Little gold tendrils escaped from the brim of the severe black bonnet, matching the pale gold of her lashes. Despite her bonnet and veil, the sun off the water had scattered more freckles across her nose and cheeks that, to his satisfaction, she didn’t bother trying to hide with paint or powder. But most of all she looked happy, blissfully, joyfully happy in a way that he was sure must mirror his own feelings, even if each of them knew it could not last.
With the crew hurrying to get the sloop under way and Bertle once again the captain, they stood alone in the center of the quarterdeck, a two-person island of idleness in the rush of preparation. For the first time on the voyage, Jeremiah didn’t mind being a passenger. How could he, with Caro once again in his arms and her laughter rippling merrily across the water?
“You seem to have routed them Frenchmen well enough, Sparhawk,” said Bertle sourly behind them, and swiftly Caro separated herself from Jeremiah. “I suppose now I must thank you.”
“Only if you wish it, Captain,” said Jeremiah, determined not to let this one disagreeable man spoil his mood. “I saved my wife and myself, as well, so I wasn’t being entirely selfless.”
Bertle spat over the side. “It’s how you did it rankles me. All that bowing and scraping and pretty talk to that Frenchman! I never thought I’d live to see a bloody French bastard treated so nice on my deck.”
“You kept your deck, didn’t you?” demanded Jeremiah. Bertle grunted, unconvinced. “Seems to have improved your wife’s spirits, though, didn’t it? Seems like by being all lovey-dovey with the Frenchman, she’s forgotten clear about her poor dead brother, and mighty fast, too, for an Englishwoman.”
Caro gasped, her hand fluttering to her mouth, and retreated behind Jeremiah’s broad back. He’d seen the agitation in her face, and whether it came from fear or surprise, he wasn’t going to let the other captain’s rudeness pass any longer.
“You’ve upset my wife,” he demanded, his expression black. “What are you trying to say, anyway?”
“Not a word, Sparhawk,” said Bertle, his grizzled chin still raised belligerently and his eyes filled with hatred. “Not against you or your little French-speaking wife. Not a blessed word.”
He stalked to the rail before Jeremiah could speak again. Shaken, Caro watched him go, her hand pressed to Jeremiah’s back for comfort. She’d heard the emphasis Bertle had put on the word “wife.” Somehow, he knew the truth, most likely through her own carelessness. Rapidly she thought back on how she’d teased and laughed with Jeremiah here on the deck. No one would have believed they were husband and wife, not acting like that. Only lovers would be so oblivious to others around them. If even a dried-up old stick of a man like Captain Bertle could see it, then he’d know what to call her, too, a married woman who’d behave like that with a man she pretended was her husband—a slattern, a trollop, a bold-faced little whore.…
“I’m going below to the cabin,” she told Jeremiah, and turned toward the companionway.
But Bertle had heard her, too, and he jerked around to face her. “Didn’t mean to scare you off, Mrs. Sparhawk,” he called, almost whining, as much an apology as he’d probably ever give. “Didn’t mean for you to take offense.”
She didn’t believe him. She’d seen his kind of contempt all too often. “I’m weary, Captain Bertle, and should like to rest.”
His glance darted nervously from her to Jeremiah, and he rubbed his hand across his mouth. “It would be a shame, Mrs. Sparhawk, for you to spend such a pretty afternoon tucked away below.”
She hesitated, looking up to Jeremiah for reassurance. His mouth was tight, the expression in his eyes so daunting that she knew if Bertle made one comment against her Jeremiah would tear him apart. She didn’t want that to happen, any more than she wanted to admit that the English captain had driven her away, and so, with some reluctance, she stayed.
Bertle had drawn his pipe from his pocket and he stood puffing away as he struggled to light it, his hands cupped to shield the spark from the wind and spray. “You ever been to Naples, Mrs. Sparhawk?” he said at last, the stem of the pipe clenched tight in the corner of his mouth. “Kind of a fairy-tale place, what with that crazy mountain shooting fire all the time. A volcano, they call it. Not that you’d ever find me living in a spot like that.”
She glanced at Jeremiah again, praying that she might be able to repair some of the damage she’d caused. “I’ve heard—that is, my husband has told me—that the city is a most pleasant place for English-speaking visitors. That is why he has brought me here.”
“It’s a most fine place for mischief, if you ask me.” Bertle drew on the pipe hard and stared purposefully down at the bowl, and as if by his command the sparks flared brighter, even in the sunlight. “Look at the sorry goings-on there! Do you think as fine a gentleman as our Lord Nelson would have gone astray like he did on English soil?”
He narrowed his eyes at her over the pipe, and she felt herself grow pale. She knew what was coming next, saw it like her own fate before her, and still she was unable to make herself leave before she heard it. God help her, somehow this wretched man knew everything!
“It was all that wicked, trollopy Lady Hamilton’s fault, that and the volcano. She just had to dance for him like she was back in the brothel, and poor Lord Nelson came arunning with his breeches already unbuttoned. Two marriages that woman’s broken, and for what?” Bertle nodded sagely and shifted his gaze to Jeremiah. “A trollopy woman and a volcano—nothing good will ever come of either one or t’other.”
And with a strangled little cry, Caro turned and ran.
Chapter Eleven
“Caro!” Jeremiah called her name again as he rushed after her, but she didn’t stop, bunching her skirts in one hand so she could run down the steps of the companionway. A lifetime at sea gave him an agility she’d never have, and bracing himself on the rails, he dropped down the narrow companionway without touching a single step, to her side on the deck below. “Caro, wait!”
Still she plunged on, heedless, with her head down, ignoring him, until he grabbed her arm. Briefly she fought him, still trying to pull free. Then, abruptly, she turned to face him, yanking the bonnet with the trailing veil from her head.
“Why did you follow me?” she demanded, her eyes wild. “Aren’t you afraid that I’ll tempt and torture you, too, just like Lady Hamilton did?”
He pushed her gently back against the bulkhead, trapping her there with his body so she couldn’t run again. Sunlight filtered through the grating of the hatch overhead, a checkerboard across her face like another, coarser veil. “If you’ve tempted me, it has nothing to do with volcanoes, or the indiscretions of some lords and ladies.”
She stared at him and slowly shook her head, her smile incredulous. “You don’t know what he meant, do you? Because you’re American, you really don’t know?”
“I know that weaselly little bastard managed to insult us both.”
“It was more than that, Jeremiah. Much more.” With a sigh, she slid wearily down the bulkhead to sit on the deck, her knees drawn up and her bonnet in her hand.
He crouched down before her. “How much more can there be, sweetheart?”
“Oh, there’s more.” To avoid meeting his eyes, she concentrated on the bonnet in her hands, touching the curving brim now stained white with salt spray and faded by the sun, and drawing the sheer veiling out between her fingers. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard of Lady Hamilton’s…career, though Captain Bertle is the first who’s dared to say so to