That other night there’d been no moon, no stars, nothing to mark where the midnight sky met the sea. The hot wind that carried the Chanticleer eastward across the Mediterranean had strangely died at sunset, and with the ship becalmed, the men on watch had grown drowsy, lulled to complacency by the warm air and the gentle slapping of the water against the hull.
But he was their captain. If they erred, the fault and the blame was his alone. He should have sensed the danger before it was too late, before the devil was there on his chest with the cold, curved blade pressed tight into his throat.…
He woke with a ragged cry, soaked with his own sweat, and instinctively lunged for the pistol he kept beneath his pillow. Clutching the gun in both hands, he rolled over onto his back, ready to challenge the demon that dared follow him here into the light.
“Forgive me if I startled you, Captain Sparhawk,” said the woman standing beside the bed, “but you can lay that pistol down. At least you won’t need it on my account.”
Still not sure if he was dreaming, Jeremiah stared at her with the gun gripped tightly in his hands.
“Please,” she said gently. “I promise I’m no threat.”
She didn’t look like any nightmare he recognized. Far from it. She was so beautiful it almost hurt him to look at her, dressed all in white, from the egret’s plumes in her blond hair to the toes of her white satin slippers. If no devil, then an angel?
But heaven’s angels were neither male nor female, and the way the white silk of her gown spilled over the full curves of this one’s body left little doubt that she was decidedly female, decidedly of this earth. Her mouth was full and very red, her eyes very blue, widely set and tipped up at the corners. She watched him evenly, not at all embarrassed that he wore trousers and nothing else, waiting for him without any sign of fear.
Fear. Dear God, had she been here long enough to hear him cry out against the dark like a terrified child?
He uncocked the pistol and lowered it slowly, that gentleness in her voice making him wary. He didn’t want sympathy or pity, especially not from a woman he didn’t know. “How did you get in here?”
“The customary way.” Now that he’d put the gun down, she stepped closer to him, the diamonds on her bracelets glittering in the light of the single candle. “Through the door.”
He cursed himself mentally for forgetting to lock it. Was he getting so old that he’d already turned careless? “Then you can damned well leave the same way you came. Clear off, and leave me alone.”
She shook her head solemnly, the white feather in her hair brushing against the curtains of the bed. She was near enough now that he could smell her scent, jasmine and musk, and in spite of his wish to be left alone, he felt his gaze drawn inexorably to the soft, full curves of her breasts above the white satin. It didn’t make any sense. Why was she here, so beautifully available? He hadn’t had a woman since they’d brought him back to England, and his body was reminding him, a bit too obviously, that he’d recuperated long enough.
“Ma’am.” Consciously he forced his eyes back up to hers. Beautiful or not, he didn’t need the kind of entanglement she’d bring, not now when his life was in such a shambles. “Look here. Where I come from, ma’am, a lady doesn’t visit a man’s bedchamber unless she’s blessed sure of her invitation. If she comes prowling around on her own, then she’s generally something less than a lady. Now will you take yourself back downstairs with the others, or am I going to have to haul you down myself, for all the world to remark?”
Suddenly imperious, she lifted her chin a fraction higher, and he saw now that she was older than he’d first thought, no young girl dabbling at flirtation. “You shouldn’t address me so familiarly. I am the Countess of Byfield.”
“Well, hell.” He scowled at her, unable and unwilling to recall his sister’s careful coaching on English titles and forms of address. “I’m Captain Sparhawk of Providence, and by my lights that’s considerably more impressive. At least I earned my title.”
“So did I.” She smiled with an open charm he hadn’t expected, her lips curving upward like her tip-tilted eyes. “Forgive me. I forgot that you’re an American, and that a countess would be an anathema to you. Perhaps we’ll do better if you simply call me Caro.”
“I’m not going to call you anything.” He grunted, wishing she didn’t use hundred-guinea words like anathema. “I’m tired, and I want to go to sleep. I’ll just say goodnight and then you go on back down to my sister and the rest of your friends.”
“But they’re not my friends.” Impulsively she sat on the edge of his bed and leaned toward his hand, her blue eyes searching his face. “I don’t go out much, you see, and I’ve never met your sister. It’s you that’s drawn me here, Captain Sparhawk, you alone, and now that I’ve found you I’ve no intention of leaving quite yet.”
“I’ve drawn you here?” he repeated softly, staring at her parted lips so near to his own. Her gloved hand brushed against his hand, just enough to make the hair on his arm tingle with anticipation. “A craggy old Yankee shipmaster with white in his hair?”
She smiled again with the same openness. “You’re not so very old, Captain, and I’m not so very young. Together, I think, we could find some common ground to share.”
Her fragrance was like a drug to his senses, filling them so completely he could almost taste her already. He knew she expected him to kiss her. When he’d been younger, it had happened to him all the time. Barmaids or countesses, women generally made their wishes felt the same way. It would be so easy to draw her into his arms and beneath the sheets, to lose himself in the soft, willing pleasure she was offering.
So easy, and so wrong. Just because he’d been careless enough to let her into his room through that unlocked door didn’t mean she deserved a place in his life, however fleeting, or even one in his bed.
Purposefully he shifted away from her, focusing instead on sliding the pistol back beneath his pillow. “It’s late, ma’am. Good night.”
He heard her sigh, and felt the mattress lighten as she rose to her feet. “Jack warned me you’d be like this,” she said sadly. “But I thought at least you’d be willing—”
“Willing for what?” demanded Jeremiah. With humiliating clarity the answer came to him. His brother-in-law was so hopelessly besotted with Desire that he believed love alone could cure every other man’s ills, as well. How many times before this had Jack urged him to find a ladylove of his own? “So help me, if Herendon put you up to this—”
She turned sharply. “Whatever are you saying?”
“You know damned well what I’m saying! What did Jack tell you of poor old ailing Jeremiah? Did he tell you I was so lonely that I’d welcome the attentions of a woman, any woman, who showed a breath of interest in me?”
By the light of the single candle her eyes flashed bright as her diamonds. “What he told me was that you were proud and hot tempered, but oh my, I never dreamed he meant this!”
“But you came anyway, didn’t you?” Shoving himself from the bed to stand, Jeremiah saw how her eyes widened at his size as he loomed over her, how she stared at the jagged new scar that sliced across his torso. “Was I that much of a curiosity, a foreigner, an American,