Miranda Jarrett - Regency High Society Vol 4 - The Sparhawk Bride / The Rogue's Seduction / Sparhawk's Angel / The Proper Wife

And she knew it, too. After that first night aboard the brig, she’d been as careful as he had. There had been no more kisses, no more embraces and certainly no more of what they’d done so pleasurably that one time on the bunk. They slept in their clothes the way they had while traveling, and they made elaborate, self-conscious excuses whenever one or the other finally wished to change and needed the cabin’s privacy. The entire contrived arrangement, thought Michel with another sigh, would have been worthy of the great Molière himself.

But this wasn’t the only truce they’d uneasily, silently declared between themselves. Since that first night, neither of them had spoken of their families or fathers, or of the circumstances that had brought them together aboard the Swan.

And not once since then had she told him again that she loved him. He wasn’t surprised—what decent woman would profess to love a man who’d sworn to kill her father?—but he did feel more regret, more longing, than he’d ever admit to anyone, especially to Jerusa. No, he could not blame her. But what would she have said if he’d blurted out the truth, that he loved her, as well?

His hands stilled as he thought again of how close he’d come. He’d realized since then that when she’d cried out to stop in his mother’s name, she’d been afraid of conceiving a child, not of his mother’s madness. His conscience had been the one to hear that. But however the warning had come, he’d listened. He did love Jerusa, more than he’d ever dreamed possible. But because he loved her, he refused to risk condemning her to the same terrifying half existence that his father had done to his mother.

What would happen once they reached Martinique—especially since he expected Gabriel to have arrived first—was still to be seen, and how his mother would respond to Jerusa, he could only guess. But for now this journey was a no-man’s-land, a few brief, precious days when their lives really were as uncomplicated as those of the dull, respectable Mr. and Mrs. Geary.

Deftly Michel pulled the flannel cleaning cloth, dipped in rosin, through the pistol’s barrel. In the damp air at sea he cleaned his guns daily. Another precaution, though this one was aimed at George Hay. The mate had said nothing else about Jerusa’s identity, but Michel believed in being careful. He had to. Even when she was at Michel’s side, Hay’s gaze seldom left Jerusa, and whether the man was interested in her solely for the reward her father had offered or for her beauty, as well, Michel wasn’t taking any chances. Wherever he was on the little brig, he kept one of the pistols hidden beneath his coat, and his long knife, too, was always within easy reach at the back of his belt. If George Hay was lucky, he’d never learn precisely how far Mr. Geary would go to protect his pretty wife’s virtue.

Michel heard the shouted order to haul aback, and with an oath of disgust he stuffed the cleaning rag back into its bag and wiped his hands clean. For a vessel as fast and wellhandled as the Swan was, she was making a wretchedly slow passage because her captain was the most sociable old man Michel had ever known. Barker spoke every other ship the Swan’s lookout spotted, sometimes even changing his course to pursue a particularly interesting sail on the horizon, and at every invitation he’d drop his boat to go a-visiting like some eager spinster racing off to have tea with a new curate.

Jerusa rolled over slowly, clutching the coverlet as she yawned. “Whyever are we stopping now?” she grumbled. “It must be the middle of the night.”

“Eight bells, chérie. The sun’s high in the sky.” Even if he didn’t share her bed, Michel liked being able to see her when she woke in the morning, her face plump and flushed and her eyes heavy lidded with sleep. “If we’re truly fortunate, our dear captain will have found us yet more company for the breakfast table.”

Jerusa groaned as she pushed herself up onto one elbow. She’d never been one for early rising, and Michel could be appallingly cheerful. “Nothing could be worse than that captain from the Portuguese whaler at supper two nights ago! I’ve never met a man who talked so much or smelled so bad!”

“Oh, it could have been worse, Rusa. We could have had to dine with him on empty stomachs at breakfast.”

Jerusa groaned again and dropped back down onto the pillow. It was strange how they’d fallen back into this pattern of teasing banter with each other, the same kind of jests and nonsense she’d always shared with Josh. She enjoyed it, true, but it also put her on her guard. For all that they might be brother and sister, she knew better. Nothing with Michel was ever less than complicated, and nothing was what it seemed.

But as she watched Michel swing out of his hammock in one fluid motion, she wasn’t thinking sisterly thoughts. Far from it. He moved with the ease of a cat, his movements both purposefully spare and graceful in the narrow space. They’d sailed far enough south that the cabin was warm, especially at this hour, and he was dressed in only his breeches and shirt, the full sleeves rolled up high over his muscled arms to keep the linen clean as he worked with his guns. He crouched down to pull his sea chest from beneath the bunk to stow the cleaning rags back inside, and Jerusa raised her head and leaned forward, the better to see how his shirt pulled across his back and the way his breeches stretched taut.

He snapped the lid of the chest shut, and hurriedly she dropped back down onto the pillow before he caught her ogling him. She closed her eyes, pretending she was dozing, but the image of him remained to tantalize her. She’d been the one who’d stopped their lovemaking, not him, so why did he seem to be so much better able to cope with the intimacy of their shared quarters? She was the one who awoke in the night with her pulse racing and her heart pounding from dreams that were little more than memories of what they’d done that first night, in this very bunk, while Michel seemed to sleep as easily as he did everything else.

Perhaps it was because everything had been so new to her. She’d been kissed before, true, but Michel was so different from Tom and the others that kissing him seemed like something new, heady and breathtakingly sensual. And as for the rest, while he had seen and caressed a great deal of her, she’d been too inexperienced to explore him in return, and over and over again her thoughts struggled to try to fill in what she still didn’t know.

Didn’t know and now wouldn’t learn, at least not with Michel, and the wave of sorrow that washed over her immediately doused her desire. She still loved him. If anything, the voyage had drawn them closer, not further apart.

But she hadn’t been foolish enough to tell him again how she loved him. No matter how much she guessed at the depth of his feelings, he’d made it painfully clear that they didn’t include love, at least not for her. She thought one more time of the miniature she’d found in his saddlebag, and wondered unhappily if his heart was already promised to the black-haired Frenchwoman.

The other possible reason was one Jerusa liked even less. Because her name was Sparhawk, she remained Michel’s enemy. An enemy he’d kiss and tease and protect if it suited him to do so, but an enemy nonetheless. The way he spoke of her father proved that.

With her eyes still closed, she listened to the sounds of Michel shaving, the little drip as he dipped his wet razor into the cup of seawater, the muted scrape as the blade crossed his jaw. The only other man she’d watched shave was her father, and her fingers bunched into fists beneath the coverlet as she imagined what would happen when these two men she loved finally met.