Miranda Jarrett - Christmas Wedding Belles - The Pirate's Kiss / A Smuggler's Tale / The Sailor's Bride

‘Well?’ Daniel sounded slightly bored, as though he found stray women spying on the Defiance every day of the week. Lucinda felt prickles of resentment run along her skin that he should treat her with such disdain.

‘I was not spying,’ she retorted. ‘I was walking back from Kestrel Cove and took a wrong turn on the path.’

Daniel raised one dark, disbelieving brow. ‘You got lost? I see.’

Lucinda ran a hand over her hair and tried to smooth it down. There were stray pieces of straw—no doubt from the sacking—sticking to her cloak. She smelled faintly agricultural. Catching sight of herself in the small mirror on the bulkhead, she realised that she also looked a complete fright.

Daniel, in contrast, looked deplorably elegant, and she hated him for it. He had always been able to wear his clothes with careless aplomb, and now, with his dark well-cut jacket and snowy white linen, he looked hard and tough, with no soft edges. He was still watching her with cold impassivity, and she felt colour flood her cheeks as hot and embarrassing as though she had been a young girl. She knew he thought she had gone there deliberately to see him, and that the more she protested the less he would believe her.

‘You can believe what you like,’ she said, ‘but I did not seek you out.’

Daniel shrugged. His face was set in hard lines. ‘So you say.’

‘It’s true!’ Pride and embarrassment compounded Lucinda’s anger. ‘What, do you think yourself so dashing, so irresistible—the gallant pirate captain!—that every female in the neighbourhood must want to throw herself at you? Do you think I was so bowled over to meet you again last night that I could not keep away?’

Daniel’s firm mouth lifted in a slight smile that was not quite reassuring. He stood up. ‘I don’t know, Lucy. Were you?’

‘No, I was not. And stop calling me Lucy!’

‘I forgot. You are—you always were—Lucy to me.’ He had come to stand before her, and suddenly the spacious cabin seemed very small and very airless. Lucinda caught her breath. She tilted her head to glare up at him.

‘And you always were so arrogant! Believing that I came here solely to—’ Lucinda stopped abruptly.

He was so close to her now, perilously close, his body all but pinning her against the door. She found that she was watching his mouth, that tempting mouth, as he said softly, ‘Yes?’

Lucinda ran her tongue over her lips. ‘To…um…’

‘You are somewhat inarticulate for a governess. I noticed it last night.’

He put his hands flat against the door on either side of her head and leaned in. Their breath mingled for a moment and then his mouth captured hers. Only their lips touched, but that was more than enough.

The kiss was ruthless in its intensity. The swift current of desire raced between them, leaving Lucinda breathless and unable to think of anything other than the undeniable pleasure of his embrace. He lingered over her mouth as though he were learning her all over again, and when he stood back she could barely breathe, barely think. Her lips felt soft, and a little bruised, and she pressed one hand to them and saw that she was shaking.

‘This is not—’ She stopped, cleared her throat. ‘This is not what I want.’

‘No?’ Daniel had turned away, and she could not see his face, but she thought that his voice sounded strained. ‘Well, this isn’t a game, Lucinda. Do not come down to my ship looking for trouble, or you will surely find it.’

Lucinda’s anger—the anger he could always arouse in her, along with that uncomfortable attraction—jetted up.

‘I play no games,’ she said. ‘You are the one who hides out in the wood playing at pirates, abducting people, smuggling, spying for the French, so I hear! You are the one who never grew up!’

Daniel moved so quickly that she jumped back. But it was too late. He had caught her wrist in a grip that did not hurt, but which she could not break. His expression was grim, but just for a moment, and for the first time in her life, she saw a bleak unhappiness in his dark eyes before his face was impassive once again.

‘What do you mean?’ He spoke very quietly, but there was an undertone to his words that made her shiver.

‘I met Mr Chance in the woods just now,’ Lucinda said. ‘He told me that the smugglers would be out tonight and he would be hunting them.’ Daniel’s fingers tightened a little and her voice faltered. ‘He said that you are a criminal, Daniel, and a spy and a traitor—’

Daniel dropped her wrist as though he had been burned. ‘Did he mention me by name?’

‘No,’ Lucinda said. She suddenly felt chilled. Could she have made a mistake? ‘But who else could he mean?’ she whispered.

For a long moment they stared into one another’s eyes, and then Daniel turned away in what felt like a gesture of repudiation.

‘Dearest Lucy, always thinking the worst of me!’

‘Well, it did not require a great leap of imagination!’ Lucinda said, stung by his accusing tone. ‘After all, you told me yourself that you were a pirate, and I thought…I assumed…’

‘You assumed that I was a traitor as well.’ He slammed his fist against the panels of the door. ‘You would have trusted me once. You loved me once.’

‘That is all in the past,’ Lucinda said. She felt bitter and sick at what had become of that love, what had become of him.

He turned back to her suddenly, almost violently. ‘You are telling me that you feel nothing for me now?’ He raised a hand and trailed the back of it down her cheek. His touch seemed to burn her. She could feel her blood heating beneath the skin. The same treacherous attraction he could always arouse in her flared up, but was quenched in bitterness.

‘I cannot deny that I respond to you,’ she said, unflinchingly honest. ‘But it is nothing more than physical attraction. I do not trust you, Daniel, and I cannot respect you.’

For a moment she thought he was going to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless, as though in defiance of all the love that had been lost between them, and her perfidious heart leapt to think of it. But then his hand fell to his side and he stepped back, turned on his heel and walked out of the cabin.

Lucinda stood still for a moment, trembling a little with the intensity of the storm of emotion within, and then suddenly recollected where she was and hastened after him.

‘Daniel! Wait! I want to get off the ship—’

He was standing at the end of the companionway, but now he turned and looked at her. One long, unreadable look.

‘You cannot,’ he said. ‘You should have thought of that before, Lucy. The tide has turned and we have sailed.’

Daniel strode up on deck, his hands clenched in tight fists at his side.

‘I do not trust you…I cannot respect you…’

He had been within an ace of grabbing Lucinda, throwing her down on the floor and making love to her there and then—as though that would enable him to wipe out all the anger and bitterness between them and conjure the old love in its place. Devil take it, he must be going soft in the head. What did it matter what she thought of him? He could have explained it all to her if he had wanted her good opinion. But it was far too late for that. Lucinda was right. They could never go back.

The Defiance was slipping down Kestrel Creek very slowly, towards the open sea. He heard the patter of feet on the deck behind him, and then Lucinda had grabbed his sleeve and pulled him around to face her. Her blue eyes were blazing. She looked furious.

‘What do you think you are doing? Turn the ship around! Make it stop! I want to get off!’

Daniel was aware that all the crew were covertly watching, under cover of going about their tasks. He put his hands on his hips and smiled down into Lucinda’s infuriated face.