How long had it been since she’d felt so carefree? Since she’d been so happy?
Matty had been right. After her mother’s and brother’s deaths, she’d forgotten how to have fun. How to smile. How to relax. How to run through the sand barefoot with the wind streaming through her hair. And now that she’d remembered, how was she going to go back to the confined existence that was waiting for her?
To a marriage I don’t want.
There it was. For the first time she’d given voice to what her body had been trying to tell her for a long time. She didn’t want to marry Ralph de Monthermer. She supposed she had the captain’s question to thank for the unwelcome self-realization.
Hawk was wrong. She didn’t have a choice. She was the Earl of Ulster’s daughter.
When the time came, she would walk away and not look back. She would do her duty, but until then, she would eke out every moment of happiness that she could. On those long, lonely days in the future, when she was sitting in a tower room with nothing but embroidery to keep her occupied, she would have something to remember.
She felt a sharp pang in her chest and feared that too many memories would be focused on the man by her side.
I want you. Hearing him say it out loud had made it that much harder to ignore her own desire. The past few days had been a delicate dance of avoidance, but his words still hung between them like a giant albatross.
She couldn’t understand how she could be attracted to someone who was so utterly wrong for her. If living through her mother’s unrequited love and heartbreak wasn’t lesson enough, he was also an outlaw. A man who lived on the run, under a cloud of danger, with only the end of a rope or an axe in his future.
Her body didn’t seem to be listening to reason, but as long as her heart did, that was all that mattered.
“Nay, not the cave today,” he said.
Ellie pursed her mouth, trying not to show her disappointment. “I’m beginning to wonder whether this underwater cave really exists.”
He smiled. “It exists, but today I have a different surprise,” he said, unfurling his arm and tossing a rock far out into the sea beyond.
“You shouldn’t do that,” she chided him automatically. “You’ll open your wound.”
“My wound is fine, and I thought you were going to stop acting like my nursemaid.”
“When you stop acting like a recalcitrant child, I’ll stop acting like your nursemaid,” she replied tartly. “Just because I’m apparently the only woman on this island who doesn’t think you can do no wrong—”
“Not just this island.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are impossible. Fine, go ahead. Rip it open. You’ll have ten women standing in line to wait on you hand and foot.”
He shook his head. “I knew you were angry. I told you, I didn’t know they would show up.”
Last night Meg had packed a basket of food for Ellie to take to Hawk down at the camp. She’d just arrived when three other women arrived at the cave with the same idea.
“I wasn’t angry; I was happy to get back to my game with Thomas.”
Liar. After the day of fun they’d had exploring some of the caves south of the bay (where he’d mentioned this alleged underwater cave), she’d been unaccountably disappointed. And then something else entirely, when one of the women—a pretty, buxom blonde—had given him a long kiss in greeting. The fact that he hadn’t returned it didn’t matter. Neither had he pushed her away.
Ellie had gotten out of there as fast as she could. The hot lump in her chest was a harsh reminder that no matter how much fun she was having, it was only temporary. It was nothing special. She couldn’t lose sight of that.
How many times had she seen her mother try to hide her heartbreak when her father turned his eye on another woman? He can’t help it, her mother would say with false brightness. Look how handsome he is. The women love him.
Ellie might have captured the captain’s interest for now, but it wouldn’t last. She suspected it was the novelty of being refused that was driving him. He was a competitor, and she was a challenge. If she’d been smarter, she would have fallen all over him like every other woman did.
But part of her wondered whether she was giving him short shrift, and that maybe he felt the connection, too.
“You and the lad seem to have much in common,” he said.
“We do,” she agreed, wondering why his jaw looked so tight. Thomas and she shared many interests—chess, backgammon, poetry, falconry. She was convinced that he was a nobleman. But Thomas evaded her questions almost as skillfully as his captain did. “He doesn’t like it when you call him ‘lad.’ Thomas is a man full-grown.”
“Is that right?”
There was something steely in his voice that sent an excited shiver down her spine. He gave her a sideways glance before tossing another stone. When he winced, she jumped toward him with concern. “What’s wrong? Does it hurt?”
