“No, you cannot, I fear, my love.”
“Don’t you see!” she demanded desperately, and the tears did spill over her lashes. He frowned, as serious as she, taut and straight with tension. “What?” he demanded.
She wrenched away from him, turning aside, and spoke in a broken whisper. “I will not be able to bear it, and neither should you, if I—if I carried a child now. I would not know if it belonged to the pirate or the lord, and still, sir, I should love it! And you would despise me…don’t you see?” she repeated.
He was silent for a long, long time. She turned at last, and was stunned by the anguish that seemed to touch his features.
The look was quickly gone. He reached out to her, and then his hand fell away. He sighed, then bowed to her.
“Milady, I will not disturb you again,” he said quietly, and then he turned away from her. “Come on. Williamsburg should not be more than a few hours’ walk by daylight.”
XIII
Roc Cameron paused long enough to drink deeply by the spring, dousing his head in the cold waters. Skye longed to sink within the water, but she did not, sipping it in silence and cooling her heated face with several splashes of it.
He waited for her quietly. The fire had long since died away, but he kicked the scattered ashes, dusted his hat upon his breeches, and proceeded toward the road. She followed him in silence. Even when they came upon the main road, she hovered slightly behind him. Exhaustion seemed to weigh heavily upon her heart. She could not forget the night, or the dark secrets she had given away during the length of it. Nor could she forget the morning. She knew him better than she had known him before, and still she did not know him at all. Perhaps she could escape him still, and perhaps she didn’t really want to escape him at all. He intrigued her, and fascinated her, and he could evoke wild fires within her. If she could just forget the man who had come before him…
But that didn’t matter now. He had admitted that he was worried about her father, too. They did not head back toward his estate, but hurried along the road to Williamsburg.
She paused to pluck a pebble from her shoe. He waited for her, frowning. “Do I walk too fast?”
She shook her head. “No.” Then she admitted softly, “Perhaps, just a little.”
His dark lashes fell over his eyes for a moment, then he reached for her hand and took it within his own. “We needn’t travel so swiftly,” he said, and started out again. They had not moved far then when he paused once more. She looked at him curiously. “There’s a carriage coming. Mine, I hope.”
It was his carriage. It came around a corner and Skye saw the family crest upon the doors. She looked at Roc and he offered her a rueful smile. “I should hope that they would have come looking for us. I can almost guarantee that Storm followed that mare all way home.”
Perhaps Storm had followed the mare, but now he obediently trailed behind the carriage. Peter sat by the coachman; he leaped down from the driver’s seat as he saw the two of them, his face splitting into a relieved grin. His affection for his master was so apparent that Skye felt her heart warm and shimmer slightly. There was, perhaps, much about the man to draw affection. His voice could ring with steel and he could command with the finest of captains. He was a seaman of worthy measure. He knew his own mind and seemed determined to his own will.
And he was young and striking, with his silver-eyed charm and reckless ways. He could make her laugh, she thought, and he could also make her tremble with excitement and desire.
“Milord, milady! And glad I am to see the two of you!” Peter called out, hurrying to them. “When those horses came back with the dawn, we were deeply worried.”
“No harm done anywhere, Peter,” Roc said. “Minor spills and mishaps, but we’re most heartily glad to see you, too. Peter, we’ve a need to reach Williamsburg, and quickly.”
“Yes, milord.” He opened the door of the lovely teal carriage for them. “Williamsburg, and quickly!” he cried to the driver, who nodded gravely to Roc beneath his low-brimmed hat.
Skye paused, wondering if she hadn’t seen the man before. Then she forgot him as Roc urged her into the carriage with a prodding hand upon her derriere. She moved in quickly and sat, gnawing upon her lower lip. He sat in his own corner, ignoring her then. When she glanced his way, she saw that his eyes were dark and brooding and a finger of fear touched upon her heart. He was worried, too.
“What’s wrong?” she asked him. “Where could Father be?”
“At home, perhaps? Thinking that we should come to him?”
She shook her head. “You know that isn’t so. Where could he be?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
He reached out as if he meant to take her hand and squeeze it with assurance. He stiffened his fingers instead, and his hand fell flat. “We shall see soon enough.”
The carriage stopped in another few minutes and Peter came around to the door. “We’re on the outskirts of the city, sir. Am I to go direct to the governor’s house, or Lord Kinsdale’s?”
“Lord Kinsdale’s,” Skye said over Roc’s shoulder. She glanced his way as he watched her. “Just in case Father is there.”
She parted the drapes as the carriage set to motion again. Her heart leaped. Williamsburg had changed. They were passing the Bruton parish church, and it had been built anew. They turned, and she saw the governor’s mansion, complete now, rising at the end of the broad greenway with grace and elegance.
Children were playing, men were hawking their wares. Slaves were working in the gardens, and upon a pile of bricks before a white house a fifer was idly playing a tune. She sat bolt upright. There, halfway down the street, lay her own home. Two-storied, whitewashed, brick-trimmed, with a picket fence about the small yard.
The coachman knew his way. He drew up before the house. Skye didn’t wait for anyone to come to her. She leaped down from the carriage and tore through the fence, ran up past the steps, past the flower beds, and burst through the doors.
