and for the first time that night he touched her, his hand cupping her elbow as if to hold her up. She swayed into him, her body reacting before her mind warned her away.
‘All right?’ She was disorientated by sheer longing.
‘Seasickness,’ he clarified. ‘It can sometimes hit quickly.’
‘No, I am in good health.’ With the greatest of will she broke the link between them and looked around, glad to feel her heart settling down to a more normal pace. ‘It’s a beautiful ship.’ Her fingers reached out to the belayed halyard that led to the main lower topsail, so familiar she could have trimmed the sheet with her eyes closed.
‘That’s the rope that lets the sail drop. Without that we can’t furl it.’
She smiled at his explanation, given to her in such simple terms. ‘You have sailed a lot?’
‘I used to.’
‘But you don’t any more?’
‘I lost the taste for it,’ he returned shortly and bade her follow him down the companionway. ‘The chartroom is this way. Mind your step.’
It was the skirt, she thought later. In her haste she forgot to raise it properly and the toe of her shoe caught in the thick folds of silk and simply tipped her up. Asher caught her. Closer this time. The whisper of his breath touched her cheek and his hand fell across the swell of her bottom as he guided her to the master’s cabin where they were cocooned in the quiet lap of the ocean, the smell of oil lamps mixing with the stronger scent of teak.
She felt the hard wooden ribs of the hull behind her back and the warm planes of his body at her front, pressing against her, closer. In the half-light only the snowy white of his cravat was plain. Everything else was melded into shadow.
‘How do you do this?’ he asked softly. ‘How do you make me want you?’ He raised her hand and the wet warmth of his tongue explored the space above the hem of her glove. And left her breathless.
‘Asher.’ She could barely say his name as her fingers threaded through the length of his night-dark hair. She knew exactly what it was he spoke of, this want that defied all rationality and sense and delivered her to a place where nothing else mattered.
Just him. Her. Them.
With lips edged in anger his mouth took hers; when the hand that rested on her bottom firmed and guided her to the place between his legs, she groaned. It was the residue of yesterday’s suggested dalliance, she was to think later and the conjured imaginings that she had dealt with as a result all through the previous night. She could not find it in her to say no, to place her hand on his and call a halt. No, rather she leaned into his embrace, pressed against his solidity as his fingers slid around the edge of her breast.
Here in the dark of the hold of his ship with the gentle sound of water on wood she had no words to stop him. Oh! Love came easy without the stinging drudge of memory, and the girl she had been in Jamaica was the woman who responded here.
Tell me.
Show me.
Take me.
‘Emma, I want you.’
Emerald.
For the first time his use of a name not quite her own bothered her. His eyes were dark twin pools of intensity, the brown in them ringed with a harsher colour as he slipped the strap of her low-cut dress from her shoulder and bent his head. Flipping his tongue against her nipple once, he pulled back, watching the skin pucker and crinkle.
‘At the dinner with the Bishop of Kingseat you did not wear undergarments and when you bent over…’He stopped, giving her the impression of a man only just holding on to some semblance of control. ‘Suffice it to say that I have wanted to touch you here ever since then.’ His thumb lightly skimmed the wet coldness of her nipple. ‘And kiss you here.’ His lips were warm against the small patch of freckles lying in her cleavage. ‘I have wanted to know the taste of your sun-warmed skin and find the line where clothes have shielded you. His hand dipped lower. ‘Have they, Emma? Shielded you? Here?’
She could not speak. She could only feel as hot drifts of longing assailed her and the rhythm of his breathing changed. Her eyes fell upon his lips. He had beautiful lips. Full and defined. The stubble on his jaw was light as her palm brushed against it and when he tipped her lips to his, the slick shattering passion spun her wild and heat took over.
Away. From everything. She was all woman. Open, alive, free. And he was the sun and the ocean and the warm solid earth.
Again.
For ever. Cast as she was from a storm into the safe harbour of his body. And needing refuge.
The heavy footfall of boots were suddenly heard above them on the deck.
‘Hell.’ He pulled away and helped her straighten herself, as a man came down the stairs.
‘Duke, I thought I heard you…’ The words petered out and stopped, uncertainty replacing the earlier hurry. ‘I’m sorry.’ The newcomer’s voice held a strange quiver. Not sorry at all, she determined, but amused.
‘This is Peter Drummond, an old friend of mine who is also the ship’s captain. Peter, meet Lady Emma Seaton.’
‘It is my pleasure,’ he said softly, his glance falling to the crushed silk of her skirt. A definite question was in his eyes and the tone in his voice was puzzled.
‘You got my note, then?’
‘Note?’ Asher shook his head.
‘To meet here. I thought that was why…’
‘I came for the plans to take up to London. Is there a problem?’
‘There might be.’
Emerald could tell the man did not wish to say more in front of her, so excusing herself, she walked back up the steps and on to the moonlit deck. The quiet burr of voices from below was a backdrop to the frantic beat of her heart.
What had just happened? Again? If Peter Drummond had not come…?
She could not think of it. Did not want to think of it.
‘I am the pirate’s daughter,’ she whispered to herself.
‘The pirate’s daughter. The pirate’s daughter.’
She remembered the taunts of the children on the dockside at Kingston Town, when the Mariposa had come into port, and the slanted glances of their parents.
Her father was a man who used fear to distance himself from everyone. And he had never been honest. Just as she was not being honest. Here.
With Asher.
The realisation made her sick and when he rejoined her she was hard-pressed to smile. He seemed preoccupied and angry and threatening in a way he had not been ten minutes earlier. The evening sun made his hair darker, the tan of his face showing up his teeth and the velvet of his eyes.
He was beautiful.
She
