covered her face with trembling hands and gave vent to the agony of her loss.
The force of her rejection slammed into Devon. The sting of her words, and the best thing about his cursed past, and the only hope of his impossible future, to find him so lacking and contemptible. He climbed to the waist, his men chanting on deck during their night watch. They stopped and stared at him.
“Why are you lying about, you dogs? Heave too.” He vaulted up the mainmast, climbing higher and higher, sprinting up the rough ropes with a burst of speed he knew caused by his own wretched vileness with the female he left in his cabin.
How he had wanted her for so long, to be with her, waiting for some godforsaken miracle to bring them together. And when that miracle happened, it wasn’t good enough. He was damned in her eyes, a soulless wretch ready for the dung heap of humanity.
He climbed over narrow ropes, when close to the top Abu Ajir settled beside him. He brushed the bird away. The crow settled on the mizzenmast and cawed raucous rebukes. Devon looked above, the canopy of lonely stars his companions, the darkness swallowing him, and the wind beating at his face. His lips curled as his hands balled around the ropes. He hung precariously. He didn’t care, his insides scraped raw from her judgment.
He had dared to foolishly dream, one day he’d break away from it all...of finding a normal life, a life with her. Yet the vagaries of life were as wide as they were severe. He didn’t have any choices. He had traded the long soulless death of a slave for the freedom of a wanted man, a cursed man, his chosen path to navigate the open seas as a thief and pirate, carving out an existence on the underbelly side of life.
Early on he had established his own codes, honorable as they were, still a far cry from the Brotherhood. It took a tight rein and his force of character to keep them in place. There existed somewhere in his brain−or perhaps in his heart−some memory of a moral or two. All this he had done for her, but to no avail.
Devon tried to convince himself that it was a desire for revenge that had sent him sailing into Le Trompeur’s ship, carrying so much canvas that any sane man would question his recklessness. Fatigued, emotionally as well as physically, he needed sleep. It would elude him. He lowered his head against the rope, letting the roughness saw against his forehead. The abyss that separated them remained impossible to navigate.
Paradise. The crew breathed it in shouted reverence. An island of grace and beauty magically soared from the ocean. From its shore rose rugged mountains of rich forests undulating in waves of verdant green. A veritable Eden. Claire stood awestruck, taking it all in, an impulse to be free.Paradise. There truly remained no other word for this creation of heaven on earth.
Sails lowered, the crew lined the bulwarks and rigging, impatient as stabled stallions. TheSea Scorpionglided smoothly through sparkling turquoise waters of a hidden bay where rhythmic sounds of gentle surf beat upon a crescent of golden sand.
“Stand clear of the starboard chain. Let go the starboard anchor.”
Several men dove into the water. Claire envied them, their quick graceful arcs, swimming eagerly to shore. She longed to join in their excitement, but waited until rowed to a dock.
Seagulls floated and basked above an excited group of people gathered to see the Black Devil’s return. Claire looked about, waiting for someone to tell her where to go. The comings and goings of pirates pushed her off the dock, carrying her onto the shore. She floundered, standing there all alone, a miserable outcast, everyone going on about their business, paying her no mind. She tried to drum up a cheerful thought, but even that eluded her. Cut off from everyone’s general excitement and news gathering, Claire pushed the toe of her shoe through the sand, drawing little circles. Cookie and Lily were several days behind on theGolden Gull. Devon had out sailed them.
She stood on the beach for as long as she could stand the hot sun. No one had made a move to tell her what to do or where to go. Not Devon, busy with his ship, letting loose an array of commands. The strain of the continuing silence between them wore on her frayed nerves. Frustrated, she moved down the beach to a patch of shade beneath a palm tree. Abu Ajir settled on a limb and cawed a cheerful greeting. The fact that the only welcome she’d received came from a crow filled her with bleakness.
“He’s an unusual fellow,” remarked a soft feminine voice.
Claire swung around to see the author of that voice. A pretty and very pregnant young woman with blond hair and cornflower blue eyes smiled.
“That he is,” Claire said. It was the first feminine company she’d had in a week and the only greeting entering the island.
