“Dunscore is magnificent, Katherine,” he whispered. “Frozen in time. Every time I enter the main hall, I expect to see a group of knights strategizing for battle. It would make an excellent fortress.” Low and teasing against her ear, he added, “Or pirate’s lair.”
“Hush,” she scolded, smiling a little. “It would make a terrible pirate’s lair. The coastline is flat for miles. Nowhere to hide the ship.”
“Ah, well. A retired pirate’s lair, then.”
A retired pirate and a retired naval captain. She craved his presence the way some men craved strong drink. She wanted to see him laugh, hear him talk, watch him lift Anne into the air. “I’m not a pirate,” she reminded him.
Another kiss burned her neck, and another. “Please—allow me my fantasies at least occasionally,” he said against her skin.
She had her own fantasies. She imagined standing at the potting bench with James, showing Anne how to poke her fingers into tiny pots of soil and plant seeds. Walking the beach with Anne between them, stopping to pick up stones and shells and little crabs that would pinch Anne’s fingers and make her squeal.
“Is Croston anything like Dunscore?” she asked.
“Nothing. Croston is a modern monstrosity, a mere hundred and fifty years old, give or take a decade or two. Built by my great-great-great—” he paused “—great-grandfather.”
“But certainly you love it.”
“I suppose I do. Haven’t spent any time there since I took the title, though. Been at sea the entire time.”
He must have looked magnificent standing on the deck of a gigantic frigate with his uniform gleaming in the sunshine. She didn’t know that man at all, but she knew another—a swarthy, square-jawed sailor holding his face to the sun while the sea breeze played idly with his hair. “Do you miss it at all?” she asked. “The sea?”
“No.” His hands caressed delicious circles on her shoulders and arms, and she felt him press his face into her hair. “Maybe a little,” he amended. “The sea air doesn’t smell the same from shore.”
“No, it doesn’t.” All she had to do was lean back and close her eyes and ask the question that burned inside her. Is your offer of marriage still open?
“But it would take a press gang of a hundred men to force me back into service.” His voice took on a bitter edge. “Thank God there are a dozen young officers lined up behind me, eager to take their turn at making a name for themselves. The admirals will soon turn their attention to someone more promising.”
“I doubt any will earn your reputation.”
“They will if they’re ruthless enough.”
He didn’t have to say more. She could read his thoughts in the tone of his voice. He was remembering a career defined by horror. One violent incident after the next—often instigated by his own command—culminating in the wreck of the Henry’s Cross. He’d never admitted it aloud, but she knew he counted that among his personal failings. “What kinds of decisions do you suppose a captain bound for Sunderland has to make?” she mused.
“At which tavern he’ll take his grog, for one,” James answered with a nip on her shoulder. Humor returned to his voice. “And with which whore he’ll pass the night.”
A wicked shiver passed across her skin. “Weighty decisions indeed.”
“You never answered my question. What do you see when you look at those ships? Do you think of returning to the Med? Dream of the West Indies?”
The dark shapes on the water grew more distinct with every passing moment. Even from this distance she could see the sails going up. “I’ve always dreamed of them.”
“And yet you never went.”
“There was fortune aplenty to be made on the Mediterranean. I had no reason to cross the Atlantic and face the unknown. Especially not with Anne.” She watched another white sail billow to life, and another. “I see a thousand ways for Anne to be injured,” she said. “That’s what I see when I look at those ships.”
His arms came around her and he held her tight. Her throat closed over at the terrifying safety of his embrace. After a moment, she let herself lean back. He was solid, immovable.
Marry me, Katherine. If he said the words again, would she accept? She imagined his ring sitting with heavy finality on her finger, and she tasted fear.
“As long as I draw breath,” he whispered, “I shall do anything in my power to keep her safe. Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, one word and I’ll come for her. You have my promise.”
Disappointment stole her breath. Those were not the words of a man with a proposal on the tip of his tongue. “Anne is my responsibility,” she said quietly. “Not yours.”
He was quiet for a moment. “My promise stands, regardless.”
Marry me, Katherine.
He wasn’t going to repeat those words now. Instead, he drew up the hem of her nightgown and caressed her thighs. Desire flamed across her skin, mocking the turmoil in her heart. “You should return to your room before the household awakes,” she said.
“Agreed. And I will.” His fingers began an intimate exploration. One finger slid home, then two. “Soon.”
* * *
THEY MADE LOVE once more in the predawn. It was five o’clock when James returned to his room. Moments after he left, Katherine silently let herself into the hallway and crept up a back staircase and down an upper corridor, up more stairs and out onto the ramparts. A brisk, humid wind caught her in the face and snuck its fingers down her shawl and nightgown to nip places still warm from James’s touch.
She needed to find some sense. Some sanity.
Love was hurling its cannonballs at her, destroying her resistance. And just like a cannonfire attack, one didn’t need prior experience to tell when it was happening—or how destructive it could be. The rubble shifted and settled in fits and starts every time James defied her expectations.
She hadn’t gone five paces when a body stepped around the corner ahead of her. “William!” Her heart leaped, then settled. “If you’d startled me this way aboard the Possession, I would have had you flogged,” she snapped.
He flashed that white-toothed grin of his that had no business appearing in the predawn hours. “Makes me miss the sea something fierce when you talk that way.”
“Well, you’ll be going back to it soon enough,” she said irritably. “Maybe you ought to start today. Now, in fact.”
“A few extra days’ delay in securing a ship and provisions isn’t going to make a difference. I’m not leaving here until I see you wed to James.”
“William!”
“I would say wedded and bedded, but I can see the second part’s been taken care of already.”
“You see nothing,” she scoffed.
He laughed, leaving her wondering what had given her away, and whether anyone else would notice it. Beyond him, the surf crashed against the rocky beach and the two ships she’d seen from the window were tiny white dots in the distance. “If it’s a wedding you came to see, you’ll have to satisfy yourself with seeing me wed to Lord Deal.”
“The hell I will.”
“We’ve already made arrangements.”
“The hell you have,” William said. “Never would have let Croston into your room last night.”
“Arrangements are forthcoming.” Guilt gnawed at her. It was one thing to present herself to Lord Deal as the victim of unfortunate circumstances. It was something else entirely to go