Kasey Michaels - Regency Vows

Captain Warre.

On a ragged breath she pushed herself up, pushed her hair from her face and felt a damp sheen along her hairline. Her breasts hung heavy and yearning beneath her nightdress. Her lips tingled with the knowledge that his knuckles were warm, his fingers strong and callused. Her skin burned as though his hands had really touched her.

Her heart ached as though she’d really stood on Dunscore’s ramparts once again with the wind in her hair and the ancient stones of her ancestors beneath her feet.

Home.

Her cabin was dark. Shadowy. The palest moonlight filtered through the windows, just enough light to see, and she reached for the familiar surroundings as though grabbing a lifeline. She forced herself from the bed, felt the cool wood floor beneath her bare feet.

This was reality. This was home. Here. The Possession. With Captain Warre merely being ferried to Britain, and she carrying out a plan to secure Anne’s future. That was all.

She got a drink of water and stood listening to the ship’s soft creak, but still the dream’s temptation thrummed in her blood, blurring the line where Captain Warre ended and Dunscore began.

This was unacceptable. As if Dunscore were his. As if she were his. Agitated, she paced to the window. His eyes betrayed his desire each time she caught him watching her. He wanted to touch her. To do in the flesh all the things he’d just done in her dream.

Oh, God. If the dream hadn’t ended, within moments he would have been inside her.

Her body pulsed hotly, and she fisted her hand against the pane.

It was time—past time—to confront him. That he believed she thought he was Lieutenant Barclay, who would have no reason to hide his thoughts, only made everything worse. Even his berthing with the crew was not enough—not when her eyes still sought him out and her ears still listened for the sound of his voice. If he knew she’d learned the truth, he would be more guarded.

She needed more of a barrier between them than this game of mistaken identity afforded.

You realize this changes everything. Phil’s words lilted through her mind. Katherine shivered in the darkness as the night air began to cool her skin. She didn’t want to capitalize on their acquaintance. She wanted to exterminate him from her thoughts. And judging from the slice of moonlight on her floor, he was on deck this very moment for the midnight watch.

She turned from the window to her chest and yanked open one drawer, then another, quickly pulling loose trousers over her hips, pushing her arms through silk shirtsleeves, aware of every brush of fabric against her skin as she stepped into a pair of sandals. With gritted teeth she let herself silently into the passageway and climbed the stairs into the cold night air.

The sails billowed in the moonlight, making the Possession glow like a ghost ship on a midnight-blue sea. Voices drifted from the bow, but she spotted him on the upper deck. She moved quietly across the quarterdeck, nodding to another sailor on midnight watch, and climbed the stairs. He had his back to her while he put his full weight on a line and made an efficient knot. He worked this ship as though it belonged to him. As though he knew it as well as she did.

As though he were the captain here.

Captain.

That one word would put an end to this folly and erect a barrier between them too thick for illicit yearnings to penetrate.

Yes, she would do it. Now.

“Captain,” she said sharply, while she still had the element of surprise on her side. She was not disappointed.

He stopped. Turned. “I fear you must be sleepwalking, Captain,” he said. The moonlight let her see his face but not his eyes—not enough to judge his thoughts. “You should return to your cabin.”

“I am not sleepwalking, Captain.” She took a step closer, letting her tone bite him. “Did you really believe you could fool me on my own ship?”

“You must have been having wild dreams indeed.”

Her heart skipped a beat. She mentally reached behind her ribs and squeezed it into submission. “No doubt you’ll say you’d planned to tell me eventually,” she said.

“I confess, you have me at a loss. Tell you what?” He walked past her, leaving her to follow him to the other side of the deck while he repeated the procedure he’d just done and tied another knot.

“The celebration of your homecoming would have exposed you.”

He turned to face her, and she thought he smiled a little. The sea was an eerie midnight surge behind him, crisscrossed by scores of shadowy lines that shot up to the masts. The dream washed through her like a wave spreading across the beach.

“You do realize the insane are poorly treated in England,” he said. “You ought to have a care.”

She laughed away both his suggestion and the dream’s temptation.

“Tell me, Captain...do you deny it out of self-preservation or shame?”

He stepped so close that his warm breath, tinged with a hint of the rum her crew favored, wafted over her face. “You can hardly blame me for concealing my identity when you’ve made little secret that I would not be as welcome a guest as my lieutenant.”

A shiver coursed over her skin.

“Although I’ll admit you’ve surprised me,” he went on. A hint of amusement played at the corner of his mouth, drawing her attention to firm lips accustomed to issuing commands. “I would have expected you to mete out something rather more unpleasant than a cabin boy’s duties. That is what you’ve been doing, is it not? Punishing me, and not my lieutenant. I suspect you’ve known the truth for some time—William’s loyalty is steadfast indeed. Bravo, Captain. You have proven yourself an accomplished actress these past weeks.”

“As you have proven yourself an actor.” Let him assume what he would about how she had discovered his identity. “Perhaps we should both join a theatrical troupe on our return.”

“I fear the ton will be shocked enough as it is.”

Oh, yes. The ton would be shocked. It was difficult to think standing this close to him, so Katherine moved to the railing and breathed a little easier. “Perhaps you hoped to keep the element of surprise on your side so you could have my ship arrested and forfeited the moment we reach England.” She raised a brow at him over her shoulder.

He gave a bark of laughter and came up behind her, close enough that his words feathered the back of her neck. “If your ship is arrested and forfeited, it will be none of my doing. Not only do I lack the power, I also lack the desire. I assure you, once we reach England your life will proceed without interference from me.”

She forced her attention on the sea, breathing only through conscious effort, inhaling his scent with every breath. Apparently he had not considered that he was her leverage against his brother’s bill. “Is it true that you plan to resign your commission?” she asked.

He moved in next to her, and she watched his strong hands wrap around the railing much too close to hers. The breeze fluttered his sleeve against hers, and she felt it like skin against skin.

“Everything I told you about myself was true.”

She made a noise. “You told me you have an elder brother named Theodore.”

“I was describing Lieutenant Barclay.”

“You also said you had never told a fiction except to your governess—”

“That was a lie.”

“—and that you sometimes dislike yourself.”

“Given your lack of regard for me, you of all people should have little difficulty understanding the truth of that.”

His voice carried a dark undertone that spoke of regret. She chose to ignore it. “I find it difficult to believe you plan to abandon the glory of the sea when you have yet to reach the pinnacle of your career.”